My Writerly Blog

"Found" Art

2011-08-18T20:36:00.002+01:00

I've been thinking quite a lot lately about the use of "found" art, as in re-appropriating images, video, code, etc., in stories. Obviously, in my case, that means digital fiction, though I don't really think it's tied to any one communication genre or medium. After all, there are plenty of news stories I see that use stock images that either really enhance the piece, or freakishly contrast with it. It affects the piece, one way or the other.

I also think it's related, but a bit different, from palimpsest (as defined by Genette). I recently supervised a fantastic MA dissertation on how everything we create (specifically speaking about creative writers) is palimpsestical: re-envisioning our lives, what we've read, what we've written. It may be done on purpose - those intertextual references we love to embed so much - and it may be done entirely subconsciously, but in the end, the idea boils down to that frustrating and yet liberating adage that "nothing is original".

But with much of what I'm doing, it's something other than palimpsest, and closer to a one-sided collaboration, a permissive theft almost. For example, for a visual Flash story that I'm putting together, I simply can't take all the photos I'd like to use myself. I'd need models, and sets, and a budget (yeah, right), and frankly, a whole lot of time and travel to collect them all. It's beach shots and interiors and transport and aerials and portraits, in addition to composite images of the important details. So I trawl Creative Commons images for those that come close to what I've envisioned in the script.

And here's where it gets interesting. If I had unlimited budget and time to put this together, the images would be exactly what I've envisioned. If I wanted a video clip of a little raggedy blond girl staring out the back window of and underground train as it pulled away amidst cycling carnival lights, I could totally set that up somewhere exactly as I've storyboarded it. But I can't do that. And so I find images and videos and bits and pieces here and there that come close. Some of them are compromises - not quite what I'd really want, but I just can't get anything better without applying for a business loan.

Some of them are magic. Some of them I never could have imagined on my own, and their art contributes to and influences - and at times, even changes - what I'm creating. I think of those cheesy driftwood sculptures, where the shape and color and texture of what washes ashore inspires and forms the final artefact; in a way, I'm driftwood sculpting here. I do an exercise with my writing students sometimes where I give them some photographs as a prompt for a story - I feel like I'm doing this exercise in a little way when I incorporate others' art into my work. Even just searching for the right image or clip seems to bring up things that are inspiring or interesting, taking me in different directions, or adding different mood or nuance.

In this way, I'm collaborating on the work before I've really even invited collaborators. These bits of "found" art definitely contribute in a significant manner to the story I'm creating, not just through the actual visual illustration and content of the work, but in the process of creating the work itself. It's an implied collaboration, to use the parlance of the literary theorists, but it's there all the same, and it would be delusional to deny it has an important role to play in the work.

I've even wondered, in the case of coding, where this implied collaboration starts to become plagiarism or copyright infringement. Mostly I think about this when building interactive fictions with Inform, where authors often are very generous in sharing their source code, and there are a finite number of ways to code certain actions. I know it's possible to infringe software copyright, so clearly it can be done in these story games as well. And these are stories - you're not only possibly "stealing" someone's software coding (which, granted, they mostly share with you so you can borrow it for your own work), but you could be stealing their story as well, which I would never want to do to another writer. I acknowledge that different writers can and do do wildly different things with the same tools, but when does my collection of software actions become story...and if I've borrowed the coding for those actions largely from someone else's source code, when does my story infringe upon yours? When is citing your contribution to my work no longer sufficient? I don't really know the answers to these questions, and they may lie in theory and arguments about fan fiction, or about software copyright. Something I suppose I'll be looking into.

I'll be able to discuss these effects more once the pieces in question are finished, particularly with regard to influences on the creative process and the final result. For now, I just wanted to note this new aspect of my process, and that it's both changing the process and likely changing the finished piece.

Great Writing 2011

2011-06-22T21:52:00.001+01:00

I seem to only do my blog writing on trains lately. Must see to that...

I presented at the Great Writing new-and-improved-London-edition conference this weekend, a talk that focused on one of the finer points of my current research: how writing with the intent to mediate a story in multiple media changes the fundamental aspects of the story itself (character, structure, perspective), as well as how it affects the writer's (my) composition process.

The talk consisted of several readings, sections drawn from my prose fiction in chronological order, from my MFA novel (2005) to my most recent compositions for the PhD work (November 2011 - rough draft). The progression from straightforward, MFA-mill produced fiction (i.e., literary, navel-gazing) to postmodern, multiple narrator, layered, rhizomatically structured fiction was dramatic, and I was pleased that my audience saw the same things in the work that I did. What was even more rad was that they were actually interested in it.

It was the first time I've presented where I didn't get the "so, is digital fiction like those old choose-your-own-adventure books?" question, which indicates I have not lowest-common-denominatorified my talk enough. There were more questions from the audience than the panel time would allow, and most of them were enthusiastic and nuanced. There was even a new PhD student in the group who is embarking on a similar project (I think with hypertext), so it was fantastic to finally feel like I'm not shouting to an empty room. My evangelizing efforts on behalf of digital fiction seem to be taking root, at least tiny tendrils of a sort.

There were many talks and readings, discussions of pedagogy and REF for creative writers, research methodologies, and what seemed to me an unusually high amount of therapeutic writing presentations (like poetry, these are definitely not my bag - I am fortunate to not have suffered these significant traumas - yet? - so I don't connect with them very well, I admit, and I find them often lacking in actual research value). A few stood out for me though:

Eleanor Dare, a lecturer now at Goldsmith's, shared her practice-based, multimodal, multimedia PhD research with us. There was far more there than she could fit into a 20-minute talk, but the project looks fascinating, and I must experience at least a little piece of it. The linked site provides a far better description than I could ever hope to offer, but the most important bits are:

The "formation of dynamic relationships between readers and texts"
"South is built around a series of autonomous agents who perform analytical and interpretive tasks."
Use of multiple media - software, hardware, codex, sensory theater - multiple modes within those media, and the exploration of mind-body connection, paralleling the reader-text connection.

Harvey Dingwall, a lecturer at Edinburgh College of Art, is actually an illustrator, teaching an undergraduate program on illustration. I was interested and mollified to see that he bases quite a lot of his work in similar theory to mine - multimodality, transmedia, semiotics. It was also interesting that he does not also cover formal aspects of literary analysis or theory with his illustrators (I was interested in how he might combine theories from across disciplines, as I am trying to do in teaching digital writing), but he acknowledged it's something that would probably be worthwhile if he can come up with a way to work it in.

My GW buddy Calum Kerr gave a great talk on his recent work in flash fiction (the shorty-short prose pieces, not the digital Flash fictions), and how doing NaNoWriMo inspired him to write every day (he switched to flash instead of noveling after the month was done). He's since self-published a book of these pieces (which is quite fun - go buy it), and is working on a new flash365 (one a day for a year) project. I love this mostly for the aspect of just writing something every day - something that's disposable if it sucks, and is fun and interesting if it doesn't - as well as the prompts he comes up with (song lines, titles, pictures, etc.) in order to keep going over a length of time.

Overall, it was a successful conference if only for these three bits of inspiration. I found London a bit ridiculously expensive (increased by the fact that I got there on Wednesday so I could see David Tennant in Much Ado About Nothing - well worth it), and I got lonely in addition to continuing to feel like I'm not quite in the right group of creators (there aren't enough digital writer-academics to do a whole conference, I'm thinking). I'll have to think about whether I want to shell out for this one again next year, given the expense, or explore conferences that are more electronically-oriented. We shall see. For now, success and inspiration are good enough for me.

Thoughts on @dreamingmethods Digital Writing Workshop

2011-05-08T20:37:00.003+01:00

I'm on the long train(s) ride home from Kent after a one-day digital fiction workshop with Andy Campbell (Dreaming Methods). It's the first time I've met Andy IRL - great to put a face to the name & works.

The workshop itself was set up by Peggy at East Kent Live Lit, funded by the Kent Arts Council, and she was graceful enough to let a non-Kent-resident such as me sit in. Most of the attendees were not necessarily new to digital fiction, but new to building it. They were writers, musicians, installation artists, and sometimes a combination of the above. Almost everyone save me and one other had been able to make the Friday evening session, which was an overview of digital fiction and some of Andy's background.

The morning session covered a few examples of dig-fic (from the Poole Literary Festival New Media Prize), recommended software (more on this in a minute), and resources for media files (more...). The afternoon session was more hands-on building of digital interfaces.

Recommended Software:

There were quite a few I was familiar with (Flash, Photoshop, Audacity, Notepad++), and a few that I haven't needed because I have alternative software, but I thought I'd list a few here that look totally rad to me for various reasons:

Flash alternatives - Swish and WIX (an online WYSIWYG)
Artrage - a drawing program that mimics natural art textures like painting
Miro Video Converter
AVS Media programs, including Document Converter and Video Converter
Lightworks Video Editing Suite
Coppercube for 3D world building - I have one piece at the moment that takes place in a Snow Crash-type environment (more Neuromancer than Second Life), and I've been actively not thinking about how to build it. This is absolutely the perfect solution for me here. Just goes to show that if you wait for it, it will come (thank you Heinz 57 for that valuable life lesson).

Resources:

Essentially, the tip here is to subscribe to art, video, and photography sites like artbeats.com, istockphoto.com, detonationfilms.com, and as a subscriber you will frequently be given free video, photos, and sound files to use as you like. Bonus. Also, purchase magazines like Digital Arts and Web Designer every so often - they often include download codes for media. Expands my options for images beyond flickr.com quite significantly.

As no one in the room either had Flash installed on their laptops or had Flash at all in most cases, the afternoon session was spent focusing on building open source pieces. I'm actually pretty grateful for this. Flash makes me twitchy. It's an awesome tool - it can do so many cool things, and is so customizable and slick, that I can't help but want to pet the shiny shiny toy all the time. BUT...it's a proprietary software. It's such an expensive proprietary software that it definitely creates a barrier between people who are so committed to building digital pieces they'll drain their bank account, and people who'd like to try it, but aren't certain - the latter making up about 99% of people who might be interested. And then there's the T-Rex fight between Adobe and Apple, which means no one will play in anyone else's sandbox (I'm getting twitchy about Apple products for the same reason - as I type on my MacBook Pro with my iPhone next to me - as they are shiny and work really well, but Apple are d-bags for the most part). Long story short, it was really great to see how someone else approaches this problem, and get a leg up on it.

The leg up is javascript, specifically jQuery. I've played with javascript a little bit, when needed for various web stuff, but hadn't built anything of any significance with it. We used a boilerplate Andy offered us, and build a basic piece with some basic interactivity. It was a struggle for those who have no scripting background whatsoever (as scripting always is), but I could pop right through it and see how to expand and customize the boilerplate until it's just another palimpsest like any other. I have a feeling I might like to first attempt to build my first story not in Flash as I had planned, and put it in jQuery instead. It means I don't have to always have that squicky feeling stuck to the piece because of Flash.

The boilerplate brings me to the best aspect of the workshop: the materials Andy gave us, free, no strings, just for being there and being willing to try writing digital fiction. Here's an entire DVD which includes his Resource Pack (available on his site, which I'd gotten from him a while back before getting bogged in a teaching semester), a few source files of his projects, images, sounds, videos, Flash components, and the jQuery boilerplate. With this, and enough time to explore it all, you can build some pretty stellar digital fictions. If you're at all interested in playing with digital fiction, check out the Dreaming Methods Labs, where Andy generously offers similar source code and resources.

I don't know why everyone doesn't do this. After all, technology and scripts and coding isn't (or at least, shouldn't be, IMO) proprietary. Content often is, sure, but the code to make text draggable and fadable? What's the point in keeping that a secret, when a sufficient time/effort training will lead anyone else to the exact same thing? No one will ever recreate Hamlet's language and content - why do we then hold the technological equivalent of pages sewn together secret from everyone else? I love that Andy wants to share this with other digital writers, to welcome newcomers to the art, to encourage more of it so that publishers and readers and authors will start to notice that this stuff isn't going away. We discussed this briefly at the end of the session, as well as a hope for some sort of digital writer resource center/community to make these technology more transparent and open source. Maybe it's a project for me in the future...when I'm done with all my current craziness.

Overall, it was a most excellent day - the first time I've gotten to actually sit down with anyone else who writes this stuff from story to code, and see how they work and what they like to use. It's good to know that for the most part I'm on the right track with my tools and strategies, and being able to learn from what he's already figured out will be enormously valuable to my current project. These kinds of workshops need to happen WAY more often.

Ruminations, Musings, and Other Cud-Chewing

2011-02-03T11:38:00.001Z

First, a note: This blog is moving away from the specifics of my PhD research and experiences. If anyone was interested in those, well...sorry. The work is progressing, and it's a delicate balance! Best to keep it on the DL till it's finished. :)

I do continue to have thoughts, however, about the nature of e-lit, e-publishing, digital narratives, tools.

Tools. Nick Montfort (et al) just released Curveship, which integrates interactive fiction and interactive narrating. Which is motto-speak for "it does cool stuff to allow linear storytelling or interactive nonlinear storytelling at the reader's preference". I think. I just downloaded it, and I probably won't have time to play intensely (and intently) with it for another week or two, but I've been excited about this for a while.

The blogs and mags and news-rags seem to be filling more and more with blurbs on the "new wave" of storytelling. The New Yorker's Book Bench blog was all over Choose-Your-Own-Adventures apps this week, and though that's a baby-version of interactivity, it's still good to see the big cahunas of lit start looking in this direction.

A lot of it makes me feel like I'm actually behind the curve, studying for a PhD while others are out there doing. But I keep reminding myself I enjoy the research and smarmy-smartiness of it all.

I'm looking forward to what people come up with, what I come up with. I know my mom probably won't ever be into it, but maybe someday, someone will. I can't wait to see what it's like when it's more than an artistic endeavor, building these things because we as creators love them; when people can go on a writing holiday and write an IF or Flash fiction as easily as they do a novel (tech- and skills-wise, anyway. I make no judgments about talent. Out loud. To people's faces. Much). That's the barrier at the moment: true digital literacy. Not just reading (because we're not there yet, either), but writing, creating digital interfaces. I don't know that we'll get there without some sort of mass educational movement to really understand computers and software and how they're all put together. Now, it's so split between programmers and creatives, that few of us (and I'm definitely more on the creator end of the spectrum) span both skillsets, or are interested in spanning them.

Someday, though, I have hope that e-lit (okay, IFs, because those are my babies right now) sits right up on that stage with novels and film and...uh, the stage.

Not so much teaching digital writing as teaching digital literature...

2010-04-24T15:49:00.000+01:00

I spent yesterday at the Teaching Digital Writing day at the Phoenix Digital Square in Leicester (yes, again - I seem to spend more time in Leicester than anywhere else, which is probably because Sue Thomas is a gravitational force in digital lit). I had a small role in it, in that I contributed in a teensy way, via my students, to Astrid Ensslin and Alice Bell et al's poster on teaching digital writing. Other than that, I pretty much came to network and soak in the discussions on digital writing in the classroom.

The day started off with Tim Wrightand Kate Pullinger demonstrating their recent projects, Kidmapped! and Lifelines (available only to schools), respectively. I hadn't seen Tim's work before, but I'm determined to explore it, as it pulls in nonfiction, classic fiction, as well as ideas of trespass, transgression, and participation. Kate's Lifelines, as a collaborative storytelling teaching project, would be a great thing to look at for me in my collaborative storytelling project. Unfortunately I likely won't get a chance, as it's only available for purchase by schools, not individuals. Eventually there may be an online collection of what's produced in the project, and I can take a look at that.

Tim also gave a bit of a workshop that reminded us to consider our digital readers' contexts, as far as place and platform, when creating digital work. Interesting, in that there were essentially no digital aspects to the workshop itself. It seems to go straight back to my discovery that even when writing digital texts, I still rely a lot on pencil and paper (or in this case, marker and butcher paper).

Lunch gave us an opportunity to chat with Astrid and Alice about their two-part poster, then we moved on to practical aspects of teaching digital writing. It seemed to me, however, that the entire session was centered on teaching critical evaluation of digital writing, not the writing itself. My honest opinion is that the designers and teachers in these courses, at least those who presented, aren't actually comfortable with the front end of the platforms they teach digital literature on. They can't work with them, so they don't teach them.

Sue Thomas brought up the point that English departments don't actually study literature or the creation of literature, but rather the history of literature. I agree, and the problem is that the majority of digital lit scholars are coming from a traditional literature academic background, rather than pulling from or collaborating with practice-based creators and writers. It's why there may be such a heavy emphasis on the actual text, and negligence of the visual storytelling, or even the consideration that if it doesn't have enough text, then it is not literature.

We moved on to a talk from Henry Volans, Director of Digital Publishing at Faber & Faber Publishing. He's one of the few publishers not super skeptical of the digital publishing world, and will soon be looking for print-digital and digital works. There aren't many resources online yet, and he was a bit vague on what he's looking for or expecting, and even more vague about possible business models, so we'll just have to keep an eye on Faber and see what comes out of this new digital division.

And now I'm going to sign off of here to go scan family photos for my genealogy-obsessed father.

P.S. To induce extreme jealousy for all my geek friends, these last two blog posts were composed entirely on my new iPad. Rad.

Gotta get a move on

2010-04-23T15:16:00.002+01:00

My supervisor brought to my attention today that she actually does read this thing (if anyone wonders, my supervisor is rad and awesome and the best ever. Ahem.), and that it's very interesting for her to read my post-supervisory meeting posts. And I er, have not had a moment to post anything after our semesterly meeting last week.

Sorry. Here goes.

I am becoming less nervous about these meetings, though I think I need to be watchful that I don't lull myself into thinking I'm safe. If I want to finish this PhD before my funding runs out, I'm really going to have to get on top of things. At any rate, I find it always helps my mental state of being to compile a list of what I've actually been doing, so it doesn't look like I've done nothing. The list helps me see I'm not a total slacker.

I brought in a preliminary outline of my critical thesis, and she promptly noted that each of my chapter titles contained an entire thesis. Oops. Narrowing in yet again - so now my first chapter, the most important one that explores the process of writing the stories, and my methodology from start to finish, is now my entire thesis. I suppose if I keep those other chapters on the back burner, I will have plenty of material for academic study for a long time to come.

This was the first meeting where we set hard and fast targets for my PhD work; I absolutely intend to finish by the time my GTA position runs out, which means 2012, rather than 2013. So by my supervisory meeting in September, I need to have:

5000 words of creative
3000 words of critical
Any peripherals, such as the poster noted earlier, conference papers, papers, etc.
Current drafts of the digital stories

At the moment, I feel pretty confident I can hit these targets, though I have to remember that it's only 4-5 months away, during which I have 3 more conferences to present at, crap for the retarded PGCertHE program to complete, and a truckload of marking due at the end of this semester.

I will get it done.
I will get it done.
I will get it done.

And...back to work. On task for the next week or so: the visual narrative paper based on Blade Runner.

Posters that don't involve women draped on cars

2010-04-15T00:13:00.001+01:00

Fresh off mid-semester vacation, our New Media Research Circle had a mini-poster session today. I threw together mine based on the method I'm using to take my stories from print to digital, pompously titled "From Pen to Screen: Remediating Stories from Print to Digital Media."

It's a process in development, as that 4th step you see in the image there only emerged a couple of weeks ago. It will be a major portion of my PhD writeup, far too much to go into here. The abstract gives the basic gist:

Ubiquitous and mobile applications such as SmartPhones and Tablets are attracting growing numbers of readers to digital stories. Many experienced print writers may see this trend as an opportunity to direct their storytelling skills toward an emerging genre, but lack the skills and knowledge needed to remediate their own print stories into digital form; they may also prefer a remediation methodology that begins in their comfort zone (print), and moves step-by-step toward the unknown (digital). This poster sets out a methodology designed and employed by the author during her PhD research into the topic of multimodal (print and digital) storytelling, moving the potential digital author through a step-by-step process of story analysis, media evaluation, story visualization, and remediation based on fundamental aspects of the print story such as character, theme, and tone.

Not only did the session turn out to be valuable in terms of learning how to create a poster, but in the feedback on this methodology. In just a few minutes, the group asked several questions and made several comments, all of which helped me consider a few angles I hadn't looked at before:

Section titles - "Visualize the Story" is a bit off, as "visualize" is a term that can be applied to a lot of different things. This step, adapting the print story to a visual script (an amalgam of film and game script formatting), is also a remediation. It might be worthwhile to call this step "Remediate the Story" and the last step "Realize" or "Produce the Story." I don't love the word "produce," but it's the closest I have for now.
Question: Is there any room in the process to return to the print text as needed/desired?

Yes. The construct of the progression of steps here is just that: a construct. The actual process is much more fluid. For example, in my second story (Amelia), it wasn't until I chose the medium (step 3) that it occurred to me her print narrative didn't reflect her character. I stepped back and started revisions again, with the new insight I gained from analyzing the text and brainstorming the most appropriate medium for that story.

Question: Do you find the print and digital text start to diverge at all?

Yes, but that's not a bad thing. It's actually expected, and beneficial. Some things expressed in text can't be exactly duplicated on screen, and vice versa. As I remediate, new aspects emerge from the simple process of trying to express theme, character, and story in a different mode. This makes both pieces unique, but still part of a whole. It means that a reader can experience the story in two ways, which are not duplicates of one another, but unique experiences.

Question: It seems the process really emphasizes and relies on story. Is that ever an issue?

Not so much for me, as I'm a writer. I write stories, and that's what I've always been interested in. If I were a game or website designer, it might get frustrating. But as a creative writing, the story is the most important aspect. I'm talking about "story" in my creative definition of the word: a character with a conflict. It's as simple as that; it doesn't confer restrictions beyond character and conflict. Story doesn't need a beginning, middle, and end, or a chronology, or linearity. These are print constructs, and they absolutely don't have to be forced on the digital texts.

Something that emerged as I was answering that last question: It's fascinating that my experience as a writer is (hopefully) mirroring the reader's eventual experience as they move through the storyworld. I can work on the story that interests me at the moment, in the medium of my choice. If I lose interest, or want to shift focus, I can go to another story. I may be inspired by events in a story along the process to start a new story, hyperlinking through the writing to a new character, a new conflict that intersects other stories.

My goal is to primarily have the stories themselves work linearly, and the world nonlinearly; thus the reader can exhibit the same behavior in reading the stories as I do in creating them, and even move into the creation themselves.

...and that's the exciting extent of my notes from the session, at least with regard to my own poster. It was awesome to see what others did with theirs, and why, and to see how the posters' designs mimicked their message. It's a pretty useful exercise, not only to create the poster, but also to present it and talk about it, even briefly.

Now, more conferences. Here we go!

Crowdsourcing hits Sundance

2010-03-12T16:25:00.000Z

A friend posted this short, collaborative film on Facebook the other day. It was cute, and included an actor I like, so I was amused. At first.

After exploring the hitRECord site a bit, however, I was amazed. While the short film was written and filmed the way many are - as a collaboration of the few - its final(?) iteration is the product of crowdsourcing, via members of hitRECord. Happily for my purposes, a kind user on the site mapped out a timeline of its production.

Now, this is a site created and sponsored by a pretty well-known guy. He has connections. He can fund project entry into Sundance, and he's the one who ultimately decides what gets a big-boy push and what doesn't. Not all of us can do this to this level of success.

But...

It's still an amazing example of this new sort of creativity that the Web 2.0, along with the open licensing concept, is facilitating. Some artists are letting go of this evanescent concept of copyright, letting it go fluttering away, recognizing that art can come from the controlled chaos that is crowdsourcing. Imogen Heap, Robin Sloan, and clearly Joseph Gordon Leavitt understand that a filtering system of studios and editors and publishing companies weed out the crud, sure. But sometimes, they weed out really good stuff, too, and it's been too long that we considered that an acceptable loss.

Plus, the industry is an industry now. It's not a guild, not a gathering of craftsmen. It's a machine (I'm talking both Hollywood and the publishing industry here). And what machine-made stuff makes up for in uniformity and profit margins, it loses in originality, inspiration, and the unexpected.

I've spent my day trying to come up with a term for this, a word that encapsulates this evolution of art from the soup of a planet full of minds. It doesn't simply emerge, whole, nor does everyone who participates in its creation play an equal role. It's not complete synergy leading to synthesis. I keep seeing it as an ongoing genesis, and I don't mind invoking intertextual references here to the book of Genesis.

I've always said writers (no matter the genre) are the gods of their own universes. Generally, I'm referring to characters when I say this, meaning we create these worlds and we set down people/entities into them, and watch them go, watch them interact, sometimes guiding or interfering, but never forcing them to behave like automatons.

Today, I feel I can expand that metaphor to not only include the characters in this created world, but the RL participants as well. With this new interactive and collaborative technology, participants either behave as tourists, reading and viewing the world but not changing it, or they are co-producers...eventually becoming co-generators as their original contributions shape new iterations of the storyworld.

There exists a continuum on this idea of storyworld genesis. On the one end (let's call it the far right, shall we?), you have what we now call the "traditional" model of author/creator. They are a totalitarian god, creating the world, letting you see it (and most times not even all of it, if you consider the process of creation, drafts, and cuts part of the whole work), but never letting you alter it, never letting you actually touch it. They love their copyrights and DRM, don't they?

On the other end (you called it, the far left. And yes, I'm aware of the mixed theological/political metaphors. It's not a...perfect metaphor), you have those oh-so-generous gods whose art is your art. They don't even put their names on it. They throw it out like candy at a parade, like socialists Marx would be truly proud of. Their work is communal.

Now, most of us, even those who lean left, will fall somewhere in the middle. We want people to know when we've created something spectacular, or when we've contributed something amazing. Note the attachment people have to their handles in online forums, which are generally anonymous, apart from the cyberidentity you create in your online interactions. Most contributors to crowdsourcing projects don't get anything out of them, other than the satisfaction of seeing their name attached. That doesn't mean crowdsourcing isn't attractive to the participants, or successful (Wikipedia, anyone?)

So, yes, I want my name on my storyworld. But I also want to see what other people can do inside it, beyond the feeble limits of my own imagination.

Postscript: For a fully fictional demonstration of this concept of the tourist vs. co-generator participant, see Jasper Fforde's novels. In his world, people can enter books as tourists. If, however, they enter the original manuscript, their interactions within that world alter all the copies of that text forever. Loved the concept then, still love it now.

#1 tool for digital creativity: a #2 pencil

2010-03-05T17:38:00.000Z

I've finally done it. I have entered nerdhood, via the rather embarrassing route of sustaining a significant injury from too much time spent in front of a computer screen. My osteopath was beside herself.

It was time well spent, however, as I managed to update my entire website, form the platform for my work in the next few years, and gain a lot more knowledge about the software I'll be using to create my digital stories.

But the truly interesting thing I learned by using new software and rebuilding my site from the ground up was this: I need better pencils.

As it turns out, I'm rather crap at designing unless I have a pencil (not a pen) and paper. I couldn't even begin putting the pages together until I had thumbnail sketches and hastily drawn scribbles and lists in a notebook in front of me. My sole mechanical pencil broke one evening, and I found myself unable to continue working.

In a related episode, I attended a lecture this week that was not up my alley at all, and so I pulled out my little notebook I carry for task lists, and I had a massive brainstorm. I outlined entire sections of my critical dissertation, had a breakthrough idea about what form it should take, and got excited about my work all over again. Yet this afternoon when I sat down at my big, beautiful 27-inch monitor, my brain went kerpluff. I couldn't even keep track of the current task I was on, much less think of all the others I need to get through this week. Computer on: brain off.

What does this mean for my process? I don't really know. It may be that I need to force myself away from even the digital world of my iPhone (on which I am composing this entry) and sit in a quiet corner for an hour once a week just to let my brain be one with its own neurons, rather than trying to compete with silicon.

Underground and in the net

2010-03-03T13:35:00.001Z

I spent 3 days in London this weekend, and almost all of it can be classed research. Amazing.

