Has your bank finances ever gotten down to less than 20 dollars in your account? Mine has.

Have you ever lived with cockroaches AND bed bugs in a cheap apartment? Mine does.

Have you lived in an apartment without air conditioning and heat? Well, here you go.

Don’t have a daughter to take care of. I’m too poor. I’m also too poor to find a way towards welfare.

I think I’m a shoe-in for great author if having a financially poor past is a prerequisite.

You know why Microsoft Word is annoying? Because it makes decisions for you–that is why Microsoft Works was often laughed at as Microsoft fail.

If I make a mistake–go ahead and tell me. But if I really want to do it, let me say write out an image URL and style sheet into the theme editor. Let me put in commented text into WordPress taking out php code that I wish to store. Sorry, wordpress, but you aren’t smarter than me, I’ve been making UIs before you were born. You aren’t that special with your special PHP code that one has to memorize to use you again.

Yeah, my subconscious punishes me for not writing. Why can’t I quit writing? Because my subconscious thinks it is Picasso and me, my conscious thinks it is a nutball that needs to shut up once in a while. Why can’t I just put the creative side and the intuitive side on hold once in a while and shut up? I guess because at some point when I do that my subconscious always finds a way to win the battle. It either sends a cool dream or when I ignore it I suddenly find myself doing something that I shouldn’t be doing, and blinking at myself.

When I don’t write I talk to myself a lot, stare at people and wonder what their life story is, often inserting the absurd into the mix. My mind wanders over their life story and I want to craft something from the fact that their shoelaces are untied this very moment.

Maybe once you are a writer you always are? Or maybe that’s just me. Stories have been part of my life and coping mechanism for so long that I often find myself thinking two thoughts at the same time–one about my story in the background and in the foreground I have whatever I’m talking about to the other person. Probably makes me look very unengaged. Maybe it’s the lack of proper sleep since the bed bugs, but I think it’s also a lifetime of loving stories so much that they permeate my every day existence.

Anyway, Subconscious, if you’re listening: I hate you, even if you know better than I do.

What do agents say time and again about slush piles and beating them. It’s the QUALITY of the writing that will beat the pile. The problem with such websites as this is that it tries to show how good of a social networker someone is rather than how good they are at writing–and that’s where you have the major issues.

It used to be believed that User experience was some kind of fairy magical mushroom dance where you could get anyone to come to your business, online site, or community (though there have been nay sayers for that idea for a while, businesses didn’t catch up.) It is no longer “You will build it and they will come.” It’s more, “You will build it, advertise to the proper segment of the population, and foster a community that you want to stay and they will come.”

User Experience is no different from Customer Service, only that you are looking at the shape of the community and they type of community you would like to build rather than trying to cater to the old Grandmother who really doesn’t care about a 2G processor in a fancy phone.

You want to create a community that actually sifts slush like your best bored intern? This is how I would do it (and I’ve been in various communities since 1998.)

The biggest factor is that people hate the schmoozing on the websites, which doesn’t talk about writing talent, but talks about the social ability to network–fine, you want that in an author, but how come the stories have all those errors? Spend that time elsewhere–with a publicist. Set up a Publicist website for that.

Anti-schmoozing:

The easiest way is to set up a series of checks and balances. Users will check and do informal social discipline on other users, especially if encouraged to do so. Also, if you widen the net of users, then you are more likely to get better and more consistent reviews. Here is my best bets for achieving this.

