. Spinning .

While I’ve had the best of intentions, it’s obvious that I’ve little time to read the past couple of months. But what’s better than reading? Only writing, and that I’ve been doing dawn till hours after dusk.

We’re at day #51 in the 100 Days Project and I’m working on that fifty-first short story in hypertext form right now. Over at Hypercompendia I’ve posted some thoughts as we reach the midpoint of the effort. To be more personal here about my own work, I’ve found that I can respond to deadlines; I can come up with a new idea every day; I can follow prompts or be inspired by outside forces; I can write humor, mystery, contemporary, poetical prose, change voice, braid stories, and most importantly, learn something new every day both about story form and hypertext.

Though I am still reading as much as possible, possible seems to be near zilch with gardening, housework and job all screaming for attention. I’ve been really tempted several times to back out of this 100-day project deal for lack of time, lack of group support, and lack of being able to bend my left ring finger. In the end, this is more than an important exercise for me, it is a step forward in a plan to create a website dedicated to hypertext fiction for all ages. A free site where there will be a library of short stories, poems, and visual graphics all in the hypertext format that will be added to on a regular basis by writers and artists willing to share their work in order to generate more interest in the hypertext form by example and instruction.

So that’s were I’ve been. Not lazy, not dropping out of sight here on Spinning, but dedicating my creative energy and time to a project I think will blossom into more than just some summer stories.

I did a whole presentation on this at Hypertext 2008 in Pittsburgh last year: story wants to be laid out not according to the writer’s whim, but rather where it wants to go on its own. Of course, before the web and hyperlinks, we didn’t have the choice of hypertext versus traditional linear story. There were the options of form however in prose, poetry, etc.

With the 100 Days Project I am writing a story a day in hypertext form. Neha is doing story in poetry. Mary Ellen is doing writing character sketches, others are contributing photography, watercolor, script, and meals.  Steve is doing linear text story.

Now there are many times I’m writing something that seems to want a straight linear–and it’s hard to use the term linear here because non-hypertexted story needn’t be linear–and I either have to stop and think about it or squeeze it out as best I can. This is forcing it into a form which the story doesn’t necessarily need to be.  There is a third option that I’ve taken a couple times: dump the story and start a new one.

I’m guessing that just as I come upon stories that want to be straight, Steve imagines a few that want to be hypertext. He’s proficient at either and once you have the tools, it’s always a part of the initial conception of story. One thing that’s helped me keep in a hypertext frame of mind is creating a base map of story in Tinderbox with writing spaces based on the average (about 16 with a half dozen smaller links to inspire intersections). This serves as a blank piece of paper or monitor in the hypertext version of writing.

It does get easier as one becomes immersed in the style to maintain that style of story; I find myself reading a paperback novel looking for links.

In the 100 Days Project, Steve Ersinghaus generously shared two versions of a story to show how the writing process works to sometimes show us when we get bogged down and how to turn the story around by approaching it in a different way. Some of the other participants showed us dual examples as well as to what works and what doesn’t.

In my own hypertexts, I don’t edit the way I do in straight text, although I have dumped a couple of stories, I usually play with what I have since the structure is a large part of the work and a lot of the effort in creating the narrative. So I don’t have a way of showing a story that didn’t make it.

But I thought about it in between bouts of inspired moments and played with Tinderbox to show a visual of a story that doesn’t work:

I’ve been having some fun within the frame of intense work in writing a hypertext story each day for a grand total of one hundred through the summer if I can manage to keep it up. Even if I don’t, I’ve been forced to learn and relearn elements of story through the deadlines and the desire to come up with something new, something fresh and different than whatever I’ve been doing before.

The real roadblocks for me here are the inexperience with working within the hypertext format so each story needs double duty thinking. On top of that is the process of exporting each work into .html form and ensure that’s it’s working online. Sometimes in changing the titles, colors, etc. from one story to the next, a simple semi-colon goes missing, or a link has lost a character and it ends up pointing mid-story to an Error 404 page. Then there’s a lot of detective effort and time in tracking it down. The final kicker: I get to read it online in presention form and get itchy to edit. That takes several clicks to open the server page for the files and wait- we’re not done–make the changes to the hard drive .html file and the Tinderbox version as well.

So in the last couple of days, just when I was about to throw in the towel, inspiration came in the form of magical realism; a fun thing to do when story gets too serious and too formal. I tend to get “Byzantine” with words sometimes and overly explanatory and magical realism lets you cut that off at the pass. It’s a “because I say so” tool for the writer, somewhat like freeform poetry where the creative force negates most (not all) stringent and smothering restrictions on writing. It makes it more fun.

Back in March I mentioned that I would be taking part in a group project over the summer whereby a number of artists, writers, coders, photographers, musicians, etc. would each be producing a piece of work on a daily basis for 100 days starting May 22nd, 2009. I had done some experimental pieces, then tried to make the move from Storyspace to Tinderbox as the program to write in and then also learned some css and such to make the move from Typepad here to WordPress and figure out how to export the hypertext to work here (at my Hypercompendia site) and in some fancy schmancy colors as well.