Friday was spent entirely on the Underground - no joke, I saw sky only when the trains emerged aboveground - taking photographs to use (likely much altered) in my digital fiction project. I know, I know, there are a ton of subway station and train photos available on Flickr, etc., but as a train system is the foundation for my work I really wanted the experience of taking the photos myself. Particularly as it's one discipline in creating digital stories that I do have experience with (learning all the coding, web building, and networking has been humbling). So I dusted off my old film camera (yes, film is still better for art photog, in my mind), and trolled the Underground.

I don't have the film back yet, but I do want to note the experience of that portion of the process. For one, I got tired. I spent 5 hours taking pictures, and I don't recall ever being so sick of a subject. I've spent days out in the open at Ghost Ranch, taking far more than 6 rolls of film (plus some digital lomo), spending hours in a darkroom, and I was tired, sure, but I didn't grow nauseated at the sight of red cliff faces or sighing cottonwoods. Maybe the air underground gets to you - maybe just being enclosed for so many hours, under the earth, got to me. I didn't care anymore about stairs or escalators or trains or platforms with Art Deco walls.

I also didn't care about anything playing in the West End, or anything else advertised throughout the system. I was bombarded with so much advertising throughout the day, I actually started to hate plays and movies and albums and health clubs. I really hated the way they masked the stations, particularly the lovely ones that are more than easily-cleaned plastic. Meh.

But...I loved working with film again. I still have far too many rolls of Velvia 50 unexposed in my cabinet (no room in teeny UK fridges for film storage). I need to get out with it more. Maybe when I'm home, where sun actually exists.

The second day of the trip was primarily spent at the Decode Digital Design Sensations exhibit at the V&A Museum. Amazing. My particular favorite was the Venetian Mirror, which reflected you, but on a pretty severe time delay. You had to wait for your image to appear, and it was not as you are now, but as you were minutes ago. And it seemed to only capture an image every few seconds, rather than recording continuously - if you moved a hand, for instance, the hand would eventually disappear, then fade in in its new position a while later, leaving you an amputee for long moments.

I also loved Oasis, which allowed you to "let the light be so" on a little world, and watch it evolve from a bubble of cells to fish and lobsters and other creatures. In Dune, a hallway full of lighted shafts responded like happy little Alice-in-Wonderland plants to your movement, and Gold drew you as a constellation of stars, its tune changing with your movement. So many of the pieces were exciting, fun, engaging, thought-provoking. I wanted every one of them to come with a nerd telling me exactly how it was done, but our resident nerd (let's call him "Sky", shall we?) was laid up for the weekend and couldn't make it, so I had to spend some brain cells figuring out what I could for myself.

It was a truly inspiring exhibition, not the least because it was incredible to see both children and adults being equally engaged (and excited!) by something in an art museum.

Our next day at the Tate Modern was perhaps less equally engaging across the spectrum, but we did get to see the "No Ghost Just a Shell" collection display. We sat in an anime character's personal space, on her furniture, on her street. She talked to us about her life, as she never gets to in the originating anime. She read to us from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was a little mind-blowing - an avatar created from a minor literary character reading from a story that ponders what it means to be human. I love how she came to life in so many ways, through so many artists' visions, and I love that they entirely skirted the question of copyright - did these artists have the right to co-opt this character from someone else's published story? Were they harming that originating story, or were they expanding it? For myself, I would think it a tragedy were the anime's author to sue the collective and have the art removed/destroyed. It would be murder, to say nothing of the loss of the story.

I can only hope to aspire to these levels of awesome. I'm just doing my best for the ballclub at the moment.

These are not the transgressions you're looking for...

2010-02-19T11:22:00.001Z

According to my iMac widget dictionary (reliable source? who knows...), the verb 'transgress' means:

to infringe or go beyond the bounds of (a moral principle or other established standard of behavior)

I'm putting together an abstract for a conference on transgressions in literature, even though my initial reaction to this conference's CFP was 'none of this applies to me - I don't do any sort of transgression.' I create stories. Okay, sure, I'm trying to create them in various media, which is sort of new. But it's not infringing. Perhaps it can be seen as crossing boundaries...and I guess that's where it enters the realm of transgression.

But as I brainstorm the paper, I keep thinking my colleague SH is correct: How can there possibly be transgressions in literature, in art? Isn't the entire purpose of creating something worthwhile to transgress what has come before?

Note I say 'something worthwhile'. I'm a PhD student: we get it drilled into our shrunken skulls that our final output must deliver new and/or unique knowledge to the field in which we study. That means we can't write another Dan Brown or Danielle Steele novel and expect it to be considered worthy of an advanced degree. We're intended to transgress. And as that intention is there, how can what we do be termed transgression?

It can't, of course, but we enjoy the wordplay all the same. To me, however, this so-called transgression is simply art. It's creation. It's experimentation, maybe, but I don't even like applying the word 'experimental' to it, because in my mind experimental=no one wants to read it.

Even when I sit down to write a 'traditional' short story or novel, I'm experimenting. I'm starting with a set of known values (a character, maybe, or an idea of a plot), I'm putting them through a process of testing (letting the story unfold on paper), and examining the results (the story that emerges). Every piece of writing is an experiment. Every piece of art is a transgression...and if it's all transgression, then none of it is.

That's the argument SH will be making in his 3rd of our proposed panel. I'll be talking about what I call 'invited transgressions' in work, and how digital technology makes it possible for the creator and the participants to approach art the way we approach life - as a collaborative, networked, potentially messy endeavor with no real way to know how it will turn out. It opens that experimental process of creation to people beyond the original author, invests the participants in the project, and offers something worthwhile to those participants as well as other readers.

Is it transgression if it's invited? If it's intended? And do we care, if the result is something worthwhile?

Straight Lines Get Broken: The Issues of Linear Storytelling in a Digital Environment

2010-02-15T12:46:00.000Z

Saying straight lines are bad isn't going to suit well with Amy, my very OCD friend and colleague. But when it comes to stories told in digital environments, I'm discovering it's true. Those of us from more traditional writing backgrounds - stories, novels - tend to think of stories in terms of plot and character development.

Go figure.

But people exploring stories online or in mobile or locative displays often aren't thinking of them as linear stories at all. They're exploring, as they'd explore a playground or theme park. We're doing them - and ourselves - a disservice if we either A) force them along a linear path, or B) create a linear path and then break it up, offering it to them out of order and in pieces.

This discussion came up during the Transliteracy conference in Leicester last week, through the various presentations and discussions over the course of the day. Gareth Howell discussed McCloud's concept of closure (readers making narrative leaps in the spaces that exist between the panels of comics), and applied it to online readers. We don't work our way through a Wikipedia entry or someone's Facebook page in a linear fashion; rather, we pluck out the interesting bits, follow links, on our PCs, on our mobiles, across platforms and pages and structures. There is no linear progression because the pieces are disparate, without a central creator. And yet we work our way through them from point to point all the same, creating the story, as it were, within our own mental spaces.

So why are so many digital storytellers stuck into this idea of a linear story with beginning, middle, and end? Because we see them as stories, as linear pages converted to code, rather than places.

The point was brought home to me during the practitioner panel I attended, where the stories that were presented both started with a completely linear base, but were delivered to the readers/visitors in nonlinear pieces. The authors were tied to that linear structure, but happy to play with a nonlinear delivery. They were excited about reader contributions and crowdsourcing stories, but unhappy with the results, even citing the need for the author as editor to act as a filter. (A Million Penguins was referred to here, as a fully collaborative novel, where the process was fun and interesting, but the result was a mess.)

Sitting in the audience, I just kept thinking "It's not that these stories don't work because the reader-contributors aren't as good as we are (which is what the call for an editor seems to imply) - it's that we're approaching this in the wrong way. It's not the story that's king in these environments - it's the environment itself."

Look at the success of online games - the world is created for the players, and the players form the story. Why is Lord of the Rings such a popular trilogy? The story is painfully slow and disorganized, but the world is amazingly rich. People want to be in the world, the story bedamned.

At the end of my panel, we had a good little discussion about the "book" (I'd say digital story) as a place, rather than an object. We were talking about monetization, but in this post I'm talking about the digital story as a place, a city, a world, where readers can play. Second Life works because people build their stories within the world; my idea with my project is to build a storyworld where people want to play, where they want to contribute, where they want to live and create stories of their own.

One person likened the book to an organism rather than a place - arguing that it takes on a life of its own. I agree with this, but I see it as both, the way a city can be considered an organism that grows and takes shape, because of the smaller organisms and communities that make it up. That's what I want my 'story' to be.

Visualizing the Story from Text to Screen: Presentation at Transliteracy Conference

2010-02-15T12:15:00.001Z

This is the presentation Amy Chambers and I gave at the Transliteracy Conference, complete with annotations for those who weren't there to hear us rush through the topic in our short allotted time.

Visualizing the Story from Text to Screen on Prezi

Transliteracy Conference 2010

2010-02-15T12:05:00.001Z

One - The Phoenix Square Digital Media Centre is the epitome of a British location, in that you are only capable of getting there if you already know how to get there. Next time I come, I'm helicoptering in.

Two - It's a nice digital center, as far as I can see. Nicely sized multi-purpose screening rooms. And the building's green, which always gives it plus points in my mind.

Three - The conference. Which is the thing, isn't it? Themes I picked up on:

Transliteracy is transdisciplinary. We started with an ethnographer, followed by a geographer...
Ongoing Twitter feeds (#transliteracy) and live blog posts - Although I've done some live blogging myself, I don't really know how much these add to the overall experience. It's almost distracting, and the Twitter feeds are generally scattered, surfacey, and lacking in true discourse. It's mostly the pretense of discourse in byte-size format.

Highly interested in Gareth Howell's talk, looking at comics as a model for online narrative. He used Scott McCloud's idea of closure (how the reader "reads" the spaces between the panels, and the functions those panels serve for the narrative itself), and applied it to web narratives. He looked at those web narratives as different panels, exploring the spaces between in the forms of:

site to site
device to device
time to time
media to media
author to author

He touched on what I'd call the attention issue - depending on site, device, media, and author, a web narrative 'reader' may be applying 5% attention to the narrative (i.e., a tweet forwarded to your mobile), or close to 100% (sitting down at the computer and focusing entirely on the narrative). We don't read books with this varying level of attention from start to finish - it's relatively even. We flip through magazines, and attention levels vary much more in this shorter form with many different panels/lexias/nodes. Perhaps we're going awry even with the term 'literacy', because it lead us to compare transliteracies to the literacy of literature in the form of codices.

I was sad that the practitioner panels were the only ones done in parallel, so I didn't get to see half of them. I'm hoping that when the videos of the presentations go up, I'll get to share the experience belatedly of the panel I missed. The panel I attended included Kate Pullinger, discussing her and Chris Joseph's Flight Paths, which is in a small way similar to my overall project in that they posted a base story (consisting of 5 episodes), and then crowdsourced for open contributions.

I've always been concerned about the interface for Flight Paths - while it's easy to manage from a webmaster perspective, it's difficult to really get lost in as a reader. They don't interlink, and aren't presented in any visual order or structure. I asked Kate about it, but she was perhaps the wrong person to ask, as it's the story and the writing process that really concern her. Though I did love her response - that the contributions wound up mirroring the brainstorming that goes on in a writer's head as she starts to work on a piece. They're in fits and starts and bits and pieces, eventually converging to form a whole. I'd argue that on the site, the contributions never really converge, and maybe that's my problem with them, but I like the idea.

Dr Martin Rieser presented his group project The Third Woman, a locative, interactive (via mobile) film they placed in Vienna. I like the idea of the real-world interaction (something we're working on with the Arduino project), but I found it...disappointing to see how tied all of these practitioners are to the foundation of a completely linear story. The reader/experiencer (god, we really need a term here) can't possibly experience the story in a linear fashion, so why do we create stories that are linear from the get-go? (More on this in an upcoming post.)

I'll post our presentation in a different post, but here I want to say we were a little sidetracked by the fact that we weren't quite in the right panel. Our paper was really practitioner-based (though a lot of that angle got cut off by the extremely short time for presentations, especially considering some chairs let people ramble on for 25 minutes or more), but we wound up in the middle of a discussion on copyright issues and monetization.

My thoughts on those could fill yet more blog posts, and probably will, but here they are in brief: we're too married to the idea of author copyright in order to make a living off what we do. I've definitely seen a lot of successful practitioners working with more open Creative Commons copyrights, so it's not tied into monetization. Also, we can't force the revolution. It will come when it comes, and we can't predict what the best or prevalent model will be. The MP3 revolution came about because Apple produced a product that tied everything together, and became the prevalent model. Was it the best model? Maybe not. Kindle's doing something similar for digitized books. Something will come along that will do the same for digital stories. Will we like it? That's yet to be seen.

Overall, I felt it was a very useful conference. I do very much wish it had been spread over two days - so much was packed into one day that there wasn't much chance for full discussion of papers or for the networking that is so crucial for these get-togethers. Maybe next year.

On the Up Side

2009-10-27T16:04:00.002Z

I have "Blog Entry" on my To-Do List today, among other things. It seems I have not been very good about posting in the past couple of weeks, in addition to not having been very good at lots of other things.

The issue really is that I was awarded a teaching assistantship at the very last minute before classes started, and I've spent the first month of term getting up to speed, as well as getting all my little freelance gigs out the door (still working on some of those).

So I haven't done much actual research (read: writing) lately.

That ends today, as I have several paragraphs down now on the first story of my PhD, and I've started outlining the next paper I've got planning (on applying cinematic adaptation of visual narrative to digital fiction - it makes sense in my head). The story started forming at 5 a.m. this morning, which made for a rather restless sleep as I plunked a sentence or two every so often into my iPhone. The character is growing.

Other notable moments over the past few weeks:

Karin Kukkonen (Tampere/Mainz) came to Bangor to give a research talk on the study of comic books. It was a really well-organized talk (using prezi.com rather than PPT, thankfully), and she handed out copies of her bibliography, which I think everyone should do. I was glad to see that most of what I'm looking into WRT visual narrative was there on her list - some confirmation I'm barking up the right trees, anyway.
I had my first experience with annotated bibliographies, as I was required to submit one for my supervisor meeting this month. I had to look them up (the OWL has a good article). Thanks to my OCD and the fact that I've used Zotero to track my resources from the start, I didn't have to create it from scratch. I think the AB might be pretty useful to me, especially as I've split it into sections according to what area the research falls into (critical, creative, specific papers, etc.). The SCSM PGs have started a collection of ABs on our wiki, which should be a good resource for us in the future.
I'm gathering a lot of cool info on e-publishing and writer-directed publishing projects (like Robin Sloan's Kickstarter Project and Cory Doctorow's model, among others). Hoping to have a paper out of it next summer.

And I think that's about all I have. Hopefully the research gets into full swing this week, and I'll have more to add soon. Until then, consider me writing.

ELD 2.0: A "Card Catalogue" for the Web Generations

2009-10-04T13:29:00.006+01:00

The portion of the blogosphere devoted to digital/new media writing and e-publishing is filled with concerns, despairing, and a truckload of theories about how this emerging (emerged?) literary genre is to be organized, recognized, distributed, and brought into the canon of literature.

The importance of creating/accepting a canon for any given genre has been discussed much, as has the difficulty of establishing a central depository for works that often have no physical form. The technology is evolving quickly - works that are considered part of the canon are often just old enough that modern machines can't run the files, like a collection of the world's greatest films on Beta tapes.

Concerns have also flown about who exactly is to do this deciding. In the past, we (humans in general) have left canon-building to the scholars. Not even film or novels, so closely tied as they are to box office numbers and bestseller lists, derive their canons from public opinion. Blade Runner was a box office flop, and The Da Vinci Code has now been read by everyone on the planet. Merit is not tied to profit.

But Web 2.0 has a different culture, a leveling culture for those who participate in it. You don't have to have a string of letters after your name to promote good work anymore, to recognize it, to review it, to consult with peers.

The Electronic Literature Directory is a depository for e-lit that takes the idea of a peer-reviewed canon, and brings it forward into this 2.0 generation. The interface is sleek, with little flash and dazzle to A) take away from the creative works in the collection, or B) distract from the purpose of the site.

The works that are listed in the directory are not limited to those that a committee - or a librarian - decides have merit. Membership to the site is open to any and all interested parties, and those parties can create entries for works directly on the site. No making requests of the keepers of the collection. Also, no whining about what is and isn't included.

Previously, the best we could do to find digital work was to scroll through lists, follow blogs, hope for recommendations from a dozen different sources, or rely on tagging systems based on a set of terminology that has not yet solidified in the digital literature field. I know I for one have spent hours browsing through e-lit pieces, to find very few relevant to the topic or area I'm interested in.

The method for finding works streamlines that hunt-and-peck method. Yes, there is a search engine. But the key item is the tag cloud - now so ubiquitous because of its usefulness on blogs and websites - that is really the dominant visual of the home page. Users can zero in on the key words, generally genre-indicators. For more refinement, users can conduct a search on a combination of tags.

The goal of the site - the scholarly pursuit side of it - is to have each posted work reviewed by an ELD editor (these editors are chosen by the ELO organizing group from scholars and artists in the field), as well as a system of peer-to-peer network reviews. This is not to be an Ebert-type thumbs-up or -down sort of critical review, but more a brief analysis of what the reader/user will find when they enter into the work.

Members are free to offer their own reviews and comments on the same page. This system of reviews, utilizing both scholarly input and that of a general public, is not entirely new - after all, Amazon uses Publishers Weekly reviews as well as customer reviews. It's purpose here, however, is to generate discussion on the work in question, and to establish a groundwork for an e-lit canon.

This review system is something that has been pushed and discussed much in just the past couple of weeks (here, here, here, and yeah, here), and here it is, live and in the beta. ELD's system might not incorporate the hierarchy that has been discussed, but it does have an advantage in the simplicity of the peer-to-peer network. Like much of the Web, it places all members on a level-playing field - something of a fresh breeze when value is often dictated by editors or accountants.

Overall, from my standpoint as a new media writer (you see how fluid our terminology still is? Geez), from my standpoint as a new media scholar, and from my standpoint as a member and potential reviewer of the site, I think this is a great foundation for success. It will build, and it will by necessity become more complex, and will evolve as the genre evolves. In five years, something may prove even more useful than the tag cloud, much as search engines replaced card catalogues. At the moment, this interface gives the best potential for the various paths e-lit may take.

My one concern about the ELD - about any collection of e-lit, really - is that they are not libraries. To keep with the library analogy, the ELD is a card catalogue. It contains information about the works, and points to their locations, but it does not collect and preserve them in any real sense.

Rather, they link to the works on outside networks, on the internet. What happens when the artist/writer moves to another institution and loses their server space? What happens when the creators of these pieces pass on, and their domains revert back to the public? How will these works of art, works of literature, be preserved?

Until we work out a solution to this, e-lit will remain an evanescent art. The poetry of Virgil and Homer could not be passed on to future generations (and okay, arguably, what was passed down wasn't actually the poetry of Virgil and Homer...but academic arguments aside) until it could be fixed to paper and preserved. For every passage in Homer and every quotation from Aristotle, there are thousands - millions - of works that are lost to us.

The problem with e-lit at the moment is that it is ALL impermanent, not just some of it. ALL of it.

And I've gotten off-track. Anyway. Visit the ELD. Sign up. Become a member, post your favorite works, review them. Build e-lit to the point we can get some funding for an E-Library of Congress or something.

Art and Story

2009-10-04T12:43:00.006+01:00

My plan for yesterday was to spend the entire day immersed in the beta for the Electronic Literature Directory's new site, and post about it here. Unfortunately, I woke up feeling as though gnomes had scoured my throat with steel wool, and had then smacked me between the eyes with a sledgehammer. It was all I could do to hold my head up.

So I didn't. I whined a bit until the husband left to do some work, and then I plugged in the 3-hour "Dangerous Days: Making of Blade Runner" DVD extra. I'm in the midst of thinking about how visual storytelling can add depth to the narrative, and as Blade Runner is such a key narrative in terms of visual storytelling in the film medium, I thought I'd write a paper on it with another PhD in my department.

In between bouts of passing out, then waking up and having to rewind and rewatch segments, I gained a lot of information about how the film was made, how the story was put together, who contributed what, what the thought processes were behind certain choices (most came down to either "Ridley said so" or "we couldn't afford X, so we did Y"), etc. There's been a ton written about BR, of course, and I'm looking forward to it.

What really got me thinking, however, was a comment my husband picked up on toward the end of the doc. One of the filmmakers was talking about adding in the voiceover to the original theatrical release - the voiceover that had been in the original script, that Harrison Ford said was shite, and Ridley Scott agreed, so they never put it in.

But when the edit came through, and the test audiences came out of the screenings with the "I don't get it" look on their faces, the suits said "Do the voiceover, or the film will flop - no one will get it otherwise." Scott said, yeah, okay, sure. (BTW, it's really funny to listen to the tapings of the voiceover sessions - Ford thought it was utterly asinine, and was not silent about it.)

The filmmaker, talking about it on the DVD, said what they'd wound up with was an art film, not a money-making theatrical hit. It made sense to me, but my husband asked, "What exactly is an art film?"

And of course, as when anyone asks you to define something you believe you know perfectly well how to define, I was flabbergasted.

After a moment, I said, "It's essentially something that has great meaning for the maker, and in film generally has so much depth that the story is actually secondary. The depth in the visuals, or the combination of audio and visual, is the point - not the plot. Story is essentially sacrificed for the sake of the art, the effect."

He took that on, no problem. But it made me think: what is it we've been doing with digital fiction? We've been creating art. We appreciate it, and other scholars and artists appreciate it. But the general public? Nah. The conceit is too much when they're looking for entertainment.

The film industry hit mainstream fairly early - they had to; filmmaking is fracking expensive. If they didn't have a way to make money back, the whole art would have gone under. But yeah, they still make art films. Not as many, without the big budgets, but they still make them because there's still a place for them.

Digital fiction, on the other hand, is generally not terribly expensive. Most of us can create our work with the tools we already have at hand - a computer, maybe a software package or two. We don't need investors, and we don't necessarily have a bottom line, so we create digital fiction that has meaning and depth to us. Cool.

But so much of the blogging I see about digital fiction is concerned with how we start to make a living off it. If you can't make a living as an artist, it remains a niche art. The best digital writers, so far, still offer their work for free. Even painters and other fine artists have a hope of gallery shows and print sales.

For those of us interested in bringing it to the forefront of storytelling genres - to stand on equal footing with film, book, and play - we need to keep the story at the forefront. We need to find ways to create depth without it obscuring the story (as they did with Blade Runner). The neon signs in the film had meaning - they're not just collections of Japanese or Chinese characters. That provides depth - that provides art. But it didn't stand in the way of story. It enhanced and bolstered it, so that by that final scene, when Roy Batty is dying in the rain, the dove flying from his hand, the audience lives in that completely constructed world, and feels empathy for a mere machine.

Story is still king, yo.

Ground-up Projects

2009-08-31T11:32:00.003+01:00

I stumbled upon an online story a couple of months ago through one of the digital fiction feeds I actually pay attention to. It was a really fun, neat little story, and I subscribed to the author's feed because I wanted to read more of his work.

That first story was completely free online and on various readers (Kindle included). It was a story that used elements of the new digital world, but was essentially a straightforward print story online. Nothing incredibly innovative, just good writing. It was fairly popular, though, to date generating 72 comments (not bad for a non-commercial, non-controversial post).

I didn't get any further posts from that feed for quite some time. The second story that came out was under a different model - the Kindle version was for sale, and once 100 Kindle copies had sold, he would release the free online version. It took only a few days for the free version to go up.

After that, he began a new endeavor: a not-yet-written novel (novella, really) based on the first short story. He launched a project at Kickstarter, using a pledge system. If you're interested in the project, you pledge $3/11/19/29/39 based on different package levels for the book. A $3 pledge would earn you a PDF of the book, an $11 pledge the PDF and hard copy, etc. He set a goal of $3500 by November - if the goal were raised, he'd start and finish the project. If not, no worries, for any party - he wouldn't do the project, and the backers would not have to part with any money.

It's the first time I've really seen a fiction writer guarantee themselves the cost of their work is covered, and indeed offering a profit. It's also the first time I've seen a project like this offer different levels of satisfaction depending on pledge level.

For one thing, it significantly increases the readers' eventual level of emotional investment in the final story. You were in on it from the beginning! Your pledge helped bring it into existence in the first place. As an investor, you are far more likely to talk about it to your friends, to post about it on FaceBook (and thus do the lion's share of the word of mouth marketing that is so very important in start-up ventures). In fact, the $39 pledge level was the most frequently chosen - it includes several copies of the book, so you can give some to your friends. Brilliant. The fact that so many people went for this option over the much easier $3 or $11 levels shows that people want to be intimately involved in things like this.

As an author, it gives you immediate feedback on your work, your relationship with your audience, your impact upon them. We spend so much time not knowing if anyone is interested in our work, if anything is really worth doing. This project shows the author, before he's even started, that yes, this work is actually worthwhile.

It also skipps over the emotionally traumatizing agent/editor submission (and primarily, rejection) process. You go straight to your audience. Let's face it, audiences are far more forgiving than agents and editors are (just look at Dan Brown's novels and the success of G.I. Joe). Rather than filtering through a gatekeeper system (consisting of one, maybe two people who may or may not be in a good mood the day they read your work, or who may not share your tastes in genre, etc.), you go straight from author to reader. What could be better than that?

Furthermore, this takes the concept of self-publishing and adds some legitimacy to it. You didn't write a book, get rejected from every agent and publisher in the world, and then decide to give them the middle finger and publish it anyway. You presented the concept to your readers, and they opened their wallets to support you. They gave money - that's something that any agent or publishing company will pay attention to.

You'll find that if you can get a legit publisher, almost any agent will take you on (with easy dollar signs in their eyes). I'd bet that if you show publishers your record of successful sales to readers, that would work just as well. After all, under this model, he'll sell at least 1167 copies of his book, with no remainders (I assume a print-on-demand self-publishing model). When publishers put out a novel, they have no such 100% sales expectation.

Of course, there's no reason he'd ever have to go to a publisher, unless he wants to, or unless his popularity grows to such a massive scale he actually needs the big boys to handle it. As an author, there's nothing wrong with embracing this model as a long-term solution.

It's definitely something I want to explore further, and maybe even try to implement myself. I'd like to see if other authors are trying this, and what level of success they are having. I'd like to see what other types of projects are working through this model, and what the reader reactions are. It's a pretty wealthy area for paper topics and further discussion.

The only question is: will the final work be worth the pledge? I suppose we'll find out.

Names, Dammit

2009-08-27T21:44:00.001+01:00

Neil Gaiman got an interesting question at the reading last week: how does he come up with such wonderful names? Coraline was a typo (he misspelled Caroline on a letter, and thought the result was lovely). Richard Mayhew was a combo of Richard Curtis (director of Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral, among others), and a friend whose last name was Mayhew. The character suited his namesakes in his sort of bumbling, unexpected charm. Nobody Owens comes from the verse that appears in the book, a line including "nobody owns".

These names seem easy, particularly to an author as clever as Gaiman. But he did reveal that some names don't come easily, and he searches and searches and searches until inanimate objects like chairs seem to offer suitable monikers.

For me, this is how it is every single time I need to name something. I once had a ferret named Ferret-head. (Best ferret I ever had, by the way.) I keep the US Census Bureau's list of names (sorted by male, female, and surnames) bookmarked for when I'm writing, as well as this giant webpage full of names and their meanings from cultures around the world. I can spend hours trying to find THE PERFECT NAME, and come up with Charlie Townend. Blah.

Often, I don't bother - my short stories often have completely unnamed characters. One recently was named after the place where I get my hair cut.