• Author Approval of critiques (Split to fair and unfair)
• Passing user useful/insightful rather by users in a star rating on the review. *important* do not give a visual reward for rating the the reviews. If you are going to make it visible, only give a rep for those books the publisher actually picks up and publishes (which helps keep the publisher in check as well.)
• Attract readers, not just writers.
• No talent spotting section like Authonomy–leave that to the editors if you must have it.
• Critiques also give a star rating.
• Critiques break down by chapter.
• Critiques break down to overall story based on chapter ratings by the readers.
• Critiques within them can rate grammar, story and style.
• Critiques allow for line by line edits.
• Critiques have a “I stopped here button.”
• Limit the amount of 5 star rating in a reading period–you as a publisher cannot hope to publish all books ever–put the same limitations on readers so they are forced to stop on quality, rather than story swapping ability.
• Put in a minimum word count for the reviews.
• You can also consider a schmoozer rating where users police other users on the amount of trading for the sake of it that people do. Or at least a reputation rating. (Which could break down if you like.)
• Reward randomly on the amount of good and quality reviews that a person gets that’s *not visible*.
• Limit the accounts to either writer or reader and if you are caught puppeting, you are banned. Writers can post and review. Readers can just review, but they get a discount on books after X amount of insightful reviews (which isn’t by author rating, but say by if one of the books they choose in a given period is picked up by an editor–which puts it outside of the community control.)

I believe you can police your users by putting in a user experience that says “Police them.” The average intern is told that they are not supposed to pass on things that are not of quality–use the users in the same way–they cannot pass onto the editor crappy material, because if they do, they get a penalty. If they do well, they get a reward.

Attract the Average Reader

Now, the question is how do you attract the average reader? You need to do what you do in any business: Incentives. The majority of people on good reads are readers, not writers, you can do tie ins with Goodreads, for example or other sites, offer a pittance of a discount to acclaimed readers to visit the website. When you do that, it also has the side effect of less schmoozing, because the writer is forced into quality rather than social networking–they not longer can win on swaps, they have to win on sheer quality. And since the amount of “5 star ratings” is now limited, they really have to fight for it–they could schmooze and try to faction, but then there is a social factor to tell them not to do that (the schmoozing rating, which could act as a reputation.) They are then, forced to really work on the quality of the writing–so by the time they get to the top of the pile, they really have to know their writing stuff.

The other problem people have is their immediate distrust of the publisher that they actually will publish anything as promised. So I would propose putting on the *front* of the website the author, name of the book and release date. Link to an amazon/Barnes and Noble Page. This makes the publisher look honest. Swear to no PODs, and it will work out fine. (Plus you can make a back end for this that makes it easy.)

I doubt a model like this will really happen since most of the big six are clueless about sociology or cultural anthropology to pre-think websites like this, but this would be how I would think it through. I still want an online bookstore that functions like browsing in a bookstore. If bricks and mortar are going out of business, then help me buy new authors you want to commit to by making a visual form of a bookstore online.

But then when I was little I also thought having a husband would be nice too.

Currently I would like to be a website designer at a company–not doing the  programming, but doing the designing. I’ll compromise on doing just one or the other side of that for a while.

I would ideally some day be good enough to design multiple websites from a web design firm–that way I can ask fellow designers for advice and we can work as a team. I’ve always wanted some version of that–so I can get experience with working on multiple websites. Maybe if the economy turns around I can do that. I like simple and clean websites, from the architecture to the design. Simple Elegance.

I also would like to be published (In fiction). But I’m probably dreaming that at the moment. Sometimes I have doubts because I’m not sure if my Korean grammarisms are getting in the way. Sometimes I just want to say “Screw it, I’ll write it my way” but then I oscillate to the other side and say that I’ll never get published if I have that attitude. I’m not sure at times what I bring to the writing game and often whine (at least to myself) that I’m either too far ahead or too far behind. I ask myself to quit, but then I’m miserable when I do quit.

Other dream jobs I would like (Not likely to happen):

Working for Viz comics as a copy editor.

Working for a manga/manhwa company doing copy editing.

Working for a Shineh Website company I can point to.

Working as an author on a Big book deal big enough to get it translated into Korean.

