My Long and Twisted Journey, Part One

(Jason Sacks of Comics Bulletin recently offered to document how his fandom experiences helped him grow for his fellow fans in a series of blog posts.  Thanks for guest posting Jason!)

It's weird, sometimes, how you don't notice how much you miss something till you have it back. And how once you have something back, how that items becomes a huge part of your life.

Let me explain what I mean, but first let me give you a bit of digression to give you some context on what I mean.

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The Originality/Unoriginality Barrier: Gradual Evolution.

(Not done writing about originality yet.  Regular poster Serdar noted that my ideas addressing originality suggested that highly original people can and should address using their ideas via gradual evolution, and that gradual evolution of media was an ideal. I want to address that).

I've been writing a lot about originality in media lately.  This is entirely understandable because originality is a big topic in media – in an age of remakes and the shockingly innovative it's going to be something prominent in people's minds.  It's also an important subject because people feel very passionate about it – as I noted there are many psychological/cultural factors to a love of originality.

My conclusions actually were that originality is actually not a prime driver in media consumption – socializabitility is.  People's interests in media were often heavily influenced by what they can share with and enjoy with others.  Originality, in turn, was most important when it helped with that social factor.

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How to Jumpstart Your Career With a Blog

(This is a guest post by Lauren Orsini.  Thanks Lauren!)
       
If you read Steven’s interview with me, you know that my blog was an important part of landing a new job. I always knew that blogging was a great way to record and share my passions, but I didn’t realize that it could also get me work.
 
I started my short-lived NaNoJobMo (a riff on NaNoWriMo) blog on November 1. The basis of NaNoWriMo is that anyone can be a novelist in a month as long as they plug away at it every day for 30 days. I thought I could apply the same logic to my job hunt. I would apply to a new job every day for 30 days, and I would do it publicly so the world could hold me accountable to my vow.
 

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