I want to have characters with snappy, memorable names. Names people remember, like Arthur Dent, like Gus McCrae, like Fat Charlie. I suppose, on paper, those names look fairly ordinary too - it's the unbelievably rich characters behind the names that make them memorable.

Okay, then, I suppose I'll just have to strive to be a better writer. Hmm. Tricky.

Telling Stories Around the Campfire: There's Always One Guy Who Rocks

2009-08-25T14:44:00.004+01:00

I went up to the Edinburgh Festival last week, mostly to hear Neil Gaiman read (yes, again). It also meant that I bought far too many books, more than I'd given myself leave to purchase. I should have expected it, of course, but there you go. The to-be-read stack next to my place at the dining room table is now quite towering and somewhat precarious, but it's full of good stuff.

The first thing I read was my new copy of Gaiman's Neverwhere, which was different from my current crap edition in that he'd compiled and edited the various British and American versions that were out there to create the "Author's Preferred Text." How could I not get it, when even the non-author's preferred text is one of my favorite books of all time, and the reason I'm writing what I'm writing, studying what I'm studying? That thing fracking launched me.

Anyway, it's been a while since I read an "adult" Gaiman book, what with the recent popularity of his books aimed primarily at kids, namely Coraline and The Graveyard Book. Good god, the writing is beautiful. The narrative provides so very much characterization, so many twists and turns of phrase. Now that I've heard Gaiman read so much of his own work, I can hear his storyteller's voice in the text, the wry looks up at the audience, the flat tones of sarcasm, the characters' voices right in key.

Comparatively, I feel like my writing is dry, dull. I focus so much on externals - actions, dialogue, distanced descriptions, that I don't think my voice has the same connection for the reader that Gaiman's work does. I don't feel like it has that wryness, that feeling that you're sitting next to a very talented storyteller while they weave a tale for you that will keep you captivated long after the campfire has burned to ashes.

For one thing, I'm not a very wry person, not particularly witty. I wonder if it's a British thing, because if you compare American comedy to British comedy, the Brits come off as much more erudite, and they can do more with the language in little twists and turns. Americans, we're so in your face, full of one-liners and broad jokes. The subtle wit we love so much from Brit authors like Gaiman, Douglas Adams, and Terry Pratchett, just doesn't come natural to us.

Perhaps it can simply serve as a reminder that narrative doesn't have to be stark, stripped down. While I adore Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants", I know that level of terseness gets pretty exhausting in longer works.

My efforts to write 3000 words a day are also helping me in this - I feel freer to expand my rough drafts, to keep writing, to worry about cutting extraneous prose later. Maybe in all the thousands of words I'm generating over these few weeks, I'll find something that makes my voice more than just stage directions. Maybe I'll develop my own style as a storyteller, one that makes my readers want to hear me read every word myself, something that makes them stay out until the campfire is out and the stars are slipping away.

The End, the Means, They're All Big Deals

2009-08-17T10:26:00.000+01:00

I'm sure I've written this post before, and I probably will write it again, but I'm such a dope I seem to always be forgetting about this issue. It helps me to reiterate it, and maybe some writer on some random Google search will come across it and take something home from it. Who knows.

I teach beginner writers a lot, and they always ask me about advice they've gotten from writing books or other writers with regard to process. They think they absolutely should be writing X number of words, every day, at the same time. That it should all come out perfect in the first draft, and that writers who are published are just amazingly talented geniuses.

I don't know how much they absorb of what I say, but I try my damnedest to shatter these illusions. I talk about planners and "pantsers" (those who fly by the seat of their pants, never knowing what will come next). I talk about notebooks, about habits, about writing a few words every day. That some of us can get up at 5 a.m. every single morning and write for two hours before we go to our day jobs, and others write in bipolar fits and bursts.

They're all happy to find they can develop their own process, but I usually don't have them around long enough to discover what those processes wind up being. So when I think about the writing process, I tend to only think about my writing process.

I get into such a rut about how I write, I can't imagine anyone could do it differently. If they do, it certainly can't be as good. Yes, I am alone and isolated a bit much for my own good.

But a conversation I had the other day reminded me that the writing world does not revolve around me. Harsh, I know.

I mentioned my current goal of writing 3000 words a day for the next 6 weeks, and my writer colleague nearly fell out of his chair. He felt that was a gargantuan task, but I, after several years of NaNoWriMo experience, think it's a great way to get first drafts finished. I like the revision part much better, you see.

He said he once determined to write a novel by a certain date, writing 500 some-odd words every day. It nearly killed him, literally - he required heart medication.

As we delved deeper, we discovered other differences. He must have every word perfect before he can move forward to the next. I'm likely to just throw in a pair of brackets, i.e., [some sort of gray thing], so I can fix it later.

I see the story as a film in my head - I have to transcribe it as quickly as possible, or it will move on without me and I'll miss significant chunks. He doesn't see the story visually at all - to him, the text and the characters' emotions are everything.

I start with an idea, usually a broad theme, but must focus on a character with a conflict and a broad outline (or just a direction) to start writing. He takes the theme and runs with it.

I know others have varying differences: one author I know can write the 3000 words a day, but she doesn't work from an outline beyond some ideas she works out the night before as she's falling asleep. I'd be Ed Norton in Fight Club if I tried that.

I may be working on a joint grant sometime in the future on multimodal creativity, essentially developing a software for writers, new media writers, and multimodal creators to be able to work and develop a project all within one platform. In order to do that, I'm going to have to become very familiar with the wide range of processes people engage to get their work done.

I'm looking forward to that, to the motivation it provides when I find people can work faster and better than I do, to the simple understanding of the ways creative pieces emerge. After all, the end product is generally in a similar package and format - it's how we all get there that's different each time.

It's a big part of the practice-based research discussions that are ongoing among creative industries academics - that not only is the end product important, so is the method for getting there. The experience of creating, and our shared understanding of that, is just as worthy an academic topic as is structuralist discourse.

I suppose I'll have to write a dissertation chapter on it. Just not today.

The Arduino: Bringing Interactivity Out of the Computer

2009-08-14T14:10:00.004+01:00

I was invited to sit in on a talk today in the School of Computer Sciences. Yes, I was the only woman there. We won't dwell on that.

What I will dwell on is my introduction to this totally rad geek toy. I'm not a computer scientist, not even a computer expert on an amateur level. I'm more of a high-end user: I love finding out what I can do with my electronic devices, and playing with them, but I don't (yet?) have in-depth knowledge like programming, building, hacking, anything like that.

I might just want to learn now, however.

The talk started by introducing something that it seems a lot of electronic geeks know and use already: the Arduino. The Arduino, and many devices like it, is a small electronic device, essentially a little computer, consisting of a tiny processor, a serial port, a power port, a USB port, and two sets of digital (one can also do analog) input/output switches.

You build a program on your computer, feed it into the Arduino, hook it up to something like LED lights or musical lasers, and you wind up with something like this:

or this:

These are music examples, but other examples include a cycling sweater that has built-in turn signals, scrolling LED lights, and hacking a Wii remote to drive an RC car.

Being computer guys, they demonstrated with blinking LED lights. Simple, yeah, but not very exciting unless you run a scoreboard at a baseball park.

But I got to thinking about it, helped along by one of the researchers in the SCS, and I can see a lot of applications for this in the Creative Industries.

One thing that immediately popped to mind was a labyrinth/sensory theater installation. Each station would only need a little battery pack and an Arduino, plus whatever hardware is necessary for each effect, and you could have fully digital experiences in a labyrinth. You can play a laser harp, or paint each other with conductive ink so that human movement creates a light pattern. Incredibly cool.

I could even see it extending beyond pure sensory experiences, and moving into real-world story and/or gaming experiences.

For my own work at the moment, it might be fun to try it in a similar way to Kate Pullinger's The Breathing Wall. Bring physical interactivity into online digital stories somehow. It's really cool to think about, and the device is simple enough (and people are developing simpler programming tools) that even my crappy level of expertise could catch up in a fairly short expanse of time.

Toys are rad.

(Photo courtesy of Matt Biddulph's flickr stream under a Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike license.)

Hurdle Hurdled (with as it turns out, a smaller hurdle than I thought)

2009-08-13T22:42:00.002+01:00

I did indeed survive to write about my first yearly PhD supervisory committee meeting today. I came out roses, actually. Nice.

I'd prepared a summary report a couple of weeks in advance, detailing my current research plan, my accomplishments this year (3 conference papers, 3 published short stories, 1 accepted paper, 2 conferences organized, various training schemes attended, background research conducted, classes taught), my difficulties (*cough* money *cough* resources *cough*), and my plan for next year.

It turns out I've exceeded expectations. My committee felt my progress was more than sufficient for a full-time first year, much less a part-time. There was happiness all around.

Mostly the session focused on the elements of the story that I will be building in the next few months, and some resources I should look into to help me think about them, which is always helpful.

We did discuss something that weighed quite heavily on my mind all summer: whether or not I will suspend this year. Last year, I had a full-time contract job until January, which essentially paid for the year. At that time, I imagined I could save the money I earned from that, supplement it with teaching, and struggle through the costs of the remaining years.

Yeah. That didn't work.

The amount of slave labor, er, teaching I would have to do to pay the fees kind of precludes me doing any actual work on the PhD. Not to mention the uni is trying very hard to cut out part-time instructors and postgraduate teaching assistants.

And the fact that I'd taken on so much teaching in the spring meant I couldn't look for a job till summer. The search has, so far, been highly unsuccessful. Adding to the difficulties, it turns out my 4-year-old laptop isn't quite up to the task of the graphic packages and softwares I need to use to build the digital stories. My savings either goes to tuition this year, or it goes to buying the equipment I need to actually do the work.

I stressed about this. I had panic attacks over this. I had to sit out a full afternoon of a training course in a beautiful residential location because I had to self-medicate even to breathe through all the anxiety. That's when I decided that if no funding or job materialized by September, I would suspend until something came through. After all, next year I should qualify for resident tuition, unless the uni finds a loophole, which wouldn't surprise me.

This decision really calmed me. Not having to worry about money really calmed me. I despise this. I haven't been out of a job, or been so unlucky in a job search, since I was 13. I'm living on an allowance right now, people. It's pathetic.

My committee was really unhappy with the suspension option. I guess it looks bad for everyone. I don't want to do it, of course. I don't want to have started this and have the very good chance I won't be able to finish. But you can't squeeze blood from a turnip, and you can't squeeze money from a postgrad. Or from a university, apparently.

I got a letter from a uni mucky-muck after I won a decent AHRC grant for the conference I organized. The first sentence congratulated me. The rest of the letter danced a gay jig about what an awesome place the university is to do research. I kinda wanted to stick the letter in a poop bag, light it on fire, drop it on their doorstep, ring the bell and run away. They're stoked when I bring money in, but they've done nothing to help me out other than lead me on wild goose chases about possible funding.

Anyway, enough bitter rant.

The committee meeting went well, I'm progressing well, and assuming pound coins rain from the sky sometime in the next six weeks, I'll be able to continue. It rains enough crap here - it can rain a little cash for me.

Neural Wiring, To-Do Lists, and Knowing Where Your Keys Are

2009-08-13T10:01:00.002+01:00

My day yesterday was full of discovery. I learned things about people, and rather than smiling and nodding and thinking to myself "Wow, people really suck for not being just like me," I actually absorbed some ideas about people's differences. I know. I think I'm growing as a person.

I lecture my students all the time about how everyone's writing process is different, that every writer has to find his/her process, develop it, and go with what works best for the individual.

I just never applied that thinking to regular people, i.e., nonwriters. Hell, it sometimes even shocks me to talk to actual writers (NOT students writing their first short stories, which are inevitably about ghosts, or child abuse, or rape, or all of the above), and find their processes are drastically different from mine.

I start thinking that way about the rest of my life, too. My husband and I have lived together for years, and I never understood how every single morning his toiletries are in different positions. My deodorant has a spot. My toothbrush has a spot. That is where they live, and where they are returned when I am done with them. You could draw chalk outlines.

My keys go on the rack as soon as I come through the door, my bag on the stairs so I can haul it up on my next pass. Whereas my husband has to seek out his wallet and keys in some new exotic locale every day. It drove me nuts, because I just couldn't comprehend how these items didn't have spots, how he didn't let them go home to their spots when he was done with them.

I had a eureka moment yesterday. I'm a cat. Cats are creatures of routine. Have you ever stayed home from work in the middle of the week, and found that your normally affectionate cat completely ignored you? You being home on a Wednesday isn't part of her routine.

I'm like that. I brush my teeth and wash my face and pee and shower all in the same order, every time I do them. I walk in the front door the same way each time. Let's call me a line-thinker, a nicer way to say OCD. I'm in a creative field, but I'm a straighforward, orderly thinker, sometimes to my own detriment.

On the other hand, I believe others are "cluster thinkers," what some might call right-brain thinking. My husband, and I guess a lot of other husbands, has no routines whatsoever. He might wake up, take the dogs out, have breakfast, and shower today. Tomorrow he might shower, take the dogs out, work on his bike, eat breakfast, dogs again, and wander off to work. The next day he'll feel like something different.

The nice thing is that he's able to troubleshoot things like you wouldn't believe, able to come up with creative solutions, to spark on far-out ideas floating out there in the ether. It's part of what makes him a great scientist. It's also what makes it hard for him to work in a scientific environment, because apart from idea-generation, they expect you to plod along in an orderly fashion.

When he gets frustrated at his lack of organization, at the way his day seems to fall apart, and at the end of it he discovers he didn't get done what he intended to, I always gave him my ego-centric solutions: make a list. Schedule time for people to come to you with problems. Have a fallback plan if it all goes awry.

Only what works for me, and I suppose other "left-brain" type cats, doesn't work for him. He makes a list, but then forgets to check it. Tomorrow he might make another list (only in a different place), or he might not.

All the training seminars in the world won't help him - they're generally for the methodical thinkers, the planners who are simply in need of more efficient strategies. No one really comes up with time management and organization strategies for cluster thinkers. And yet they're the ones who really need a mechanism for adjusting to a working culture that prizes order and rules: we can't all be daffy painters and poets.

So I'm off to research tools and strategies that are completely off my radar. And to try not to get angry about toothpaste that migrates around the bathroom.

(Photo courtesy of KellyK's flickr roll, under an Attribution-Share Alike Creative Commons license.)

3000 Words a Day

2009-08-11T12:30:00.004+01:00

That's my goal, every weekday, from now until classes start at the end of September. If I can hit it, that will mean approximately 105,000 words in 7 weeks, translating to a finished draft of the La Llorona novel, several new short stories, and a buttload of blog posts.

There will be setbacks, I'm sure. Like today - chaotic morning getting out of the house, dentist appointment that ran way late, soccer at 5, movie at 7. 3000 words have to be shoved in there somewhere. And next week is the Edinburgh Literary Festival, which will take up 3 days. Hmm.

But I've got weekend buffer zones, which will hopefully help me catch up. And hey, I've done several 90k-in-4-weeks Novembers, thanks to NaNoWriMo. I just need these words out of the way. I need to send stories in to some competitions, to get a few more published. I need to finish this novel that's been hanging over my head as I take on more and more projects. I need to start writing some stories for my PhD project (which will officially take over all of my time come October).

After September I hope to hit 1000 words per day. It might be more difficult then, as I will be working one way or another by then (monster topic, about which I can't yet speak).

And no, Facebook comments do not count.

What's your favorite myth/story? Please share!

2009-08-04T10:42:00.006+01:00

I'm in the process of researching some background/inspiration material for my PhD project, gathering myths & stories. If you have one, please post a comment, send me an email, FB message, note (tag me), whatever.

I'd really love to hear (or be linked/referenced to) your favorite stories/myths from when you grew up, wherever you're from. To get started, here's mine:

*******

I grew up in New Mexico, on the banks of the Rio Grande. For generations, farmers along the river have diverted its waters into irrigation ditches for their crops. As the city of Albuquerque grew up around these small settlements, these 'deadly ditches' also served as population weeders - NM is prone to sudden bursts of rain, which send torrents of floodwater coursing through these irrigation and other drainage ditches. If you happen to be in one, say fishing for crawdads (for our yearly crawdad races at the Harvest Festival), you'll be swept away, drowned.

But as a kid, you don't quite understand why they're so deadly. It's not raining where you are, but hundreds of miles away. You can't see the water coming. And crawdads are rad.

So to keep us away, they warned us of La Llorona (for you gazpachos, that's pronounced La Yo-ro-na, emphasis on the ro), the wailing woman. All over the Southwest and Mexico they have varying tales about La Llorona, but the one I heard was Rudolfo Anaya's Aztec legend:

She was an Aztec woman, and served as a translator when the Spanish conquistadors invaded the Americas. She fell in love with a Spanish general, and they married and had two little boys.

The little boys were all she lived for, particularly as her husband was often off campaigning, and her people ostracized her for joining the enemy that was corroding their people and their culture. She taught them the ways of the Aztec, their religion, their teachings.

Until her husband was called back to Spain. He would return, he said, without her. He would take his sons, sending them to Spanish schools, never to return to their homeland.

This broke her heart. As a final battle between her husband's army and her people raged around her, she snuck her boys out in the middle of the night, down to the water. Rather than allow them to be taken away from her, she drowned them in the lake, their cries covered by the fighting.

As soon as they were gone, she realized the horror of what she had done. She screamed for them, reaching to them, trying to bring them back. But they were both dead.

She swam out into the lake, to the middle, and dived under, never to emerge again.

Now she roams the waterways, the rivers and creeks and lakes, searching for her drowned sons. She weeps for them, and if she encounters other children, she drags them under the water, trying to keep them with her.

******

Definitely scary enough to keep me away from the water, even now.

Okay, your turn. Anyone who has a story or myth from their culture, childhood, where you live, where you've traveled, please share!

(Pic courtesy of vk_portafolio's flickr stream, under a Creative Commons Attribution license - http://www.flickr.com/photos/vinka_portafolio/ / CC BY 2.0)

Moolah: I want some

2009-07-30T09:36:00.000+01:00

I see a lot of proposed business models floating around, blog posts on what works and what doesn't for making a living off of storytelling online. So far, I really like the idea of "pay for what you like" - it's not only an impetus to produce quality work, but it's a direct feedback mechanism for the author. Essentially, the digital author offers content for free, but asks for donations from those who like the work. Novelr has some posts related to the theory and practice of this model.

I've participated in this from a consumer standpoint: I download podcasts from PodCastle, EscapePod, and PodioBooks, and I use Duotrope as a resource for short story markets. All of these services are free, but I have given donations to all of them in appreciation and support of the quality of service they provide. And this was before I started my digital fiction crusade, before I recognized what the creators were doing, before I understood it from their point of view. I just felt quality work should be supported, so I supported it, both by word of mouth and by donating.

It's not a mass-market business model, for sure. But it's less reliant upon a huge corporation or publishing company backing you and financing you and marketing you. Only the Stephen Kings of this world really get that kind of big support from traditional models anyway. No, this model is closer to true free enterprise - at least, my understanding of free enterprise - and the concept of paying for what a product is actually worth, as opposed to what Madison Avenue tells you a product is worth.

Toward this end, I'm planning a total overhaul of my own website, and to start playing with these practices as part of both my personal research and my PhD research. I'm hoping this next year will contain less teaching for me, and more focus on my own work. Send me free time vibes, folks. I'm going to need them.

This week in digital storytelling...

2009-07-28T16:24:00.000+01:00

No, there's not much chance I could keep up with things enough to post a weekly update every week. But I wanted to pull together a collection of the things I've been looking at and reading lately. Please add on to it in the comments if you know of something I might enjoy!

Chris Joseph's blog
Flight Paths
Drunken Boat
The Iowa Review
Dreaming Methods (Consensus Trance is the most recent, and it's great fun. I particularly love the way the author has incorporated nonlinear and ludic elements in a primarily linear story.)
Net Art Commissions on Turbulence
ELO's Electronic Literature Collection
e-Fiction Book Club
Novelr
Digital Fiction Show
And a short story on the web that I absolutely loved: "Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four Hour Book Store" by Robin Sloan

It's interesting to me that electronic literature is already splitting off into a gajillion splinter genres: visual novels, ludic stories, digital poetry, twitter fiction, serials, Flash fiction (the software, not the length), and more. What will make it? What won't? I dunno, but it's really cool to explore all the ways people are using Web 2.0 to share stories.

I'm such a slacker

2009-07-27T16:12:00.000+01:00

Okay, technically not really, but if this blog is evidence, I've been comatose from either natural or artificial causes for the last month.

In reality, I have:

Revised my online novel communities paper (and it was accepted!)
Attended a wedding in the States (no comment)
Presented the above paper at the MeCCSA postgrad conference (poorly attended session, but whatever)
Applied for umpteen jobs and one grant (the only one I can apply for) to drum up money for this year. It's not looking promising, kids.
Attended a workshop on academic papers...taught at a 3rd grade level. Or something similar. Disappointing.
Cleaned up administrative messes in the grade reporting for almost all the classes I taught. So far, the errors have not been mine, but it's hard to tell when every school in the uni does it differently.
Started a gig creating video tutorials for graphics software. So far, I've done vids for Adobe Flash. I like this gig. Too bad it's not ongoing.

My supervisory committee meeting is in 10 days, and I've had to complete a report on my progress (something I'll reproduce here after the meeting, to save time/space). I'm happy with the work I've done, but unhappy with the time I'm able to spend on it, which is very little, considering how much time I spend chasing money in one fashion or another. Yes, I realize that chasing money is part of what academics DO, but it's been ridiculous. Not to mention all the wild goose chases led gleefully by the university itself. Anyway...

It's still up in the air whether I'll be continuing research this year, or suspending until I find money to pay my fees. If I have to suspend, I'll get to spend the year finding funding, yes, but hopefully also finishing up some projects that have been tossed to the back burner for the past year, like my last novel (which was going really well!), and finishing the digital piece that was really just a testing ground for the PhD research, not a part of the finished whole.

Also, I have seen Harry Potter twice. Totally irrelevant to anything else I'm doing, but yay for fun films. The "Coming Soon" category is pretty sparse at the moment, so I'm enjoying it while I can.

Great Writing Conference, 2009

2009-06-21T20:55:00.004+01:00

Well, it was exhausting and nerve-wracking, but I gave my first presentation amongst actual professionals in my field today. I barely got the presentation done in time - isn't that always the case - and I managed to have several anxiety attacks in the week prior about various and sundry, but today went a long way in validating the work I'm doing. So that was cool.

In my 20 minute presentation, I introduced my PhD research: practice-based, writing a print 'novel' (interlinked short stories), and the digital version concurrently. Then I showed a video demo, the exact same as below. The audio is a reading of the print story (the first 1000 words or so of a 7500 word story). The visuals are a 'voyeur's experience' of the digital version; due to the nature of the demo, of course, the audience could not click through the digital story themselves, so I asked them to think of it as though they were looking over someone's shoulder as they moved through the text.

(yes, the YouTube quality of the images blows - I'll get a quality vid up when I can)

Obviously, there are other limitations to the video, such as the linearity as it parallels the reading, the inability to explore each visual/scene at length (there will be Easter Eggs and mouseover events), and the lack of depth provided by music or other audio. But I hope it helps to demonstrate, on some level, what I'm working with.

After the video, I went on to talk about why I'm doing this. One, I really really like it! It's a new sort of creativity that lets me expand beyond the printed word, to do something experimental but that is still accessible.

Second, and a better reason to give to funding bodies, is that the trends in entertainment are toward more multimodal and interactive media. In the 10-24 age range, more people get their entertainment from games than from film, print, and music media combined. Games are nonlinear, interactive entertainment, falling further along the scale toward engagement than immersion. Tapping into an audience that is already prepped for nonlinear interaction is a great idea for an author like me, still trying to find a niche. Add in community and collaborative elements within an ongoing story world, and I think this will be extremely exciting.

I then chatted about the challenges I face in this project. For one, creating a story to exist in print and digital media at the same time poses unique challenges. Print is linear, and primarily immersive, whereas digital has elements of nonlinearity and incorporates more engagement. No worries if I'm creating a story for just one or another, but trying to put something together that works in BOTH, at the same time, is requiring quite a bit of innovative thinking, particularly with regard to structure.

It also means adjustments to my creative process. My writing process, after all these years, is fairly well-set at this point. It's a whole new ballgame, however, to create the digital story. I have to think less about creating depth through words, and more about depth through image. It's quite easy to fall into the trap of simply illustrating the story I'm telling, without adding anything through the visuals. It's closer to cinematography, which is a concept I hope to explore soon.

The tools I have to engage with for the two different media are also quite different. For print, I merely need myself and my 'muse' as it were - a sense of inspiration, idea, motivation, etc. - and something to write with. For digital, I can't get away with a napkin and a golf pencil. I have to have computer, internet access, software. I have to have a skill set that allows me to design and build the story. I have to have source materials in images and audio, whether original or borrowed under Creative Commons. I have to find new resources for distribution.

I ended the talk with a slide labeled "To be continued..." with URLs for my home site and this blog. The questions after showed me how well the audience warmed to the topic - most were quite enthusiastic, about the business model for distribution and revenue (which I should post my thoughts on at some point), about my initial digital fiction influences (which flummoxed me for a moment, then I finally decided they really were just games - it wasn't until I started this project that I started seeking out things like Inanimate Alice and Dreaming Methods).

I had good chats afterward with several people who'd like to help me find equipment resources (yes, please!), who loved the story, who were emotionally invested in both the print and digital story, who wanted the chance to move through the story themselves to explore the images presented, who want to trade similar work.

In all, it was a wonderfully positive response to a talk I was worried would flop like Showgirls, or would be horribly sophomoric. I'm heading in the right direction, and I can't wait to get there.

Did Somebody Offer a Challenge?

2009-06-10T09:26:00.003+01:00

Bruce Sterling over at Wired.com posted eighteen of them for Contemporary Literature. It's a skeletal overview: a list of statements without background or exploration of any.

I'd like to offer a few brief thoughts on the list, just for my own brainstorming sake. Who knows; there may be eighteen papers in here somewhere.

1. Literature is language-based and national; contemporary society is globalizing and polyglot.

"Contemporary society" is a pretty big blanket, there, Bruce. I think you might mean "contemporary digitally literate culture" - after all, it's only in the Westernized world that we are beginning to share our language and culture through global media such as Facebook and mobile phones. This also assumes a very strict definition of literature: that which is published in print form, presumably a book.

2. Vernacular means of everyday communication — cellphones, social networks, streaming video — are moving into areas where printed text cannot follow.

I would agree with this to a certain extent; you certainly can't translate a YouTube commentary or video collage to the printed page. But again we're back to that standard definition of literature, that which only exists on a printed page. It hasn't existed only on the printed page in, well, forever. Plays are literature. Oral storytelling is literature. Film is literature. Think of 'literature' as the collective knowledge and stories of our world, and it most certainly exists outside of Gutenberg's arena. We didn't give up telling stories around campfires when the Greeks put them on stage, nor when the printing press churned them out in bulk. We'll have NEW genre formats based in these new technologies, but that doesn't mean words on paper will die any more than that campfire story of the scary guy with a hook for an arm.

3. Intellectual property systems failing.

Interesting choice of word: 'failing.' The concept of "this idea is mine, I'll sue your ass off if you use it in any way" is a capitalist concept. Hasn't been around all that long. It used to be that stories belonged to the people, and were passed down the same way we pass down our great-grandmother's wedding ring. They were valued as the history and culture of a people, not as monetary widgets intended to turn a profit for the intellectual property owner.

I'd say intellectual property rights are reverting, not failing.

4. Means of book promotion, distribution and retail destabilized.

Frankly, that's their own fracking fault, just as the bank failures are a fault of the bankers, and the current state of the car industry is a fault of the automotive industry clinging to fossil fuel vehicles like their mamas' tits. We could just as easily have said the same thing about the film industry when all these new media technology came around: oh, everyone will be playing online games, surfing the internet, so no one will go to the movies ever again. Those guys didn't sit on their asses, though. The movie people said "cool. Let's add more stuff. Let's go online. Let's co-market films and games. Let's add game tech to our DVDs. Let's do this thing." And sure, games make more money than the film industry. But film isn't dying, and no one believes it will. The book industry flagging is a result of its archaic system and head-in-the-sand attitude.

