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I have never asked for a dime from my readers for anything. About three weeks ago, I received an email message from Stavit Allweis:

Hi Ian,

I’m writing to invite you to view early images from “ISNESS” my epic fotonovela currently in the works.

It is hybrid of cinema, the graphic novel form, and is deeply informed by cult masterpieces of past.

We are in the crucial mid-production phase and reaching out to create a fan base and raise finishing funds.

Naturally, I am hoping that you will find my efforts worthy of an article or link on Ian Summers’ Heartstorming.

It would be an honor to have you glance at the Kickstarter link: http://kck.st/bEKVTm

Sincerely,

Stavit Allweis

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Stevie found Heartstorming while searching for photo novella on the Internet. I am glad she did. She found a couple of my articles about sequential art and a challenge to photographers to create the next great photo novella. I am impressed with the fundraising campaign for a wonderful innovative project. She has been using Kickstarter as a means to raise money to complete her photo novela. She has less than one week to raise the remaining start up costs for ISNESS.  Kickstarter is an all or nothing at all deal. Won’t you take a few minutes to view the video below and donate five dollars or more? Everyone contributing $35 or more will receive a signed copy of the book upon publication.

Still photographers interested in multimedia should check this out. Photo novelas are great examples of sequential art. Learn more about the How Messing with Mr. In-Between May Make Gutter Talk more Interesting.

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THE STORY
ISNESS tells of the story of the last remaining family on earth. The story is set in the remains of the culture of the 1970′s, somewhere in North America.

Over the course of 24 downspiraling hours, one family member after another succumb to powerful forces of evolution run amok in their home. As in mythology, their characters are deeply archetypal and some posses supernatural qualities.
On one level the story is the disturbing tale of a dysfunctional suburban family gone post- apocalyptic. On a deeper level, the story lays out and examines increments along the carnality/spirituality spectrum in the human predicament.

THE NAME
ISNESS, the name of the novel pertains to survival: Either “you IS or you ISN’T”. It is the degree of one’s “isness” that nature trades in: that moment in nature’s cyclical regurgitation of matter that we experience as being alive and which we cling to so desperately.

THE FORM
The final product will be in the form of a graphic novel composed of many sequential photographic images. This genre, though rarely employed by comics artists nowadays, used to thrive in the form of pulp magazines in the 70′s and earlier. It never took off in the United States as it did in Europe and South America.

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Only $431 to go as of August 20th with only 7 days to go. Please help.

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As of this writing $6319 dollars has been raised. Stevie needs only $431 to reach her goal of $6,750. Remember, it’s all or nothing at all. Don’t let this great project get away.

Check out this interview with Stevie Allweis at Williamsburg-Greenpoint News+Arts.

There is even more background information at Stevie’s blog Countercomics.com

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uestioning, .

Ways to Engage Your Prospects Without Becoming a Bore

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Bore: A person who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.
Gian Vincenzo Gravina

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A bore is a fellow who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.
Henry Ford

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One out of three hundred and twelve Americans is a bore…

and a healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people’s patience.

John Updike

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The worst thing about a bore is not that he won’t stop talking, but that he won’t let you stop listening.

Author Unknown

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Copyright © 2010 Thomas Lee

Heartstormer Thomas Lee lives in Bozeman MT.

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Me Me Me ME ME ME! And then I…

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Are you a bore or a listener when you interface with prospects, clients, networkers, and others? Are you asking enough questions that allows the other person to share? Do you let them know that you heard them by paraphrasing what they share with you? For example, “What I heard you say is…” Or do you enter someone’s space and begin talking about yourself before you even sit down?

Here are some tips that will help you be liked in the process of building relationships with the people who can give you what you want.

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Show Up
Make the Meeting About the Other Person
Ask Questions
Be Caring
Be Fully Present
Listen
Get Information
Give Information
Laugh a Little
Dare to be Different
Develop Loyalty
Be a Little Mischievous
Remember Details

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Ask creative questions that are challenging, caring, interesting, informative, open-ended. Creative questions often begin with What if…? How may we…? In what ways…? Who are…? Why…? These kinds of questions are filled with a variety of answers that will help you get to know the other person. Each question leads to dialog. Do not ask questions that may be answered yes or no. Practice keeping control of the interview. Do not give your power away. Hold back from handing your portfolio to your prospect for as long as possible. Get them talking about themselves. Repeat what you heard your prospect say to confirm that you understand and to let them know you are listening. What I heard you say is… It is okay to take notes.

Make a list of ten creative questions that you may ask to learn more about your prospect and to get them sharing about themselves. Here is a starter list of advertising related questions (Please make up your own):

What if we were to collaborate on an assignment? What would you want me to know about you? What would you want to know about me?

What if you could change one thing about the agency business, what would it be?

What if you knew who the right photographer was to do a job even before you created the final concept? Have you ever worked with a photographer the initial concept phases of an ad.

Pretend that advertising has been banned by congress. What kind of work would you do? How would you go about doing it?

What if the next print ad you did demanded the highest level of innovation? In what ways would you want to collaborate with a photographer?

What if we were living in a Utopian world where each person could choose the kind of work they want to do? What kind of work would you do if money was not an object?

If you could make one improvement about how photographers try to get your attention, what would it be?

Let your prospects know that you know something about them and that you have chosen them as prospects. Let them know you are interested in them:

I want to work with art directors who are not only interested in great ideas but who can sell them through to their clients. I want to work with risk takers. Etc… (personalize this) I saw what you did when you were still at Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe. How in the world did the agency get the client to approve the idea?

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When you come to the fork in the road, take it. Yogi Berra was right. Well, sort of. If we keep walking, we will be faced with new forks in the road. It may be time to make new choices. We are unlikely to be presented with an opportunity to double back. Commit to your passions. Carry them in your backpack. Dare to take the next step on the ‘road-of-the-I-do-not-know.’ I believe that the expression, If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there is a distortion of the truth. It suggests that living without goals is aimless. I create a life of adventure, discovery and manifestation. I co-create a world where people are safe to bring what they love and what matters into being — by being a compassionate teacher and expressive painter. That is my mission; not a goal. When I chose a path and stay on mission, there is rarely any remorse. SIGH!

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The speaker stands in the woods, considering a fork in the road. Both ways are equally worn and equally overlaid with un-trodden leaves. The speaker chooses one, telling himself that he will take the other another day. Yet he knows it is unlikely that he will have the opportunity to do so. And he admits that someday in the future he will recreate the scene with a slight twist: He will claim that he took the less-traveled road…

…Ironic as it is, this is also a poem infused with the anticipation of remorse. Its title is not “The Road Less Traveled” but “The Road Not Taken.” Even as he makes a choice (a choice he is forced to make if does not want to stand forever in the woods, one for which he has no real guide or definitive basis for decision-making), the speaker knows that he will second-guess himself somewhere down the line—or at the very least he will wonder at what is irrevocably lost: the impossible, unknowable Other Path. But the nature of the decision is such that there is no Right Path—just the chosen path and the other path. What are sighed for ages and ages hence are not so much the wrong decisions as the moments of decision themselves—moments that, one atop the other, mark the passing of a life. This is the more primal strain of remorse.

Thus, to add a further level of irony, the theme of the poem may, after all, be “seize the day.” But a more nuanced carpe diem, if you please.

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Robert Frost (C. 1910)
b. 1874 – d. 1963

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Two roads diverged in the woods, and I

I took the one less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

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The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Frost’s Early Poems.” SparkNotes LLC. 2002. http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/frost/ (accessed June 21, 2010).

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