Since then, I got interested in a few more projects and tried to meet deadlines for submitting short stories and plan out some rewriting of the old, some starting basics for the new. When May 22nd came along, I found myself in a real blue funk of self-doubt and didn’t feel ready to step up and join the talent that was forming itself into a collage of creativity. I made a last push to create a few hypertext stories as the project got started just as practice to follow along. Seeing that hypertext was not represented in the the project, I’ve decided to rejoin and was accepted into a very energetic and eclectic group of ambitious and talented workers.

Each individual produces his or her work on an individual website, but a central point has been established by the instigator of the project, Steve Ersinghaus, at 100 Days: Summer 2009 (linked also at the top right of this page) that links to all the separate sites by their feeds. I’m currently using Hypercompendia as a point of entry since it seemed that the relativity of the hypertext medium didn’t warrant the extra work of creating a separate weblog at this point, and also have a separate page for the hypertexts at Hypertext under a Flash Fiction page.

Haven’t gotten much reading time in, but I have been writing, both straight text and hypertext. I’ve finally overcome my fear of Tinderbox–not that it’s at all a difficult program to learn, but rather that my assurance of comfort within Storyspace stood as a discouragement to learning something different when I was looking to do no more than what Storyspace already handled for me.

Been trying to read more poetry to get me in the frame of mind for brevity and sharper imagery, and some more contemporary stories online to get me up to speed with the trendy language of today’s writers. I need this for all my writing, but even more particularly when writing hypertext short shorts that need be almost self-contained stories within each lexia. I’m slowly getting back into the swing of things and have been learning more about the hypertext form and purpose as well. Still not great at it, but then my straight text isn’t all that hot either.

Very disappointed to see that not only is hypertext or any other form of new media not represented at the Tunxis Writers Festival this year, but that the public is not being offered the ability to attend this community college function. Odd, at a college that’s ahead of many in stepping over the edge into the New Media field by offering two courses devoted to New Media, and many others such as Digital Animation that apply.

Maybe this all goes back to Dene Grigar’s essay on how hypertext, et al, is presented at the academic level, Electronic Literature, Where is It?, and whether it is a discipline unto itself or if its relationship to Literature, etc. is undeniable.

So glad I agreed to join the 100 Stories Project. Last summer, Steve Ersinghaus and Carianne Mack dedicated their summer break from their usual campus duties at Tunxis Community College to put together an awesome creative collaboration of paintings and poetry as a challenge of one work a day for 100 days. Steve and Carianne are once again planning a project, with stories and visuals, and with the addition of John Timmons on sound and Jim Revillini on drums–no not drums, but the same base, the beat that sets the whole thing to blend in digital presentation. I’ll be expanding on story by offering an interpretation in hypertext.

Steve has already thrown out a few stories in preparation and to get with the idea, I’ve been hypertexting them on a 100 Stories Project Page (Link to the right) over at Hypercompendia until we have a plan for centralization. Officially the project will begin on May 22nd and run through August. It should be a fun process of learning and exploring creative ideas and interpretations pooled together towards a goal.

Mainly here, at Hypercompendia’s with  A Bottle of Beer, writing a css stylesheet (or rather, learning how) so that I can produce my hypertext writing online.

But I have finished Wide Sargasso Sea and will update with a post on that later along with what little else I’ve allowed myself to partake in beyond hypertext and html.

Space as character–this is an important statement by Charles Deemer in his Nuts & Bolts section of the hyperdram which tells us how the idea of hyperdrama came about and moving it from live performance stage to the film medium.

Live performance interestingly keeps audience and actors in the same real time whereas film must manipulate the set and actors.

Giving us the technical side of it, including the software involved, Charles makes a quite complex undertaking seem a lot easier than it is.

One week away from the Hypertext 2008 Conference in Pittsburgh, PA and I’m pretty much ready for that with a presentation for the workshop headed by Steve Ersinghaus where I’ll be showing the process of my work with Storyspace and Hypertextopia. I’ll be happy to finally meet Mark Bernstein, Juan Gutierrez, Mark Marino, Chris Crawford, Alan Bigelow, and so many of the other hypertext celebrities I’ve only known through their work and websites.

I’m also getting a lot of the picture framing done, cleaning the
house, and making sure my husband has enough ironed shirts and slacks
to last until he meets a new woman in case something happens to me.

While my ultimate goal is to write a story in Macromedia Flash or Storyspace, you’ve read here that I have been working on a project called, "Pseudohyperfiction" which incorporates the idea of hypertext links that the web allows (as well as the availability in CD or DVD format).  Well, I scrapped the original story group temporarily because I couldn’t see where they were going and instead dug up some starters and added a couple of new ones to come up with four interrelated stories to play with. 

It’s not my best work, and unfortunately I had to commit the ultimate sin of submitting something that was not fully polished, but as editor, I had a deadline, and as writer, I was forced to accept that deadline.  Luckily, until we have a more discriminating staff working at otto than just me, I accepted it for inclusion in the Spring/Summer 2006 issue.  But this decision was not based on graft or connections, nor even lack of material; it was honestly based upon the desire to fulfill a commitment I had made to make otto the first to present story in this format.  Besides, nobody else would likely print it.

So If you’re curious at all as to what writing I’ve been up to lately, you’re welcome to check this project out at Pseudohyperfiction:  The Paths.  In time, I hope to present this or a better story in true hyperfiction form.  An outstanding example of this form can be seen at Stoning Field, a story written by Steve Ersinghaus.