5. Ink-on-paper manufacturing is an outmoded, toxic industry with steeply rising costs.

Again, their own fracking fault. We've had digital technology for decades. DVDs hit so hard and so fast you can't even find a VCR anymore. So why has the book industry only come out with a digital platform that's feasible, even if only partially, in the past couple of years? Had they gotten with the program sooner (or, let's face it, if Steve Jobs hadn't poo-poohed the idea of digital books), e-readers could be on the same wavelength now as the iPhone - the be-all end-all of entertainment platforms. Instead, they're in fledgling mode still.

6. Core demographic for printed media is aging faster than the general population. Failure of print and newspapers is disenfranching young apprentice writers.

I agree with this one. I don't necessarily agree that this is a bad thing. The world changes with each generation. That's just how it is. Sure, the print industry is an old dinosaur, but there are new shiny mammals that offer plenty of opportunities for those poor disenfranchized writers. Ahem.

7. Media conglomerates have poor business model; economically rationalized “culture industry” is actively hostile to vital aspects of humane culture.

Yes to the first. I won't repeat myself, so see above. This is a point I'd like to have seen Sterling expand upon - the idea of "culture industry" (does he mean the creative industries, those in the business of telling our stories, modern-day versions of the old woman in the village who remembers when?), and what the vital aspects of humane culture are. And how these two aren't meeting. Have they ever really met? Maybe. I don't know.

8. Long tail balkanizes audiences, disrupts means of canon-building and fragments literary reputation.

This may be just my impression, but the giant-head bestsellers aren't what springs to mind when it comes to 'canon'. Anyone see The DaVinci Code being labeled as a literary classic? I'd like to see more data here, but it seems literary canon is long tail to begin with.

9. Digital public-domain transforms traditional literary heritage into a huge, cost-free, portable, searchable database, radically transforming the reader’s relationship to belle-lettres.

Yes. Yes it does. I don't see the problem here. I think they said the same thing when the printing press was invented, when priests started delivering masses not in Latin. I dig it.

10. Contemporary literature not confronting issues of general urgency; dominant best-sellers are in former niche genres such as fantasies, romances and teen books.

Again, this issue of bestseller vs. literature, coupled with a genre question. If you took our 'literature canon', I'd say a good many of them would be in so-called former niche genres: 1984, Pride and Prejudice, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, and Lord of the Flies to name just a few. As for the non-confrontation of issues of general urgency...matter of opinion, depends on the text. We're writing and publishing more than ever - it's not all sparkly vampires, I can assure you.

11. Barriers to publication entry have crashed, enabling huge torrent of subliterary and/or nonliterary textual expression.

But only what's good rises to the top. Just look at the blogosphere - anyone can blog, but only the best ones are circulated, read, passed on, and paid attention to.

12. Algorithms and social media replacing work of editors and publishing houses; network socially-generated texts replacing individually-authored texts.

I think the word "replacing" here is where I have the problem. It's representative of the idea that digital media is somehow going to replace print media. Did the novel replace the theatre? Did film replace either? Not so far. As human beings, we seem to have as much room for forms of entertainment and story as my dog has enthusiasm for taking walks. Chill out with the fear-mongering, guys.

13. “Convergence culture” obliterating former distinctions between media; books becoming one minor aspect of huge tweet/ blog/ comics/ games / soundtrack/ television / cinema / ancillary-merchandise pro-fan franchises.

I don't think this is far off the mark, but I don't think it's a particular fault of digital media. Let's face it, it's not like the world was motoring along un-branded until now.

14. Unstable computer and cellphone interfaces becoming world’s primary means of cultural access. Compositor systems remake media in their own hybrid creole image.

So far, this has remained true. Technology is moving too fast to be stable at this point. But it's not that we aren't exploring stable methods of cultural archiving; it's a big funding generator in the EU now. The tech won't keep hurtling along like this forever. It will slow, it will stabilize. I also try to remind myself, as a digital author, that my medium is only somewhat more fleeting than print tech; even that doesn't last forever. Just ask the guys shelved in Alexandria.

15. Scholars steeped within the disciplines becoming cross-linked jack-of-all-trades virtual intelligentsia.

I love these words thrown out here, by the way. Fancy. Anyway, yes, interdisciplinarity is getting bigger. At one time, this cross-linked virtual intelligence was considered rad: the Renaissance. I recall that was quite a cultural boom, an explosion in art and knowledge.

16. Academic education system suffering severe bubble-inflation.

As an academic, I dislike this concept because it means it's harder to get a job! I wonder, though, how academic bubble-inflation compares to other industries. Where are the shortfalls, and where are the overflows? Is this a societal trend, or is it actually linked to our new media?

17. Polarizing civil cold war is harmful to intellectual honesty.

Oh-kaaaay.

18. The Gothic fate of poor slain Poetry is the specter at this dwindling feast.

Poets are always "woe is us". Otherwise, they wouldn't have anything to write about. Guys, you're the oldest, longest-lived form of literature, save oral storytelling. You've stuck around for a reason: because you strike into the deepest elements of humanity, of culture, and because the form is so adaptable. Don't be melodramatic. Well, outside the poetry anyway.

I Had To Do It. Really

2009-06-07T21:06:00.004+01:00

One of my supervisors is a big champion of the free and open source. To you, I offer my apologies. I tried. I really did. I got to know GIMP well enough to actually use it. I found a great free wiki builder that I still think will be a great base for the community of my digital fiction site. I use Open Office, and even attempted to use their presentation software to build my prototype story.

I still won't use PowerPoint. Never fear on that score.

But.

I.

Had.

To.

Get.

Adobe Creative Suite 4.

Software companies are like dope dealers. They give out that free taste, knowing they'll hook you for life, and that after 30 days you'll be jonesing for that registration key bad enough to jack your mama's stereo. It's how Scrivener got me. It's how Circus Ponies' awesometastic Notebook got me. And now, it's how Adobe's gotten me.

I'm presenting a prototype of my PhD work in just under two weeks. After weeks of working on the story with free/share/open source and "bundled with my Mac" -ware, I was maybe a fifth through with the digital draft - and yes, I do mean draft.

After two days of Adobe Flash, I'm a third in...and that includes time running through tutorials to familiarize myself with the program. Love.

It's expensive, I know, but that student ID card gets me more than just a quid off movie tickets. And with it, I can actually solidly visualize how to get the massive PhD project into the world.

So when the trial ends, so does my savings account. Gimme my crack, Adobe.

Muwah-ha-ha-ha...the Labyrinth of the Mind!!!

2009-06-03T20:31:00.004+01:00

We all toss around the word 'interdisciplinary' like it's a good thing. "We're an interdisciplinary department", "I'm doing interdisciplinary research", blah blah blah. But when it comes down to it, we often just mean we'll look at papers in different disciplines to see what's interesting, or even what directly applies to us. We don't really mean we want to participate in a bunch of different stuff.

I come off all weird pretty frequently, for various reasons, but it is interesting to see people's faces when they find out I was once a biologist, or that I trained to work in artificial reproduction. It's a strength of my experience that I've written everything from plays to nuclear facility safety documents, that I participate in activities from stage productions to drinking games.

I didn't think my latest foray out of my comfort zone would be quite so inspiring. I showed up to the "Labyrinth Theatre Workshop" because it looked interesting in general, and because it was a friend conducting it for her research. Now I think it can have great bearing on my own research.

It came down to a series of sensory exercises, bringing back my old theatre days, the improv exercises, the warm-ups, the slight embarrassment at being in contact with other people's bodies.

The concept behind the workshop was Labyrinth Theatre: an advanced version of the haunted house my grandma used to run at Halloween. Every October, she opened the pitch-black, long corridor of bedrooms, closets, and bathrooms, to a sensory creep-show. Stick your hand through door number 1, and plunge your fingers into a bowl of eyeballs. Open door number 3, and a whoosh of air and a scream sent you running back down the hall. Of course, it was only peeled grapes, a fan and a tape player, but the sensory experience coupled with the imagination made it all real.

That's essentially what Labyrinth Theatre boils down to: a path upon which you cannot get lost (it's not a maze), with pockets of sensory experiences for the "audience" traversing it in the dark of night. I imagine it's great for those in drama, to open up their performance and experience to the body, beyond memorization of lines and hitting the right mark.

For me, I wish every creative writer I know had experienced the workshop (there's one again in July, hint, hint). We're instructed at every turn, in every article, in every workshop, to use all five senses in our writing, to bring it to life for the reader the way my grandmother brought her horrors to life for all the kids in the neighborhood.

But our reality is sitting in front of a computer, butts going numb, possibly worrying about DVTs. Most of us block out glare. We may have background noise on, not to be able to engage the senses, but so that we can actively block them out. It's a bit of a paradox for fleshing out writing with sensory description.

The workshop, however, made all the senses immediate. It made me aware of the dripping pipe on the outside of the building, of the shadows in my eyelids, of the tingle red blood cells make in my hands as they rush about their highways and byways. It made me feel. It will make me a better writer.

As an added bonus, the concept of the labyrinth is ideal for the PhD project I'm putting together, on several levels. It draws on mythology, which is at the center of the work, and offers both a physical structure and metaphorical space for the characters and reader/participants to play in.

I was inspired on multiple levels by the experience - and more than a tad disappointed that more of my fellows didn't make the attempt to join in on something so outside our normal sphere. Come to the next one, guys. It'll be good for you.

Retreating to Write

2009-06-02T18:23:00.001+01:00

One week. Seven glorious days. The equivalent, for me, of a snow-in. I got s**t done, people.

My husband signed up to attend a conference in Erice, Sicily for a week in the end of May. I said, "Sicily? When teaching is done and my conferences haven't started yet? Put me in your luggage, dude."

So I hitched on to his conference, and spent a week in a mountaintop stone city that was once home to the Cult of Venus. The sun was shining brutally, which means my sorry white bum was restricted indoors on threat of dire illness.

Oh, darn. Trapped in a monastery-turned-hotel with my computer, my current project, and not enough touristy stuff to fill a morning, much less seven days.

Sweet.

I outlined. I storyboarded. I edited images and animated and chose fonts and decided what parts of my print story my digital reader would get. I discovered the initial stages of creating digital fiction: that even with a heavily edited and revised short story, the creation of its digital version takes you back to the trial and error and aimless wandering in the woods that is rough-drafting.

It's been a really long time since I was this new to any part of the creation process; when I sit down to write a story, I have a pretty ingrained process at this point. But adapting it to digital opens up all new things, not the least of which is learning software platforms (compounded by my paucity of funds which means I have to use freeware). I spend hours creating a certain effect in a screenshot or transition, only to sleep on it and find that in the morning, my brain wants to do something altogether different.

It's difficult, and more time-consuming than I thought it would be, but I'm glad I set myself the task to complete a prototype for my PhD before buckling down to do the real thing. I can enter into the process with my eyes open at least a little bit wider.

I'm home now, and haven't even been able to look at the file for all the conference-organization matters cropping up for the showdown next week. I miss Erice, it's lack of cell phone service, and spotty wireless, like it was another limb. I achieved hermitude there, a lifelong ambition that I hope to attain again. Ciao, baby.

Showcasing the PGs - Totally My Idea

2009-05-24T20:53:00.001+01:00

Which I left to more supremely capable people to actually carry out, as is my habit, of course.

When I did my MFA, we had a monthly Student Reading Series, which was created during my time in the program (through none of my own effort), organized entirely by the students, and is still going today, if the listserve is any judge.

It was a great time to socialize, talk about our work, our professors, our SOs, our lack thereof...oh, yeah, and to share what we were writing. Uh, there was wine involved.

When I found nothing much like that here, I thought "Well that blows. We totally should." And so we did.

The NIECI family (NIECI is bigger than we know, but there's just the core family that participates in most of our shindigs) got together to display our wares. We dressed up in our finest frocks and gathered for wine (duh) and a wide display of work, from critical papers and radio shows to short stories and film.

We chatted, drank, showed off some more stuff, drank some more, set off some campus alarms, patted each other on the back, and got great glimpses into the lives and work of our friends and family.

I loved it. Everyone loved it. Misses AC and JK threw a fabulous party, one I hope we repeat with frequency in the future. I'm so glad I thought of it.

Yes, I'm Still Working

2009-05-20T19:01:00.002+01:00

You may have noticed few writing or PhD-related posts in the past couple of weeks. That would be because I am currently crushed beneath a dump-truck's worth of student papers to mark.

Back to our regularly scheduled program as soon as I can dig myself a hole to survival.

So That's What Color Means

2009-05-20T18:25:00.005+01:00

I won a coloring contest in the second grade. The item was a lily, and I won not for my extreme crayon skills, but because I was the only one in the class to use the correct shade: white.

No one else had ever seen a lily. Neither had I, for that matter; I was just somewhat more literate than my peers, and had likely seen a picture or read a description of lilies in a book.

I'm from New Mexico, you see. Our state color is brown.

Apart from a few blooms on a prickly pear cactus, hearty scraggly flowers, or greenhouse-spoiled imports, the desert doesn't do flowers. My favorite flower most of my life has been the Indian Paintbrush, the only colorful wildflower the desert really produces. Even then, it's in spotty patches, so seeing one is akin to the excitement of spotting a rainbow.

Boy am I in a different world here. Wales does flowers. In multiples.

I live in a tiny village in North Wales, without even a post office or a convenience store. We don't have much in the way of amenities, but by god we have flowers.

Daffodils crowd by the thousands into the motorway medians. Weeks later, they perish, only to be replaced by shy groups of Bluebells and bright pink Red Valerians partying it up on the roadsides. I made the mistake a few weeks ago of weeding in our front yard, pulling these fleshy-leaved things out of our front wall. Today, as I walked with my dogs through the village, I see why no one else is as anal with their walls as I am: the Red Valerian grows from the walls, blooming bright pink, flushed against the backdrop of sheep-dotted spring green fields all around us.

Oops. No more gardening for me.

The neighbors have these bursting red blooms in pots, the flowers so heavy they have to rest their monstrous heads on the wall.

Leaning over them, perhaps offering sympathy, are pink and purple flowers on tall stems. White, fragrant vines blanket the wall on the corner house, and Rock Roses, Orchids, and Buttercups spring up in pockets all over the village.

The Rhododendrons are probably the most shocking for me. I'll be walking along, thinking about how I really need a job so I can get a housekeeper already, and then suddenly my eyes scream "OMG, PINK!!!" I look up, and they're right: there's this huge hulking glob of pink infesting a hillside or a back garden. Rhododendrons are the one place where neon pink is probably okay.

The kicker is the sweet little flowers: the tiny white buds no bigger than a pinky nail peeking out beside our drive. The yellow buttons trouncing happily on a crack in the asphalt. Oh, and I saw my first Forget-Me-Not today. I've heard of them, with their sugary literary name, and I know I drew pictures of them as a child, perhaps drawing from some sort of genetic memory of what flowers can look like.

I love them, with their happy, smiling faces waving up at me, small but bright. I love that they hold their own against the flashy Rhodos and the pompous "I'm the national flower" Daffodils. I love that I'm 30 years old, and I've just seen something very common for the very first time.

Today was a good day.

If It's for Children, Why Is It So Naughty?

2009-05-16T10:41:00.004+01:00

I have a sore throat. For this malady, I requested popsicles, preferably anything resembling Jell-O Pudding Pops (click the link, seriously. It's more than you bargained for). My Australian husband, who has never known the joy of pudding pops or Bill Cosby expounding their benefits (J-E-L-L-O!), got me these:

Let's ignore for a moment how creepy I find the whole Jelly Babies phenomenon. I mean, you're eating babies, for chrissake. Stalin didn't even eat babies (AFAIK). Of course, the concept is babies; the reality is they're about the size and shape of a 9-week-old fetus. Even if you aborted a fetus that size, you wouldn't eat it. I hope.

But Wobbly Lollies aren't baby/fetus shaped. Rather, they've flown backward in the reproductive process, back through growth phases and cell differentiation. Back through mitosis, through fertilization. Swimming backward through the jelly-lined uterus through the cervix, out the vagina, right back up the origin tube. Straight to the peen.

Oh, I know. All popsicles are phallic, especially once we begin to suck. The folks over at the "Let's be cannibals - but in a fun way!" headquarters took it one step further: the wobble.

Somewhere between the slimy, floppy joy of gummy worms and the disturbing hard fleshiness of Jelly Fetuses lie the Wobbly Lollies. Impaled on a stick, they flop off the end of it, like a guy who just saw his buddy's naked butt in the locker room and is fighting off his (un?)natural reaction. Take a lick, it flops the other way, fleshy and half-engorged. Slide it in your mouth, and its gooey coolness conforms to the soft palates. The only thing missing is the hand on the back of your head, and the surprise filling (you've got to get orange Dreamsicles for that).

They come it 4 fun flavors: green, orange, red, and purplish! Buy some for your kids today!

Oooh, Shiny Conference

2009-05-13T11:11:00.003+01:00

Chris Joseph posted today about the Digital Resources for the Arts & Humanities 2009 Conference in Belfast. The abstract submission deadline is two days away, and I sat for an hour trying to come up with something I could present.

I suppose I could present the same project I'm offering up to the Great Writing conference here in June. It would definitely be more of a completed work by September. But I'm suffering from an inferiority complex at the moment. I seem to have no problems flaunting my creative package where most of the audience aren't experts in the digital humanities, but the thought of laying my freshman efforts bare for a crowd of digital academics and artists is a little too daunting for me at the moment.

So I think I'll hold off on submitting anything, wait for the program to be announced, and try to scrape funds together to simply attend. I'd like to see what else is out there, to see what other artists are doing (part of the conference is a creative showcase), and to hear what academics are thinking about the field.

Plus, the facilities at Queen's University, Belfast look amazing. I kinda just want to go and gawk.

CEDAR, Session 3: On Academic Blogging, Collaboration, and Creativity

2009-05-10T10:39:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was CEDAR's third session in Leicester, at De Montfort University's Institute of Creative Technologies. We covered blogging for academics, using Web 2.0 resources for document collaboration, creation, and presentations, and a bit on creative processes.

For me, the session wasn't quite as useful as the last one, primarily because I (obviously) already blog, and already use the Web 2.0 resources covered (plus a truckload of others that would take days to discuss in such a seminar format). I think I'm to blame a bit - the last session I didn't have any real expectations, as the topics initially didn't seem at all applicable to my work. When I found applications, I was stoked.

This time, the topics seemed catered to my research...but because these aren't necessarily advanced sessions, it was all at a level I've already mastered. So I had higher expectations than I should have had. I did suggest that in the future we might consider breaking into different focus groups for hands-on sessions, to allow more advanced people to get something out of them as well.

The basic level of info was great (if even a bit challenging) for a lot of folks there, though, so I may be an outlier. The discussions were slowed to tortoise speeds by the general lack of digital knowledge and awareness in the room, multiplied by some sadly vocal active resistance to the topics. If you're not into the kids and their darned confabulated computers and such, why not just stay in the barn with the mules and the plow?

I do admit the afternoon session felt a bit like trickery to me: it was mere data collection for a research project, with no application to our work, our creative processes, or even our general knowledge whatsoever. I don't think the course organizers quite knew that was to be the plan, however, so mostly I blame those researchers for shafting us of the afternoon. It didn't help that their data-collection software didn't actually work on half the computers in the room, including mine.

Add that to the frustration of a facility that seemed woefully unprepared (no provided computer lab, so it was BYOLaptop; no access to wireless, so it was 15 people crowded around ethernet ports; poor projector visibility...we also could have used advance warning of necessary computer requirements and account setup for the hands-on segments), and the day got tiring fast. I don't think most of this stuff was really anyone's fault; seminars on Saturdays seemed doomed for lack of support, and having to present in remote locations two out of every three seminars makes for some disorganization.

I did gain a few things from the day, however, so in no way do I think it was a waste.

First, I'm half-assing this blog thing. I write my posts and label them and send them out into the ethosphere, but I don't back them up. I don't support them by popping over to similar blogs in my community and checking in on what others in my field are sending out to the 'sphere. I can blame it on lack of time, but the truth is I do need to know what's going on, and more and more that immediacy and finger-on-the-pulse sort of knowledge and exposure comes from blogs and blog communities. I need to participate more.

Also, the trip out was a carpool with my fellow PhD student (ludology) and our supervisor, which gave us a few hours (extended by a break in a pub and over ice cream) to just talk. Something we never really have time to do back in Bangor. We came up with new strategies to approach funding, and talked about research and life in general. It really helped to refresh my batteries on all things research-related, and to feel a bit more part of a team/family. When you have so much stress and unknown factors pelting at you from every direction, days like this go lightyears toward bolstering your sanity.

This Will Be Short

2009-05-10T10:34:00.002+01:00

I just want to offer a giant upraised middle finger (or an emphatic two-finger salute for you Brits) to the university.

Five million pounds. Five million pounds you are offering in studentships to increase postgraduate numbers by 125.

None of which are you offering to your CURRENT postgrads, who have worked our asses off and paid you a pretty sum already.

None of which are you releasing to the departments to SUPPORT these postgrads, neither in facilities nor staff.

You, university, are a large, noxious, goopy pile of excrement.

That is all.

Teaching in Second Life

2009-05-01T18:19:00.003+01:00

New experiences are rad. Scary sometimes, occasionally baffling, often frustrating...but every once in a while, they're just rock-on cool.

I lead a seminar for an Intro to New Media course in our department. Part of the seminar is exposing students - who, at an average age of 18 really should be more net-savvy than they are - to various new media applications. These include games (you should have seen the gamers in the class trying to play the old text-based adventures I grew up on. Couldn't get past the first obstacle. Ha!), networking sites, collaborative tools like wikis, and virtual worlds. That's right, we have a whole session dedicated to Second Life. And yes, I get paid for this. But not much.

That first session was frustrating for 90% of them: getting a log-in ID, learning to move, adjusting their appearance, learning how to fly, teleport, find locations, find each other. I have a good idea most of them didn't even think about Second Life until a week or so ago, when I had them log in again to play around in preparation for the kick-ass lecture this week.

This week was a virtual lecture, conducted primarily in Second Life. The lecturer gave his spiel from his office, while I assisted from the lecture hall, where we projected the 2L meeting room & lecture/discussion. Out of about 50 students in the course, 7 or 8 showed up to the lecture hall, not having paid attention to the announcement of a virtual lecture, or not caring, or not feeling comfortable enough with 2L to attend from home. A ton, however, attended in avatar-form only, some from their beds, some from a pub, some from who knows where.

There were setbacks - we had a speaker in the lecture hall that kept giving feedback, and it caused chaos anytime someone new came into the 2L meeting room with their mic on. Not everyone was set up to hear the lecturer's talk, so I wound up playing dictaphone, typing in the lecture as he gave it (which was a feat in itself, since I'm a Dvorak keyboard user - navigating Qwerty again after all this time was like talking in a language I haven't used for years). A couple of people made it to the 2L meeting room quite late, having difficulty finding their way there.

The students in the lecture hall were quiet, not having as much chance to add input as those in 2L (discussion was all by chat, because of the speaker-feedback issue). But those who could, DID discuss. These same students who stare at us like we're Charlie Brown's teacher, spewing gibberish, every week for 12 weeks, these students offered thoughts, questions, alternatives. They had ideas! They contributed! It was freakishly amazing. Put a set of wings and some purple hair on a bunch of first years, and they act like rational adults. Crazy, huh?

The lecture was short, owing to the unique nature of it, but they adored it. They wanted every lecture to be given on 2L. They had fun. They thanked the lecturer. They offered feedback as to how it could be done better. They contributed. They engaged. It was the kind of class you long for as a teacher, but rarely ever get. To have that happen in the last lecture of the semester is pretty damn good.

Anyway, we put it all together in quite a hurry, and didn't have everything completely organized, and weren't aware of a lot of the tools we could have used (like importing presentations into 2L, offering virtual notes, etc.). Next time, it will be even more like a real classroom...only with wings.

Dumps Week

2009-04-16T11:20:00.002+01:00

Lots of things suck this week.

One, I am an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest loser. Didn't make the next round. Didn't really think I would, but it's a bummer all the same. So I sent the novel out to a couple of publishers, but not holding out much hope. It's not my time yet.

Two, it seems to be just the right time for editors to send rejections on the last short story I sent out. That's fun.

Three, it's the last week of spring break. Next week I have to go back to work, back to the classroom, back to reading painful first years' writing, back to being harried and in contact with the rest of society. Blech.

The good news is there are only three weeks left in the semester. After that, I'm free for the summer, to write, to travel, to fail in finding funding all over again. Whee!

I feel I've gotten some good stuff accomplished these past couple of weeks. I'm back on track with my PhD stuff, having finished a short story draft, come up with lots of fun ideas for the digital adaptation, and have copious notes on getting my larger work started.

I've gotten rolling again with my current novel WIP. It's my goal to write 1000 words a day on it, even when I'm swamped. I'm so tired of being mildly published. I need a damn book in my hands with my name on the cover.

Anyway, I have today and tomorrow, maybe Saturday, to get even more work done before it's back to the grindstone. Can't be slacking off on the blog all day!

Why Didn't I Write That?

2009-04-13T15:06:00.004+01:00

It was inevitable: give me three weeks on my own, with no work responsibilities, and I will read. Straight through. I haven't been able to actually read a book since the winter break; between teaching classes, marking papers, researching for the PhD, and trying to squish in some writing here and there, I just don't have the free hours to drown in a good novel these days. The closest I get are audiobooks when I'm cycling or running.

So when I picked up two books on a shopping expedition last week, I knew I was tempting fate. The first had me curled up on the couch for two days, plowing through it. I had to take breaks, however, as Ben Elton's Blind Faith managed to hit on my two major phobias: crowds and enclosed spaces. His take on an update of 1984 is focused on the YouTube concept of us becoming our own Big Brothers, watching each other, with privacy actually becoming illegal. You're never alone in his world, always surrounded by people, pressed in, group-hugging, emoting, confessing, sharing, blogging. I'm still so twitchy from reading the novel, engaging with this world, that every time my cell phone chimes with a text message I want to send it crashing against the wall. Sure, it's satire, and surfacey, and without much real depth (esp when you compare it to more serious post-apocalyptic takes like Children of Men or The Handmaid's Tale), but it hit much closer to home than the others specifically because it is so close to the society in which we currently live.

The second is one that I feel I'm sacrificing for just by taking a break and writing this blog entry. I read Scarlett Thomas's novel The End of Mr. Y a few months ago, picking it up out of curiosity from Tesco. I loved it. It was smart, fantastic, engaging, dark, with real, flawed characters who aren't so good you know nothing bad can really happen to them. So when I was browsing and saw her other book, Popco, I bought it without even reading the blurb. It's not often I do that, with any author. This one must be a reprint, as Popco is older than Mr. Y, thanks to the latter's popularity. At any rate, it's also smart, fun, engaging, mysterious...about a sixth of the way in, I can't wait to finish it.

I love books like these. I love getting so lost in them that when my husband makes a comment next to me, it startles the crap out of me. I love feeling like there's this other world out there, and I'm in it, the writing so perfectly crafted that I forget I'm holding the rough paper and black type, that I'm sitting with a cat holding my lap captive, that I'm anywhere or anyone other than where and who the story is happening.

I also hate them. I hate them because I didn't write them. I should have thought of that. I should have thought of a drug that allows you to share other people's (and cats' and mice's!) mindspace. I should have thought of the YouTube society (I did, I think, if you search my idea journal, but I haven't written it up, so it doesn't count). Maybe I hate those more - the ideas that I know I had, but that someone else wrote first. I know anything I wrote based on those ideas would be completely different, but now that I've read another's take on it, I'll never get that other author's story out of my head. So it's useless now, unless I do it 20 years from now when I've forgotteng all about it.

