NEW MEDIA: A Blow by Blow

Posted on May 27, 2006 by Susan

Some terrific insight into the process of hyperlinking on if:books post, On Collaborating With the Reader.

This is the type of thing I’m struggling to teach myself with Macromedia Flash (and hopefully Storyspace some day soon).  The stories are written (Pseudohyperfiction) and partially planned out–at least in the text version.  Now I need to work with audio and visual effects as well as learn the linking process including layout to make it all work.  The written stories will change dramatically in the transformation into digital, but as a writer, it was the best and easiest place for me to start.

Crap.  Now I’m all hyper again about this project (pun intended).

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SELF ANALYSIS: Would I have told you if I was Darth Vader?

Posted on May 27, 2006 by Susan

You are Luke Skywalker

You value your friends and loved ones,
but can sometimes act recklessly
because of your emotions.
Occasionally you resort to whining.
You look ahead to great things for yourself.
 
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REALITY?: Morning Sky

Posted on May 27, 2006 by Susan

This morning, a mellow blue sky sponge-painted with clouds.

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NEW MEDIA & LITERATURE: Writing for New Media – The Talmud

Posted on May 26, 2006 by Susan

I picked this up at the last book sale and started going through the first few pages this evening to diversify my reading of novels and philosophy.  The beginning is much of what was presented in the New Media course I had a couple years ago, comparing the physical attributes of books versus digital media (you can’t cuddle in bed with a computer, but then again, laptops do offer some comfort).

Liked this:

Before content can be interactive it must be non-linear.  If users are going to interact with content, they certainly will need to interact with it without regard to any particular order.  History provides us with several examples of nonlinear content that might have become fully interactive if the technology had existed at the time. (p. 28)

It then presents us with the Talmud, in which the text of the Mishna (code of laws) is in the center of the page, surrounded (like a border of words) by the Gemara, which are the scholarly annotations.

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Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: McCullers’ The Heart… – Social Statement

Posted on May 26, 2006 by susan

While it is debatable as to exactly what the event or situation need be, most of the best novels go beyond just the lives of their characters to include some more important question of interest to society.  McCullers has the obvious involvement of the racial issue underlying the more universal yet personal issue of loneliness and ambitious dreams.

It is amazing to me that she handles the inner lives of the black man and woman so well, especially in the year the novel was published, 1940, and McCullers being only twenty-three and white.  Her character of Dr. Copeland as a Negro physician upset with his own race of people for being so subservient and accepting of their lot is a volatile issue.  Dr. Copeland brings up the same points that the whites of the time felt, and is vehemently trying to stir up the people to overcome these unfair labels.  While he is passionate about the cause–to go so far as to focus his speech on Karl Marx at his annual Christmas party–he is pitifully lacking in the sensitivity of understanding his own children.  He himself carries his own prejudices, against whites, as he asserts what he calls an "insolence" that he sees in all of them with the only exception being the mute Mr. Singer.  His prejudice against his own people may be masked under his self-proclaimed raging love for them.

I wonder if there is some deeper meaning in McCullers’ use of Dr. Copeland as he does not inspire reader empathy as strongly as one would want to cheer on a hero of human rights.

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EDUCATION: Requirements

Posted on May 26, 2006 by Susan

Any idea why algebra is a required college course and ethics and sociology aren’t?  I loved algebra, but can’t say I ever use it.

I mean, what is the real percentage of students that use even the theories of algebra on a regular basis in the decades beyond campus in the workplace, in government, in everyday dealings with strangers and friends, versus the use of ethics?

Oh, guess I just answered my own question.

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WRITING: Workshopping & Technology

Posted on May 26, 2006 by Susan

Took the stress of deadlines off my head, but still I’m getting shorter every day.  I do intend to rework a couple of my own stories, as I’ve mentioned but procrastinated long enough to no longer worry about it.  If I get something done, fine; if not, that’s okay too.

Working now on someone else’s stories as well as honing both story and editing skills on several run online.  The problem seems to be that I cannot find an online group nor local one that shares the interests and level of enthusiasm, and particularly in the case of online, genre.  No, not overrun with romance as I would have suspected, but rather sci fi and fantasy with a touch of mystery tossed in.  Very little literary or even short story writers post at sites or belong to the local groups, and even the reading circles seem to be caught up with just the latest novel that’s been hyped. 

