I know I’ve been ranting about writing as a profession recently. Yes, sometimes it does have its low points. But then again, suddenly I feel thankful I’m not working in one of ‘em sweatshops or doing over-overtime in some office building crammed into cubicles along with other corporate drones.

I just checked out one of the blogs that our sister site the Blog Network Watch has recently written on, and it’s all about the call center industry (it’s called You Had Me At Hello blog). What I read made me shudder at the thought of ever returning to the corporate world again. I didn’t exactly work the graveyard shifts back in my day, but you get the drift. It’s the same banana whether you’re assigned a regular day shift or a night one.

Schedule adherence tops the call center priority chart, and in most cases, failure to comply is sanctioned beyond expectations. And by that, I do mean TERMINATION. Whether you’re a student who came from school or someone who lives in Timbuktu and got stuck in traffic on the way, you still have to find ways in order to get to your shift on time. Explanation? The number of people scheduled each hour is expected to receive a certain number of contacts per hour. So, if an agent is absent or late, this means that the calls is to be spread out in the entire floor. In reality, call allotments may be given a variance as part of contingency planning just in case some people are late or absent. However, even so, sometimes its hard for call centers to meet client expectations if people don’t strictly comply with their schedules, that usually they would ask people to do mandatory overtime.

Think that’s bad? There’s more.

If you’re sick, try to still go to work as much as you can. Unless you can get a medical leave approved. Try not to be absent, especially if your reason will be dysmenorrhea, LBM or anything less serious than that. Come on, I have an agent with gout and back pains because of gall stones who still go to work and I don’t even force him to. So if you’re going to tell your team leader that you have a headache, just take some mefanamic and go.

Oh, I remember I was late for work probably 95% of the time. And I probably invented never-before-known sicknesses just as an excuse to stay home.

I know it’s a decent way to earn a living, and I shouldn’t be one to discriminate based on career options/choices/paths. But I’m of the opinion that some companies are just out to make robots out of human beings. And I would rather not be one of those plugged into the Matrix, so to speak.

I would rather have control over my day and how I spend my time. I would rather have my creative mind roam about and work on producing output when I’m productive.

Feel free to disagree. But if you think I’m making sense, come on. Say it with me.

I. Am. Not. A. Drone.

You’ve heard about it: the dreaded echo chamber. Almost everyone in the blogosphere seems to have some tips against being part of this. I remember writing something about avoiding the echo chamber and being more creative a while back.

And let’s not forget that the blogosphere is also one big echo chamber. You know, blogs are often the he-said, she-said exchanges. No one seems to be coming up with original content these days. The blockquote tag has become the favorite among bloggers. Even some of the blogging A-listers are fond of link-blogging. Where’s the creativity here?

Sure, bloggers like to write on what’s already written about. I would say 90.1416% of bloggers start writing their stuff based on what they’ve read on other people’s blogs. Another 78.654% actually link to other blogs and quote stuff they think interesting. A smaller number would add some commentary and opinion to supposedly add value to the conversation. Trust me, I got these figures from a very reliable source (namely my imagination).

But thinking back, I wonder what the heck is wrong with the echo chamber? I would say it’s one good sign that creativity is not so abundant in the blogosphere. However, thre is one good thing that the echo chamber brings about, and it’s some sort of consensus as to what bloggers consider important.

I’ve said before that the wisdom of crowds may not exactly be wise. That’s (mostly) because of the tipping point. The crowd can be influenced! But then again, in the blogosphere, the wisdom of the crowds is in numbers. Technorati says so. The more people write about a topic, the hotter it gets on Technorati’s popularity charts.

So what’s wrong with the echo chamber? A lot, probably!

But then it serves its purpose. Having an echo chamber helps you determine what the buzz is all about. And this changes every day, every week, every season. Bloggers talk, and the blogosphere talks back.

Well, it’s not necessarily so in my case. I mean, I write for a living and I can say it pretty much helps me pay the bills and make ends meet. But writing for a living does have its quirks. For one, there’s the dreaded writer’s block, those times you just feel you have to squeeze out every drop of creativity from your already-numb brain so just you can meet deadlines.

But most of the time, it’s the yearning for respect and acknowledgement that makes for the biggest disappointment in all. True, accomplished writers get respect, but that’s usually very rare, especially in the literary field. Not everyone gets to be a Steinbeck or Hemingway. And yes, sometimes you’d also have to be very dead before you get any serious respect from the community and the public.

As for writing for print and online journals (blogs included), well, it’s a whole new world. Respect doesn’t come around easily. In fact, I can say writing can sometimes be a thankless job. Some people even think you’d have do crazy stuff to get people’s attention.

It kind of feels like writing for the movies:

Even the biz hates writers. When a movie is good, everyone praises the director. When a movie sucks, everyone asks who the fuck wrote this steaming pile of filth. You watch a movie, the credits say: a film by so and so director. Never the writer. Never. It’s like everyone in the biz thinks the writer is just a necessary evil. It’s this auteur theory bullshit going around, making everyone think the director is everything in a movie. -the Man Blog

Here’s to literary rockstardom!

Over the last weeks there have been some changes in the blog journal landscape. 2 Consolidated papers and a new comer. Positions haven’t changed yet, but the tone of the blogs has.
Lets have a look at the 3 blog papers I mentioned in my Follow The Blogosphere with only 20 Feeds.

More →

Bloggers are always good for any kind of controversy. Even if the controversy needs to be twisted and serve as an attention call. For Wired this time. Once more more conventional media invite bloggers to react and have a round of linkbait.

If bloggers know how to do one thing really well, it’s fight.