Anyway...These ideas are so simple. Mr. Y is built on an incredibly simple concept - mindspace - but full of such richness and texture that I can't see how it could be told any other way. Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series is like that, and Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files are in a class on their own, because he was brilliant enough to fuse all the insanely fun elements of fantasy with the tension and suspense innate to mystery, and throw in some romance and humor on top of it.

I feel like we all search so long for that great idea, that amazing concept that will make us look like brilliant writers, catapulting us to the top of the bestsellers, dominoing into more and more brilliant ideas. I wonder if we try too hard. Make them too complicated. So many of my beginner writers in my classes convolute their stories in freakish ways to include some sort of twist at the end of their short stories - most of which aren't all that twisty if you've read any amount of short stories. The plots are too complex, the character left behind. I look at the best novels and stories, the ones I love the most, and really they're quite simple. Lonesome Dove - a cattle drive. The Stand - cross the country to save Mom. The Wizard of Oz - runaway has to find her way home.

We teach it over and over - there are really no new ideas out there. No new plots. The best you can do is take something and put your own stamp on it. Add yourself to it. So I'm going to take my simple ideas, and keep writing them the way I think they should flow out. If they work, they work. If they don't, well...try again.

Choosing Software for Digital Fiction: Step 3

2009-04-06T14:00:00.000+01:00

Finding a Web-builder

First, I'm not a giant corporation with tons of cash to spend to hire a web developer to create the all-singing, all-dancing web extravaganza I'd envisioned. I'm a broke PhD student, struggling to even pay my tuition. If it weren't for Google Scholar, I wouldn't even be able to find texts I need for research!

I'm not well-connected in the web-world, either. I don't have that awesome buddy with tons of web-knowhow and plenty of spare time to design something for me. Besides, that takes half the 'research' out of my research. I mean, how can I really expect other authors, some who are in the same financial situation I am, to attempt this crossover to digital media, if I'm hiring out half the work? If I can't show them how to do it in the first place, I haven't done the job with the dissertation that I'm setting out to do.

So I set out to discover what was out there for me to play with, to see if I could combine technologies, to create some kind of chimera of softwares that would be THE digital fiction revolution/solution.

As familiar as I was with iWeb, I knew it wasn't going to suit for this purpose. As with many Apple products (and as an Apple-devotee, I fully admit that I HATE how proprietary they are with their shit), many of its functions are tied to publishing the site via Apple's MobileMe. That means you have to have a MobileMe account, pay for it every year, and oh yeah, have a shite web address that might not reflect the story you're building. iWeb and its peripherals are for personal use, not professional; anyway, it doesn't meet many of the functionality requirements I wanted, such as community and membership capabilities.

On to other web builders. Now, through the university, I do have access to DreamWeaver. I've never used DreamWeaver because I'm a cheap ass bastard and won't buy it. But I've heard of it for years as THE web builder, so I added it to my list of possibilities. Not high on the list, though, because it would require me to work only on uni campus, on uni computers, which are all Windows PCs. Not a huge hurdle, but a big inconvenience that would be like a rock in my shoe growing to the size of a boulder in the next few years of my research.

I started a search for other WYSIWYG web builders, knowing that if I need to do some coding, most allow some degree of it. I found a few - some freeware, some cheap enough that I wouldn't mind purchasing (in the USD$40 range). I added them to the list.

Then, timing and subject matter and things in the back of my head collided. One, I started this trek while on mid-semester break from uni; i.e. I wasn't on campus much, so had very much shifted the DreamWeaver option to a very distant back burner. If I'd been on campus every day, I probably would have explored this first, and wasted a lot of time.

Two, I'd just finished a whole day of talking about wikis for the CEDAR seminar, had been working with Google Sites (which are wikis, though they don't call themselves that), WetPaint, and PBWiki for various groups throughout the semester, and had taught some of my first year poetry students how to build some hypertext poetry using these free WYSIWYG wikis.

Three, when I did a search for WYSIWYG web builders, a lot of wiki-oriented sites came up. The universe was telling me something. So I altered my search, and started looking at wikis. Yay for me, I quickly found WikiMatrix.

"Choose the wikis that meet your personal needs!" it said. It had a search wizard that asked me what I wanted, and narrowed down the options to fit me. Even getting as narrow as I could, I still wound up with something like 30 wiki-builders to sift through. Luckily, WikiMatrix built this huge comparison chart for me to winnow out the losers (i.e., those requiring Windows to build, or that cost me moolah).

I narrowed it down to a few top choices. The first I tried was a PITA to download and install. First lesson learned: Just because it SAYS it's platform-independent, that doesn't mean it is. A lot of them claim independence based on the fact that VMWare Fusion exists, so you'd have to build your whole site and update and manage it from a parallel machine on your computer (and we're back to the hair-pulling that is the 90s dialup machine). No, thanks.

The second, Tiki Wiki, was a dream. It comes bundled in a .zip file, and is merely a collection of files that you upload onto your webserver. It has several wikis dedicated to instructing you how to use and customize it. Installation was quick and easy.

Granted, I already had a web host, server, and website. If you don't have these things...Uh, why don't you have these things? It's like not having a cell phone or something. Please get one.

Anyway...I'm still in the process of playing with my Tiki Wiki. It really is fully customizable, and in only a couple of days I've learned some insides and outs of it. Here are a few things you can do with the site, most from the WYSIWYG interface that comes up once you've loaded it on your webserver:

Wiki: It's a wiki. It has all the capabilities we're used to seeing in a wiki - page changes, page histories, online management/editing, etc.
Membership: I can customize membership possibilities, down to how people log in.
Community: Forums, blogs, games, user-activity stats, newsletters, articles. More capabilities here than I know what to do with yet!
Mobile: Click on the "mobile" option in the navigation bar, and you get a simplified site, automatically, for use on mobile devices.
Customization: I can customize everything, from the theme, to what messages are delivered when people sign up. I will need to eventually learn a little CSS, but I'll get there.
Groups: I can create groups with various permissions - you paid $XXX for your subscription, you can do anything you want. You, however, are on the free version, so you may read the site but not edit. Fun.
Page options: I can lock pages I don't want people to be able to edit or contribute to. People can save PDFs of the site. So many things.

These are just a few of the options I'm excited about. I'll be playing with it more and more as I build my prototype story in the next few months, and my dissertation should include a really good breakdown of how I go about using these capabilities to build the digital story.

Choosing Software for Digital Fiction: Step 2

2009-04-05T13:59:00.000+01:00

Features

But what kind of website? I could build a simple flash site that takes my readers through my stories click by click, the way Inanimate Alice does. It's a pretty simple option, really, and wouldn't require a ton of web-savvy to build.

I could build a hyperlinked text, like an online version of Afternoon and Patchwork Girl, simply creating links from page to page to represent my story spaces. It would be really easy to put together with the web tools I already have, like iWeb, Google Sites, or any basic WYSIWYG editor.

I'm an ambitious soul, however. Hypertexts have been done. Flash has been done. Games have been done, and fan fic has been done. Not many that I've found has combined them all together into one, however. I want that capability, and nothing I'd seen was approaching this level of functionality.

So I made a list of the features I want to be able to include in my digital text:

Text
Hypertext (i.e. networked structure)
Images
Sound
Collaboration: readers can contribute text, images, their own stories, etc.
Community: forums, blogs, a sense of belonging to the storyworld
Print or Save capability: so readers can print a PDF of the story they participate in, for sharing or revisiting
Mobile capabilities: readers can access the story on their mobile devices
Membership/password protection: should the story catch on, should I ever sign on with a publisher who wants to publish the book and subsequently sell the digital story, it's nice to have restrictions on access - signing up could require a passcode received once you've paid a fee, subscription, or provided proof you've purchased the print novel. Something like that anyway.
Activity tracking: another aspect of requiring membership (even free membership) is that I can track what's going on on the site - who makes what changes, what's popular, what's not working, etc. Great for providing feedback to the author, and for using in my research.
Networking my work: the idea behind practice-based research is that the work doesn't necessarily stand completely on its own. Like a DVD packed with extras, it's great to be able to go behind the scenes, to see how the author created the piece, the thought processes, the research, the other work they did along the way. I want to be able to link back to my main website, my blog, my other work, etc.

There's probably more to this list than I can think of at the moment or track down in my notes, but this is the gist.

The scary thing I faced was that I'm not a web developer. I have basic html skills, enough to post images in my chat forums and add some code here and there to my WYSIWYG website builder. Make me edit a CSS, and my eyes cross - I know what it is, and I appreciate its purpose, but I'm just not at that editing level yet, much less creation level. I couldn't even begin to start on the ground zero process of greating a large, membership based site with all the functionality I wanted. I was daunted.

Until a few weeks ago, when I attended the second session of CEDAR, that I started to generate a good idea...

Choosing Software for Digital Fiction: Step 1

2009-04-04T13:57:00.000+01:00

Deciding on a Platform

This was pretty simple. All it took was my supervisor handing me some CD-ROMs containing the premier examples of electronic writing (all hypertexts in Storyspace). Then me sitting down at my MacBook with Leopard OSX. Uh, right. I could not open a single one. All were for Windows platforms from the 90s. One had Mac capability...Classic 7, I think. Ha.

The best I could do was open my Windows parallel in VMware and play around with the texts. I hated it. One, it slows the entire computer down to 90s dialup pace. Probably great for people reading these texts in the 90s, because they weren't used to having 15 Firefox windows (with 20 tabs each), plus Open Office, plus mail, plus calendar, plus...plus...plus. Two, give it a few more years, and you won't even be able to open those texts on Windows machines. The Book of Kells was written on toilet paper (okay, not true) and it's lasted longer. Three, you can't go over to Eastgate and get the updated version. Oh no. You have to purchase it all over again. Bah humbug.

The only platform that has any relative longevity in the electronic age (and even this won't last as long as the Book of Kells, I'm betting) is the web. You can access the web on a Mac, PC, Linux, your iPhone, whatever. I can access sites built in 1994 today just as easily as I could then. So for universality and electronic longevity, I want to build a website for my stories.

Choosing Software for Digital Fiction: Intro

2009-04-03T09:21:00.004+01:00

I love Spring Break. No teaching. No office hours. No meetings or training sessions. No having to talk to people.

I just get to sit in my home office, make my list of tasks for the day, and work on ticking them off one by one. If only I could get paid for such endeavors, I'd have it made.

Anyway...

This time has allowed me to make some decent progress on my research. I'm super excited. Without much effort, I've managed to track down the software packages that deliver EXACTLY what I've been thinking I want for my digital fiction.

A few months ago, I was despairing, because the few sites I've seen with all the functionality I want have been high-profile places, complex and huge, far beyond what little html-building knowledge I have. I figured I'd have to purchase some fairly hefty software packages, which was terrifying, considering the peanuts they throw into my pen for teaching all the classes I'm teaching.

Today it's a totally different story, one I'm going to try to lay out as succinctly as possible (which for me isn't very); this entry should eventually lead to a full chapter or two of my dissertation, so I'm going to be a bit thorough in my next few posts. I'll talk about the major steps I took to deciding on a technology for building my digital fiction.

Prototyping

2009-03-31T13:05:00.004+01:00

It is officially Spring break, mid-semester break, whatever you want to call it. I will not call it Easter break, as the school officially does, because I find that officially dunderheaded. Ugh.

Anyway, for the next three weeks, I get to do nothing (well, not much more than) but write and work on my PhD stuff. My plan is to increase my writing sessions to 4 per day, 3 for my short story (that is nearly done) and 1 for the novel that's been languishing in the bowels of my computer for the last 6 months. It has a way better chance of winning the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award than my current one does, at least IMO.

Once the rough draft of the story is completed, I can spend a little more time exploring the digital adaptation side of it. I have to admit, part of my procrastination process today has been to start this exploration already, by looking into wiki-building programs. More on that later.

I've already found that without the pressures on my time, it's hard for me to get working. When I know I have only 20 minutes total to write, it takes me 20 minutes to write. When I know I have all day...it takes me all day. Sigh.

Hopefully it's just vacation fever, and I'll get into a decent working rhythm here in the next 20 days. Otherwise, I'll be even farther behind in this project than I already am.

It is helping me to know that I am presenting this story and its digital WIP adaptation at the Great Writing Conference in June. I can't get up there in front of my extended writing community and offer crap. I'd really like to have something that shows off the project, how useful it will be, how creative.

When I describe the project to people in the field, they keep saying how innovative and unique it is. I had no idea about this when I first proposed it. To me, it just seemed logical and exciting. But people keep acting like I'm Newton theorizing on gravity or something. I'm still having a hard time believing that tons of other writers and researchers aren't out there doing this same thing: writing an original piece to co-exist in parallel platforms (print and digital).

I won't knock it, though. The fact that everyone thinks it's so impressive will hopefully get me some funding, maybe some contacts, and maybe eventually I'll be able to sell myself as a consultant or (ha!) a writer.

For the moment, I'll just focus on hitting my milestones: finished rough draft by the end of this week, and a plan for the digital adaptation by the end of the break.

Update (40 min later):
So it turns out all my procrastination was incredibly silly. One 25 minute writing session was all it took to finish the rough draft. Now it gets to sit until the end of the break, getting not-fresh for its rewrites, as I explore adaptation angles. Yay!

CEDAR: Corpora and Wikis

2009-03-23T09:54:00.004Z

I attended the second session (having missed the first due to being brain dead) of the Collaborative Digital Research in the Humanities (CEDAR) postgraduate training program this past weekend. (Don't ask me about the acronym.) The topics covered corpora and wikis, specifically with regard to knowledge sharing and collaboration.

The corpora discussion was very linguistic-based, and so not much was very directly applicable to my own work. I can use the tools to do some curiosity-led analysis of my work, figuring out which words come up the most frequently in a piece of fiction, and in what relations and contexts they appear. Of course, what I found when I did this on my novel WIP is that the character names overwhelmed everything else. Duh.

But this topic also included something a little fun, in the form of Wordle. This is a fun little web "toy" that takes in a plain text file, a blog, and a few other source types, and builds a word cloud that you can then play with a little bit to get the best visual expression. I ran a few of my pieces through it, mostly getting character name clouds. But I also ran this blog through it (see the pic above), and it was interesting to see the words that spring out: most notably TIME, and STORY. GAME, DIGITAL, PHD, TEACHING, and CONFERENCE are prominent as well. It's also kind of funny to me that PUCKER is so big. Hmm. I wonder if I've been stressed at all?

It may be a toy for linguists, but I can really see some uses for it in my work:

Foundation for creating hyperlinks within a digital story. Using this tool, I can see what words and themes come up very strongly within a story (maybe by searching and deleting all character names before running the file through Wordle). I can use that as a basis for linking ideas and scenes together.
Creating a visual representation of a story. I love having the words form this visual cloud that can tell you about a story, giving it an abstract (in a very abstract sense!).

The wiki sessions were a bit more applicable to myself, at least as far as research is concerned. Not much of it was really new knowledge to me, as I've already participated in several wikis, even back before there were any WYSIWYG platforms for them.

But it did refresh them in my mind, and gave me something to think about as far as the interactivity of my digital stories is concerned. I've been wondering how to include those aspects, and now I'm wondering if I can incorporate a WYSIWYG wiki into the digital story to allow readers to contribute new elements to the stories, to contribute to the story world, to communicate, to interact. I actually really love this idea, and I think I'll try to add it to the current story I'm writing/adapting as a prototype of the project as a whole.

Given that, I'm going to be setting up two different wikis, to test them. The first is hosted on PBWiki.com, whose basic personal wiki is free, but has limited functionality compared to the pay wikis. But I have the ability to upgrade, should it prove successful. The other is through Google Sites, which I am very familiar with already, and is entirely free.

Keep an eye out for announcements - when the story and adaptation are finished, I'll be sending around invites for test readers!

Overall, I found the CEDAR session really useful, and actually inspirational. It was also nice to get to chat with others doing research in the field (though we agreed there aren't many of us). I'm really looking forward to Session 3 in May, all of which looks directly applicable to my work:

Reading and writing in the digital age
Transliteracy: forms of literacy in the digital age - e-publishing, digital project design, JeS system
Organising creative processes
From inspiration to revision: multimedia for creative and academic writing

Until then, I'll keep plugging away, and playing with the word clouds and wikis!

Checking up on Myself

2009-03-19T10:29:00.006Z

I should have done this a couple of months ago... I guess I could post-date it, but I'll be all honest and stuff.

At the beginning of this semester, I had a supervisor meeting, which inspired me to draw up a plan for how I'm going about this PhD. It's a good plan.

Plans are great and all, but only as far as they actually work. So as I've used semesters (3 per year, fall, spring, summer) to milestone my plan, I'm going to post one of these at the end of each semester to see how I'm doing, and to see if I need to adjust my plan at all. Here goes.

Semester 1 (Fall 2008) Plan & Outcomes:
Plan: Explore idea, background of North Wales for inspiration for print novel

Outcome: Did a lot of exploration, read some Welsh mythology, wandered around Anglesey taking pictures. I have a lot of ideas now for the novel, and not just based in Welsh mythology. I think this is going to take on a bit more of world mythology, sort of a globalization theme that reflects what New Media is doing to connect people.

Plan: Immerse self in academic environment, methods of practice-led research

Outcome: Joined a New Media Research Circle, have attended/participated in all of the practice-based/led research sessions. Have attended available conferences, and presented at the Research Student Forum Conference. I've generated a lot of ideas about what I want my practice-based research to look like, how it should unfold, how the creative and critical should feed into one another. I'm also on committees for two academic conferences, presenting at two this summer, and am participating in the Digital and Collaborative Multimedia in the Humanities Training Scheme.

Plan: Paper on novel adaptation to online/digital elements

Outcome: "The Shifting Author-Reader Dynamic: Online Novel Communities as a Bridge from Print to Digital Literature" is finished (for now). I presented it at Shark Tank, and got some good feedback. I submitted it to Convergence, and it is currently under review for their Feb 2010 issue themed "Authors and the Web."

Plan: Maintain process blog

Outcome: Keeping up! Here it is. I'm averaging (I hope) about 3 posts a week, on various topics.

Adjustments to Semester 1 Plan:

None required.

Semester 2 (Spring 2009) Plan:
Plan: Complete a written short story with aim to adapt it to a digital story
Plan: Explore and trial-test various software platforms for adaptation
Plan: Storyboard written short story for digital adaptation
Plan: Maintain process blog
Plan: Continue to research legend & mythology, brainstorm novel
Plan: Continue multi-media networking

There it is. Semester 2 has already been slightly adjusted to account for the fact that I hardly have any time whatsoever to work on the PhD this semester, but we'll go from here. Sometime in May I'll check in again, and hope I don't have a giant FAIL marked across my face.

Only 8 Working Days Till Spring Break

2009-03-18T08:57:00.002Z

It's called Easter Holiday here, but that does not clearly express the sense of freedom and liberation that is a 3-week spring break. Plus, I'm not Christian or pagan, so Easter just means more Cadbury mini-eggs to me.

Anyway...

It's been stressful so far in the term. I'm surviving, but barely. The triathlon training is finally taking its toll, and I'm grinding my teeth in anticipation of a job - any job - coming up on the boards that will allow me to continue my studies and hire a housecleaner. I hate cleaning house.

I've adopted a strategy that I hope will allow me to meet my targets this semester: I'm writing for 20 minutes a day in timed sessions. So far, it's working. The story that would not budge is budging - moving and flowing even. It's a shitty first draft, but it's there.

The good news of yesterday - being a quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novelist Awards - is already stressing me out. People are excited for me, and I'm really grateful for all my friends' and family's support. But this contest that I barely remember entering, and never gave a second thought to, is now pressuring me. Can I win? Can I get to the next round even? What does that say about me if I don't win? Should I enter next year? Should I push to finish my current WIP, aside from the PhD, so I can enter it next year? Because that is a MUCH better book, and if I can make it this far with an early career novel...

I'm making a vow: this is the last I mention or think about this contest until April, when the semifinalists are announced. I have more pressing things to worry about, things I have some modicum of control over.

Like teaching. Like the husband, sick in bed. Like the dog who won't stop her whining for a walk. Like that silly little PhD thing. Like friends who are ill, family members who are struggling in a recession.

And back to our regularly scheduled cynical, pessimistic program. :)

I'm an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Quarterfinalist!

2009-03-17T20:38:00.004Z

Yes, I remember entering this contest...vaguely. Very vaguely. Oh well.

Received notification this morning that I am one of 500 quarterfinalists (out of a maximum 10,000 entries, that's not bad).

You can see my novel excerpt at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG3B4U. Please download it, review it, pass it on to your friends. (If you're not in the US, you can view the excerpt on my site here.)

It's a pretty big deal contest: Grand Prize is a publishing contract with Penguin and a $25k royalty advance.

If I make it to the final round, I'll be stumping for votes. I hate that system, because it means the best campaigner wins, not necessarily the best novel, but you have to work with what you've got, I suppose.

Let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

First Drafts are...Not(?) Crap

2009-03-13T17:16:00.002Z

I've written fiction now for a while, always intended for print publication. The adages there are always "first drafts are shit," "we're not writers, we're REwriters," and "revise, revise, revise." We hear about Hemingway reworking his prose over and over, until he was merely deleting and inserting the same comma.

It works for print fiction. It leaves you with a refined, polished piece that (hopefully) no one can poke holes in.

Every writer develops a process for their stories. Some sit down and write and write and write, letting whatever may come out spill across the page, the story shaping itself minute by minute. Others plan and plan and plan, like navigators mapping a trip. They know exactly where they're going, and how to get there.

I've always been a bit in between. I know where I'm going - I have a destination - and I vaguely know some stops I might make along the way, but I'm usually up for interesting detours and rest breaks.

Writing my first story intended for digital adaptation has been a new experience in my process. For one, this story is one where I don't have a destination in mind. I'm sitting down and writing it using the NaNoWriMo method: set a timer for 20 min and write madly to hit the max word count in that time. I can hit from 700-1000, depending on how I'm rolling.

What this does is open me up to a lot of different possibilities, the random things that come to mind when absolutely forced to put words on the screen. I usually work in a pretty linear fashion, the story arc in mind, the character arc clear. With this story, I have no idea what is going to happen, what the main character is going to do or decide. For all I know, she'll do a dozen conflicting things.

In the print story, I'll have to refine these chunks of wandering inspired by these forced writing periods into a cohesive, linear story. I'll have to choose the direction I want my character to take, chisel the story and character arcs out of the pile of rubbish that is the first draft. I used to do things this way, but it's a long process, and so I developed the habit of sitting with a story in my head until it was shaped and ready to be transcribed.

I've gone back to this messy method for the digital works because it does allow me to stray from the path quite a lot more often, and from this first draft I'm already getting multiple story threads, different directions, many options for finishing off the story. These are all going to work well for the digital adaptation; chunks I may have to cut from the print story for the sake of cohesion in a linear storyline can be used in a networked, multi-possibility digital story.

So far, I'm enjoying the fact that I don't know where it will all go, how it will all turn out, if at all. I haven't had that sense of adventure in my writing for a long time, and I'm glad to have it back.

Getting Rolling

2009-03-12T10:01:00.002Z

It's a lovely week. I teach two classes (same module, twice) for the English department, and on the schedule this week rose two lovely words: "Reading Week." It's a really fancy way to say "no class."

So I've only had to focus on teaching my poetry classes, which means I have today (Thursday), and all of tomorrow afternoon to do what I'm meant to be doing every week: writing for my PhD project.

What am I doing right now? Paying bills, backing up my computer, researching kilts in my clan tartan, commenting on Facebook photos... Some call it procrastination. I call it warm-up.

My list for the day: finish doing my US taxes, run, cycle, ride my horse, write a blog entry, and get 1000 more words down on my story. I'm forcing myself to write on the story for an hour before I can run, cycle, or ride.

10 a.m., and here I am, just beginning to write a blog entry. I'm thinking it's like getting to the pitch an hour before the game, meandering around, maybe jogging a bit, stretching out the hurty places (at 30, I have a lot more now than I ever did). My fingers are warming up on the keyboard, I've turned my iTunes mix on, I'm thinking about where my character is going. In about half an hour, I might actually write. GASP.

What's been difficult is that I haven't been able to write every day, or even every week. It's much easier for me these days to go for a run than it is for me to write. I have a scary triathlon coming up in May, and I don't want to fail miserably. Plus, running and training doesn't stress me out. Lately, the writing has a lot of pressure on it. Will it suck? Will it be good enough for the PhD? Will I be able to adapt to a reasonable digital format, or will it just be a hodgepodge of images and text?

I won't know until I do it, however, so I might as well quit hemming and hawing over it. Time to go write about a girl with a black hole in her belly. I like black holes.

Practice-Based Research...Again

2009-03-11T22:12:00.000Z

We had another departmental discussion on practice-based (and practice-led...the difference is subtle, but definite) research today.

The first time I heard GH's talk on the subject, it was amongst a bunch of postgrads, most of whom were conducting some sort of practice-led/based research, who all stared up at the PowerPoint a bit slackjawed. Not much discussion sparked.

But today the discussion was held amongst staff and a couple of the PhD candidates who are venturing into this realm. A lot more came out of it this time:

It was interesting to note how traditional academics view this area of research. To them, it seems nebulous, hard to pin down, and somewhat arbitrary. Practice-based research, in particular, gave them difficulty. Do we want PhD candidates who have talent in a creative area, but who have little or no critical thinking capabilities? How do you evaluate a creative piece for PhD qualification? How does simply producing a creative piece contribute new knowledge to the field if it is not experimental, and if the critical element is simply an analysis of the piece itself according to established theory?

I think these are great questions, and as practice-based researchers, we can't ignore them. After all, it's this sort of rigorous application of standards that will improve the field, raise the bar, as it were. Many of us get laughed at by "traditional" academics and scientists, exactly for these reasons. Why would you want to pay tens of thousands of dollars/pounds to get a PhD for writing a novel or designing a game, when you can do it for free? Just for the slip of paper?

For one, it's not just about the creative talent. As the field of practice-based research has been established, it seems a great majority of dissertation submissions have been an attempt at just that: "look at my awesome novel, let me tell you why it's awesome." The dissertations are sometimes just a novel and a glorified book report of that novel. I agree with those who think this isn't quite PhD worthy. MA worthy, certainly MFA worthy (they don't have MFAs in the UK, and I'll get to that in a minute), but not PhD worthy. For that level of accomplishment, I think you truly should be contributing something new to the field, something different, something you can't do without the influence of other researchers, discussion, input, and extensive research.

How do you evaluate a creative piece for a PhD? That I really don't know - I'm probably not at that level yet. I know how I do it for undergraduate classes, and I imagine some sort of extrapolation would go into it. I don't think, however, that the viva is the place to establish these criteria - at that point, you either award the doctorate or you don't. We need to go way back to the beginning of the PhD study, back to the application and research proposal if need be. Make sure our doctoral researchers are starting off on the right path to begin with, and through supervision make sure the research is approaching the standards we want to hit. Otherwise, we're judging these candidates unfairly.

From my vantage point as someone who has studied for terminal degrees in both the US and the UK, I can see why each has gone the direction it has. The US could be seen as a bit more rigorous in terms of its PhD standards - almost no university in the States offers a PhD in writing, and the Master of Fine Arts is considered the terminal degree. The art is the thing there, much less the academic quality.

In the UK, they have no MFA. They have no degree path you can follow to simply be a better writer. You go from undergrad to MA, which is of course a research degree, even if it can be practice-based, then to PhD. The critical component is always there, but it seems to me these ideals of practice-based research are not quite reaching many of these research students. They often see the course as a dichotomy, heavily weighted toward the creative piece, with a critical analysis tacked on the end. In an ideal research world, the two should be concurrent, feeding into one another, reflecting one another.

