On the nature of egoboo
Aug. 25th, 2005 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
debgeislerPete Weston wrote With Stars in My Eyes: My adventures in British fandom in bits and pieces over many years, then tied it all together as a Guest of Honor book for Noreascon Four, the 62nd Worldcon. NESFA Press published the work, which got a 2005 Hugo nomination and came in 2nd place in the balloting.
I've finally been reading the book -- not that it wasn't worthy of a read earlier, but my general malaise over the last 11.5 months has meant that a book about fandom, any fandom anywhere, wouldn't really grab my attention. (I wanted fiction, dammit -- and have read about 100 fiction books in the last year. Yes, many of them were fluff. None of them dealt with con running.)
's a good book, and one of the bits that was really telling for me was Pete reporting on someone else's discussion of what "egoboo" is (I think it was Brian Aldiss, but I'll look it up and correct myself later.): that it's not the seeing of one's name in print, or getting the applause. Egoboo is the anticipation of those things...the pre-reading of one's words...the re-connecting with one's plans. His original source noted that he loves to go back and read what he wrote. That, for him, was egoboo.
Okay, I've got that covered.
And he's right, at least for me. I get a much bigger charge out of re-reading my own words, and hoping that someone might find them of merit, than almost anything else I do in fandom. I enjoy *making* the sweetrolls as much (if not more) than eating them. It's all about creation.
Take the Interthingy II CD, "Wondrous Things." So. That was my title. I pulled it all together, based on Colin Harris's desire to put a bunch of material on a CD for fans to have as a kind of instant memory book. There was a lot of cool stuff. That CD was my created effort.
Stupid vendor tricks: the CD got to Interthingy late. We got it to the production company on time...we gave them everything they'd asked for...it was clear, concise, etc. But, come the day we should have started distributing it, the sucker's not there. Bastids.
I'll spare you the long, involved saga...and cut to the chase. The CD showed up, the cardboard slides for them never did, and fortunately I'd remembered (at the very end of pre-production) to create the design for the actual CD top, so people knew what the title was.
Now, the CD covers are apparently (FINALLY) on their way to Alice Lawson (she of the infinite patience -- the Interthingy DH in charge of "Services" and one of the kindest, coolest people I've worked with at a Worldcon ever). We get a discount, they send us the sleeves. Now we get to distribute the sleeves to whoever we can get them to.
Here's where the egobook difference comes into play. The *only* place where my name appears is on that CD sleeve. And yet, I find I'm *more* pissed about not having the sleeve because it was a very nice piece of creative work, thank you very much, than that my name's on it.
I don't really care if y'all like it (but I'm gonna show it to you anyway), 'cuz I think it rocks. They'll go up in the photo thingumy attached to LiveJournal, just as soon as I can figure out how to do that.
And if you hate it? Don't bother telling me. My egoboo's coming in the mail, anyway (when Alice sends me two of 'em, and I get to *see* the thing in print).
Update: So the images are now up on my LiveJournal picture site place thing.
'Nuther update: And thanks to Geri for telling me how to do the thumbnail thingumy.
I've finally been reading the book -- not that it wasn't worthy of a read earlier, but my general malaise over the last 11.5 months has meant that a book about fandom, any fandom anywhere, wouldn't really grab my attention. (I wanted fiction, dammit -- and have read about 100 fiction books in the last year. Yes, many of them were fluff. None of them dealt with con running.)
's a good book, and one of the bits that was really telling for me was Pete reporting on someone else's discussion of what "egoboo" is (I think it was Brian Aldiss, but I'll look it up and correct myself later.): that it's not the seeing of one's name in print, or getting the applause. Egoboo is the anticipation of those things...the pre-reading of one's words...the re-connecting with one's plans. His original source noted that he loves to go back and read what he wrote. That, for him, was egoboo.
Okay, I've got that covered.
And he's right, at least for me. I get a much bigger charge out of re-reading my own words, and hoping that someone might find them of merit, than almost anything else I do in fandom. I enjoy *making* the sweetrolls as much (if not more) than eating them. It's all about creation.
Take the Interthingy II CD, "Wondrous Things." So. That was my title. I pulled it all together, based on Colin Harris's desire to put a bunch of material on a CD for fans to have as a kind of instant memory book. There was a lot of cool stuff. That CD was my created effort.
Stupid vendor tricks: the CD got to Interthingy late. We got it to the production company on time...we gave them everything they'd asked for...it was clear, concise, etc. But, come the day we should have started distributing it, the sucker's not there. Bastids.
I'll spare you the long, involved saga...and cut to the chase. The CD showed up, the cardboard slides for them never did, and fortunately I'd remembered (at the very end of pre-production) to create the design for the actual CD top, so people knew what the title was.
Now, the CD covers are apparently (FINALLY) on their way to Alice Lawson (she of the infinite patience -- the Interthingy DH in charge of "Services" and one of the kindest, coolest people I've worked with at a Worldcon ever). We get a discount, they send us the sleeves. Now we get to distribute the sleeves to whoever we can get them to.
Here's where the egobook difference comes into play. The *only* place where my name appears is on that CD sleeve. And yet, I find I'm *more* pissed about not having the sleeve because it was a very nice piece of creative work, thank you very much, than that my name's on it.
I don't really care if y'all like it (but I'm gonna show it to you anyway), 'cuz I think it rocks. They'll go up in the photo thingumy attached to LiveJournal, just as soon as I can figure out how to do that.
And if you hate it? Don't bother telling me. My egoboo's coming in the mail, anyway (when Alice sends me two of 'em, and I get to *see* the thing in print).
Update: So the images are now up on my LiveJournal picture site place thing.
'Nuther update: And thanks to Geri for telling me how to do the thumbnail thingumy.
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no subject
on 2005-08-25 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-08-25 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-08-25 04:14 pm (UTC)Credit where it's due
on 2005-08-25 06:03 pm (UTC)(1) This CD wasn't *my* idea. Colin Harris is the one who pushed it, especially after we found out the German fan group had audio recorded all of Loncon II. Then it sort of spiraled out of control, and we put lots of cool stuff on it.
(2) I did the *production*...of the CD. But a number of the individual bits (the eFanzines and PLOKTA archives and the historic bit about UK Worldcons) were done by others. I've tried to make sure they get the credit. (But I did put together most of the rest, including the page of Hugo trophy photos, since it's pretty easy to work with the guy you're married to.)
no subject
on 2005-08-26 06:22 am (UTC)