Have a book sell big enough to make it into a Korean drama. (Well, delusions are made worse by selecting actors to play the parts in my books)

Work with training animals. (I’ve always wanted to try it once…)

Eventually, I would like things to stabilize so that I can do charity too… I kinda wanted to work in a dog shelter, for example. Or work to help advocate for adoption advocacy stuff. I like doing that sort of thing.

People think being rich is everything in this world, but what I want is things that are fun, interesting and make my heart feel good at the end of the day. After all, I worked at Tokyopop without pay or college credits for free for a while and I didn’t care… ’cause really I was having fun. (Until they told me I should get paid then I was like OK.)

I spent most of my time going to the audition cursing LA and cursing life and cursing everything, muttering like a madwoman, because even with the Google maps miniature maps thing checked I couldn’t read a damned thing on the map, because said map put a line through the STREET NAME. *shakes fist at Google* Why can’t they have, “I’m the dumber part of dumb and dumber on the directions label, such as the stop/street that comes before the one you want and the one after? And then clearly mark the street names so they don’t get run over by the line when you print it out so you aren’t completely lost? Sighs–I’m always thinking user experience when I get pissed at websites.

That or Google, please build me a quantum transporter. I really want one after 10 years of living in LA and still hating cars.

Still, I made it, made the best of it and even if I end up homeless, at least I rocked my own world a little. Screw the whole “Asians hate other Asians in show business” fabricated lie of my childhood. If it makes money, I’ll do it.

I suddenly remember how boring auditions are–I’ve been to at least 2-3–they never work out to be on time. But I kinda forgot all that when I was 15-16 and gave up the whole, I want to be a model thing. By then my head was halfway into various now-crappy novels I had at the time, which are probably in a landfill under someone’s house/recycled properly. (The rest are in documents I can’t open because .doc didn’t exist as a universal format yet.)

So working hard to get past my financial death–but not sad enough to not make jokes about it.

If I end up homeless, I’m going to blame my art-loving subconscious for getting me here in the first place.

I have an attitude towards everything to give it my best shot no matter what I am doing. I play to full tilt (though don’t party hard like drugs), I work hard and I do everything to the best of my abilities. Mediocre isn’t a best descriptor for me. I’m either all in or all out.

I have to wonder if this trait is a little annoying at times, but I think if you aren’t willing to put your effort into something, then it means you aren’t having fun and if life isn’t fun, then what is the point?

That’s why I decided to try something new outside of the box, but I might be deluding myself because I kinda feel stuck in a bubble world after not working for so long.

I can tell you this: Being poor sucks. It really, really sucks and a whole, whole lot.

What rules: Making yourself feel wanted by the world and earning everything you have fairly.

I’m submitting my resume. It seems like it isn’t enough. I wonder what kind of world this is where if you don’t have a BA that you don’t count. Was the world always this dependent on higher education? I have the experience to rock someone’s world, but what can I do if they won’t give me a chance to show that I can? It makes me have regrets.

I wish I was the kind of person with the kind of circumstances that could get a BA in 4 years. But I’m not.

I wish I did have parents that I could trust. But I don’t.

I wish I was published, a whole, whole lot. But I’m not.

I wish I could have a real job that I enjoy, where I want to get there early every day and have a smile on my face, but I don’t. I wanted a job I could love for a lifetime, though that’s not realistic in the US.

I know from all the various spiritual studies, I should focus on the now so my future has those things, but I can’t help having some regrets. I keep thinking, if I grew up in Korea maybe I would have fit into society better. My grammar wouldn’t be so messed up, my love of Korean things wouldn’t seem so out of place. But then, as a writer I’m very good at deluding myself. It’s a hazard of what I do.

The best I can do is submit my resumé and pray I don’t end up homeless. ’cause right now that’s looking like a reality. Yeah, Romney, I really do have a safety net–it’s called hitting concrete. And there are large gaping holes in them.

ETA until death 19 days. (Financial death)

Feeling: Entirely confused by life.

My Question: At this rate can I make it to 80?

Maybe I should have grown up in Korea…