Jim Munroe, a Toronto indie new media author whose work I've been following for some time, recently published this useful article on building an audience. Of course he mentions self-published print zines and blogs, but he also mentions another subject I've been introducing my students to this term...
6. TEXT ADVENTURE VIDEOGAMESAnyone out there play Zork as a kid? Or any text adventure games? Go west, Take sword? They were a type of videogame that was entirely text, and is also known as interactive fiction. IF is an amazing thing: a videogame you can make without programming or graphics skills.
Quick Tips:
-there's a community of people who write and play these games, and they have a competition each year that often attracts more than 50 new games (one's happening now! Download and vote!)
-and thanks to this community, there are now tools that make it possible for non-programmers to write these games, one in particular is called Inform 7
-the audience for text games is small but intense
-it's kind of like poetry in that there's no money in it, and the audience for it is small, but if you were affected by it in your youth you keep coming back to it -- some people had a slim volume of poetry and I had The Lurking Horror
I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO BECOME A WRITER EVEN AS A KID.I DIDNT END UP A WRITER, I BECAME A DRUG ADDICT.I HAVE STUGGLED FOR YEARS WITH MY ADDICTIO AND ONCE AGAIN IM CLEAN.I HOPE THAT I CAN BE JUST AS GOOD WRITER AS I AM A DRUG ADDICT,BECAUSE ITS NOT EASY AND BECASUE I HAVENT DIED OR BEEN KILLED YET THAERE IS A PURPOSE FOR ME...... WISH ME LUCKZM
I know many people who try to work their way through difficult times by keeping a journal, or maybe an anonymous blog (without mentioning real names or places).
Here's a news article about writing therapy...
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/16/health.writing.wmd/