Noticed today via if:book a post regarding workshopping methods and atmosphere, and a nice link to GAM3R7H30RY which presents an interesting form of online workshopping that includes input and ideas. 

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WRITING: K.I.S.S.

Posted on May 25, 2006 by Susan

A college class was told they had to write a short story in as few words as possible.  The instructions were that the story had to contain the following three things:  Religion, Sexuality, and Mystery.

Below is the only A+ short story in the entire class:

"Good God, I’m pregnant!  I wonder who did it."

The advice to keep it simple holds especially true in writing, notwithstanding description, setting, voice and language.  Don’t know where the above started so I can’t give proper credit, but this is around on the e-mail circuit and I thought it held some value.  Plus I’ve just had a rough coupla days and can’t think of anything original to post.

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LITERATURE: A Visual Story

Posted on May 25, 2006 by Susan

Have been working on nothing but an art installation for the past several days.  One hundred and sixty seven tiny 3 x 3 inch square of various colors and sizes with tiny mats (unfortunately, since this is the math and architectural part of framing that can drive one crazy), in sets of anywhere from one to six, and to be placed in four spaces of six rows each.

But it’s more than just a colorful display of geometric shapes and metaphorical shapes; it’s the story of the development of the artist that spans several years and several moods. Her growth as an artist, her experience turned into creative output–it’s all there.

A storyboard of an artist’s life.

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LITERATURE: Soon. Soon.

Posted on May 25, 2006 by Susan

Antsy for a dose of McCarthy; know it will rejuvenate me just as Willie and Waylon have sent the blood racing and the imagination bouncing off the convolutions of my brain.  Don’t know why I’d shut them out so long; it was the quiet time I thought I needed but it wasn’t true.  I need to fill my mind with more than words and reading words and writing what I read.  Need the auditory channels filled as well with sounds of life and love and gain and loss and tragedy and triumph.

And from the pages, from the work of mats and wooden frames, from the dishes and the laundry and the evil-hearted and the worry, I need to lift my eyes and look up at the trees.

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REALITY?: Musical Sex

Posted on May 24, 2006 by Susan

Waylon creeps into my soul and settles in somewhere down deep.  I feel him.  The music moving inside me; the stroke of words softly reaching up to twist my heart; the low growling voice tweaking, touching places he has no right to be.

It’s that sensual.

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NEW MEDIA: Technology

Posted on May 24, 2006 by Susan

Maybe I don’t have to learn the hard way if I wait (and live!) long enough.  An Automatic Text-to-Scene Conversion development program at AT&T Labs may make it so much easier to build multimedia images by making the program user friendly.  Amazing, though in its early stages of what is possible.

Thanks to Jerz’s Literacy Log for the link.

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WRITING: Honesty

Posted on May 24, 2006 by Susan

In studying Ethics, it is obvious that honesty and fairness are relatives, but reason rules. In art and in its dealings with aspiring painters, writers, sculpters, photographers and creative outpouring of any sort at all, I wonder how big a part of the process do experience, ethics, honesty and fairness need to be.

Continue reading →

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REALITY?: Loneliness

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Susan

Does this mean, he asks me, that you won’t be going to night meetings anymore?

I don’t know, I say, curious as to his sudden question.  Why?

Just wondering, he answers.

He has taken this marriage business and togetherness a bit more seriously I can see, than I have.  Although I’ve gone out usually on Wednesday nights just once a month to the same place for close now to three years, he’ll always ask what time I will be back.  There is no possessive nature in this man, and yet he’ll ask. 

And me, since I think I understand, I’ll reply as if he’s never asked before.

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WRITING: Turning Love to Satisfaction

Posted on May 23, 2006 by Susan

I am waffling back and forth as usual on my writing, though it is obvious I must cut back the time spent in this single area.  Facing facts of life and looking deep within the basket I hold before me, I find there are enough tie-ins aside from just the desire to bring it at least a bit beyond the hobby category.   Writing I shall do, not with the same fervor, but perhaps with accumulated experience and skill. 

I’m also toying seriously with the idea of starting another magazine.  In checking out the market it may seem as though it’s fully glutted already, there are ways of still answering specific needs.  I visualize an online publication, with interactive space and sound as well as text and image.  I think the costs of hardcopy can be absorbed somewhat if issues can be printed on demand (!)

I like this editing I’ve been doing both on my work as well as others.  I like to organize and explore and there are opportunities in writing that go beyond short story. 

So much to think about.

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