As mentors, as teachers, as artists, we need to continually make research students aware of these ideals, of these goals. It's a new way of thinking, a new way of studying, especially for those indoctrinated by 20 years of traditional education, with creative and critical distinctly separate. We also need to have more than rhetoric and definitions - we need to be able to hand out samples of these standards so they can be open to the possibilities of practice-based and -led research. Which means those of us who are embarking on our projects in these early days of the field need to push back against tradition, against those academics who want to slot us into chapters and reference lists and familiar and comfortable dissertations to sit on dusty shelves.

Pioneers, we are. Go forth and conquer.

The Evolution of the Research Proposal

2009-03-09T18:42:00.003Z

I'm Super Organized Girl. Maybe it's my father's diluted OCD in my genes, recombined with that of my maternal grandmother. Maybe it's the decade I spent as a professional writer, coordinating projects and people and schedules and 600 page documents and all their changes for the year or so it took to build them. Maybe it's just me.

I make lists. I make schedules, then I synchronize them between my computer, my phone, my email account. I know what I'm doing next Tuesday at 3:13, and the Tuesday after that, and the Tuesday after that.

So when I embarked on this PhD project, I wrote out a plan for myself. Half the time, I think the planning is the most fun part of any project. It's when you're still full of hope that you can actually get the monstrous thing done. It's when you can break it down into detailed pieces, finding places to celebrate for crossing milestones, accomplishments you can reward yourself for. It's the post-planning that sucks, when you realize you've missed all your deadlines, you'll never get it done, everyone knows it, and thinks you're a right nob.

Anyway, via all the funding applications I've been helping other PhDs in the department with, I've had a lot of discussions about that nebulous being, the research proposal. Six months ago, I was writing a novel and thinking about game aspects of narrative. I was incorporating some Welsh mythology. I might have been thinking to include hypertext.

Today, I'm writing a series of short stories, based in different world mythologies, with a common thread, and adapting them to full digital format. I'm exploring the process of that adaptation, with a dissertation intended to bring some illumination to other authors and even publishers on how we can keep working to make digital fiction a mainstream genre, and to reach mass audiences.

It may not sound like a big change, but it is. The details have also morphed quite a bit, from thoughts on ghosts in Anglesey, to heroes' journeys across the world. It's exciting, but I know it will evolve even more before it is done.

Because that's just what happens. So many of the new PhDs think they're tied, word-for-word, to whatever proposal they include in their admission or funding application essay. That would just be impossible, and even the funding bodies know that. I keep having postgrads not even consider certain avenues for funding because they wouldn't think of spinning their research to show how its applicable to certain funding organizations' mission statements. They hope someone will see the value in their research and throw money at them, rather than being willing to present themselves as flexible, in the best light possible.

I have about five different versions of my CV, each oriented to a certain theme: academic, teaching, research, professional, etc. I submit a targeted CV depending on the job and the industry. The information doesn't change; just the material I choose to highlight for its applicability to the situation. It's an important skill for everyone looking for money, IMHO.

I think I've gotten off-track here. Oh well. Back to research proposals...

I like being open to change in my ideas. I like considering different aspects. Targeting my research proposal for certain funding, or adjusting it according to my schedule, has given me more ideas, not fewer. I'm more excited about my work than I was four months ago, because I can see it really taking shape. It's like the metaphor of the sculptor I use for my creative writing students - the marble doesn't come pre-formed. The sculptor chooses a good shape for his idea, or maybe the marble's shape itself inspires him. He hacks at it in great swipes for a general shape, and then his tools get finer and finer as the sculpture approaches his ideal.

I'm still hammering away at that vague shape of my research. In another year, I might have the outline of a form. In another, a face may emerge (keep in mind I'm studying part-time, unless I magically get funding). I'm eager to see what it winds up looking like.

Surviving the Shark Tank

2009-03-05T16:43:00.004Z

My department started this incredibly helpful, cruel, beneficial, nerve-wracking thing they call the Shark Tank. It's open to any staff or postgraduate in the Humanities (I think the Sciences have a similar thing). Every so often some brave soul offers themselves up as bait, submits a paper they're intending to submit for publication, and lets the group rip it to shreds in an hour after lunchtime.

I, being a bloody idiot, decided to be the first postgrad to suffer this fate. Well, I didn't decide it; I thought my officemate and fellow New Media PhD was going first. But she took baby steps, letting our New Media Research Circle take a bite on her paper first, rather than facing up to the entire College. That dropped me headfirst into the water.

I'd been working on a paper since last semester, using online author websites (like Neil Gaiman's, Jasper Fforde's, and Jim Butcher's) as models for a bridge for readers to learn digital storytelling conventions. By interacting on these feature-rich websites, based on print storytelling, readers learn the networked, interactive communication mechanisms central to the efficacy of digital stories.

Anyway, I don't write anything anymore just for it to sit and look pretty. I intend for the issue of my tap-tap-tapping fingers to work for their supper, gol-darn-it!

By the time Shark Tank rolled around, I'd already submitted to one journal, Convergence. I sent the paper off to Shark Tank to be distributed, and then checked out my publication options. Convergence had a Call for Papers out for a themed issue on "Writing and the Web," whose topics included coverage of such things as author websites.

Only the deadline was three weeks past.

I emailed the editor with my abstract anyway, figuring it was worth a shot, particularly since my paper is so related to their topic. She agreed, and is currently reviewing the piece. So the worst part - getting the nerve to submit to academic publications - was over before it really began.

That only left the Shark Tank, where everyone I knew and respected could see what a hack I was. I shouldn't have worried so much. Apart from a few notes on some areas where I could deepen the analysis if I so choose and some terminology confusion (most of which I agreed with), the group had no major notes for me. No one said I was an idiot, or had used useless references, or that my theory was far-fetched and unsupported by the evidence I presented. My language is a bit too colloquial (hello, fiction author and blogger for the last decade), but I'm sure with a little practice I can make it academic, jargony, and dull.

Now that's over, it's time to get back to what I actually do: write fiction. I've got a short story to write and adapt to digital format by June. Let the stress hormones flow refreshed.

Eaglet Publication

2009-02-27T16:15:00.002Z

I got some really great news this week: one of my former students, who took his first writing course from me last spring, has had a short story accepted for publication.

I have no idea how many of my former students have ever been published, but this is the first to have told me about it!

He's a beautiful writer, and I'm positive it's the first of many. So congrats, keep it up, and I couldn't be happier. And if it's not completely patronizing, I couldn't be prouder.

Yay!

And Now for Something More Academic

2009-02-24T22:38:00.002Z

It's been a crazy week already. My ninja plan is in place, and making me feel a bit excited, even though nothing is for sure. At least I have something to work toward.

I also, miraculously, through failing to check my calendar and thus attending a very important all-day seminar, got some work done. I know, it was hard for me to breathe for a minute, too.

My list of accomplishments from the last 4 days includes:

Submission (and subsequent acceptance) of my abstract to the 2009 MeCCSA Postgraduate Conference. I will be presenting my paper "The Shifting Author-Reader Dynamic: Online Novel Communities as a Bridge from Print to Digital Literature."
Submission (and subsequent acceptance) of my abstract to the 2009 Great Writing Conference. I will be reading my short story (WIP, but completed by then), and using accompanying visuals and discussion for my adaptation to digital format.
A very behind-the-ball submission of my paper "The Shifting Author-Reader Dynamic" to Convergence. As I started my research into journals to submit the paper to, I came across their call for papers on "Words on the Web" - absolutely perfectly suited to my paper. Only the deadline passed 3 weeks ago. I sent my abstract to the editor anyway, acknowledging my lateness, but noting that I've only just finished and discovered the CFP, and my paper is pretty well-suited to the issue's theme. She agreed, and so I submitted the full paper today.
Submission of my short story "Last Stop Bar and Grill" to various respected journals. Time to get the fiction show back on the road.
Finished the AHRC Grant application for funding for the College of Arts & Humanities conference I'm chairing this summer. It was a pretty well-written bid, if I do say, but then I did it for a living for years. I wonder if that's cheating. Anyway, it had a LOT of input from the faculty members involved in the conference (well, maybe not input, but a bunch of condescending notes), which I don't think is really kosher, but I'm smiling and nodding and trying to piss as few people off as possible.

Next week will suck again as all 3 of the creative writing classes I'm teaching have workshops, so it's unlikely much work will get done then. For now, I'd just like to bask in it, and pretend that I'm always this industrious.

...and on a more positive note (me?!? positive? where???)

2009-02-21T16:22:00.003Z

Now that I've been able to post about how depressing this week was for me without sending myself into a spiral of tears, snot, and hiccups, I should counter it with a reminder of the happy things that happened:

Birthday presents

I got strange birthday presents, in the form of underpants and patchouli, but I also got wonderful birthday presents. My fellow students and friends in the department, who all bear the brunt of my crankiness on a daily basis, all pitched in and gave me a weekend in Scotland. In none of the alternate universes where my electrons exist do I in any way deserve such a lovely, thoughtful gift. Honestly, the thought of having to drop out of this program depresses me mostly because I feel I'd lose my friends and family there, and it's a horrible, horrible thought. I love you guys.

My project not sucking

My supervisor - pretty much the smartest person I've ever met - thinks my project is a cool idea. Unique even. Innovative. I don't know if she realizes that tossing these words out to a fiction writer is like sprinkling crack on chocolate birthday cake, but I love her for saying them anyway.

Other folks in positions of respect think it's pretty okay, too: I may be heading down to Cambridge this summer with my fellow NIECI/SCSMatics to talk at a symposium about alternative publishing.

And my idea for an abstract for a big ol' Creative Writing conference earned me a presentation spot just for mentioning it. Not too shabby.

Horses

I've been really lucky - I made a few horsey contacts, made some really great friends, and now I have a 5-year-old to ride and train as I see fit, at no expense to myself. The 2 hours I spent at the barn this week were the only stress-free hours I had. I probably would have suffered a hospital-worthy migraine if not for my bumpy-headed Starsky.

Students (I can't believe I just wrote that)

I teach a Poetry and Performance class on Friday mornings. When I walk into the classroom at 9 am every week, 4-8 pairs of bleary eyes stare up at me, when they can lift their hungover heads from the tables.

I got very little direction from the department in how to teach this course (read: none), so I decided I would do whatever the hell I felt like. It's a bizarre class, and I think my students are frightened for 80% of it, but it amuses me endlessly.

This week their assignment was to write an original song and perform it for the class (they could set it to some other music if that's not their forte). They were jaw-droppingly amazing. I had a rockin' folk song, a ballad accompanied by a harp (a harp!), a bluesy journey tale worthy of Johnny Cash, and a haunting Celtic melody. They all had gorgeous voices, some had incredible musical talent, and all of the songs were about 20 times better than ANYTHING iTunes keeps suggesting to me.

I nearly cried. It was an awesome hour, and I don't think I'll be able to give an assignment to top it for the rest of the semester. Maybe ever.

My Director of Postgraduates

I can't really say why he's on my brownie-points list this week without botching the opportunity I'm hoping for, but he gave me a ray of shiny. He didn't tell me I was an idiot, he got miffed on my behalf, and he supported my efforts to make the best of an impossible situation.

I need to visit him in his hidey-hole office more often, I guess.

Last and sappiest of all,

My Husband

Who suggested he could pay for my rent, my food, my entertainment, my travel expenses, AND my PhD. He can't, and even if he could, I wouldn't let him, but his unfailing support in everything that I do is, again, more than I deserve. I'm beginning to think I was Ghandi or something in a past life, and karma is most definitely real. The rest of my lives are probably going to go downhill from here.

Okay, that's all the sunshine I can stand. I'm going to go rip my paper to shreds in an attempt to get ANY work done this term.

...emerging from my protective shell

2009-02-21T15:46:00.003Z

The last "Oh #@$((&%@" post was prescient. I didn't get a dressing down for having nothing done by this point. I got a lot of concern and suggestions, and a much, much scarier picture of my future.

I did get a gentle wrist slap for taking on so much teaching - not that I had a choice. Joseph Heller is chortling madly from his afterlife, wishing he could add my tale as a sequel. I pay the GNP of Iceland to study part time as an overseas student. Last semester, I had a full-time job, and that paid all right, but A) drove me insane (reminding me why I had vowed to never work with TV producers EVER again), and B) the contract ended anyway.

So I took on all the teaching they offered me - at 7 classes per semester, spread over 2 universities and 4 departments, my paycheck doesn't quite match what I pay in fees alone.

But all the teaching - the prep, the assessments, the marking - means I have maybe 4 hours a week for PhD study, and that's spread out through the week in 30 minute chunks.

I can't earn enough to pay my fees if they cut back my teaching, but I can't actually study if I continue to teach at this level.

Monday's meeting - with my supervisor and the Head of School - went something like:

They said, "You're teaching too much, 1st year PhDs shouldn't teach at all, next term we're cutting it way back. Oh, and by the way, we're hiring a creative writing lecturer to teach the classes you're teaching anyway, and so there will be less teaching and a smaller budget for people like you overall."

I said, "B-b-but I can't pay my fees without teaching, and funding is next to nothing for we Colonials daring to return to the Motherland to study."

They said, "_______."

Head of School actually compared her situation to mine. Um, no. I like you and all, and I think you'll be good for us, but just no.

No third option offered. I had to hold my breath through the rest of my supervisor meeting - all offering good suggestions on my PhD plans, etc - just to keep from breaking down into tears. I made it over to my husband's office, where I bawled about my failed dream for about an hour.

Before you start in on me like everyone else, yes, I'm exploring every funding option available:

Grants
The US says we made too much money last year for them to give us any aid for education. The UK says "You weren't born here, and we hate everyone who isn't us, so suck it." They just killed off the scheme that allowed overseas students to pay resident fees.

Studentships
In the UK, you have to be a UK or EU citizen for most. I've applied for a couple, but they're sketchy. I've seen forms for mail-in cereal box prizes that were more in-depth.

Part-time work
This was how I landed the job last semester, and it was only mildly successful. I was miserable in the job. I took up teaching for this semester, hoping it would work. It's not - too much work, no pay. One issue is that I don't speak Welsh, and I'm not local, two giant strikes against me for a lot of local part-time work, especially in the uni. I'm still slogging the job board, but won't even be able to start any of them till after this term.

Loans
I just can't do it. I'm $60k in debt from my Master's. Add at least another $40k for this degree, and I'm a glorified writer with $100k in debt. It's not like it's a medical degree, where I can be assured a decent salary as soon as I graduate. I can't even be sure I'll have a chance at a JOB when I graduate. Plus, it goes a bit against my moral stance on this issue - I gripe at least once a week how people borrowing money (and institutions lending money) KNOWING they couldn't pay it back got us into this economic cock-up to begin with. Pretty hypocritical of me to turn around and do the same thing just because I really want something.

Industry funding
I'm working on it. The uni has a couple of schemes working to partner researchers with related industries/businesses. Business forms a relationship with the uni, benefits from the research, and the researcher gets their work paid for. These schemes are really promising...kind of like .coms in the 90s, real estate in the 80s, olive green appliances in the 70s...I know they work, and I'm hoping they work out, but at the moment there are a LOT of variables. It's too pie-in-the-sky for me to have any confidence in it at the moment.

It's been a depressing week. Unlike USC, BU doesn't quite have the funding to provide a lot of teaching assistantships. I don't think they've even thought of it. It was really telling that the head of school didn't have any sort of alternative option for me.

On a more positive note, however, I did have a brilliant idea later on in the week. I can't chat about it much, because it too might be insanely pie-in-the-sky, but I don't want to ruin any chance I may have of it working. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that things work out, keep applying for part-time jobs and cereal-box grants, and write in my half-hour snippets of time while teaching poetry to kids who haven't yet figured out that I know nothing about poetry.

Oh, S@%@#T.

2009-02-10T19:40:00.002Z

My dad would call this pucker time. As in, you get so freaked out about what's about to happen that you clench your butt so nothing comes out of it at an inopportune moment.

It was bound to happen. I've been strolling along, getting things done, but maybe not the most important things. I have this dilemma - do the PhD, or pay for the PhD. At the moment, they seem to be mutually exclusive goals.

So I've been teaching, working, scrabbling for every little paycheck and applying for even the teensiest grants.

PhD study? Who?

And now the day of reckoning is upon me (see how I use the cliches? Clear evidence I haven't been using the writing muscles): my supervisor wants a progress meeting.

Progress? I think I remember that guy.

I was supposed to do background research last term - I worked a full time job while reading Welsh fairy tales. I'm supposed to be writing a complete short story to adapt to digital format. I have 3 pages after 6 months. I'm supposed to be diving into the software that I intend to use to build the digital fiction - I've dabbled in 3 or 4 programs.

Pucker. Pucker, pucker, pucker.

Monday's the day. Maybe I can get a buttload of stuff done between now and then. Right?

Early Death Knell

2009-01-31T11:15:00.000Z

It comes down to this: I need funding.

So. Very. Desperately.

I'm teaching 7 classes this semester - and I have to design all the lessons for 5 of them. This is the amount of teaching I have to do in order to pay my fees.

That's 9 hours of contact time a week. Add in the requisite 3 hours for every 1 spent in the classroom for prep and marking (for which I am NOT paid), and it's a full time job. At least.

I'm exhausted. After marking 40 1st-years' short stories, I never want to see the written word again. And I have 20 more to go. I haven't even had time to think about my PhD studies all week.

Five years - that's how long I'll have to keep this up if I have to self-fund the entire PhD. I should take a picture of myself now, the way they do US Presidents before they take office. They age about 50 years during their terms; I have a feeling I'll age at least 30.

So I'm busting my ass to find funding, which is as plentiful for Americans in the UK as it is for white middle class males in the States. I'm willing to alter the source inspiration for my novel to whatever country or culture will fund "studies" on their mythology. I'm on conference committees and discussion forums, trying to bulk up my CV and references for funding applications, what few there are.

I have a sinking, depressing feeling that if I don't get a grant from somewhere, this PhD isn't going to happen.

On the plus side, I now have half a closet to use as an office, and they even gave me a key. Now I have somewhere to store snacks. Yes, that will make up for the fact the university cut part-time lecturer salaries by 60% in the past year, so we don't get a dime for 75% of the work we do.

We've gained a tether in our department as well - our new head of school heard about our concerns about the quality of our teaching, and assigned us a teaching coordinator/mentor. It boosts the morale, if not our bank accounts.

So, if Richard Branson or any other super rich person is reading this, know that my project is insanely awesome, commercially marketable, and I am the nicest person on the planet to give money to. Sort of.

Please?

Conference Update

2009-01-24T00:21:00.002Z

Second day of the conference, and what an interesting day it was.

The schedule listed a slot at the very end for "prizes", which mystified us. Were there categories? Awards? Statuettes?

I didn't know, so today I decided to award my own prizes based on my own arbitrary classifications. Awards included:

-Most bizarre use of out-of-context visuals
-Most enthusiastic/evangelistic about subject
-Most in need of a lower primate prop
-Most in need of screaming girls in the front row
-Most creative "avoid having to actually talk" method
-Most BS and pseudoscience packed into 15 minutes

I think there were others, but they may have been too...er...adult-themed to post here.

Anyway, I wound up taking first prize (official conference first prize, not my silly prizes for which there is no order) at the end of the day, sharing it with my fellow NIECI and New Media cohort (see our "Press Release"). Our supervisor will be stoked, and our Dir of PGs was so proud of us and the department showing as a whole that I thought his shirt buttons might pop. He kept calling us "his girls", which I thought was particularly brave as he said it in the middle of a circle of known feminists. Not to mention we're outspoken and not afraid to use brute force.

Anyway, it was a good day, and a good learning experience. And our rockin' department was full of win.

On another note, I met our new head of school today. More win. Our fears (my fears, all right?) of the unknown were unfounded. She's full of win.

Win. Yay.

Bed now.

First Conference Talk

2009-01-22T19:20:00.001Z

Gave my very first academic conference presentation today. It wasn't the best experience it could have been. The conference was put on by a student organization, and none of the organizers seemed to be very take charge. It was more as though they were absentee wedding planners – they planned the day, booked the room, and called the caterer, but they had no role whatsoever in the fall out of the events of the day. For the most part, they let the room fall fallow, the presenters to load their presentations onto the one computer willy-nilly.

I was prepared, but I had to cue up a digital story to a certain point beforehand, and did so. Only to have an idiot of a keynote speaker trounce into the room as soon as I left and proceed to crash the computer. When I returned to try to sort out the problem, he treated me like a kindergartner and told me how many bajillion computers he runs all at the same time. BS. He couldn't even open his PowerPoint. He was a mixture of Tony Robbins and Bill Paxton's used car salesman from True Lies – slimy, condescending, and full of hot air. He talked for an hour, and I couldn't tell you one thing of substance he had to offer.

Anyway...

It was a uni-wide conference for postgrads, so we had quite a mixed bag – from studies of female Chinese film directors to ludology to evolutionary genetics of spiders and pit vipers. The pit viper postgrad gave a decent talk, considering 70% of the audience (or more) didn't know what PCR is (I was very smug, as one of my former careers was evolutionary genetics). Turns out she's an avid gamer, and spent the rest of the day hanging out with the cool kids (us).

My talk went well - I remembered what I wanted to say, got some laughs at my feeble jokes, kept well within the time, didn't need my notes, and all my clips ran fine. Enough people were interested and willing to ask discussion questions that we ran out of time completely, and had to end with people's hands still in the air.

Most interesting were all the folks who approached me to talk about different aspects of the topic. The pit viper PG was interested in the game side of it, and in interactive action stories where the player makes up part of the story as they go along. A drama MA student from our department wants to explore the possibility of applying digital fiction techniques – such as some elements of hypertext – to experimental theater productions.

One man from Theology - I believe studying the friction between the desire and need for personal inner peace and the prevalence of conflict and discord in real life and society – was interested in the immersion-engagement continuum I brought up and how that might apply to his own work (it's from Y. Douglas's 2000 paper "The Pleasure Principle: Immersion, Engagement, Flow" – see the references in the presentation).

Some of the discussions made me think a lot more about this immersion-engagement concept (immersion being the act of losing yourself in a story, and engagement activating mind processes as in games and puzzles). My intent with some of my research is to find the balance between them for the digital fiction, where the story is still strong and emotionally and mentally immersive, while having enough engagement to keep people clicking through on their computer screen, and repeatedly coming back to the world of the story, even once the story has been finished.

I find Episode 3 of Inanimate Alice a wonderful illustration of this. The episode is the only one (so far) with a game element to it. The only indication of this is the option to read & play game, or to read only at the start of the episode. The reader is offered no rules or clues as to how to play. The first time I read the episode, I didn't catch on to the game, so I just read, becoming very immersed in the story...until I got to the climax, where the characters are desperate to get across a border, and the border guard stops them.

I couldn't find out what happened next, as I hadn't been playing the game - I hadn't gathered the objects I needed to continue. But I was so immersed in the story at that point that I HAD to know what happened next, so I was willing to go back to the start of the story and activate the engagement in the game in order to move forward. First reading = immersion, second = engagement. Overall, it was a really fun experience. I think there's a paper in there somewhere.

At any rate, those who want to look at the presentation can find it here. Please comment here if you have questions, or anything to add to the discussion!

Forbidden Characters

2009-01-14T17:26:00.000Z

I gobble up two television shows like an addict in a heroin shop: Stargate Atlantis and House. I don't care about the plotlines - they're always the same, recycled from old scifi or old medical dramas. I don't even care about the token hot guys in each show (even if they do have Aussie accents and cool hair).

What I love about these shows are the a-holes Rodney McKay and Gregory House. Rodney is a narcissistic, misanthropic, hypochondriac scientific genius. House is an anti-social, misanthropic, haunted medical genius. Frankly, I don't care what their jobs are. All I care about is the things they say. The things I always want to say, but feel the need to struggle to hold back (note I don't say I always hold back. I know who I am, people).

If I were to meet either of these guys in real life, not three seconds would pass before I'd want to poke them in the eye. It's not like they'd be hilarious jerks to everyone else, and nice and chummy with me. They'd push my buttons too, and I have very prominent buttons. Ahem.

Atlantis isn't rocking the Nielsons, but House is a pretty big show. Even my dad watches it. So I started thinking about it...who are the characters we love?

Scarlett O'Hara: raging bitch
Rhett Butler: selfish rake
The cast of Seinfeld: selfish a-holes
Woodrow Call: judgmental prick
Dracula: bloodsucking manipulator
Han Solo: selfish rake
Batman: self-important vigilante

I could go on and on. Literature, film, and television are full of characters we'd absolutely hate in real life. Sure, they're full of nice guys and sweet women, too, but the ones that fascinate us are often the ones who do and say what society tells us regular, likeable people should never do and say.

They break rules, for one. The world loves a rule-breaker, someone who doesn't consider the consequences. Rules are in place for a reason: to prevent people doing the things they want to do. Otherwise, you wouldn't need the rule, would you? So any character who gives a finger to the rules is doing what we want to do, but can't.

In breaking the rules, they say what we want to say in our minds, before our socially-grown filters stop us from telling the annoying doorway-smokers their genital organs should putrify, from rolling our eyes and walking out on our moronic boss mid-sentence.

They piss people off. They're outrageous. They stand outside the boundaries of society. And that's what we love: the outsider.

Modern society pushes "the individual." We're all unique, we're all important in a singular sense. We all have value for different reasons. It's bullshit - we're all pretty much the same, otherwise we wouldn't be allowed to participate in society at all. Those who step outside societal rules are shunned - if you're too abrasive, if you say what's on your mind when you want to say it, you don't get invited to social outings. You don't get called for coffee or drinks. People are too afraid you'll say something that confirms all their own fears about themselves.

And that's just talking about someone who is a teensy bit outside society. Forget about all those who live a three-day trek away from civilized behavior. Forget the loonies, the criminals, and the politicians.

If we want to function in the human world, make friends, have family, avoid conflict, then we have to obey the rules. We can't say what we want to say, do whatever we want to do. We conform.

So when we read a book about a woman who values her life over societal norms, or watch a film with a man who hates people but loves his dog, we fall in twisted, perverted love with these characters. They are truly individuals, placing value on something other than what society tells them to value. Even when they have no redeeming characteristics, we are enchanted: Charles Manson, Dracula, Dexter are killers, murderers, psychotics, and yet we consume their stories like midnight ice cream raids.

It's something to think about, as a writer. We writers aren't usually daredevils. Hemingway was an anomaly. We're usually nice, somewhat dorky people. When a lot of writers start out, they want to write about themselves, or versions of themselves. They write about nice, somewhat dorky characters. Because these characters are reflections of the author, the author doesn't ever want anything bad to happen to them. So they wind up with nice stories about nice characters that put me to sleep by line three.

Then there are the writers who build characters completely opposite from themselves: evil, irredeemable people who do nasty things for no reason. Also dullsville.

It's the characters that walk the line between human and inhuman. Who are fatally flawed, but who seem to have good reason for being so. Who want desperately, or hurt deeply. Who tread outside society because they can't find their way back, not because they're just nuts.

They're hard characters to build, to maintain balance. But if the writer can find that sweet spot between nice-boring and evil-boring, it's a character that will compel any story forward.

Now if you'll excuse me, my boyfriend House is waiting for me.

Software I've Been Trying

2008-12-07T20:59:00.000Z

First, I'm not a computer geek. I'm an online geek. There's a big difference. Computer geeks are heroes, for one, because they can bring back my computer from the dead. They can read and write in obscure languages like ASCii and Java. If I asked, one could probably figure out why my HTML code for my labels is not working here.

Online geeks are people who can use the computer, but can't talk to it or fix it or even know the difference between a motherboard and a wake board. We're like race car drivers who can't change their own oil.

Half my friends are fully "online" friends, and I even met my husband online. I get all my entertainment on-screen; I don't even own a TV. News: internet. Phone: internet. Shopping: internet.

