Donna Druchunas's Blog

I keep finding knitting posts on science blogs! This is from Bad Astronomy. Phil has completely nailed this.

Old media slays me. They still haven’t figured this intertubes thing out.

Years ago, people posting fan sites for Star Trek were threatened with legal action by Viacom. Same with Simpsons fans and Fox. For some reason, these megacorps were really really wringing their hands that some fan someplace might actually be promoting their shows! Mind you, in most cases the biggest infraction these fan sites were guilty of was posting pictures from the show. But otherwise, what they were doing was basically free advertising. In fact, it was even better; ads are annoying, but fan sites actually can build communities of thousands of people, all of whom will watch the show and spread the word.

The latest dumdum in this case is the BBC, and of all things they threatened a website that was posting knitting patterns of Doctor Who aliens! How counterproductive is that? (Answer: supercounterproductive).

Why on Earth (or off) would someone do this? How brain-dead do they have to be to actually stop enthusiastic fans from saying good things about their show?

I get a lot of traffic from Doctor Who, as well I should: I love the show, and talk it up quite a bit here. I wonder if the BBC will try to take me down, or at least the pages where I promote it?

In case some stuffed suit at the Beeb is reading this right now: I’m doing your job for you. For free. And I’m doing it better.

… oh. Maybe that’s why they worried.

Please go to Micro Revolt and use their KnitPro software to make a knitting chart of the Doctor Who logo and knit something with it. Screw the BBC. I'm so sick of all this ridiculous copyright "protection" bullshit.

Bumped to the top for my own convenience and to add some notes.

---

My May task list is much shorter than my April one was, but it does include a couple of large projects. Still, at this point I can work at my day job in the mornings, and on my personal writing projects during the afternoons (with a few breaks to check work email), and knit at night while I'm watching TV. This is a great schedule. I should even be able to take weekends off to read!

Here's the to-do list:

1. Finish Ethnic Knitting Aventure, #3 in the series. I'm pretty sure it will not be totally done by Wednesday (the end of April) but it's getting darn close.

95% COMPLETE!!! I REALLY NEED TO GET THIS DONE AND OFF MY PLATE. I CANNOT LET IT GO INTO JUNE.

2. Tech edit the projects for my next lace book. I'm the author, but I have designs from about 20 other designers, which I'll tech edit before I turn the book in to my publisher. Then they'll be tech edited a second time by the publisher and edited for style and consistency, and I hope to have all of the projects test knitted during production as well.

GOT OFF TO A GOOD START, FINISHED THE INITIAL READ THROUGH OF ALL PATTERNS AND CONTACTED DESIGNERS WITH QUESTIONS. (There are some new twists to this project that I can't talk about yet, but I hope to have it totally nailed down by June as well.)

3. Round 2 of legal paperwork for the nonprofit association I'm working with.

THIS WEEKEND? NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. ONE AFTERNOON DURING THE WEEK SHOULD WORK.

4. Finish the gift knitting project, block it, and wrap it up in a pretty package (not, it's going on a plane so it can't be wrapped).

WORKING SLOWLY AT NIGHT

5. Teach a couple of classes at a local yarn shop.

I think that's it. I can hardly believe it!

But there's still a huge list for June, which I have to finish by the 22nd, when I leave for Europe. I'm starting to get nervous about the trip and being all caught up before I leave. I don't want to come back, after six weeks, to a total disaster.

A few odds and ends from past tech editing jobs may trickle in, but I have no major mercenary projects on the table for the rest of the year so far. I may pick up one or two jobs in the fall after I get back from Europe, but I'm not going to decide now.

The problem is, after my mom moved in there's much more work of organizing and cleaning up the house than I expected. It's sucking every spare minute out of my life and really getting on my nerves. Dom's in a pissy mood, too.

but it usually does....

I hesitate to write this because I don't want any of my older friends to read it and get mad at me, but the old people around me are dragging me down. I am tired of hearing people complain about sex on TV (I mean the Sopranos is so old news already), about the way popular music sucks, about how all the movies are made for and marketed to young kids, and so forth. Those are all the things I like! I love that taboos are being broken on TV. I like music by young, hip artists -- including some hip-hop. I am quite sure that most of the movies I like best are targeted toward 19 year old boys. What's wrong with me? I don't think I'm having a mid-life crisis. My tastes have always been this way. I love change. I love the future. I love the way young people reinvent themselves with every generation. No, I don't want to be young again. There's too much pain and anxiety involved. But I find people who are younger than me, people in their 30s and 20s, to be much more energizing and fun than people in their 60s. My older friends were around to experience the 1960s and many claim to have been hippies. What the hell happened to them to make them turn into such conservative (not politically) old farts? I need some more younger friends. The closer I get to 50, the less I want to let myself turn old. No, I don't want to act my age. I guess someday I might look my age, but there's nothing I can do about that. But I sure as hell can stop myself from turning into grandma. I know some of my older friends feel the same way but for the most part, they're not pulling it off. I hope that's not bad news for me. Sigh.

The more I think about this, the more I want to do it. I am definitely planning to put my books online, probably for free, after they go out of print. But this has all got me thinking that I might be looking at this all the wrong way. This is the key point: I don't think most people are not buying my books because they don't like them. They're not buying my books because they've never heard of me or my books! So what can I do about that?

Here are some recent thoughts from Cory Doctorow to stir up your brain juices:

My latest column in Locus Magazine, “Think Like a Dandelion,” came out of a talk I had with Neil Gaiman about the bio-economics of giving stuff away for free. Mammals worry about what happens to each and every one of their offspring, but dandelions only care that every crack in every sidewalk has dandelions growing out of it. The former is a good strategy for situations in which reproduction is expensive, but the latter works best when reproduction is practically free — as on the Internet.

1. Your work needs to be easily copied, to anywhere whence it might find its way into the right hands. That means that the nimble text-file, HTML file, and PDF (the preferred triumvirate of formats) should be distributed without formality — no logins, no e-mail address collections, and with a license that allows your fans to reproduce the work on their own in order to share it with more potential fans...

2. Once your work gets into the right hands, there needs to be an easy way to consummate the relationship...

Internet users have short attention spans. The moment of consummation — the moment when a reader discovers your book online, starts to read it, and thinks, huh, I should buy a copy of this book — is very brief. That’s because “I should buy a copy of this book” is inevitably followed by, “Woah, a youtube of a man putting a lemon in his nose!” and the moment, as they say, is gone.

Read the rest here.

And here is another interesting post on the same topic.

I've been writing a LOT lately. I like that. Perhaps that's why I haven't been blogging here much. I've been writing longer posts for Skepchick -- shorter than magazine articles but long for blog posts --, working on a couple of book proposals, rewriting a chapter for the second Ethnic Knitting book, and submitting essays to anthologies. I have been completely enjoying the writing process and I've been happy with the way the pieces are coming out.

I also have been enjoying living here in Colorado in my house. I have been thinking that I never want to move again. It's not that Colorado is my favorite place I've ever lived (it's not, San Diego is), but it's just that I like not moving. I like getting to know a town, the back roads to Target, the best places to take a walk or sit in the shade, the best coffee shops, the times to stay home because certain roads will be to crowded. I also like keeping the same friends, the same doctor and dentist, and knowing where I can go and find a pair of shoes every time without spending hours trying on different styles.

So, time for lunch and then I have to clean carpets. So, just a couple of thoughts for the day.