Look, JaZilla!
This week we have JaZilla in the house! This is an interview you don't want to miss:
Squidoo: Your lens, "How To Set Up Your Office In A Coffee Shop," was chosen as Lens of the Day and is one of my personal favorites. This is a fun and unique topic they won't teach you in school. How did you come up with the idea for it?
JaZilla: When I was deciding what I wanted to do lenses on Squidoo about, I kept remembering that old saying about "write what you know". I know about using a coffee shop for an office; for years I've had a favorite local coffee shop that I've worked in. My husband even bought me a laptop several years ago so that I could write there. A lot of the designs I have in my CafePress stores were done while at the coffee shop, I've sorted my photography there, and made and sold jewelry there. The literary essay I wrote for "The Neil Gaiman Reader", which came out earlier this year, was written entirely on the front and back porches of the Victorian that houses the coffee shop.
Squidoo: Even though your topic doesn't have to do with a specific and popular search term, your lens has done well. Why do you think this is?
JaZilla: I'm not sure. Some of it may be the result of promoting the lens myself, but I suspect that a lot of Squidoo readers are cafe society people. There's a lot in common between people who like to hang out at coffee shops and Squidooers; you have to like a bit of chaos and be interested in a lot of esoteric subjects.
Squidoo: Your lens is both fun and functional. After all - it provides us writers with some great tips for enjoying our craft? Do you have any other related writing lenses?
JaZilla: Hmmm, I dunno...
- The Neil Gaiman Reader: Critical Essays
- Free Speculative Fiction Online
- Avoiding Literary Agency & Poetry Contest Scams: A Writer's Resource
- The Family of Nyms: A Writer's Resource
- What Is "Speculative Fiction"?
- Avoiding Common Grammar Mistakes
- The Speculative Grammarian: Scholarly Journal of Satirical Linguistics
- The Speculative Literature Foundation
Yep, guess I do. ;)
Squidoo: Tell us a bit about yourself.
JaZilla: I'm from E. Tennessee, read a lot, and make money here and there through art, photography, and writing. Right now I'm focused on getting my digital art, photography, and paintings into my new Imagekind gallery, and learning how to use my new macro lens. Next week, who knows? That's a lot of the appeal of Squidoo for me; no matter what new thing I'm learning or subject I'm researching, I can make a lens from it. Distilling all the available information into a single lens really helps bring out what's actually important, whether you're learning something new or just writing about it.
JaZilla's Lessons for Lensmasters:
1. Write what you know, however weird or obscure
2. Write passionately about what you know
3. Write a lot about what you know
