Among the goals I have for Endervidualism is to bring an increase in appreciation for individualist culture.
There are many Objectivist cultural sites (and somewhat more general individualist sites like "Miss Liberty's") and I enjoy them well enough. There are also non-cultural individualist sites with plenty of policy commentary, and I enjoy them too.
I particularly like LewRockwell.com (LRC) and
Strike The Root (STR), but culturally LRC often seems very conservative.
Just as counterpoint to that, not long ago LRC ran a
review of
Big Fish
As a rule, any time LRC or STR review a cultural event they usually provide a good guide for finding things to enjoy, but neither site's main focus is culture.
I'd like Endervidualism to help fill in the cultural criticism area a bit more and provide options that are less traditionalist in addition. I don't think America can renew a free society without having the individualist cultural base to support the corresponding social ideas.
One might say that good new movies, books and other art are not always available to review. Unfortunately that is true. However, with DVD and Home theater technology, one no longer need rely as heavily on Hollywood to produce new stuff for the first run theater. One will soon have most of over 100 years of film production to mine on DVD. The web has quite a bit for the other visual arts, and there's music too . . . .
I have a section of the site: This Weekend, which is not yet fully fleshed out, but currently focuses on non-interrupted movies on cable/DBS channels. It will expand its scope in the future to include elements of "popular culture" such as new DVD releases as well. For a really special event broadcast even network TV could be featured though I don't normally watch.
Considering the enormous volume of things available on satellite and cable, it isn't too surprising that mixed in with all the trash it is possible to find things worth viewing. The premium channels, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Fox Movie Channel (FMC) really offer a fair amount of reasonable entertainment without commercial interruption, if one knows when to tune in (or set the VCR, TiVo, etc.).
As an example, as I write this, very soon TCM will be showing a classic film: On The Waterfront. This could provide an inspiration for many types of web items: movie reviews, biographical pieces, stories of individual courage against the odds, etc.
Many of the things that pop-up in the "TV milieu" are available on DVD or VHS also. These resources might help to suggest subject matter for new articles (both general and reviews) and perhaps help to generate new material for the site.
The Agora will have things for sale via association with vendors like Amazon. It has a few "boutiques" now, and I hope will have some new ones added in the future.
If an idea comes to you and it doesn't fit anything discussed here already, don't let that stop you from writing. Your completed work might be an excellent fit for Endervidualism. If it isn't, I might be able to suggest another site that would be interested. There are many places to publish good writing on the web.
After having said all that about what to write for Endervidualism, how would you go about writing and submitting it?
Write well. Do not use flowery language to substitute for content or good style. The Elements of Style and On Writing Well are insightful guides to good writing. I suggest using a word processor with spelling and grammar checking. Submit essays via e-mail as message attachments in .RTF or .DOC files. E-mail them to me at Tom@endervidualism.com.
Some specific advice:
Do not use all capital letters for titles.
Limit title length to one line if possible.
Offer something fresh and original, at least in your style of coverage, if not in
the topic.
Do not use ad hominem or other fallacious reasoning.
Back up your statements with facts.
Provide references (links), even footnotes are okay.
Try to avoid unnecessary coarseness; obscenity for obscenity's sake will not be
published here.
I am a fairly flexible fellow, but I don't want to spend my time coaching a creative writing class, even if I were qualified to do so, so please try to prepare yourself for the task of writing.
I am not a perfect writer either, as can be seen in some of my writing here, but a certain degree of polish should be applied to good ideas to make them attractive. The standard has been set relatively high by the first writers to submit material to Endervidualism. I will attempt to maintain that high standard.
Let me know if you plan to make multiple submissions - so we can think about a regular individualized page format for your pieces. If you do not plan on multiple submissions or if you prefer it, you may use the format available to occasional guest writers. The column archives hold examples of the type of page format options already used.
After all of those qualifications, I really do welcome offerings of material and I will add to these guidelines as I think of more to write about this topic.
Tom Ender