You can't miss him! Everywhere you look on the Internet you'll see his words, his name. On his blog, on Charlie Chaff's blog, quoted on Amazon in praise of Cory Oral's latest book, quoted on Charlie Chaff's blog, even quoting Charlie Chaff and Cory Oral himself. (Good God, does the man have no limitations?) His name is everywhere. He himself is omniscient. And who is this mysterious godlike figure? Today I 'talk' to the most important, most famous, indeed the most most, writer of our generation: Joe Scampi.
Joe is best known as the author of the blog 'Whatthefuck', but he, surprisingly, also has time to turn out novels such as 'Senior Soldier' and its sequels 'Detergent to the Stars' and 'The Last Colon'. Last year he also nominated himself for the position of President of the Speculative Fantabulation Workers' Guild (SFWG). Most recently he's been working as one of the hosts of the collaborative writing site 'Fixlets', but that job has recently finished. I asked him, amongst many other things, what he's going to do next. Unfortunately, although I talked TO him using the amazing telepathic powers that I share with Doctor Berk of the SFWG, Joe wasn't able to reply to me using the same method. Instead, I dipped at random into the world's biggest bag of Scrabble tiles, a la Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, to see what he might say if only he could reply. I'm sure the Scrabble tiles are as articulate as he is.
So, today 'Joe' (10 points excluding bonus squares, but ruled out for being a proper name) 'takes' me on an exclusive tour of fixlets, this exciting new form of literature based on the ancient art of coprologia, and 'tells' me what he's going to do now that he's got more time. You'll be shocked by the conclusions I reach.
Lucian: Thanks for 'speaking' to me, Joe, through the 'sufficiently advanced technology that is indistinguishable from lunacy' that we call Scrabble. I'll get to your latest project shortly, but first let's rewind a bit to your work at Fixlets. I'm sure our readers would love to know more about your experiences on this collaborative writing site. Who exactly are the users?
Joe Scampi: As you know, amateur writers are junkies. Most of them are looking for the quick literary high of publishing their work, but no-one wants to read their bozo ramblings. We cater for people with this fixation and allow them to collaborate with other literary junkies. Because it's a collaboration, they have to read each other's work and thereby provide an audience. No-one else would read this stuff, after all. For this reason we call the resulting stories 'fixlets'. That's a small 'f' for the stories, a big 'F' for the site itself.
Lucian: That's interesting, that the stories have less prominence than the site itself. But what exactly are fixlets? How do they work?
Scampi: In the bad old days, people would read omens from the entrails of bulls, or from the way that chickens pecked at corn. Those old prophets weren't so wrong, it turns out. Fixlets uses a very simple version of one of these techniques - coprologia.
Lucian: So the contributors to the Fixlets site actually rake through...
Scampi: Yep, that's right. They take a dump, then use our look-up table to help them plan their miniature masterpiece. Size, consistency, shape, amount of curl, all of these help the contributor to decide how to develop their piece. They then post the resulting stories on the Fixlets website and get comments from other contributors. You can even post sequels and prequels to other people's Fixlets, create derivative works and so on. We did consider calling the site 'Shitlets' but that would have been just too crass.
To help newbies, I've even contributed a load of my own to the Fixlets site. You know how hard it can be to squeeze that first bit of creativity out when you're feeling artistically gummed up. Well, my efforts are there to act like a creative laxative, to loosen the artistic sphincters of the Fixlets' contributors and help them pass their first pieces of work. Writers often say that there's nothing as frightening as the blank page staring back up at them. It's sort of like 'bashful bowels syndrome' when there's someone in the cubicle next to yours and the porcelain below you is still unstained...Well, there's nothing frightening now that my work is down in the bowl, looking back up at you. 'Come on in, the water's fine!'
My Fixlets, like all of them on the site, are released under an UnCreative Commons License so that anyone can modify them, add to them, and generally improve on the work on the site. Contributors do the same with each other's work.
Lucian: What do the contributors get out of this?
Scampi: It's a learning experience for them. And they also get the chance to work with the professionally published author of Senior Soldier, The Haemorrhoid's Dream and many other works, available from Amazon or direct from...
Lucian: [Coughs] So, it's almost like a recruiting ground for your new readers. New converts to the Scampi cause. No, that point doesn't require an answer. But why would any neo-writer want to get involved in a project like this on Fixlets, where they're collaborating with random people on a project with no apparent worth other than sheer egotism?
Scampi: As I said before, most people are told they can't write. Well, this is their opportunity to collaborate with other people who can't write for the benefit of people who can't read and publishers who don't want to pay. How can you not win? It's like shooting fish in a barrel when they're already dead. What could be better than spending the precious hours of your life pouring out your soul onto a website for the benefit of indirectly promoting someone else's brand name so that he can indirectly boost his own sales revenue from your work.
Lucian: Sales revenue is something I'd like to come back to in a minute. For now, could you tell more about the role you had in Fixlets?
Scampi: I was one of the hosts of the Fixlets site, working for my faceless corporate overlords.
Lucian: Who reads fixlets? Where is the traffic coming from?
Scampi: The traffic? Readers who don't want to pay money for writers' actual real books. This is the audience we must now reach out to - people who are reading in their lunch hour, goofing off while looking for free content. Fixlets are ideal for this, seeing as they are, in themselves, content free. Online readers want to pay for nothing, so we give them nothing worth paying for.
Lucian: Where does the money come from?
Scampi: My faceless corporate overlords at AOHTML support the site in ways that transcend mere finances.
Lucian: And do the contributors make any money from the Fixlets site?
