When I first began investigating writers’ resources on Second Life, Jilly Kidd’s name seemed to be everywhere. In addition to running the Written Word group with Hastings Bournemouth, Jilly is involved with an astonishing number of other literary-related projects.
How does she do it? Read on to find out…
In RL, Jilly Kidd is known as Adele Ward, and is a poet and fiction editor. Her first full collection Never-Never Land was launched by Bluechrome Publishing, and she’s working on a novel.
Adele says she has always worked in writing, mainly as a journalist, and her MA in Creative Writing qualifies her to teach as well. “I have taught workshops in real life and we’ll be having more workshops on Second Life this year. I’m extremely passionate about writing and ran a free online workshop before coming on to Second Life – it’s still going on http://www.communigate.co.uk/london/justpoets . Apart from Never-Never Land I also published a book of non fiction and had 14 poems in an anthology called Bedford Square published by John Murray. I still work as a journalist as well as fiction editor, proofreader, and will be teaching writing courses in RL too.”
Q. How did you get involved with Second Life?
I had just started writing my novel and had a set schedule (I usually set 3 hours per day to write), when I went ice skating at Christmas and broke my wrist. It was a bad break and I was too uncomfortable to continue with the novel so I went on to Second Life while at home getting better.
I had seen it on television and heard writers used it, but when I came on two years ago there was very little for writers apart from the wonderful Blue Angel poets’ dive and open mic run by Persephone Phoenix. I’m a real writing fanatic so I can’t help setting up writing projects anywhere I go.
Q. How much time do you spend on Second Life each week, on average?
This really varies depending on whether I’m setting something up or at a stage when things are ticking along nicely. When setting the project up from scratch it took a ridiculous amount of time – like full-time work really and you need to be on during the night to talk to people from the other side of the world. It also takes a massive amount of time and effort to get an area going and to attract people to events. The moment you stop an area dies very quickly. I think people would only do it if they have a passion and also if something has made them take time out of their normal work, like my accident.
Now that the project has been set up I still need to keep adding completely new services or people would get bored, but it doesn’t take too much time unless we have a major event like our Autumn Writers’ Exhibition which gives free display space to 100 or more writers. During big events it becomes full-time again. And sometimes I use SL to write in company, sitting with my co-organiser Hastings Bournemouth while we both work on our novels using Word. In fact I often leave SL on in the background, just as I leave Skype and email visible, while I get on with my writing. So I don’t really consider it time spent ‘in Second Life’.
To me it’s a website that works well with all the others I use while I’m online and writing. Unlike the other websites SL has a fantastic level of interactivity because we can use voice, and having avatars in a 3D venue helps us feel we are together. The feeling is very similar to a RL meeting and I can’t really get that anywhere else online for open mics, workshops and discussions. I think it’s very important for people to keep reminding themselves that it’s just a website like the others, though, and not become addicted to it.
It’s probably also important to know it’s not as easy as it looks for people thinking of setting up projects or business activities – it takes so much time and effort that it probably isn’t worth it unless they can link into already successful groups and avoid duplicating effort. It’s expensive to organise an area too, really, even though we were given the land free seeing as I do so much for writers.
I still need to take time off my paid work to do it and have lost out financially because of that. For non-organisers it’s great value though as they can get so much for free that would cost in RL – we give publishers and writers free space, promote authors for free in various ways including the bookstores and televised Meet an Author show.
The workshops would also be expensive but we never charge writers, and there’s a culture of providing these things free on SL. A lot of people want to organise an area and that’s when it gets very hard to attract traffic and time consuming to get it going, find loads of people copy all your new ideas so you then have to keep developing something else – it’s never-ending so I suppose you also have to really enjoy it and find ways to do it and keep enough time for paid work off SL.
You can see how London School of Journalism made a success of coming on to SL on http://www.publishingtalk.eu/blog – the secret really is linking into groups and activities that are already running well and have large group membership and good traffic. Not duplicating effort in other words. Not feeling you need to compete – we will mutually help on SL.
Q. What has your SL workshop response been like?
We’re setting up workshops in response to our members asking for them. They won’t only be in SL. SL will be used for the interactivity of being able to sit in a room and talk or text with other group members. In addition there will be Google blogs which are only available to members of each workshop where they can post writing and give feedback. I also give critique.
