Every week, Yamaguchi spotlights writing projects on the web, including the community memory archive at StoryCorps, his own writer-centric Influences Project, and the creative writing MFA Handbook (which comes with ThePublishingSpot stamp of approval). Most importantly, he converted this sprawling web project into his own book called 52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity.
At a time when writers are struggling to define themselves, Yamaguchi has created a safe, inspiring community. Obviously, he had to participate in my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.
Jason Boog:
You have one of the most extensive blogrolls I've ever seen. Your blog interacts with more blogs than I can count. Day to day, how do you manage this gigantic task? How did you build this network?
Jeffrey Yamaguchi:
I have blogrolls on all my sites. I think being able to link to other people's sites is one of the coolest things about one, the web, and two, publishing a website. Blogrolls are an easy and efficient way to provide a resource for your readers -- jumping off points to cool sites for people to discover or be reminded of...
My blogrolls on Bookmouth.com and 52projects.com, those were developed over time – they take time to build, but it's easy to do – you just have to keep a record of sites you like and make a point to update your blogrolls regularly.
And while I'm really happy to know and correspond with many of publishers of the sites on my blogrolls, I don't know all of them. I just admire what they are doing, and figure people who come to my site would be interested in what they're doing on their sites.
Jason Boog:
Most of the readers at ThePublishingSpot are fledgling writers looking for ways to improve. As a web project guru, which crafty sites and projects do you recommend for writers? Why?
Jeffrey Yamaguchi:
There really are so many, and as I was saying, that's the cool thing about the web – one site leads to another and another. Every time you start surfing there's a good chance you'll find more than a few websites to bookmark.
I recommend taking a look at NoMediaKings.org, Librarian.net, supernaturale.com, themorningnews.org, craftypod.blogspot.com, yourwaitress.com, whipup.net, luxlotus.com, maudnewton.com, improveverywhere.com, 43folders.com and the list could just go on and on.
Each site has its own way of inspiring, of energizing. They are not necessarily just about writing. They're all over the place. That's the beauty of the web.
It covers such a wide spectrum, and it's all so accessible. The one drawback is you have to be careful not to spend ALL your time surfing – you have to make sure you actually get to work once you've been inspired.
Want to write a book about your website?
Looking for more crafty ideas?
Then tune in tomorrow for the exciting conclusion to Five Easy Questions for Jeffrey Yamaguchi...
» Here Come the Crafties from ThePublishingSpot
A big welcome to all the Jeffrey Yamaguchi readers coming to ThePublishingSpot for the first time. As always, I like to do a little linking action to inspire new readers, so I offer a couple Yamaguchi-endorsed places that you can... [Read More]
Tracked on: March 27, 2006 10:38 AM | Permalink to Trackback