The SoapBoxers

I’m seriously trying to avoid making this blog “all Kosmo, all the time”. Nonetheless, I have been focusing so much on writing the end-of-quarter short story that this makes a natural topic for today.

I’m about 5000 words into the story. The story will likely be between 10000 and 12000 words when I’m done, meaning that I have about 1/3 of it written. Why the funny math? Because some of the words that have already written will surely fall to my editing scythe before I am done.

Writing a story of this length is really a fairly big undertaking. While I can sometimes crank out 1500 words in an hour, I probably average 500-1000 polished words per hour – meaning that this story will take between 12 and 24 hours of work. I really should put a stopwatch to it. Maybe next time.

What exactly is going on with the story at this point? Well, I don’t give away plot details, but I’ll share some insight into the process.

• Proofreading – When I get 3500+ words written, I start convincing myself that this would be a good time to read through the initial draft and correct some errors. Sure, a lot of the story still needs to be written, and errors will pop in the later work. Nonetheless, I try to make this an iterative process to avoid too much proofreading at one time, since the task kind of sucks. On the bright side, I get more of a feeling of accomplishment once the story has been printed – it feels more “real”.
• The plot – When I first beginning writing a story, I just start writing various bits and pieces, with just a basic high level plot. When I get to 3000 – 4000 words, I can start shaping the plot a lot more. I divide the story into “scenes” that each have a somewhat independent plot. I also begin to look more closely at the timeline. Are certain events in the correct location, or would they make more sense in a different spot? I also look for gaps in the plot and starting thinking of ways to fill those gaps.
• Character lifestyles – A basic foundation for fiction is that readers must suspend belief and allow themselves to be carried away by the story. However, I try to blend at least a bit of realism into my stories. Right now, I’m taking a look at the residences of some of my characters and comparing them to the income they would likely earn from their jobs. Are their inconsistencies? Is a character living in a place that would obviously be unaffordable? If so, something must change – either the type of apartment/house, or the occupation.
• Brainstorm – A substantial amount of the story has been written at this point, but I want to make sure to keep myself open to new ideas. I’ll agree that it is difficult to force brainstorming to occur, but I do try. Essentially, I try to take a step back from the actual work at time, and let things stew on the back burner. I turn the car radio off when I’m driving, to force my brain to go into an unstructured thought process. I’ll jot down some very brief ideas for the plot – or question about how certain situations will be resolved – and go to bed without making and effort to answer them. I’ll let the ideas kick around the next day, and waiting until some new ideas pop up.

I have been kicking around this idea for a while now.  To delve into politics, or not?  Recent developments have resulted in a bit of extra space in the schedule, so I think it’s time to give it a whirl.

And with that, I throw my hat into the ring for the 2012 presidential election.

Oh, sorry.  Wrong announcement.  Pretend that you didn’t hear that one yet.

I will be looking to compile a staff of 3-5 liberals and 3-5 conservative to write about politics.  Each week, I will choose a topic and have one writer from each camp write about the issue (500-1000 words).  The two articles will be published on The Soap Boxers on the same day (Thursday, most likely).  I will alternate which party gets the top spot.

I have put out some feelers, but am still looking for more writers.  What am I looking for, you ask?

• I am looking for someone with their own opinions on the issues, and not people who simply rehash what the talking heads are saying.  Experience working within a political organization or writing about politics is a plus.
• The columnist must be thick skinned.  They should expect to see comments from readers who disagree with them.  The columnists should not engage in verbal attacks with commenters, or with columnists from the opposite viewpoint.  Debating the merits of an issue is one thing; hurling insults and baseless accusations is yet another.
• Writer must be willing and able to write one article each month on an assigned topic.  Since the two opposing views will be published on the same day, it is critical that deadlines are met.
• There will be no up front pay for this work.  There is the potential for profit sharing if/when The Soap Boxers turns a profit.  For those who are interested, I can share more details.

Due to the sheer number of people necessary to get this off the ground, I don’t expect to have The Political Observers operational until at least the end of the month.

While I intend to make every attempt to make The Political Observers a balanced forum, this does not mean that the entirety of the content of The Soap Boxers will be balanced.

Although we will be focusing on politics once a week, The Soap Boxers will not become a political blog and will continue to focus on a broad variety of topics.

Want to learn more about this opportunity?  Send me an email at kosmo@ObservingCasually.com

What did you miss over the weekend?

• Kosmo’s track and field short story, On Track
• Johnny Goodman’s football picks
• Kosmo’s switch from cable internet to DSL

Yes, yes I am.

