Inkygirl Haven's first author/illustrator chat tonight on Second Life

Inkygirl Haven For Children's Book Writers and Illustrators is having its VERY FIRST CHAT tonight on Second Life tonight at 8 pm EST (5 pm Second Life time). Anyone interested in writing and/or illustrator for young people is welcome!

If you've been curious about Second Life, feel free to drop by the Inkygirl Haven For Children's Book Writers & Illustrators tonight. Kristen Darbyshire will be at Inkygirl Haven, and I'll also be lurking about to help the chat run smoothly. Before or after the chat, you might also want to check out the building and grounds. Visit Beckett Gladney's new artist office on the second floor! Pick up a free copy of the e-book From Keyboard To Printed Page, a joint project between Inkygirl Haven and the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators (SCBWI).

If you've never been on SL before, I strongly recommend that you sign up at least an hour in advance so you have a chance to get used to the interface.

Highly recommended (before you sign up):
Joan Kremer's Guide For Writers About Second Life

Chat with Kristen Darbyshire tonight:

URL: http://tinyurl.com/kidlit
Date: Monday, March 23rd
Time: 8 pm EST (5 pm Second Life time)

Inkygirl interview with author on Second Life

I did my first interview on Second Life recently. My interviewee: writer and editor Joan Kremer, who is also the co-founder of Story Mountain Center on SL.

Interviewing on SL is much more fun than interviewing by e-mail -- questions and answers are more spontaneous. Plus I have no cat allergies on SL:



That's me checking out Milton, the Center's cat. Note the stiletto heels I'm wearing. I don't wear stilettos in real life, but I testing out a pair of shoes before I start selling them. What's cool about these shoes: if you click on the shoes, you can change the colour and pattern as well as adjust the size, PLUS I'm including a range of shoe brooch ornaments to choose from...again, with a pop-up menu.

If you have a female avatar on SL and are willing to help me test these shoes, please IM me from SL and I'll send you a FREE pair (please mention Blatherings). This offer lasts until about mid-February.

I made these shoes for myself but figured I may as well sell them; the materials for making extra pairs don''t cost me anything, after all. :-) Hey, and check out the Squashed Fairy Chair I made on Friday night while hanging out with Jeff and our gaming buddies:



Heh.

I'm not going to be promoting my SL shop much because it's a low priority for me right now (I'm focusing on writingstuff), but I'll occasionally be sticking stuff up for sale when I feel like it.

This afternoon, I attended a live interview with the original Cybergrrl, Aliza Sherman, on SL as well as applying for a paying blogger gig. Anyway, I was familiar with Aliza's name as a Web pioneer; Newsweek magazine named her as one of the '“Top 50 People Who Matter Most on the Internet" way before I ever heard of Second Life.





I had expected a text interview, but Aliza and Copper Robot did a live chat for the latter's podcast. I was just signing off when Copper Robot announced the guest for an upcoming interview -- I missed the name (hopefully it'll be posted on his blog soon) but it was an actor from Dr. Horrible! Must check that out.

If you're on Second Life, feel free to send me a Friend request! My SL name is Inkygirl Omizu. Please mention that you read my Blatherings/Inkygirl else your request may be ignored. I'm only online sporadically, usually in evenings hour or weekends.

New Year parties, friends, and Virtual Evil Squirrels

My friend Iain and me. Photo by Walter.

Jeff and I brought in the new Year with some of our friends at a party hosted by Reid and Luisa. Played boardgames and Guitar Hero, caught up with friends, ate way too much. Many thanks to R & L!



'Twas great to get together with friends at our place and elsewhere. I got together with my friend Cathy, who has moved from Calgary back to Toronto - yay! And she'll be living just a few blocks away -- double yay!!!

Allison, Jodi and I had our annual Urban Tapestry gathering as well as continuing to do prep for FilKONtario. Gifts I received included a yummy-smelling Vanilla Spice toiletries set from Jodi and some gorgeous hand-made chainmaille from Allison You can see the earrings she gave me in top right of this photo.

Also explored Second Life some more. I decided to sign up for a Premium Account so that I could get live chat help as well as be able to buy a wee plot of land to call my own. You can see a picture of my house below, taken while I was chatting with Dwen Dooley (filker Dan K. in real life):



My most recent exciting SL discovery: it's a new way to display, read and buy books. I recently visited Robin Sojourner's Library in SL, for example, where he/she allows visitors to browse nicely formatted e-books for free, and buy them if users want to take the books away from the library.



I have to find out how Robin formatted the e-books in the library -- they look so real, and users can flip through the books and read the text as well as go to the table of contents. I now have two new books (one about Alpha Channels, and the other about Textures) sitting on a coffee table in my virtual house. :-)

My most horrifying recent SL discovery...there are SQUIRRELS!!



Meanwhile, I find it interesting that NONE of my local friends use Second Life. Like me, several tried it briefly but then gave up. I'm beginning to suspect that a lot of one's SL opinion has to do with the first few visits -- it's a shame that the first experience a typical user has in SL is the Help Island, where everyone is confused and you get accosted by avatars who want to bite you or sell you something or make crude remarks. No wonder so many first-time users get turned off for good.



It also doesn't help that media coverage tends to focus on the party aspect, and the fact that avatars can have virtual sex in non-PG areas. Plus it's true that a lot of SL focuses on shopping. BUT believe it or not, it's entirely possible to spend all your SL time in areas that are focused on topics other than shopping or sex, and still only have explored a fraction of SL's potential.

I've been checking out Dusan Writer's Metaverse blog, whose author is interested "in the metaverse and identity, education, visualization, and collaboration." Most of his posts focus on education and business, but from time to time there will be a more personal post like
Come Inside, I'd Like To Show You Something.

Also found the following video interesting, which was included in a recent Washington Post article about Second Life: