I walk into a room of which I am unfamiliar. The people here are nice enough but are busy with their own agenda, visiting, soaking in information from others, and forming ideas and delivering them with great skill. It is a writers arena. I am a writer; however, I am not at home. This is a new thing—my first day in Open Salon.
I feel a tad bit guilty—almost unfaithful. For the past five years I have consistently been a part of a different internet community, another place for writers. In that other place I have stored my vast portfolio of work. It is familiar there. I am known and have a small degree of recognition by the other writers who wander in and out of the community. But, recently, I have seen friend after friend wander out of the familiar virtual world of that other place. I have tagged along every now and then behind my parting friends to see how they were doing in this new place. And, encouraged by their acceptance by others, I have been enticed to sample the community of Open Salon.
And, so why do I feel apprehensive? Is it perhaps the idea that to some degree I am starting over? Maybe. And, perhaps it is the fact that I detest faddish things. I have a Facebook account, but do not frequent it. I have walked into My Space only to quickly close the door behind me as I left. I am not sure what I am looking for. But, I suspect it is an audience. I want to be heard. I believe I have something to say and am just a tad bit curious if there is anyone out there who is remotely interested in reading my stuff.
I suppose I will find out. But, right now I feel like a guy at a party where he knows no one. I’ll just stand here and hold this drink and try not to look lost. How am I doing? Have I fooled anyone? Nope, I didn’t think so.
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WhistleBerries
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Erica K
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Comments
Here are couple of terms you probably should know:
1. Flounce: Leave the site for awhile after writing a post announcing that you are leaving.
2. Theo: I don't actually know who Theo is - but I'm pretty sure you should keep your head up.
3. Snark : Beware the snark.
I rated you. That means nothing, but people like to be rated in OS. Some people get quite vehement about it. So watch out for that. And everything else.
Some tips -
An icon (a photo is great but not required - just get rid of the generic thing) and bio help :-)
Participate in the community aspect
Check out the posts under the tag "os user manual" amd "meta" for many many more heplful hints.
HAVE FUN
It's really that simple. Good luck!
I offer the same advice to you as I would an out of town guest at a cocktail party: listen, watch, wait, and then toss in your two cents.
Start reading the blogs here, think, ponder and think and ponder some more. Comment a lot and read the other comments. This should give a feel for this place. Make "favorites" when you click on "add as a favorite" that blog owner is notified and often they will make you a "favorite" as a benevolent reciprocal gesture. This is a good thing because now your "posts" will show up on "their" right hand feed on their home blog page.
Get it?
EP stands for Editors Pick. These are highly coveted, kind of like the gold stars we got (or didn't get) in kindergarten. Yes we all like them, they are an honor, but if they don't come with a spot on the cover it's a bit like dry humping, still fun but not much. How posts are chosen for these honors is a never ending mystery and many members here devote an inordinate amount of time toward unraveling it. Don't fall into that trap.
Just write and if you are visiting and commenting all over the place here and if you're writing doesn't suck, you should be fine. Scratch the writing well. Your writing can suck, you can plagiarize, have terrible glamour, oops, grammar and you may still get EPs and Covers, sometimes over and over again if you recycle stuff from months ago.
Really sappy implausible things can land you straight on the cover seconds after you hit the publish button. If you're gay and you like to write about being gay you are way ahead of the game. By gay I mean gay, lesbian, transvestite, and other sexual workers and permutations of our most fundamental of desires (escorts, call girls, call guys, doms, subs). Anything political, personal, whatever! I'm guessing the writers have a philosophy that if it's gay, it slays.
(Sorry, trying to think of an equivalent to "if it bleeds, it leads.)
Let's review:
Read and comment on others blogs
Build your reputation and add "favorites"
Don't dump all the stuff from your other blogs onto this one
Write about being gay
= Success
Look around. Make up your own mind.
Looking forward to reading your essays.