But even so, I don't know much about software. And of course, the challenge I've set myself for this PhD is going to involve a lot of software. I can't create a digital novel unless I can create digital art, edit film and audio, animate text, and throw it into some order and format that other people can access.

So I've started my journey into software exploration (note: I'm running everything on Mac Leopard). So far, I haven't hit much that involves art, photography, or film. In this first 4 months of my degree I've been focused on research and getting back into the academic life, so this initial software briefing is primarily focused on tools for research and writing.

1. Zotero. This is a Firefox add-on that saves references. I can add notes, group references in folders or with tags, create separate libraries for each project, look up books. With just one click I can store a reference directly from a website, rather than typing all the info up in a database or list. More, it will export to Endnote, so that once I've collected my references, I can use all of Endnote's functions to create reference lists for my papers automatically. I love this little piece of freeware.

2. Scrivener (only available for Mac). I'm still in my trial period for this software, but I already plan to purchase it. I love the organizational capacity - I can write sections or chapters and store them separately, yet together. It's like each one has its own room in a very large house, rather than each having its own separate dwelling (as when you save them all as separate files), or everyone crammed together in one tiny shack (as when they're all in one file). It has a cool corkboard outlining function for notes, like electronic index cards. I'm sure there are a lot of other functions I haven't discovered yet, but so far this is working fabulously for my organization and logical progression. Once I get to the novel, with it's separate but interwoven storylines, this will be a lifesaver.

3. Notebook (only available for Mac). Adore. This is an electronic notebook that allows you to add, delete, and rearrange pages. It has an automatic TOC and several indexing functions. You can add files directly into the notebook pages. You can publish the notebook online for sharing. It's proven intensely valuable to organizing my notes for the PhD, as well as novel outlining and notes, and my teaching notes. It has a few bugs, but it's a worthwhile little program that I couldn't live without.

4. C-maps. This is freeware, a mind-mapping program. I've used it for outlining, for putting together a presentation (it has a slideshow function). You can add links and notes, pop-up messages, expandable and collapsible nodes. It's great for brainstorming and keeping the flow of ideas in a logical order. I think it's going to be a great tool when I turn to my digital novel and have several storylines that link - or network - in various ways, so that I can see how things are connecting. I haven't quite figured out all the functions for creating presentations, but I'm sure I'll work it out eventually.

5. Open Office. I own MS Office, but I won't even load it on my computer anymore. OO has everything I need, and doesn't try to trip me up with exclusionary file formats and BS. Free helps (hey, dirt-poor student over here).

Over the next few months, I'm going to be exploring a number of new programs: digital photography processing, graphic programs, film editing, audio editing, digital storytelling platforms, and web building programs. It sounds really daunting to me at the moment. If anyone has any recommendations to throw my way (or would like me to beta test new programs), please throw a link at me!

2008-12-05T11:21:00.000Z

I'm in school again. I'm a student. It's so cool, and yet so weird at the same time.

I haven't really been a student in a long time. My Master's was an experience in "this is how it's done and I have little statuettes from academies, so everything I say is gold!" No debate, no real thought.

But here, it's a good thing if you stand up and shout about what you think of something. It's a good thing if you tell the head of the department he's full of crap (as long as you can back it up, of course).

I was in a class a couple of weeks ago, and we reviewed a rather crap journal article, IMO. Some felt it had merit merely because it was interesting, and we went back and forth, back and forth over what has value in our field, what other schools perceive about our research, etc. We all shouted over one another and made points and trotted out examples. I had an amazing time.

In the induction week for postgrads, they kept telling us what a lonely experience PG life would be. How we would be depressed and isolated. I don't feel that way at all. I'm making friends, making contacts, making allies (and okay, making nemeses). I feel like I'm back in the world again.

As far as my own work, I'm 80% done with my first paper. I'm sure once I review it, I'll feel it's disorganized and crap, and needs a lot of work, but at the moment I'm pretty happy with it. I feel as though I've thought a lot on the topic and done some good research, and drawn some connections that I haven't seen elsewhere.

In fact, I haven't seen much of what I'm doing elsewhere: people examining the transition from a print literature to a digital literature. Digital literature is totally fringe at the moment, either to specialized for the masses (like some of the hypertext novels), or too dumbed-down to be considered literature (make a story from your digital pics!). People throw digital fiction out there like it's going to explode all by itself, but it won't. Not for a while anyway.

So I'm hoping the things I'm doing will be important, not only to academia, but to the creative writing industry as well. I hope I can make that apparent to the funding bodies I'm applying to - research councils as well as industry.

My goal for the next month is to set myself out a plan - a plan for the course of my PhD, a plan for obtaining funding, and a detailed overview of my research, as I see it at this stage. I want to apply for a couple of opportunities (the Knowledge Economies Strategy Scholarship, and the Pitch to Win Comp, among other things.

When I get it put together, I'll post it here so that I have tangible evidence, not just some note tucked away in a file.

I'm getting into this, all of this. The study, the classes, the papers, the discussion groups. I like it, dammit. Maybe I won't be a hermit after all.

On Being a Postgrad

2008-11-23T12:45:00.000Z

I finally got sick of it last week. Not being a postgrad myself, but hearing so many others whine about their experience while simultaneously not doing a darn thing about it.

Note to PGs: no one in this department is psychic. Everyone in this department cares. Talk to them!

NIECI is a brand-new department, barely out of diapers, really. Last year, they had a handful of PGs. This year they have over 40. That's a big adjustment, particularly when the department doesn't have dedicated administrators. Our head and director of PGs are both busy with their own research, in addition to running the department and helping all of us out with our studies. They've got a lot on their plates.

I just kept hearing MA student after MA student (most in creative writing) complain about lack of direction, that they don't know what they're supposed to be doing, no one is teaching them, and they're wasting their money. Meanwhile, none is asking the department for help, or even attending the events the department does host for the benefit of the students.

Part of the issue is that they all have the same supervisor, who also happens to be head of the school, head of the research council, writing books, teaching courses, and doing way more than any one person can fit into a day. Oh, and he's personal tutor for everyone in the department. There's no way he can meet regularly with everyone, or do everything people are asking him to do.

So we're all going to have to step up and be self-managed units. If we want something, we need to ask - ask for solutions, not just whine about what we're not getting.

Yes, a new department has holes, stumbling blocks. It's going to be disorganized as we grow and feel our way. But the beauty of this is that we students have the opportunity to form the direction of the school. We can tell them what we want, and they'll do their best to meet our needs. We can make things different for later years in the program. We can be pioneers, as it were.

I encourage all who have issues with the services they're receiving to sit down and list all that you feel you're missing. Then list out all the things the department can do to help you fill those gaps. Don't just complain and make them think of everything for you - ask for what you want, and you may just get it.

I let the department know about what I'm hearing. Why? Because they ask. They want to know what's going on, how they can make things better. Hopefully, things will start to shape up in the next couple of months, and people can get on with their research, instead of screeching over how abandoned they supposedly are.

Over the next few weeks the department is hosting several discussions for the students to air their concerns, and for the PhD students to offer what little wisdom we have to the disgruntled MA students. I think we'll get some good solutions for future actions and feedback loops from those, and we can move forward.

The Allure of Research

2008-11-23T12:21:00.000Z

I haven't posted in a while. One, because the job that is paying for my PhD suddenly jumped the bounds of its original job description, and I lost my marbles. Two, because life itself jumped the tracks there for a little while as we lost our car to the bureaucracy of road safety, and all other activities came to a screeching halt as we tried to replace it (tried to go without - not feasible in our situation. Sorry, Earth).

Anyway, I am now a week behind my self-set schedule for writing a paper that I need to submit by the end of the year. I have spent my weekend furiously flipping through pages and web journals (BTW, if anyone from the BU library is reading this, your journal selection BLOWS), then tap-tap-tapping the info into some semblance of cohesion for the paper.

I find myself drawn to the topics in the books I've checked out, repeatedly distracted by their applicability not to this particular paper, but to my PhD as a whole. Ideas about what draws an audience to a multimedia project, what form collaboration takes, structures that work in hypertext environments, how to transition from print to digital. I have to constantly police my own excitement, restricting it to the subject of the paper: online communities formed in the interaction between author and readers of print novels. They're finite, it's sure, but I think they're a significant step in the evolution toward a mainstream digital literature genre.

It's been a really long time since I wrote anything of an academic nature. The writing itself I don't find difficult. Rather, I'm worried that it's too simplistic, that I'm covering ideas everyone knows like the back of their hands, that they'll be rolling their eyes at such a sophomore effort. Yes, I am aware that my writing will improve, and I will eventually get a better feel for the literature of my area, what level to cover subjects at, what is common knowledge, etc. But as I noticed at the Creating Second Lives Conference, the field is still quite new and I'm not sure there really is a common ground. I guess I'll see.

At any rate, I'm enjoying it all greatly. I love the atmosphere, that ideas are important, that a discourse is being created. I don't feel like I've had that in a really, really long time. I feel like my brain, on some level, was in sleep mode for a very long while. My MPW course at USC didn't ever really make me think about anything; nothing was ever up for debate. We weren't encouraged to contribute to the field - only to write well, get published, and credit the program as much as possible.

But here, I already feel like I'm contributing to some new area of understanding. That what I think about it is helping to shape this new field. My ideas will be challenged, and I'm sure that will deal quite a blow to my intellectual ego the first few times it happens, but hopefully I'll adjust and be able to hold my own.

I like this academia gig.

"A Queen for a King" Published in Electric Spec

2008-10-31T18:14:00.000Z

My short story "A Queen for a King" has been published in the October 2008 issue of Electric Spec.

Brief description: Mabon’s father warned him about the temptations in the forest. But you can’t stop love, lust, or fairy dust.

Let me know how you like it!

I Want To Be Neil Gaiman When I Grow Up

2008-10-30T21:02:00.001Z

I played hooky last night. I played fangirl. I giggled madly throughout the evening, like I imagine my mom might have about Paul McCartney, back in the day.

I've lived in LA, worked in movie studios, met big stars. None of them made me giddy the way meeting Neil Gaiman did.

Neil Gaiman!

His book American Gods inspired my current work-in-progress, and his cross-media talents have fed into my desire to create a multi-media visual novel for my PhD. What I would be working on now, what I would be writing without Neil's influence is an existential mystery beyond my puny powers of imagination.

It was an experience all about the fans - some had expressed dismay that a favorite music act (Paul & Storm and Jonathan Coulton) were playing Manchester the same night. So Neil calls the musicians up, and has them play "the world's shortest set" to open up the reading. They set the tone for Neil's reading from The Graveyard Book nicely with songs about how hard it is for mad scientists to find true love.

Neil's reading was, of course, phenomenal. I usually buy the audiobook versions of all his books because they really take on an entirely new level of life when he reads them. It wasn't until I saw the video of his US Graveyard tour, each chapter's reading caught on tape, that I realized how much seeing Neil read adds to the experience. Even his small facial expressions help you see each character, to imagine this small boy named "Nobody" gagging over beetroot soup.

I was also struck by how eloquent and masterful his oration is on the fly. Me, when I have to think on my feet and actually speak, it comes out as so much stammering and verbal diarrhea. Neil thoughtfully and thoroughly answered each question, usually adding some anecdote or story that let us see into a bit of his life. Stories about how his children influenced his writing, about his son riding his tricycle in the nearby graveyard, his daughter asking him what happens next in the Graveyard story, propelling him to finish. About meeting Steve Ditko, how he was as awed by the "creator" of Spiderman as we were by him. Even about the love of sweaty, unkempt comic book storekeepers for his "sexually transmitted" Sandman series ("You brought women into my store, man!").

I love how he answered every question as though it were of the highest importance - a direct contrast to another recent experience I had at another big-name author's reading, where the guy's best answer was "Hmm, that's interesting. I'll think on that for my next talk."

There were definitely more questions than there was time for, and I found myself rooting for a nice girl with lime green hair. She raised her hand patiently every time, but never got to the front of the queue. I hope she emails him her question. :)

The book-signing line was miles long; we were about halfway back, and it took us an hour to get to the front. The wait wasn't bad, actually. We met some nice folks in line, and got to read the books we were having signed ("My other books are so on the back burner now," said my friend M as she gobbled up Chapter 1 of Graveyard). We could see how tired he was, but he always signs for everyone who waits, and that says a lot for a man who is living for the moment off room service.

I had wanted to ask a question during the Q&A session, but found myself a bit too nervous, so thought I'd save it for a later email. Honestly, I wanted to kidnap him away somewhere and talk to him for hours, like he was my BFF or something. I wanted to tell him how thoroughly I connected to American Gods, how fascinated by Neverwhere. I wanted to tell him all about my PhD, see what he thought, tell him how it was all thanks to his imagination.

But I just got to the front of the line, set my books down (one old copy of American Gods and one new of The Graveyard Book), and let him get on with the business of signing. He signed Graveyard, drawing a little tombstone with my name on it.

Then his helper picked up my copy of American Gods and waved it at me, a worried expression on her face.

"Is this yours? This really is too much for him to write."

"Whah?" I said. My name's only four letters!

Then I looked. Just inside the front cover was a mini-stack of post-it notes, the same exact ones they were using to write everyone's name for Neil, filled with scribblings.

"Oh, no!" I said in a rush. "That's just PhD notes. Just my name is fine."

Neil grabbed the book, already signing. "What's your PhD?" he asked.

Brain blank. It wasn't quite BFF time, but he'd asked about my brain child!

"Creative writing," I said. "I'm writing a multimedia visual novel, based on Welsh mythology."

"Cool."

As we walked out of the hall, heading for the long car ride home, I opened the book to see what the "PhD notes" were. First, they weren't even mine, though I am using the book as a reference for my studies - I'd bought the book from BetterWorldBooks.com, and had never noticed the post-its in the front. The book's previous owner had clearly began a little short story on these slips, detailing how her parents were zombies, but that was all right because her dad died of a heart attack while having sex.

How much more strangely perfect a cap on a Neil Gaiman evening could there be?

Okay, he didn't exactly stand up and shake my hand and tell me how much I'm contributing to the field, but it was enough for me. I giggled at random intervals all the way home. Even through the freak North Wales snowstorm that whited out the roads and threatened to leave us stranded at some Shell station near Prestatyn. Brr.

In the end, it cemented for me why Neil Gaiman is my favorite author - he's all the things a writer really should be. Plus, he's hella cool.

Neil, thank you for all you do for the fans, and to inspire other artists (not just writers!). You're my favorite weird guy ever.

Ironing Out My PhD Pitch

2008-10-28T15:10:00.001Z

What exactly am I trying to do? On a basic level, I can call it a digital story, or digital novel. I will have "digital" elements such as photographs, audio, possibly film. But when I google "digital storytelling," what I come up with are all these classroom tools and teacher articles for getting students involved in digital arts. These stories aren't much more than a picture slideshow with captions and music. Not exactly what I'm going for.

So...Interactive narrative? These stories primarily seek to engage the reader on an intellectual level. Games, for instance, are often interactive narrative: they have a storyline, and the "audience" interacts with the text by playing the game. Again, not the focus I'm looking for: I want some interactive elements, yes, but to me the story and its emotional engagement are more important to me than any "quest" or puzzle.

Multimedia novel works, too, but carries the same incompleteness factor as "digital novel" - you don't get a sense of the interactivity I'd like to include.

There will be some hypertext as well - links to follow, paths to choose. It could ostensibly be a "hypernovel" in the sense that it is simply more than a novel. But the issue gets confused when we consider what "hyper" has come to mean in modern lexicon, its relation to the web, as well as its definition within the new media research community. The word "hypernovel" suits, but only in its most literal sense; the many meanings various individuals will assign to the word make it a poor choice.

I want to post it on the web - does that make it a web novel? What then happens with my print novel? They will be related.

Which leads me to:

Multimedia interactive hypernovel.

That's just plain ugly. And scary. Who would want to read/watch/play with something they can't even get their mouth around? Those who shy from technology won't even touch it; those who love technology won't be able to figure it out.

I haven't found a suitable example yet of what I want to do. Inanimate Alice comes pretty close, and I see they faced the same issue: nowhere on the site do the creators name the type of story. The reviews they have quoted call it an interactive narrative, digital storytelling, e-book, flash fiction (which could be confusing - it uses flash media, and I suppose the word count is below 1000 words, which lets it fall into the definition of flash as a short short story), multimedia, flash-based kinetic novel (I like the "kinetic" bit), story/flash vid, animation, hypertext story, digital drama, web-based interactive games/art.

You see the problem. What the hell do we call these things?

I would start with Espen Aarseth's umbrella "ergodic literature" - text which requires a bit more effort to traverse than your ordinary book.

From there we fall into genres. From there, we create an insane Venn diagram where every genre leaks over into every other. Bookstores couldn't sell us - it's far more complicated than figuring out where vampire romances go.

Wikipedia, for the moment, lists:

Electronic Literature
Hypertext Literature
Collaborative Literature
Participatory Literature
Digital Literature
Interactive Fiction/Storytelling
Kinetic Novel
Cybertext
Hypermedia
Visual Novel (fits my idea very well...though the history of the concept is, er, not terribly lofty - they began, it seems, as "dating sims" in Japan - dating simulation stories)

If you're a bit more visual, like me, it helps to look at them this way (click the image for a larger, readable version):

At the moment, I plan for this novel to fall under both print and digital. The digital version will be electronic, participatory, kinetic, interactive, and likely hypermedia. Perhaps the best term to use for it is Visual Novel. It doesn't immediately connote every meaning I intend, unless of course you are familiar with visual novels – and at the moment, it's mostly only the Japanese who are, and fans of anime and Japanese visual novels. But when the novel began, I'm sure no one knew what anyone else was talking about, either. Forget about paranormal romance (which I still don't really get, BTW – when did bloodsucker come to equal sexy???)

My definition for now?

Visual novel: a digital text incorporating hypermedia and often participatory elements such as game play, forums, and collaboration. Visual novels, unlike many ludic narratives, place high importance on the reader's emotional connection to the story, and therefore character and story are the primary focus, rather than game play and experimental format.

Intro to the Other Life: Creating Second Lives Conference 2008

2008-10-28T15:09:00.001Z

I just spent the last two days looking at still shots of avatars and raids, learning about first person shooter games and suicide bomber games, and pondering the gender-imbalance issues in World of Warcraft. I sat in (or chaired) every possible session in this past weekend's Creating Second Lives Conference at NIECI, Bangor University. What did I come away with? A burning desire to live in a fairy land in Second Life, and an impression that so far, researchers in New Media are often forced to make things up as they go along.

It's a new field, game study, online anthropology, virtual world sociology. We had many discussions on how difficult it is to explain what we do to people not involved in the creative industries: often we're reduced to "those people who play online all day and then try to write a paper to justify it." It only takes one weekend among these researchers to realize that is not at all the case.

Many are not gamers at all (many are, of course). All, gamers and non-gamers alike, are interested in the effects of this paradigm shift to "virtual" worlds on communication, sociology, gender-relations, power of the individual, the economy...You name it, online activities shape it somehow.

It's a new area, not only to the world, but to research. It showed up in a lot of places this weekend. Almost every presenter introduced their paper with a slide on terminology – each one had to be explicit about their understanding of the same terms (reality, virtual, actual, etc.). Almost all had varying definitions, nuances of understanding. This field is so new we haven't even agreed on the definitions to the basic terms we use when speaking about it, even to each other!

I have firsthand experience of this difficulty: every time I try to explain my PhD topic to anyone, it runs about 5 minutes of pure explanation of what a digital narrative is, what it can be.

Other items of interest to me were the notions of world forming the story, not just the experience. Espen Aarseth's talk (regrettably cut short by his need to catch a plane) touched briefly on this topic, but it really resonated with me. As a writer, I know how important setting, i.e. world, is to a story, how it can influence the mood, the tone, the characters, the plot. So it makes sense that in a virtual setting, the world is just as important. It's on my task list to email Espen for his paper (if any) expanding the topic.

I was also intrigued by Joseph Clark's paper on Nature in virtual worlds. He pointed out that many of our real life experiences with nature are on some level artificial - gardens, parks, set up for scenic vistas, funneling you to certain areas. Even the real thing is often manufactured to a certain degree. The lack of rich nature and ecosystems in virtual worlds is a little disturbing. Maybe the complexity of programming a natural world, even a small one, is more than most developers can handle. On the other hand, maybe it's an indicator of how little we think of anything beyond the surface of pretty views.

In the end, it was an enlightening - if exhausting - experience, and I got a lot from the weekend to inspire me. I have a lot of avenues to explore now, and I look forward to them.

Ancient Anglesey

2008-10-18T21:54:00.001+01:00

Paul and I had a free day today - no rugby, no work, no errands. So of course, we spent the first half of the day trying to decide what to do with ourselves.

We finally decided on Anglesey - I've been wanting for a long time to wander around the island to the various antiquities, the burial mounds, the stone circles. I've sorted a list for myself from the BU Library catalogue of Wales & Anglesey histories, mythologies, and folklore. Monday I'll head to the library to actually check them out.

I very much want to set this novel here in North Wales, maybe even on Anglesey in particular. My short stories lately ("Wish on One Hand" and "A Queen for a King) have been set on Anglesey. There's just such a beauty about the place, so compact, wild, cultured, ancient...I can't help but want to set something magical there.

We made it around to a couple of burial mounds (Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres), then checked out St. Gwenfaen's Holy Well on Holyhead (and only after looking it up at home have I discovered we never actually found the well). Picture album is here.

The burial mounds struck me less, moved me less, than did the landscape itself. Harsh, rough, murderous coasts...and then you turn around and find lush rolling green hills, fluffy white sheep snoozing like animated puffs of cotton. The people can be rough, but we asked directions from two different old men out walking with their border collies, and both were so friendly and helpful.

I don't know yet what shape the story will take, whether it will touch on Grail myth, Celtic myth, whether it will be inspired by the story of a Welsh peasant boy or driven by the tale of a king. I just know that I'm drawn to Anglesey over and over, the same way I'm drawn to Chaco Canyon back home. Maybe it's the mystery there, maybe just the beauty of standing in the only remnant of a long-gone civilization, one unshaped by kings' edicts.

Recording the Process of Practice-Led Research

2008-10-17T09:11:00.000+01:00

The ICCWR in the form of Graeme Harper gave a little session exploring the topic of practice-led research (PLR) for we folks at NIECI, which is of course what I am doing for my PhD. I'll be writing a novel, which is only the initial phase - I then want to turn it into a "special edition" digital novel, complete with hypertext, images, audio, perhaps film.

I'm starting this log because of some topics Graeme brought up during the talk, one of which is the importance of the process in PLR. Academic research typically focuses on the end product, and when you turn in your thesis/dissertation, no one really much cares how you went about tracking down your information beyond the fact that it's useful and ethical.

But in PLR, it's all about the process. Yes, the final product is important, but it's about the exploration of how you got there. What did you learn, what did you have to adjust, how did your philosophic core evolve as you got deeper and deeper into the project.

Also mentioned was the issue of archiving. Pre-work and complementary work (work you produce just prior to, in preparation for, and concurrent with your project) are also important elements in PLR. They show how your PLR is influencing you as an artist, how you evolve overall. But in traditional archiving, you print up only your final product and the library stashes it. There is no thought to the context of the piece.

I'm interested in online or digital-based archiving, using hypertext to link all elements of the piece. I intend this blog to be a central core of that - to not only describe my process as I go through, but to include links to complementary work, notes on my life in general (as that always informs a writer's work), threads to my research, etc.

I want to do this as well because I love getting into a really phenomenal book, engaging with characters I love, wandering in a world that fascinates me, and then being able to continue with that by visiting an author's website or blog to learn more about them and how the story was created. Neil Gaiman blogs constantly, and has supplemental pages including bibliographies for his novels. Jasper Fforde has a website that allows readers to further explore Thursday Next's world through games, writing their own pieces, and interacting. I think having this rich source of contextual material will only increase my project's impact.

My plan at the moment is to blog at least once a week, if not more, to keep up with everything that's going on. It won't be a blow-by-blow description, nor a repository for my notes; rather it will be reserved for thoughts I have on the process, interesting tidbits, complementary work, and the like.

I will tag each of these entries with "PhD" - so any readers of the blog uninterested in my academic ramblings can skip these. Or not.

"Wish in One Hand" Published in Glassfire Magazine

2008-09-10T13:12:00.000+01:00

My short story "Wish in One Hand" has been published in the Summer 2008 issue of Glassfire Magazine.

Brief description: One wants freedom, the other a hole to hide in. Magic and desire drive two women to change their fates.

Let me know how you like it!

Mommy, Where Do Ideas Come From?

2008-08-07T15:19:00.000+01:00

The word "idea" sounds all fresh and innocent, doesn't it? It sounds exciting, refreshing, hopeful.

In truth, ideas are dirty little buggers. Deceptive and manipulative, they worm their way into your mind like microscopic parasites, like prions determined to feed off your neural impulses. They grow like a cancer, taking over your head until you can do nothing but vomit them up in a verbal spew known as the dreaded first draft.

The phrase "original idea" is an oxymoron. No idea is original. Search hard enough, and you'll find that at some point, somewhere, someone not only already thought of it, they wrote the book.

I've been stumbling over this speedbump for the last few months. My current novel seems to be fairly "original" - as in, I haven't read the exact same premise anywhere - thank the fates. But no less than 3 times now have I come across novels or stories that seem to be based entirely on entries from my Idea Matrix (yes, it's in Excel, and yes, I'm obsessive-compulsive).

I start to read or listen to these stories, my brain in disbelief, and no little amount of chagrin as I realize I've been beaten to the punch. I realize I have this exact same idea written down, waiting for the time or energy for me to give it life. And then I realize that now that I've experienced someone else's version of that same story, I may never be able to write it. I may never be able to separate it from what I know is already out there.

Another revelation is still to come, however: I may have drummed up these ideas not from my own imagination, but from these stories themselves. Seem like a paradox? Not really. I keep a running list of books I want to read and authors I want to check out, and sometimes I don't get around to reading something for months, or even years. So it's quite possible that in January I read a book blurb and added it to my list, and then subsequently forgot about it. Then in August my subconscious throws it back to me as a fabulous idea and I write it down in a flurry of excitement...only to be crushed in November when I get around to reading the original book that inspired the idea.

What's worse is when the realization comes too late, when I've written the story, sent it out, based my hopes and dreams on it. Then I get nostalgic, and read a book I remember loving as a kid, and wham, there is my book, only better and bigger. Ouch.

Of course, the stories I write not knowing they've been written before are still unique, still original. I am a different person than the other author, with different experiences, different style. It's why a creative writing class of 20 students can write 20 different stories all based on one assigned premise. Ideas may not be original, but stories usually are.

Whew. Big relief. It takes all the pressure off having that original, wonderful, never-been-seen-before idea...and moves it all onto the story. Hmm.

Oh, well, that's a post for another day!

The Debate Rages: Form Rejection or Personal Note?

2008-08-06T12:37:00.001+01:00

The first few rejection letters you receive as a writer are heartbreaking. You've worked and strived and sweated to create this story that shines, that is perfect in your eyes. You had every sympathetic friend and relative read it just so you could build up the courage to actually submit it somewhere. You sat in a library (yes, this was "back in the day") with a notebook and the most current Writer's Market from the reference section, choosing the best possible magazines or agents for your masterpiece.

You wait anxiously for that SASE to show up in your mailbox, the one from the editor who was so blown away by your talent and skill that she wants every word you've ever written. Not only that, she has an agent friend who happened to read your submitted story and wants to sign you right now, and thinks he can get a multimillion dollar sale for your first novel.

But what actually comes is a slow trickle of photocopied pages: "Thank you for submitting...not for us...good luck." They're pretty much all the same, right? And your wounded ego rails at them for being so impersonal, for treating you as something less than human. Not only did they say no to you, they didn't even care enough to say "no" in a different way, individualized to you.

