I'd like to rap with you about literature and the Internet.
        Hey, I feel like I studied this subject, since I read several experienced writers and professors expound on this topic in "Boulevard." I felt more akin to Tom Williams' experience, as he described it. He talked about sending stories out to print journals and to Internet sites, and only sending particular stories to Internet-only publishers when it appeared he'd exhausted the print journal world's patience. He also mentioned sending a story to an Internet-only publisher by mistake and being pleasantly surprised because the story remained on the site for years, resulting in numerous favorable comments.
        My experience is not so super. Maybe I haven't reached the point where I've given up on a story so much that I'd consign it to the electronic world. Perhaps those in the know will say-wake up, cowboy. It's time to face facts. Grow up, and sell out. But of course, in this world, you may not be selling anything-just giving it away.
        What does that say about the world's second oldest profession? To me, it says that it's in a tie with a lot of second prize professions. Whoops! This is getting awkward. When did they ever give a prize to number one? Wait, I've got to start thinking about the original subject-ahem.
        Oh, yes, the Internet. You're thinking about placing yourself among the greatest purveyors of pornography that the universe has ever known. How do you tear folks eyes away from that stuff? Yes, "click!" Bobby the estimator is only reading a short story, not looking at "Velma's Luscious Babes."
        Sure, you're just a click away from triple X stuff, but what's new there?
        Back in the old days, pre-1990 maybe, surely writers shared shelf space with the hot, Hot, HOT! Where the heck am I going with this?
        We're talking about the future, man. I'm guessing it will look a lot more like the present than the past.
        I found a site called "Writers' Café" last December. I really enjoyed it, reading young poets' work, commenting on their work, as you were encouraged to do, and posting my own poems. Most of the work was off the cuff, unedited, written solely for the site, it seemed. The quality was rough, but the vitality fresh and honest. Some participants you could tell were old fogies like myself, but they were no better writers. In fact, frankly, they tended to be less interesting, because they were not obsessed as much by the surprise of interpersonal relationships. Where else does the average person encounter the most important turning points in life? There were some troubling stuff-Goth-horror-sicko stuff-but thankfully, not much of it, and it was all G-Rated. Then it crashed on Super bowl Sunday. I still feel bad for those young people who lost their work on the Internet. I knew much of it they never backed up. I only did so because some of the things I posted I thought I could get published elsewhere.
        As a matter of fact, almost all of the things I wrote, a first for me, were on holiday themes, since my experience with the site lasted less than a month around Christmas time and New Year's Eve.
        Now that so many writers had their work lost forever, almost everyone abandoned the site.
        Since I liked it so much, I tried a few others, like WeBook, thisisby.us, Budzuhammer, Associated Content and Triond, but nothing so far has come close to the spontaneity and ease of use as "Writers' Café." Ease of use is probably the biggest problem with some sites. My computer crashes almost every time I use WeBook and Budzuhammer, and that's just a waste of time. My computers are cheap used ones, at home and at the office, and they are good for writing, sending emails and checking my plummeting, tiny stock portfolio.
        I got stuck in a site I'll refer to as Buzz. I had to ask out. I found out you had to bid-to actually pay for the right to write nonfiction items. I was bombarded by emails trying to entice me into getting sucked into this world. If you have a decent computer, all the other sites are worthwhile. Thisisby.us and Associated Content I would recommend.

        A writer benefits from a community, I think. It's not as lonely. Let's face it--the lone gunmen out there would be helped by having someone to talk to, and maybe some day an Internet site could be used as a vortex to round up these crazies. Perhaps that is a controversial topic, whether there are more crazy psychos who act out their demented nightmare fantasies as a result of the Internet.
        For me, the Internet has been a plus as far as publishing goes. I probably get more things published when I send them out electronically. The time it takes to copy, print a letter, address and stamp the envelope, tra-la-la, out to the mailbox, is time lost. I get a lot of things mailed back to me by publishers out of business.
        Sure, that happens on the Internet when you hear from the Mailer Daemon. Granted, simultaneous submissions have spiraled, since I can easily send out a story to three or four publishers in a few hours, but frankly, I've never had a story accepted by more than one publisher in this manner.
        It's nearly impossible to deal with international publications by mail. Forget about those IRCs. You end up sending cash in the mail. I've often bemoaned our lack of an integrated mail system with English publishers. They are our allies, are they not? How about Canada? We should have a completely integrated mail system, using the same stamps, in the USA, England, Australia and Canada. Maybe elsewhere too, but that's another rant.
        I got a chance to publish a book of poetry online. I asked another published poet about it. She argued against it. You know, I'm not getting any younger. The effort I figured it would take to publish a book of poems--I didn't know if I could do that in my lifetime.
        I was actually surprised when GoodSAMAR-itan Press (Thailand) published a small chapbook of mine early this year, "New And Easy Poems To Save Free Time."
        I was already in contact with Synergebooks about a full collection of my published poetry, "New And Easy Poems To Promote Your Health And Safety." Publishing the chapbook, even having a similar sounding title, didn't dissuade me from my eventual decision to go ahead with the electronic publication. You can actually purchase the book from Synergebooks or at fictionwise.com or mobipocket.com.
        Maybe you'll object to my crass commercial-ism. Go ahead. I've seen that before. I wrote a poem that has Internet links in it to trailers of my films on YouTube.
        One publisher found this an outrageous attempt at some sort of cross-pollination. As if it were a marketing device-as if I make a penny off it. He said we don't allow such here.
        The Internet is ordinarily more freewheeling-take it or leave it-and I like that. So, my poem "Naked Films," with its intentionally phony-erotic title and YouTube links, as well as "Celebrity," sprinkled with bold type names of paparazzi targets, like a gossip column, will soon be on its way to Fullosia Press.
        Tom Williams says he's a print reader, and so am I. I don't know what the future will hold for ebook-only publishers. It's the impermanence that you worry about.
        I'll give another example. I sent a few poems in to Fullosia Press, which has a fine Internet-only site for its ezine. The site is beautiful and has fine writing on it, but I haven't been able to print it out. Maybe I'll try to put a color cartridge in my printer and see how that works, but now, I think I may have lost the post of the issue my poems were in, and really can't remember what poems were there. This is not entirely belly button lint. I save the references for acknowledgements-kind of like a resume-to shop my collection, as I do with my collection of stories. I'm still battering the print universe with that. It has aroused more suspicion than interest so far. I even showed a copy of the manuscript to my significant other. She wasn't aroused at all.
 
    
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