We are limiting the numbers in workshops so that people won’t have to wait too many weeks to get their writing critiqued. It isn’t really a question of what the response is like. I’m choosing people who we have seen participating at other events and who we know would be good members of a workshop. Each time there are enough people who can be trusted to commit to a workshop and to participate well in critique we canset up another workshop.
Q. What kind of writing courses will you be teaching in RL?
I’m qualified to teach creative writing to postgraduate level and I’m on the tutor list with two reputable colleges to teach on BA level courses. I’m waiting for a group to become free for me to teach – either when a tutor leaves or if the courses expand. I have also taught local poetry workshops.
Q. Did you take to Second Life right away? Or was there an adjustment
period?
I don’t normally get involved in computer games but I didn’t find it hard to learn how to use SL. I had expected to find more for writers on SL when I joined because that had been my reason for coming on, and luckily somebody told me about The Blue Angel Poets’ Dive. As I remember it was hard to find places and people I had anything in common with, but within a couple of weeks people had shown me how to use Search and how to join the right groups. I could easily have left if people hadn’t helped me.
Q. Do you mainly promote online? Or do you do much promoting of your SL
projects in RL?
I see it all as RL, with SL as one of my whole network of regular websites. It’s particularly easy to promote activities using the SL facilities like Events Search, sending group notices and group IM invitations. This also makes it difficult as all the other venues are also busy promoting their events just as much. I do promote the events on other websites that would be called RL ones.
I write about our activities on the Open University Website, on Facebook, on my own author blog, and on my Just Poets website where I’ve been running a free online workshop for years. The Meet an Author show is on the Treet TV website and that’s mainly watched as an online broadcast by people who may or may not be SL users. The authors on Meet an Author are all published so the show is promoted by the authors on their various websites and social networks, and also by the publishers.
Some major institutions, like the London School of Journalism, recommend us on their website. The articles I write for Publishing Talk (which is read by the national media and publishers) also bring a lot of interest to our area.
Q. That Autumn Writers’ Exhibition sounds amazing. How would a writer apply for display space?
We promote the Autumn Writers’ Exhibition very heavily in the months leading up to it and people can apply directly to me and Hastings or apply on our website. We manage to fit everyone in.
Q. How did you and Hastings start working together?
Hastings heard about the project I was working on for writers when I had been on SL for about 6 months. He came and took a booth to work on a novel he was writing. We got on well straight away, and although I had to move around a few times to finally get the right place to develop the project we were in touch and I asked him to come and help.
Q. Wow, you got your land free? How did that happen?
Well there’s no such thing as a free lunch as they say. I started being offered free space quite early on because I was so keen to work at developing writing projects and because I was doing it as a volunteer. Obviously this brings traffic and can also be used to attract tenants to a sim. So it’s really important when working as a volunteer and being given free space in return that you check you aren’t being used as free help to develop a business, which will probably make you redundant at some point.
I had a few bad experiences and thought my work trying to develop a good writing project would all have been time wasted, but when Thinkerer Melville bought Cookie Island and wanted to use it for creative and artistic activities he called me over to offer me the area for writers. I needed someone to help and that’s when I invited Hastings.
I also have space on two other islands, the Joysco and the London School of Journalism, and both were given because the owners knew of the work I do for writers and that I don’t charge. I’m happy to bring traffic to these areas, and in return the land is provided free.
In addition, I also have land on Broadway Live Island and have just been offered free space on the new Treet TV islands.
Q. It’s amazing that you are offering writers so much for free,
especially when it involves considerable time and effort on your part.
Writing is my passion and this is exactly what I’d be doing in RL too. Organising groups, readings, open mics, workshops. I have two young children so I stay in to look after them and SL lets me continue with my RL activities while staying at home as a lone parent.
Q. How do you find the right balance between time working on SL projects
and time working on your own writing?
I don’t find that a problem. I’ve always set myself targets for how much I need to write each month, and usually I also have a few hours a day set aside for writing. SL can also help with the writing because at times I’ve written a poem a week to hear it read at Sound of Poems on a Monday.
I also find it helps me write my novel if I sit with Hastings as he writes his. I also work as an editor and I get through more editing if I sit on SL and work in Word. Just being able to take a quick break to chat sometimes and then go straight back to the Word window to edit means I don’t completely leave the computer for a break.
I probably work for about twice as long while editing and the novel writing goes really well. It has all the advantages of writing and concentrating alone, but takes the edge off the isolation.