I am announcing the launching of a new blog, The Fiction Writers. What will this blog feature?

A large chunk of the articles on the site will actually be serialization of short stories I have written. There are already 4 posts containing portions of the short story Key Relationships. I post updates three times a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), starting next week. The updates will be about 500 words each.

These stories will have previously been made available to regular visitors of The Soap Boxers, in PDF form. Serialization will allow the stories to reach a new audience, while allowing the readers of The Soap Boxers to ge the first opportunity to see these stories. The readers of the serialized stories will get to the end of the stories months after the PDF is made available to readers of The Soap Boxers.

In addition to my own stories, I am interesting in having my readers submit their own stories. These stories would be published on Tuesdays and Thursday. I can use your name, or I can post the stories anonymously – the choice is yours. If there are writers who would like to produce work for The Fiction Writers on a more consistent basis, this may also be an option. If you are interested in seeing your work displayed on The Fiction Writers, send me an email.

Finally, I will pose a question about writing or writers each weekend. This weekend’s question asks how writers feel about the impact of libraries and used book stores on their income.

In closing, I would like to thank my friend Lazy Man, operator of the web sites Lazy Man and Money and How To Fix. Lazy Man provides hosting and technical support for my blogs simply because he’s a nice guy. If you haven’t visited his sites, drop by and see what he has to say.

I’ve noticed a slight increase in Google traffic this week as we made a push toward 250 articles. I suspect that 250 files (article + pages) may trigger Google to give you a bit more love. At this rate, we’ll have at least 3 unique visitors every day by the end of the year 😉

While I can sometimes sort of understand what Google is doing, I have some difficulty understanding what PEOPLE are doing sometimes.

In the aftermath of Google showing us a bit more love, the two most popular search terms over the weekend were:

• Johnny Goodman’s article, Live From the Solheim Cup
• A five month old article regarding How Many People Make More Than $250,000?

OK, these both make sense. Johnny’s article was very topical, and the article about how many people make more than $250,000 will be relevant as long as some politicians consider this to be a break point between those who are rich and those who are not.

So, you ask, what are some of the most commonly searched for articles, all time?

• What Are the Best Baseball Sites? – reviews of several baseball sites
• A Review of Librivox (a site that offers free audio book downloads for works in the public domain)
• Ferdinand The Turtle -a short story I made up while rocking my daughter to sleep one night. I also wrote a prequel later

The baseball article makes a lot of sense. It functions very nicely as portable baseball bookmarks file. Librivox was hot (OK, hot is an exaggeration, but definitely warm) for a few weeks and then suddenly dropped off for no apparent reason. Ferdinand the Turtle, however, has been a steady performer for several months. I honestly have no clue what these people are searching for. I suspect that they are not looking for a children’s story about a turtle who grows up to be king of Turtle Island (with the help of his trust gofer, Bob the Squirrel), but I may be wrong.

Are there some articles that I wish more people would be searching for? Definitely.

• Roth vs. 401(k) – compares the two retirement options under a couple of different scenarios
• My fictional account of Manny Ramirez signing with the Hanshin Tigers. I’m biased, but I think it’s funny.
• And, of course, the one that started it all – article 001 – my tongue in cheek Guerrilla Investment Advice

Apparently, however, more people are concerned about the exploits of Ferdinand the Turtle than a comparison of Roth vs. 401(k). And maybe that’s how it should be …

You might have noticed a few changes to the design.

• I have added some splashes of pink to the main (center) column.  Everything that is pink is a clickable link (the article titles are also links, despite not being pink).  Additionally, virtually everything in the left and right column is a link.  Poke around.  Click on the links.  Why did I choose pink for the links in the center column?  Because it seemed to provide good visual contrast from the background.  However, design is definitely not my strong suit, so if there is a backlash against pink, I will reconsider!
• Related articles (from The Soap Boxers) and related websites (articles from other blogs) will be highlighted at the bottom of articles.  I am using a plug-in for this (Related Websites) and it can be a bit hit-and-miss at times, so you might see some things mentioned that don’t really seem very related.
• A few more incredibly minor changes minor changes that I doubt anyone figures out 🙂

Bob Inferapels approached me today with the good news that he is able to resume his weekly entertainment column.  Not long ago, Bob had come to me with the sad news that circumstances had resulted in an inability to continue writing for us on a regular basis.  I believe the circumstances may have been related to a problem with a gerbil infestations.  Or maybe a problem with jelly beans.  I really don’t remember the specifics.  At the time, I was reluctant to simply let Bob go, and shifted him to the role of “contributor” instead, so that he would be able to retain his staff parking.  I am glad to be able to reverse this move and reinstate Bob to the status of weekly writer.

