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A Writer’s Guide to Avoiding the Social Media Timesuck

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Jessica Grixti Stanley

Social media is the antagonist of the modern creative’s life story, and writers are no exception.

Have you ever logged onto your laptop, computer or even mobile/cell phone with the definite intention of putting your fingers to the keyboard and writing out that epic saga you’ve had planned in your mind for so, so long it feels like the characters have become a part of you? You’re inspired. Your idea about thirty-something Gillian Rachelson accidentally uncovering a murder plot where the killer turns out to be the only somewhat likeable man needs to be put down into words on your writing program of choice. Your YA fantasy about the teenage assassin struggling to choose whether she should romance the man she’s fated to kill or her fellow rogue assassin, feels like it’s ready for teenagers to devour and is definitely an original idea.

You log onto your device of choice. You open up Microsoft Word. Or Scrivener. The notes app on your iPhone? Maybe you’re one of those adventurous devils who writes out your story in notes on your TI-Inspire calculator (Note: Definitely not something I did back in high school). Then you realise you forgot to name Gillian Rachelson’s antagonist. Michael? Marcus? Maybe you should head onto that baby name generator site. Click on the link “Most popular baby girl names of the 1980s”. Then what about Mary Sue Assassin? She needs a name too. Randomise. Randomise. There we go. A name. Nah. That’s a bit boring. Then it occurs to you: “What about Facebook?” You probably have some friends—or even mutuals—with names to randomly pick and mix for your latest masterpiece.

The Non-Issues of the Modern Gaming Internet

Posted on February 27, 2016 by Jessica Grixti Stanley

Gamergate is one of the most ineffective movements of the twenty-first century—and not just those for it, but particularly those against it. For a movement that started from a simple bad breakup, who’d have thought it would turn into a debate about censorship of the internet?

It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who knows the patterns of the internet, however. Ever since it became widely used in the 1990s, there have always been a select group of people using their influence to try and control the internet. With the most widely known examples being Government initiatives such as SOPA, it really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but current attempts at invading our privacy have become more and more intrusive. The common saying, “If you haven’t got anything to hide, it shouldn’t be a problem” is useless now in the modern era of the internet, because despite how moderate your opinion is, someone will always find you offensive. And that’s where censorship of the internet becomes dangerous.

In August 2014, after finding out his girlfriend was cheating on him with five guys, Eron Gjoni wrote an essay detailing the behavior of Zoe Quinn and what led to their breakup. Of course, things that we write in the heat of the moment will always come back to bite us, and this essay Gjoni wrote about his ex-girlfriend is now considered on the same level as revenge porn. Despite all this, a few men and MRA’s from that bastion of internet loners Reddit and 4chan, latched onto Gjoni’s website and used it to send Quinn some harassing messages as well as “proof” all women were evil. However, Quinn wasn’t innocent as most claim, and used this to cement her recently released game Depression Quest, paving her way to fame on the backs of a few internet harassers, and claiming all women in tech were bullied and abused out of the industry. A few other people—namely Anita Sarkeesian and Jonathan McIntosh; Brianna Wu; Arthur Chu; Sarah Nyberg; Katherine Cross; Jessica Valenti; Tauriq Moosa—all latched onto the Quinn/Gjoni breakup saga, christened it “Gamergate”, and an internet movement was formed.

Why Not to Write

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Jessica Grixti Stanley

Everyone and their mother claims to be an “aspiring writer”. I’ve written about the idiocy of this term too many times to count, but that’s not the point of this month’s blog post.

Every time I scroll down my Twitterfeed, there’s a thousand and one authors and iAuthors claiming their work is going to be the next Harry Potter/Twilight/Fifty Shades/Gone Girl or whatever the hit of the year is. The truth is— 99% of these people will never see success as an author. You wanna know why? Because, yet again, everyone and their mother and the kitchen sink and Greg down the street and Jennifer from the coffee shop all want to be writers. It’s not just my Twitterfeed; it’s Facebook, that terrifying Real World, other blogs, everywhere. Everyone seems to wanna be the greatest writer eva, they want to be the next Shakespeare. That’s not a problem. Of course not. Writing is an awesome activity; it releases stress, you can change people, you get to see your own writing in a bookstore or on Amazon, because isn’t that just awesome!? The problem is: Why? Why do most people write?