Q. Do you have any success stories to share?
It would feel unfair to claim the credit for people I’ve helped on Second Life who have gone on to get published, as I usually help them towards publication when I can see they have a highly publishable style. Although the Written Word is the overall name for the project now, I originally came on and started a group called Just Poets which had been offering a free online workshop for some years.
People on and off Second Life use that workshop and there have been successes – particularly people who have had books brought out by reputable publishers and also people who have got on to prestigious courses in creative writing and also good jobs in writing organisations. It takes about a year to have a book accepted by a publisher and another year for it to be launched, so the best Written Word writers won’t have a book out for a while yet.
There has been one major success for a writer I met and encouraged the first Spring I was on SL when I was organising the first SL Book Fair with Selina Greene of Book Island. I spotted a novelist with a fantastic crime novel there and stayed in touch with him to encourage him through the usual year of rejections and also helped him submit to another publisher.
After a year he was picked up by an agent and is due to be published by St Martin’s. I don’t think I can give the names of any writers I workshop or help towards publication without their permission, and I also think it’s right for authors to keep these things discreet. They do come back to thank me, though, which is really nice, and it’s also a great satisfaction to see them succeed.
Q. What are your upcoming projects?
With my own writing, my poetry collection Never-Never Land has just been printed so I’ll be busy with all the activities authors go through during and soon after a book launch. Magazine and broadcasting interviews, signings and things like that. I’m also being asked to teach by RL writing schools at the moment and would like to do more of that, plus guest lectures. I’m working on my second poetry collection and nearly at the end of a novel so I’ll be preparing to submit the novel to publishers.
On Second Life we will carry on with our very popular and well established events, especially the Writers’ Circle which has a big crowd reading on Wednesdays, and the Meet an Author show which is attracting interest from publishers who send authors to me.
All published authors on SL can apply to be interviewed and the interest from publishers means we have a great variety of genres coming up. We’re introducing more workshopping and the fiction workshop has now started, with face-to-face workshops weekly plus a private blog where the workshop group give each other feedback.
The idea is that writers who read at the Writers’ Circle can get together in workshops with people at a similar standard, if they want to workshop, and this can help them improve their writing. From that point I’ll advise them on how to submit their polished work to publishers, including the ones on the Written Word area.
Q. What advice do you have for writers thinking about joining Second Life?
My best advice is to come to an area like the Written Word where you can get free support and information about the writing community and activities on SL. The writers you meet there will be in the main writing groups so you can see which other ones are worth joining to get invitations to the best events.
There’s so much going on that I think it’s very important to choose the weekly events you like best and maybe concentrate on going to them. One good open mic per week will encourage you to write for it, whereas trying to go to everything will just make you spend too much time online.
You need to use SL to help and encourage your writing because trying to do too much in the virtual world leads to a feeling of ‘burn out’ when you don’t want to participate any more. Limit time online and choose your activities carefully.
Q. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Although the Written Word is the overall name of the project now I actually have a few groups which are active on the area. Just Poets is a popular group linked to the free online workshop on http://www.communigate.co.uk/london/justpoets which has been going for years, and where I help people polish their poems. The Poetry Society SL Stanza is the first virtual stanza of the RL Poetry Society in the UK, which has international members.
It’s our main poetry organisation and has a number of RL stanzas, which are groups that meet locally all over the UK and in other countries. We have a HQ for the Poetry Society SL Stanza group on the Written Word area in a Kentish Oast House building, and it links to websites which are fantastic resources for writers.
The SLociety of Authors group has all the published authors I’ve found on SL so that it’s easy to contact them and to point them out to the press or anyone else looking for published authors for articles or to invite them to read or guest lecture.
We have a very exciting event coming up. On Friday 3rd April at 10pm UK time (2pm SL time) the bestselling author Neil Strauss will be coming on to talk about survival tactics in catastrophes, followed by a quiz with multiple choice questions where the audience who get all the right answers will win a signed copy of his book.
I’ll be holding that event on the London School of Journalism sim and we’re scripting a gadget to let audience members see the questions and make their choices. Neil Strauss is published by Canongate, best known for his book ‘The Game’ and this event is inspired by his new book ‘Emergency’. We’re trying to show all the ways SL technology can by used by authors, and this event will be filmed and broadcast too. It’s all good fun!
For more info about Jilly and The Written Word, please see:
The Written Word website.