It is obviously we have to react. And we won’t put up a fight, no we won’t. Because that would only be what Michael Calore is looking for.

More →

If most blogs mentioned in Part I were rather popular and well known blogs, in Part II I will try to suggest you some not that famous blogs.
My selection of so called top social bookmarkers and speedlinkers is not focused on reading everything what goes on in blogland, but delivers me a touch of underground news and a little bit of everything.
More →

Sometimes I wonder if I could limit the number of feeds in my reader. Imagine, one day I have a partner and wifey thinks I spend too much time in front of the screen. What would happen, would I still be able to follow the blogosphere? What would happen if I were only allowed to read 20 blogs anymore? ¹?
Without having to wade through all the submission in social bookmarking sites or meme trackers. YES!

Only 20 feeds open you the doors to everything blog related.

And the explanation to this is pretty easy too.

1. Subscribe to blog papers
2. Read guru blogs.
3. Read several top social bookmarkers and speedlinkers.

Blog Papers

The Blog Papers generally report you the main blogosphere news, often also with a link to the original entry. They are your online news paper for blogland.
My must reads blog papers.

The Blog Herald.
TBH obviously is the WSJ (but without pay wall) for anything related to blogland. Duncan Riley, and later Matt Craven, have made the reference out of this Blog Paper.
Recently TBH was sold and is now also owned by Mark Saunders, the man behind Mr. Bloggy. After a difficult start the future looks bright with Succesful Blogger Liz Strauss, jiving star Tony Hung (co-editor) and new team additions Derek Van Vliet, Scott Karp and Micah Sparacio, among many other writers.

901am.
A new blog paper, founded by David Krug, assited from Thord Hedengren and Mohammed Salleem. Although very young this one seems to have everything to reach the top.

The Blogging Times.
Not always as blog related as TBH and 901am, but the comments section is always good for some fun and controversy.

Valleywag.
Blog/Tech/Geek Valley gossip blog number 1! A Gawker Media production, harsh, evil and controversial. No educational value, but perfect to finish your reading day with.

10 Zen Monkeys (A Webzine).
Not really a blog paper, but well written and interesting entries. Quite often blogand related scoops.

Bloggy News
Perfect if you don’t want to read everything but are addicted to your daily blogosphere article.

Guru blogs.

The bloggers who tell us how to blog, how they experience blogging and they certainly didn’t become popular because they are not opinionated. Always ready to help, learn new bloggers what to do and what not.

ProBlogger, Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse. ProBlogger. Nuff said. Daily also interesting speedlinking.

Succesfull Blog, Liz Strauss
Daily interesting blog and business advice, mixed with daily fresh Net Neutrality news and interesting links.

Crunchnotes.
TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s personal. Discover Michael behind the scenes. Honest and very human. Michael often discusses the atacks or flames he initiated/suffered.

Calacanis.com, Jason Calacanis
Not a professional blogger but surely our blog cheerboy. Should be on anyone’s list, even if it were only to disagree.
Jason is opinionated, will write what he thinks, sometimes even without thinking. A must read.
Founder of Weblogs.inc and just spend a year at AOL. Ex New Netscape guru.

Gapingvoid, Hugh MacLeod.
Hugh is no professional blogger either, but surely a blog guru. And great cartoonist. Sharp, witty and ad rem. If you don’t like sarcasm and black humor this might not be your cup of tea.

Wisdump, Paul Scrivens
Sometimes I would love to see 9rules write more editorial blogosphere related articles, but they don’t. Scrivs’ Wisdump is very Web 2.0 focused and shares very interesting points. Read this if you want an analysis of what is been done wrong online. No fanatism, no cheer-ism… but straightforward and controversial.

CopyBlogger, Brian Clark.
Copywriting tips for online marketing success. Although Brian not blogs about blogs, his insightfull writing tips are a help for everyone. Only started in January and already 7000+ feed subscribers speak for Copyblogger’s quality.
This surely was The New Blog for 2006.

Tomorrow in Part II

Top social bookmarkers and speedlinkers, together with some bonus links.

¹ Following would happen : New girl friend.

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
- Winston Churchill

“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.”
- Winston Churchill

“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
- Clarence Darrow

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.”
- Moses Hadas

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
- Abraham Lincoln

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.”
- Groucho Marx

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
- Mark Twain

“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
- Oscar Wilde

“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend… if you have one.”
- George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second…if there is one.”
- Winston Churchill, in response

“I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.”
- Stephen Bishop

“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.”
- John Bright

“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.”
- Irvin S. Cobb

“He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.”
- Samuel Johnson

“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.”
- Paul Keating

“He had delusions of adequacy.”
- Walter Kerr

“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.”
- Jack E. Leonard

“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.”
- Robert Redford

“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
- Thomas Brackett Reed

“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.”
- James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.”
- Charles, Count Talleyrand

“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”
- Forrest Tucker

“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”
- Mark Twain

“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”
- Mae West

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”
- Oscar Wilde

“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.”
- Andrew Lang

“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
- Billy Wilder

[tags]winson churchill,insults,billy wilder, oscar wilde,mae west,class,mark twain,robert redford, ernest hemingway[/tags]

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”

“I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”

“I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life.”

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.”

“Maybe that’s what life is…a wink of the eye and winking stars.”

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

“What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.””

“All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together.”

“My witness is the empty sky.”

“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion”

[tags]people, celebrities, jack[/tags]

“I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”

“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.”

“The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class”

“Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?”

“I wrote a thousand words every day”

“There was about him a suggestion of lurking ferocity, as though the Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.”

“I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.”

[tags]jack london,wolf,author,top jacks, God, ecstasy,writers[/tags]