Scampi: Money is just a concept, and as you know concepts exist only in the mind.
Lucian: So you're saying that no-one really makes any money?
Scampi: Well, I certainly do [laughs].
Lucian: Could you expand on that a little?
Scampi: Well, my work on Fixlets drives visitors to my personal site at www.joescampi.com/whatthefuck where they can read my daily, even hourly, blog postings, and where they can read my books online - many of which are award winners and nominees. That's www.joescampi.com/whatthefuck.
Lucian: That's very interesting. But what are you doing next? I'm sure you must have your eye on the next gimmick, sorry, I meant to say author friendly site.
Scampi: My former corporate overlords at AOHTML are going to expand on the look-up tables in Fixlets to make them completely automated. This way the Fixlets' contributor won't need to do anything other than to hold their 'protoypes' up to a webcam. The automated system will then generate the core of the story for them. It bypasses the need for individual talent altogether, but that's creativity in the 21st century for you. AOHTML reckon the users of our site will love it. Creativity without the pain or hard work - it's what the users, the Google Generation, are crying out for. Unfortunately, all this automation means that there's no need for me to act as the lubricant anymore.
Lucian: And what are you going to do now to fill the gap?
Scampi: Well, I do have another big project squeezing through the pipeline that I can't talk about just now.
Lucian: Is this your play for the position of President of the SFWG [Speculative Fantabulation Workers' Guild]?
Scampi: I don't know what you're talking about.
Lucian: Don't be shy, you can tell us.
Scampi: At the moment I have no plans along those lines. I'm spending all my time on 'Cadaver Corps', the next sequel to 'Senior Soldier', and a couple of other books. I'd also like to spend more time with my family.
Lucian: You'd think that running as a write-in candidate last time would have given your ambitions away. Do you honestly think that we the public thought you were doing it purely as a service to democracy because you don't like uncontested elections? I did think that was rather a transparent ploy. Or were you just being a big blowhard, using your self-nomination as a way to get extra publicity? Of course, now that your two best professional friends have delivered big public blows on their blogs to the SFWG, you're ready to take over.
Scampi: If you're talking about Charlie Chaff and Cory Oral, well, that's pure bullshit. So what if those two come across as ranting, scaremongering imbeciles, whereas I look like the reasonable man I am...
Lucian:...the reasonable man that the members of the SFWG should turn to in the future, now that Charlie Chaff and Cory Oral have scared everybody witless with their allegations of incompetence at the SFWG.
Scampi: That's such crap! It sounds to me like you're saying that the three of us are in cahoots. Just cos we all share similar views on the future of publishing, all run hugely popular blogs, namecheck each other or cross-post to each others' blogs, are obsessed with technology and/or cats, and have very similar political agendas, sorry that should be marketing strategies, damn it, now you're getting me confused - I really meant to say artistic goals. Well, you must have forgotten to take your medication today, buddy...
Lucian: How did you know about my Haldol use? Have you been spying on me?
Scampi: ...cos you're talking like a lunatic and I deny any implication that we are a pathetic little gang of high school bullies conspiring to take over the student council. We just want to reform it in the best way for the 21st century. You know the saying, 'Great minds think alike'? That's all there is to it. Great, gargantuan, minds, thinking so much alike that you can't tell them apart. And why should I run for office, when it's possible to control and direct the discourse, anyway, without being voted in? As for elections, I certainly don't want to kick out President Manny Copacabana [*], given the adequate job he's doing of guiding the SFWG safely from one crisis to the next, and the next, and the nekst. I'm sure his successor will be just as adequate.
Lucian: But can't you see a time when you might be interested in running for office again? After all, distributing your fiction online is bound to become old-fashioned eventually, once everyone is doing it and not just you and Chaff and Oral. When that happens you'll need a different marketing approach for your work to distinguish yourself from everyone else. And you certainly seem to love the sound of your own voice - excuse me, I did mean to say 'love to communicate with people'. What a megaphone you'd have as President of the SFWG if you did get in! After all, when you stood as a write in candidate before, way too late to have any real hope of being elected, you got masses of free publicity. Just think of the publicity you could generate for yourself with a successful campaign.
Scampi: Those are your words, not mine. I've got enough enough strings to pull - erm, irons in the fire - without taking on any more work. As I made clear earlier, who needs to stand for office when you can have influence and therefore power, but without any of that crappy responsibility, all from the safety of your blog?
Of course, if my public, that I've courted for the last ten years on the web with my various blogs and projects...well, if they love me and worship me, and they want me to run for office at some time in the future, who am I to deny them? And what eksactly is wrong with wanting to lead your people into the chosen land? After all, 'Voks populi, foks dei'.
Lucian: As usual, you're completely right Mr Scampi, as you display so clearly day after day on your erudite, well-reasoned and, dare I say it, oh-so humble blog. Thank you very much for that illuminating chat. Good luck with your upcoming projects, whatever they might be.
Scampi: And thank you too. And don't forget to go to mi blog at www.joescampi.com/whatthefuck.
Lucian: I won't. We've got to stop now, I'm afraid, as I'm running out of Scrabble tiles.
Scampi: That's www.joescampi.com/whatthefuck, where u cn reed mi bukz...
Lucian: Goodbye, Mr Scampi.
[* "The hottest club north of Nevada"]
United We Stand, Divided They Fall | The Tools of Oppression | 21st Century Rhetoric for Blog Zombies | Our Enemies Must Die So That We Might Live! | Fixlets and Scampi's future | Bio of a Space Tyrant | Power Corrupts | Contacts and copyright