I went through that, and I'm over it. Why? Because lately I've gotten a few of those "personal" rejections, and I've got to say, most of the time I prefer the form letter. After all, when it comes right down to it, a no is a no is a no. Do I really care that the editor didn't like my main character's name? Do I want to know that the agent felt my writing was not a style she could connect with? What the hell am I supposed to do with these little comments? They're usually not constructive, or even concrete enough for me to translate into something constructive. They're just a "no" with added doubt about my writing mixed in: a double whammy.

There is a scale of rejection, I have discovered, a range of the "no"s a writer can receive:

1. Form letters. Just a stark "no." I don't mind them, really. This is a business, we have to remember that. Do you get a personal letter from your mortgage lender when they turn you down, telling you everything they think about you and why you didn't meet their standards, and how you can do better next time? Hell, no. Agents and editors don't have time to coddle every writer they turn away. So take the no, write another story, and move on.

2. Personal letters with throwaway comments. Sometimes this agent/editor is new to the game. They haven't had to hand out a lot of rejections yet, and they still feel bad about every one. So they struggle to come up with something to cushion the blow. Sometimes though, they do like the story, but it's just not what they're looking for. They want to encourage you, but explain why the story isn't right for them.

These letters usually go badly. They don't have time to really get into the whys and wherefores. So you get a line or two about "not the right voice" or "the writing is good, but the characters don't meet our guidelines". The editor thinks they've done a great thing, letting you down gently, but in actuality you lie there in bed at night like a teenage girl in the throes of her first relationship breakup, wondering over and over "What does it all mean?"

In the end, it's just a no, same as the form letter, but with added emotional drama.

Even worse are the ones where they knew fairly quickly they didn't want to take you on, so didn't really bother to read the rest of the story. They give comments anyway, comments like "I don't really connect to a story where none of the characters have names" when everyone is named by page 2 and continue referring to one another's monikers throughout the tale. Just send a form letter, guys. Really. It's okay.

3. The "Nearly There" Personal Letter. These are the best. Ideally, for authors, agents and editors should just stop with the middle category of letter altogether. Give a form rejection, or give this "nearly there" rejection. This is the one that says "no...BUT I really like your work and hope you will keep submitting." This is the one that tells us to keep writing, to keep working, because soon it will all pay off. This one tells us the agent really struggled to turn us down, that we're on the right track.

This is the one that tells us to keep writing. If you get one of these letters, jump for joy. You can see the summit. You can take a few more puffs of oxygen and get there. Whereas the 2nd category of confusing personal rejections confuses us, makes us wonder if any of it is worthwhile, this "nearly there" letter is a beacon in the night, beckoning us forward.

I'm getting more and more of these encouraging letters. My stories are garnering acceptance, my novels are getting reads. It won't be long before I can stand at the peak and have a look around. (*crosses fingers*) I hope!

Forcing the Swing of Things

2008-08-04T14:19:00.000+01:00

Writing is hard. We love it, we're addicted to it, can't live without it, but it's definitely a long term relationship. You have to work at it. Every darn day.

Vacations really screw the dynamic up. I went home to the States last month, and though I took my flash drive and stole my mom's laptop, all I got done was a proofread on an agent-requested manuscript. Not a word written.

I'm one of those cyclic writers; I go in fits and spurts, sometimes inspired for hours on end day after day, and sometimes it's like giving a pound of flesh to get one mediocre sentence out. I envy those writers who can sit down at 5 a.m. every day like clockwork and churn out chapter after chapter without blowing their own head off. So this past month has been a bit of a dry spell - uninspired, and somewhat discouraging.

Then bang, bang, two things happened: an agent I have a lot of respect for loved my sample chapters and requested the full. Just as I was ready to shelve this manuscript, writing it off as a pre-success novel that might never see the light of day (unless published under the dreaded "Never Before Published" tag).

Not long after, one of my short stories was accepted for publication (details to be posted).

Wham! All of a sudden the universe was giving me all these positive signs, encouragement to move forward. In a rush of excitement, I sent off another short story and set myself a new goal table for my current work in progress.

Only...it's been at least 6 weeks since I looked at this monster. I don't remember exactly where I was, what I wanted to happen with it. The characters have all fallen into a magical slumber, and I feel like an erstwhile Prince Charming, seeking a way through the brambles and dragons and demonic knights, fighting my way to their chambers high in the castle keep so I may shake them awake again.

It's like setting a dinner date with an old boyfriend. I can remember our relationship, what went wrong, what I miss, but I'm fuzzy on details like toothpaste preference and shirt size. What do each of my characters sound like? Is the main character still funny, or did I at some point decide to make her more somber and serious?

Luckily for me, I'm obsessive compulsive, and as such have pages of copious notes about everything from character quirks to minute plot points. I just have to wade through it once again, overcome my procrastinitis, and get back to business.

Right after a quick squee on Facebook, a glance at Neil Gaiman's blog, a click-through on the blogosphere...

"Never Before Published" = Never Should Have Been

2008-08-01T11:12:00.001+01:00

I should know better than to so much as crack the spine on a book with those words inscribed on the cover.

"Never Before Published" translates to "this author is a big name, brings in lots of dough, so we'll publish anything s/he has ever written, ever, even this pile of poo smeared on the page. Stupid readers well never know the difference."

Note to publishers: yes we do know the difference!!! I just finished a torture-filled read from an author who always had my respect in the past. This author's books are usually original, entertaining, well crafted.

This one was painful. The same cliches repeated over and over. It's clearly a novice effort, with little attempt to edit before publication. The author initially made a name for herself as a romance novelist, but topped the bestseller lists by breaking free of the traditional format and formula of the romance genre.

In this book, I could see the beginnings of that transformation. The eye-rolling sex scenes are there (I'm sorry, but no 18-year-old innocent in 19th century London gives a mind-blowing BJ on her first attempt). But also there is a story that breaks free of the traditional regency romance boundary, edging into fantasy, with a nicely created world that is magical and intriguing.

The characters are stock - the dashing titled rogue with money and the spirited and passionate young maid. They start to evolve into real characters, but are held back by the constraints of being forced into the "fall in lust-marriage-insane sex-fall in love" formula that is now so old and trite in the romance genre it might as well be a paint-by-number.

I would have thought the author, as far as she's come with her writing, would have wanted a major rewrite before the book hit the shelves. Even on a micro level, the thing is messy, with meandering dialogue, senseless transitions, and some seriously fuzzy plot points.

I'm hoping it's just that she was furiously writing on something new (she's quite prolific), and simply didn't have the time or inclination to labor over something she'd finished with a long time ago. "Sure, publish it and send me the paycheck!" I hope that's what she was thinking. I hope she didn't read the thing and it made perfect sense to her and looked like a good piece of writing. Oi.

I see it a lot, though, pick up paperbacks by big name authors only to have the story be amateurish and ham-handed. I wonder, if I ever get to be one of those big-shots, if I will succumb to the same temptations of publishing my early drivel just for the added royalties.

Which, dear god, brings the thought: my early drivel is what I'm shopping around now. Ouch.

Well, let's just hope that someday I have the opportunity to decide whether or not to publish it under the "Never Before Published" tag. Until then, as a consumer with many books to read and not enough years in life to read all of them, I will stay far far away from these monstrosities in the future.

My Alternative to Amazon

2008-06-26T11:47:00.001+01:00

If you're in the publishing industry at all, as an author, an editor, or even just an interested consumer, you've probably read about the controversy surrounding Amazon's new POD publishing plans, and the restrictions it's placing on book listings that don't conform to their demands.

Self-published authors are angry at the fact that Amazon would remove one-click ordering for books that don't use their BookSurge publisher. Some industry experts, on the other hand, are touting it as a possible wake-up call to the antiquated book publishing industry.

Whatever. They're a business, a gigantic fracking business. The only thing I can do about their practices (as a consumer and as-yet unpublished novelist) is to buy my stuff elsewhere.

Which got me wondering: what else is out there? Sure, there's Barnes & Noble, another box giant whose sales contribute little to author's pockets. Six of one, half dozen of the other, if you ask me.

So I did a little looking around, and came across Better World Books. It's a retailer that began as a used book distributor, "rescuing" discarded library books and returning them to the circulation rather than letting them get scrap-heaped. It's now grown to a large retailer selling new and used books, DVDs, and music.

What's more, they fund literacy programs all over the world. They have free shipping regardless of how much you buy. They add a few cents to each purchase for carbon offsetting for the shipping.

Imagine that. A socially conscious company. I'd have made the switch even without all the Amazon controversy. Try it. It'll make you feel at least a smidgen better about being a consumer.

"Reading" Books on My Mobile

2008-06-23T11:13:00.000+01:00

A couple of months ago, I broke my nose playing rugby. I mean smashed it all over my face. Took the surgeon two tries to get it mostly straight, which meant I was icing my face for about three solid weeks (as each time he fixed it, he broke it all over again).

I couldn’t type. I couldn’t watch Buffy, or Stargate Atlantis. I couldn’t read. Not through the icepacks on my face.

I. Was. Bored.

I bummed around, and discovered what most net-savvy people discovered circa 2001: podcasts.

It wasn’t long before I hit on what is now my newest obsession: sci-fi and fantasy short story podcasts via EscapePod and PodCastle. Every week or so, these lovely folks podcast a new story in doses varying from 5 minutes to an hour. Some of the stories are fantastic, some are all right, some just aren’t my style.

The thing is, though, that these are stories I probably never would have come across without a ton of subscriptions or pestering my local library beyond their abilities (I’m in the boonies. I’m lucky to have a library). I load them up on my cell phone (which has an MP3 player - in some ways, I really am in the 21st century, I swear), and I listen to them as I drive out to ride horses.

Upon hearing about my love with the podcasts, a friend turned me on to PodioBooks.com. Authors podcast their novels chapter by chapter, all for free (or hopefully, a donation, most of which goes directly to the author, unlike most publication payments).

How much do I love this idea? A lot. I love the free market quality of these podcasts, where the best-loved novels rise to the top of the list. I love that the authors get paid based on how much the reader-listeners love the story, not on how well the book was marketed. I love that so many writers get the opportunity to share their work without the dreaded query letter/rejection flogging.

I am desperate to have a story read on PodCastle, to possibly start churning out chapters of my book, little by little. Sure, I want the prestige that comes with a published book. Sure, I want to be able to drop the words “my agent” into as many conversations as possible. And I still know that’s going to happen.

The podcasts and internet availability are just one more realm for authors to explore, like the new book trailers. One more way to share our stories, which is what it’s all about.

So if you haven’t caught on to this trend, click over to the podcast sites and see what’s out there. There are so many stories to take in, so many tales to enjoy. Miss as few as possible.

Don't I Know You?

2008-05-19T11:09:00.000+01:00

The question comes up a lot, in classes I teach, when I tell people I write fiction: Do you use people you know in your stories?

Well, duh. Of course I use people I know in my stories. If I went around using people I don't know in my stories, I'd have a bunch of flat, uninteresting characters.

Very few of my characters, however, are flat-out one-for-one representations of people I know. I may use one friend's speech pattern for a character, for example. Or someone's tale of woe may be the start of a story. Another friend's family background might be useful for filling out the history of a character. It all boils down to things that I know, things that resonate with me and happen to suit my story.

I use my family a lot. I can't help it. While I love my family dearly, we have so much drama and conflict exploding at any given time it's like a cross between Dallas and Family Guy. How can I resist telling stories about affairs that bring down empires, criminals so talented they baffle the cops even when caught, and Oedipus-worthy manipulations for inappropriate familial affections?

My friends and family often try to pick themselves out in my stories. They usually go one of two ways: either they completely mistake a character with no relation to them whatsoever as their fictional doppelganger, or they never recognize themselves at all. They may be able to pick out other people in the fiction, but hardly ever themselves.

It's always a great relief - who doesn't worry that even an innocuous representation may offend? - not to mention a decent source of amusement. I love that people have such a hard time seeing themselves as others do, as they are pictured in fiction. It immediately makes everyone a more complex character...one I can use. ;)

Did Paul Varjak Feel This Way?

2008-02-29T09:52:00.000Z

Every writer, at least every writer I know, has at some point expressed a desire for a sugar daddy. Or mama, whatever. Those first scenes in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where he has that great apartment, cash on the table, and time to do nothing but write and steal dime-store masks are enough to make us drool with insatiable need. And at the end when he throws it all away (for love no less! The fool.), all we can think is what an idiot he was to give up such a good racket. Dignity be damned, we’d rather write than spend the rest of our lives finding stiletto heels in the fridge.

I’m Paul Varjak. I’m not kept, not really. I’m just married. We had a wedding, and then my darn husband went off and found a wonderful job in BFE Wales. Those villages in the quaint English movies with Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, where they’re always walking everywhere, and everyone is excited for the mail…they’re all true. The mail is exciting because there’s no other way to purchase specialty items. Last week I needed tap shoes, and even a trip 20 miles away to the nearest dancewear store in the “big city” yielded no results. I’ve had similar trouble trying to find recycled printer paper, power converters, a yoga mat... you see what I’m getting at.

Furthermore, I’ve had similar trouble trying to find a job. If I were schooled in the art of hair styling (or even shampooing), I would have no problem. There are probably two hair salons to every person living in North Wales. They’re like Starbucks over here. But for a writer, even a very experienced technical writer, jobs are scarce. And of course, should I apply for a receptionist position or something similar, I would get some very dumbfounded looks. “You have a Master’s degree, and you want to answer our phones? Have you suffered brain damage? No really, because I’m not sure I want someone with brain damage talking to my clients.”

We half-expected this. We decided to move to North Wales for his job because the salary was enough to support both of us (and our four pets) should I find myself in just this situation. So my job is to write, to get the darn novel published, to finally accomplish what I thought I’d have done five years ago.

I should be ecstatic. Every damn day, I should wake up with my head full of ideas and joy and verve. I should be dancing jigs and thumbing my nose at all the poor sad sacks who actually have to work a job every day, and somehow squeeze writing into their spare moments. I thought it would be fantastic.

I’m not dealing with it well. You see, I’ve either had a job or been in school full time (or both) since I was fourteen years old. That’s fifteen years of always having output, always having some sort of supervisor, of always being acknowledged for my contributions to the community, the world. That’s also fifteen years of a steady (and steadily rising) paycheck. Daily affirmation that I am someone, that I am worthy, that I can fend for myself.

I would work a project, send it off. Someone would say what a fabulous job I did. Someone would give me a raise. I would take classes to earn my advanced degrees. Someone would grade my papers and give me an evaluation. Someone would give me a degree.

Now I wake up in the morning, read a library book while I drink my coffee, and I sit at my computer. I write. I get lonely. I peruse the internet. At 3:30 every day, I call my mother. I take the dogs for a walk. I often never get out of my PJs. I check my email obsessively to see if any agents are dying to represent me.

Every day.

I rarely talk to anyone, thus the internet need. I get excited for the mail. I download episodes of Stargate SG-1.

Lately I’ve committed myself to writing a lot more, and surfing a lot less. I shut down the wireless modem. I force myself to stare at my novel, to work my way through my revision outline. I feel more like I’m working, less like I’m unemployed.

But other than my mom and husband totally 100% supporting me in my writing (hell, my mother is fielding my rejection letters), I have no feedback on the worthiness of my life. I am so very grateful to both of them for what they do for me, but in the end their love and support is not enough. Yes, it hurts me to say that. But when you’re a writer, everyone knows your family will say you’re good and successful. Your mom will always tell you she loves your stories.

There is no cold hard cash, though. No paycheck, no reviews. I have no indicators to tell me that the path I’m on is the correct one. I have no signs to tell me I’m a participating member of society. I have nothing telling me “Hey, thanks for being alive. You’re doing a great job.”

On a daily basis, I’m faced with money issues. We’d like to buy a house, but can we afford it on only one income? We’d like to travel, to buy books and movies, to go out to dinner once in a while. I contribute nothing toward those things.

What’s more, I can’t cook. I despise cleaning (though I do it), and grumble endlessly if my husband leaves his laundry on the bathroom floor. I feel awful about this. After all, traditionally if one partner isn’t working, they earn their keep in household chores. I have a hard time even doing that, which means I contribute even less to the household. I feel like a leech.

I am determined to keep working, to keep writing until I have some indication of success or definite and infinite failure. I apply for jobs. I applied for a PhD program so that at least I’ll be working toward something, for some purpose, with some amount of supervision and feedback. I am writing every day, researching agents and publishers, communicating (virtually, anyway) with other writers.

I just have to shake this innate sense of uselessness that has settled into the forefront of my brain. Perhaps it’s a middle class American thing – if you’re not working, if you’re not contributing to the GNP, you’re a drain on society. I’m one step away from drawing unemployment and welfare (not that I’m eligible for it here in the UK). I’m not, of course, but that’s how it feels. I don’t feel independently wealthy; I feel like a bum.

So here it is in writing, published for public consumption: I am a writer. That is my profession. I will write every day. I will finish my current book, and if I haven’t gained an agent and publishing contract yet, I will shop that one around diligently. I will write another book, and another, until someone finally sits up and says “This is the next [insert awesome, prolific, wealthy author here]!!!” Until I am not merely pulling an “allowance” from my husband’s paycheck. Until I can contribute toward the mortgage, I will put my nose to that grindstone and write, damn it.

Writers don’t get weekly paychecks. They get advances, and hopefully royalties. I can look at that as a yearly paycheck, or a decadely paycheck. However it works. I am working. I am contributing. That is all. The end of the issue. My brain can just take that and gnaw on it a while.

The Best Way to Handle Rejection

2008-02-14T00:16:00.000Z

I recently completed (for now, of course), my novel The Pathfinder, and I have been embroiled in the grueling process of finding an agent to represent me, and failing that, a publisher willing to take it on.

If you're a writer, you know this is the worst part of being a writer. Now, I'm not talking your backyard, "Yeah, I took a class and wrote a story and it was mostly about me at five years old when I was clinically depressed and my uncle and/or aunt was overly fond of me" sort of writer. I'm talking about those of us who have an inborn compulsion to be published, self-sufficient authors, if not world-famous and vomitously wealthy, and who also therefore have a compulsion to have the powerful people in the publishing industry spit in our faces. Repeatedly.

You spend a week copiously poring over the Writer's Digest, picking out the agencies that accept work from new writers, from unpublished writers, who have even a remote fondness for your particular genre. You spend another week crafting that most elusive of writer's tools, the perfect query letter - the one that hooks them, that shows them how professional you are, that hides how inadequate and insecure you are, is free of typos or glaring errors, that avoids references to your mother, and all fits onto one page.

If you're really intent, you peruse each agency's website, in order to make sure your query is perfectly directed, that you're not committing some faux pas by relying on the Writer's Digest entry that may, after all, be a year old. You create a spreadsheet to track your submissions, to record each minute detail you learn about these agents. You are not above googling their MySpace pages.

You send out your queries, and of course, since no two agents want the same information, you spend yet another week creating custom packages (email, snail mail, sample chapter, synopses, author bio...how many combinations can they come up with? It's exponential!!!).

And then you wait. You wait for the inevitable rejections, what I call the "you suck" letters. If you've done this a time or two already, you know you've just set yourself up for a fall, as though you've set a goal to ask out every single one of the Victoria Secret supermodels, or each member of the Man U soccer team.

The e-queries come in first. Somehow, the agents have managed to recreate the form letters electronically. Some have submitted to web-ese so far that they don't even capitalize the beginnings of their sentences. I'm waiting to get that rejection letter that says "ur book iz the suk. lolz, ZOMG!!1! gd luck with that 1, bro."

Then the snail mail queries trickle in. Sometimes the rejection form letter has been xeroxed so many times it's not even legible. Sometimes the guy hasn't even wasted paper on you - they just scribble "no thanks" in the margin of your carefully crafted query letter. Worst of all are the ones who can't even take a moment of their day to tell you they think you suck - "If you haven't heard from me in 6 weeks, I'm not interested."

I get it, of course - all agents are overwhelmed, and can’t take the time to worry about egos. We writers truly shouldn’t take the rejection so hard, because it’s not personal. It’s business. Nonetheless, the politely phrased “no”s can’t help but injure, in the same way it hurts to never be quite the right candidate for a coveted job.

I've managed, however, to avoid most of the ego-trouncing snail mail you-sucks this time around. How? you're thinking. Those are the worst - tangible evidence in your hand that someone doesn't think you're good enough. Emails are oh-so easy to delete and pretend they never existed at all, but those paper rejections drive nails into your poor overgrown, tenderly writer's heart.

I cheated. I had them all sent to my mother's address.

In my defense, I'm currently in the UK, and the postage situation if I had them all sent here was a nightmare. It was easier to have the SASEs returned to a US address.

Of course, I did not realize the emotional effect this would have on my mom.

She's almost to the point she won't open the envelopes, now that she recognizes them. She certainly won't make a list of the rejections so I can check them off my spreadsheet. "It's so humiliating!" she wails. After only two you-suck letters, she was ready to quit as a writer - and this is a woman who has had me write her letters and emails for the past 15 years. "It's just mean. That's what it is. How can Michael Crichton get that god-awful Next book, with no story whatsoever, published, and you can't get anyone to look at this one? What's wrong with them?!? They're just mean. I just want to call them up and tell them 'it's a good book - it really is! What's wrong with you people?' I could never do what you do. It's not even fair."

Yep, it sucks. But for the first time, I'm getting some great humor out of the horrifying process. I never want to be that writer, of course, whose mother verbally reams out the agents who thought my work just "wasn't right for them at this time," but holy shit is the idea of it precious. I can just imagine the conversation:

AGENT: X Agency, Agent Meanie speaking.

MOM: What's wrong with you people?

AGENT: I'm sorry?

MOM: There are good books out there! I read, I've seen what you pick, what gets published.

AGENT: I know that, I really do try to find good auth--

MOM: Apparently, you don't. I read that book about robots. I even read the book about stealing people's DNA. I read romance novels, for Christ's sake! I know that what is out there is shit.

AGENT: Yeah, Michael Crichton should really just stick to ER, I'm with you there.

MOM: My daughter's book is good. But you just send back these mean letters. "Not for me." "No thanks." "Good luck finding someone else." You're mean, all of you are mean and unfair and you wouldn't know talent if it splatted on your nose!

AGENT: Well, my name is Agent Meanie. By the way, what's your daughter's name, so I can be sure to add her to the "Crazy family - do not accept under any circumstances" list?

It does bring some light into my humdrum life. That, and I remind myself daily that Jasper Fforde wrote (and submitted, and was subsequently rejected) seven novels over a period of ten years before an agent responded favorably to The Eyre Affair. Don't believe me? The rather indirectly inspiring interview is on Writer Unboxed.

So in the end, my solution is to keep, keep, keep trying. And use your mother's address.

Deconstructing the SEP Field

2007-06-05T16:46:00.000+01:00

Douglas Adams, creator of the world (literally)-famous Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, invented a concept that I am now fully convinced actually exists: the Somebody Else's Problem (SEP) Field. This field makes items, people, events, even entire spaceships, disappear, simply because anyone seeing them will write them off as somebody else's problem. And when something is someone else's problem, not your job, or out of your control, you ignore it to the point it might as well not even exist. It can still, however, blow your head off if that's its purpose. Very quickly, "somebody else's problem" can become "everyone's huge disaster."

I've come across two quotes this week that made me want to shove both utterers hard enough to knock them out of that SEP field. The first came from P's stepmother as she lamented the strange and peculiar weather happening both worldwide and locally to her in Cairns, Australia lately. Finally, she gave up trying to figure out the cyclones and icebergs in summer, and just said, "Oh, well, it's Nature. Nothing we can do about it."

Actually, that's not right at all. A lot of the strange weather patterns we've experienced in the last few years are a result of our (i.e., humans') negligent and detrimental actions. We drive our SUVs, never take the bus, leave the engine idling outside stores while we "run in." We buy our food processed and packaged in cardboard and plastic, then toss it all in a landfill, individually creating tons of garbage every year. We plant grass and trees in the desert, sucking down aquifers for the sake of aesthetics. We hold on to old ways of living in new environments that can't sustain them, destroying fragile ecosystems (and, subsequently, our livelihoods) in the process.

Because we've brought this destruction on ourselves, we also have the power to stop and reverse it. One by one, as individuals and communities, we can demand and create change for a healthier world.

What stops us from making changes, even small ones, is our SEP-attitude: I can't do anything about it. It's too big, I'm only one person. That's not my job. This is the way it's always been, and we've survived, so why change it?

We defeat ourselves. Yes things have "always been this way": humans back before the development of agriculture have damaged their environment by overhunting, then overfarming, deforestation, pollution, and so on. Since the industrial revolution, our effects have grown exponentially. And no, we will not continue to survive if the glaciers melt, if the planet's diversity dies, if we outgrow our food supply. But the first step is to accept our responsibility, and dedicate ourselves to changing as individuals.

I agree, just one "little old me" can't force the entire country of Japan to cease their whaling ceremonies. On my own, I can't resolve the energy crisis, and provide clean and abundant power for the world. But like a small pebble tossed into a lake, I can take actions to better my world, and hope that the ripple eventually makes its way to the shores of other peoples' consciousness. I can remodel my home with bamboo flooring, a clean, renewable resource even more beautiful and economical than environmentally damaging hardwood. I can decorate my wedding with flowers made from soda cans, candleholders made from food tins, and then recycle the lot when I'm done, instead of spending thousands of dollars for cut flowers, flowers that are farmed in a distant place and shipped via gas-guzzling, polluting refrigerated diesel trucks. I can choose to purchase my food from local organic farmers instead of corporations, again avoiding the indirect pollution of the shipping industry. I can make purchases at my stores of environmentally-friendly products instead of their cheaper, dirtier competitors, sending a message to the store manager with the money that I spend. I can give gifts of knowledge to my friends and family: Jared Diamond's Collapse, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. I tell people why I do what I do, share what I learn, and hope that I've planted a seed whereby other folks in my community will think twice before leaving a light burning all night, or will decide to bike or bus to work a couple of days a week. In return, they send ripples out through their networks, until the wings that I flapped here created a hurricane on the other side of the globe. This is how just one person, seemingly insignificant, can create change.

The second quote, the other SEP field, is less concrete, but just as infuriating to me: "As a single mom, I had no idea what to look for myself." This was in an article in my workplace's "Porcelain Press" (yep, a newsletter posted in bathroom stalls) stressing the importance of properly using your gas heaters. The author had nearly asphyxiated herself with her gas camping heater, and when the CO monitor alarm went off, of course she had no idea what to do because she was a single mom. Her implication in that one single sentence, in her excuse for her ignorance, is that a woman couldn't possibly solve a mechanical problem without a man.

WTF? My mom was single, but she never used it as an excuse for not knowing how to do something "traditionally male." She never said, "Well, I'm a woman; this isn't my area." It's okay if you don't know how to do something, but don't blame it on your gender. Don't indirectly blame the opposite gender either, getting in a subliminal dig at the man who made you a "single mom." Guess what? Male or female, you are responsible for your own life, your own actions. Here's a novel idea: if you purchase and/or use a piece of equipment, learn how it works! At least familiarize yourself with the dangers, and how to troubleshoot if things go wrong.

It's just another case of maintaining status quo, the way things have always been. Our language, what we say, how we use it, helps to foster harmful ideas in both our own minds and in the minds of others. The more you repeat phrases like "acts of God," "I'm a girls, I don't do math," "I'm only one person," the more true they become, the more powerless we become.

We have to induce change at the most basic level: our thoughts, our words, our actions. If I think recycling is a pain, I consistently groan about how much of a pain it is, and I never get around to it, my lifestyle will continue its negative impact. If I think I can't change the oil in my car because I have two X chromosomes, then I'll never bother to learn. I will remain ignorant, powerless, and in many cases destructive to myself and my world.

Change begins here, people. If you think it, it will come.