Engaging Content
Redefining experiences to meet marketing goals
Hey! When was the last time you were fully immersed?
Any modern salesperson will talk your ear off about the competition to catch our limited attention. Every product, every service, every ad, every message. They are all in a constant battle for our thoughts and prayers.
Facebook Book Club
After a little too long trying to make Hearthside Hangouts work for the Maneus book club, I’ve decided to move everything to Facebook.
I split Maneus into three parts that I call Books and number them with roman numerals. While the archaic style works well as a way to add more of that ancient epic flavor, it also nicely divides the full book into easy-to-differentiate sections.
The club wasn’t too far into Book II before this switch, but I’m slowing things down so everyone can catch up and get used to the move.
Book I is less than 100 pages and it should be relatively easy to read through if you wanted to join before, but ran into some of the technical difficulties of the old platform.
In practical terms, if you are reading along or want to join the discussions, feel free to post any questions or comments about Book I!
The next virtual meet-up should be in about 3 weeks and will cover Book II. To better organize the event, I plan to put up a poll to see when exactly works the best for the most people.
Keep your eyes out for that poll on the Facebook Group!
Vicious Violence
Other than schedules and book clubs, I also wanted to bring up the role of violence in my story. When I rewrote Maneus, I vowed to not hold back or pull any punches. The result is a much harsher story that doesn’t shy away from pain or anguish.
I knew that would also translate into a book that is less appealing to my mother, but overall it would probably be for the better.
So, as she finished Book I and read through the climax, it was no surprise that she held specific complaints about the violent nature of the resolution.
My own mother went as far to say she would have never been able to finish Book I if she was not doing so for her son’s benefit.
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Her words affected me more strongly than I expected. I knew she would hold these complaints, but I started worrying about how others could meet a similar impasse.
It doesn’t help that my hyper self-awareness in regards to the strangeness of Maneus already has me thinking no one will finish the first chapter.
Rather than letting those thoughts spiral into an infinite void of anxiety, I decided to ask others what they thought and was met with comforting answers.
Immersion and Coercion
And yet, I still question my intentions.
To counter that unfortunate feeling and reiterate what I’ve already said, I’ve learned to tell myself it’s important to not hold back. I often cite a story, a conversation with an old friend around these emotional connections.
One score and many beers ago, I was a contrarian teenager raised by a father who worshiped the 1960s in the USA. Emo music and the majority of alternative culture in my formative high school years was thus definitively bad.
If you were alert and aware in those mid 2000s times, you’ll know how relevant Bright Eyes were and who Conor Oberst is. His often acoustic music defined the genre and the era with how he would be moved to cry during performances on stage.
I argued on AIM (the preferred method of communication by youths of that time) with a friend about how stupid that was. How it could never be genuine. It was nothing but an act. A fake. A fraud.
It took him weeks, but when he answered I had no rebuttal. My friend told me that he wished he could write music that made himself cry.
Tear Spilled Ink
While working on Maneus, there were times when I needed to stop to process the pain in the words I was writing. That raw emotion in my most vulnerable state is not meant to be marketable or profitable. It’s meant to be true. It’s meant to be me.
The reality of our modern world places all labor and its value against monetary wealth.
But that was never Maneus.
That was never my story.
Until next time.
Cheers,
John