Bob will resume writing next Saturday.

Welcome back, Bob.

On the topic of writers … we are working to define the role of one additional writer.  Once that is done, we’re going to close the barn door for a bit, and we will cease searching for new staff writers, although new “day in the life” articles will still be considered.  The staff is now at a point where I believe The Soap Boxers can move forward as a 7 day a week web magazine, providing fresh, quality content every day.

How diverse are we?  The current  staff (10 writers) represent three countries.  Four US states (soon to be five, pending a move by one of our writers) and two Canadian provinces are represented.

I’ve implemented a bunch of changes.  I’m sure that everyone has noticed them.

No?

Ok, I’ll give a quick recap.  These are all pretty small changes, so they might be overlooked.  Some folks might find them useful, though.

• I’ve held the price of The Soap Boxers steady at $0.00!
• The author’s name in the byline is now a link that will take you take a listing of their articles.  In a similar vein, the right sidebar now has a “search by author” that does the same thing.  The author’s page will show you excerpts of each article, with 10 articles to a page.  I’m not sure how useful this function is.  I will be creating a special category for each author, so you could also just click on that category to accomplish the same thing.  The one exception is myself – there is no other way to view a listing of all of my articles.
• I have added the page numbers at the bottom of search results, category, discussion topics, and date searches.  This replaces the “older article” and “newer article” text.  If you don’t realize it, you can click on a category, discussion topics, or month in the left sidebar and you’ll be shown a listing of articles that fit that criteria.
• Search results, category, discussion topics, and date searches will now show 10 excerpts per page instead of 4
• At the end of the excerpts (when searching on author, category, discussion topic, date, or by using the search box on the top right), there is now a link where the reader can click to “Read Full Article”.  Previously, the course of action was not readily apparent (you were supposed to click on the title in order to view the full article.)
• “Discussion topics” was moved to the left sidebar.  This is a clickable listing of the topics that have been discussed most frequently.  The size of the words is proportional to the frequency of its use.
• New photo with the goatee

The Soap Boxers recently celebrated its 200th article!

We’re pleased to announce the addition of Jonna Wibelius to the staff of The Soap Boxers.  Jonna will write a monthly column that shares her thoughts of a US or world event from the perspective of an internation observer.  Jonna does not profess to be an expert on world affairs, and this is one of the reasons we wanted her to fill this role.  She will give the viewpoint of how an average citizen in another country may view an event.

Jonna is originally from Sweden,  but has also lived in England, Australia, Finland, and China.  Her current long-term base of operations is in China, but she is in Finland this summer.  Jonna details her adventures in China (and, now, in Finland) in her blog SHEinChina.

The Soap Boxers published a review of SheInChina back in May.

Catch Jonna’s columns beginning in August.

In addition to the changes announced last weekend, we’ve added a couple more writers to the staff.

• James Bathgate will be writing a monthly column on technology.
• Gabe Tyndal will be writing a monthly column on science and nature.

We’re still looking to round out the staff. We’re looking for these roles:

• A weekly entertainment writer – to write about new movies, books, video games, leisure activities.
• A weekly writer who writes about issues from a woman’s perspective. The role is fairly flexible at this point. Currently, every writer we have is male, and we are looking for something that will bring a fresh viewpoint.
• A monthly writer who will give an opinion of US and world events from an international point of view. We are looking for someone who is a native of a country in Europe, Asia, Africa, or Australia. We are NOT looking for a US citizen living abroad. If English is not your primary language, do not allow this to become an obstacle – we can work with you to edit your article.

We are pursuing specific people for each of these roles, but do not currently have firm commitments.

If you’re interested, send an email to kosmo@observingcasually.com. Note that you would not be paid for your work, but there would be future profit sharing, if and when profits occurs. More details via email.

OK, so what the heck are we doing with all the changes?

The goal of The Soap Boxers is to be a source for a variety of different topics. news, sports, science, technology, politics, entertainment, international viewpoints, fiction and more. We style ourselves after a magazine such as The New Yorker or Reader’s Digest or a newspaper such as USA Today. Flip through our pages and you’ll see a wide variety of interesting articles – not just articles one particular topic.  We eventually reached a point where one or two writers couldn’t cover the variety of topics we wanted to cover.

For those of you who have been loyal readers – we thank you for your support. These changes are designed to bring new content that is more rich and diverse that it has been in the past. We hope you enjoy the new topics and the new writers!

The schedule may change a bit, but this is the current schedule:

• Monday: News
• Tuesday: Sports
• Wednesday: Monthly columns (politics, technology, science/nature, world view)
• Thursday: People, places, history
• Friday: Fiction Friday
• Saturday: Flex topic
• Sunday: Canada

Note: there will be no new articles on Saturday or Sunday.  We will resume our regular schedule on Monday.  Scroll down to see the Fiction Friday story “Check, Mate” from earlier today.

In an effort to continually improve the product that we bring to you, we don’t let the grass grow under our feet.    We have several staff changes to announce, and hope to announce more in the coming days.  My long term goal for the magazine is to develop something that gives readers the variety of articles that the see in The New Yorker

Staff changes

• Entertainment Editor Bob Inferapels, has been waylaid by “life” and has notified us that he will not be able to contribute on a weekly basis.  We are, however, keeping him on board as a contributor.  We hope to see more of his articles in the future, and perhaps a return to a larger role at some point.
• To bring non-U.S. viewpoint to The Soap Boxers, we are pleased to announce a Canadian presence on the staff.  Tyson Turner will write a weekly column on Sundays.  His primary focus will be the issues, events, and places that are prominent in the lives of Canadians.
• Peter Rabbit will become a contributor on a monthly basis.  Peter will focus on politics and international issues.

What are we looking for?

We are still looking to add some writers to our team.  We are looking to fill several gaps in our coverage.  Could you be the right candidate?

• All of the current staff writers and contributors are male.  We would like to include a female writer on the staff, in order  to bring a different perspective.  Essentially, I’m looking for a softer, feminine edge to the blog one day a week.  If you are interested in this role, but don’t want to do an article every week, contact me anyway.  I could set up some sort of rotation if we have multiple people interested.  This is the only weekly spot I am looking for fill.  The other roles would all be once a month, or less often.
• Since a significant portion of our readers are from outside of the United States,  I would like to include some international contributors to write about one article per month.  In particular, I would like to  like to engage some folks from Africa or Asia.  If English is not your first language, don’t let this discourage you – I can edit your article to remove any awkward spots.
• Do you have an interesting role within our society?  College student?  Fireman?  Aspiring actress?  I’d love to see some article about your experiences.
• Are you a senior citizen who would like to tell people about things that happened when you were younger?
• Are you a poet or a cartoonist?  Perhaps we could feature some of your work.
• Articles will typically be in the range of 500 – 800 words.  We’re looking for opinions, in addition to facts.  Anyone can go to an encyclopedia for the facts – but only you can give your opinion.
• Reliability is key.  I understand missing an occasional deadline, but if you miss four deadlines in a row, that can be disruptive to the schedule.

Benefits

Why would you want to want to write for The Soap Boxers?

• Money – Well, this probably isn’t the right reason.  When profits emerge, I’ll share proportionally, after covering overhead costs (I can discuss this more deeply if you have sincere interest – it’s actually fairly simple).  At this point, we haven’t turned that corner, so don’t make money the reason why you would join the staff.
• Audience – You would have a built in audience from day 1.  We don’t have a huge audience, but it is steadily growing, and we do have a core group of folks who come back every day.  If you’re thinking about blogging, but don’t want to blog to an open room, this opportunity gives you and audience from the beginning.  If you later decide to launch your own blog, go ahead and jump ship – certainly some of the audience will also read your new blog.  If you decide that blogging isn’t for you, you can step away easily.
• Easy – You don’t have to know anything at all about blogging.  If you’re familiar with WordPress, I can get you up and have you compose articles on the site.  If you’d prefer to just email me your work, that’s also fine.  All you need to do to do is write.
• Resume builder – Will writing for us ensure that you get your dream job when you apply?  Of course not – but it’s something interesting to mention during interviews.  There are a lot of skills that come into play, such as meeting deadlines and working with minimal supervision.
• You get to work alongside a guy who uses lots of bulleted lists.  Talk about a barrel of fun!

What’s next?

• OK, so you’re interested.  What are the next steps?
• Send me an email at kosmo@ObservingCasually.com.  Tell me what sort of position you are interest in, describe your qualifications, and include a writing sample (this may be a link to a web page where you have some of your work).
• I will take a look at your work, compare it to the other submissions I receive, and decide if you are a good fit for a recurring column.  Even if you aren’t selected for a recurring column, I may be able to use your work on an occasional basis.

The process will be relatively painless, I promise.  I’m a very easygoing person, and I’m not going to rake you over the coals.  If I don’t think we’re a good fit, I’ll tell you that and move on.

Thanks for reading!