Sword & Laser Episode 1 is Live

The episode is live, I am indeed in the submitted videos, and now my stomach can stop churning so much. It’s a fantastic show, loving the video version. Tom and Veronica interview Scott Sigler, Phil Plait sends in a video question for Scott, then after the interview segment, they kick off the new fantasy book for the club, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians.

It turns out they did have an audio version of the interview with Robert J. Sawyer, so I feel a little silly having asked that, but it is true he has a new book out, so if they can get him on the show that’d be awesome.

And finally, it’s true, Veronica does have the same shirt. She scooped me on the final episode of Game On!

Sword & Laser Episode 1 Launches Today

By the time most of you read this, Sword & Laser will have released the first episode of their new video show at Felicia Day’s Geek and Sundry channel on YouTube. Sources say it’s at 10am, and since that source is show host Tom Merritt and he’s on Pacific Time, I’m guessing that’s 10am PST, or 1pm here in the East where I am.

Anyone interested in science fiction and/or fantasy should definitely check it out. Tom hosts with Veronica Belmont, and the two have worked on the show together for about the last 4 years as an audio podcast, which will still exist alongside this new video show.

This release is a big one for me, not just as a fan of the show, but because I’m actually a part of it. A very small part, but a part nonetheless. They asked the fan base for video feedback and questions, so I spent some time and created a tiny 10-second video to submit, and they accepted it, so that’s awesome. From what I’ve heard online, I get to share this episode with guest Scott Sigler, an awesome writer whose novel Infected was equal parts disturbing and fascinating. Also on the show in some capacity is a science hero of mine, Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer. I won’t know what capacity that is until I see it myself tomorrow.

I’ve been sort of struggling with the videoification of the web for a couple of years now, and that 10 second video submission was my first major step in dealing with it. I get pretty serious anxiety when trying to record video of myself. I’ve done Google hangouts before, but it always stresses me out pretty bad, at least until I’m actually in the hangout and participating. Then it sort of eases off and I just go with it. I’m hoping that by doing this sort of small video thing now and then I can work my way up to doing video reviews for the GeekBeat crew out at Livid Lobster, where I blog. And who knows, maybe I’ll be on a podcast for real one day.

Small steps.

Google+ Hangouts and Editing

A lot of my planned working time was taken up unexpectedly tonight by a really fantastic Google+ hangout. Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer of Discovery.com) and several other astronomers were aiming a telescope at the sky and looking at the moon, at Saturn and several of its moons, and at several constellations in real-time online. It was fascinating, and inspiring.

It made me start to think about other uses for hangouts. I know writers have taken to doing writing hangouts, which I haven’t tried yet. Has anyone tried an editing hangout? It could be done as part fiction reading, part suggestion/critique/workshopping. It seems like that could be an interesting way to take advantage of the technology, as well as solve some of the issues I was having conceptually with editing in public.

I’ll have to put the idea out there on Google+ in particular, see what users there think. If you’re on Google+ and would be interested in something like that, add me to your circles and let me know.