Hypercompendia

Finally got some time and mental energy today to go back and tackle the Agents feature of Tinderbox. With another bit of help from Steve Ersinghaus, I found the problem that had me stymied for a while this morning in the code string. Right now, I’m working with the current (summer 2010) project for which I’m writing a story each day.

I’d already separated the stories by Adornments into four categories of conflict but there were many more ways I wanted to sort them. So far, I’ve only got 37 stories, but there are a few I know I’d like to submit at some point and one that has already been taken for publication, so “Favorites” and “Published” became necessary Agents. The other obvious sort, geared towards the literary market, are “Word Count” and “Genre” as this would help me narrow down style of story and word count restrictions to the particular magazine.  These Agents will also be integrated into the “Literary Endeavors” Tinderbox file I have nearly complete as far as entries, as well as last year’s 100 hypertext stories from the 100 Days 2009 project.

Okay, so I cheated a lot on getting the agents to work by merely entering the text “Favorites” for example, into the box of the item, above the story, rather than properly create Attributes. That’ll come as soon as I’ve got all Agents set up and working here, and before I use that information in the other two project. I’m psyched!

Okay, so there are only five stories written so far but the pattern of themes has already started to establish itself:

In first level writing and literature, we’re taught the dearth of plots and the general concept of “man versus man,” etc. What I think this series of summer stories may be based upon is struggle and the adversary determines the “type” of story, here separated by color and Adornment names of Self, Relationships, and Society.

There may naturally be additions made as time goes on, as a theme such as war, for example, may go under any of these but just might call for a new category such as Event, or Future, etc. Tinderbox allows for building into a cohesive whole and though I’m just beginning, I’m hoping that something doesn’t strike me halfway through as a better organizational layout. Things can always be changed, but not without a bit of effort, so I might just put some more time into planning at this early stage of the game.

Well it seems that I work better under pressure; there are a dozen unfinished stories on my desktop that have sat there for weeks with a sentence, a paragraph added in a fit of creativity. But inspired by both a piece of work from a fellow artist and the concept of deadline, I’m hitting my stride with a story a day.

Here’s where the building blocks of ideas turn into more than just concept into a solid form. Last year I didn’t have the expertise nor the time with Tinderbox to assemble the 100 hypertext pieces into a Tbox file. For this project, I’m starting out with Tbox and already have some general organization in place. The main thought, however, is to allow for various mediums that some of the stories may employ (hypertext, flash, image, audio, etc.) so that I do want that ease of transition that keeping all in Pages would not allow. I may use all html templates. This I can readily do in Tbox. While the link to the stories (100 Days – 100 Stories 2010) is currently a page on Spinning, this too may change with time.

Then again, half the fun of any project is learning how to get from A to B and so on, and raising more interesting paths along the way.

Been playing in Tinderbox the last few days, trying to update the Literary Endeavors file with all current submissions–both straight and hypertext, stories and poetry–and it’s intensive. This is only because I’m backtracking with hundreds of bits of data from emails, spreadsheets, bookmarks and their websites, that have accumulated over the past maybe six months actively, though some of the info is on older stories and such that were sent out in spurts of ambition over the past few years, with years in between.

I’m caught up to a point that tells me a few things. One, the design of the Tinderbox file changes with the input; while I loved the threads of links from work to venue and luckily, was smart enough not to put return trails for all replies, a pattern established itself that proved itself to be the best way of keeping track of things at a glance at the mapview. This set a new method of linking submission to publisher.

What I’ve decided on now is to link from the story box to the venue via the publisher’s name, and including the name of the story within the publisher’s box. Doing it this way, I can see exactly how many and which stories are out there awaiting replies. When a reply comes in, the link is either deleted (with the date entered within the boxes) or turned into a happy bold red acceptance link from publisher to story.

Another thing this mapview tells me at a glance is that I don’t currently have much in the pipeline!

So here comes the next project on the agenda: to write, rewrite, throw away into the black hole, or send out, some stuff. The most important will be rewriting–and this includes the hypertext pieces that were done over last summer. It’s hard to find a home for a hypertext; so until these have been placed somewhere in some form, I discounted the initial idea of writing a hundred more this summer for the 100 Days Project. On the other hand, the discipline of a deadline worked for me…

Which means that while not a part of it, I’ll possibly be setting up a goal for myself to do X every day (for a grand total of 100 Xs) alongside the project–just outside the fence. What I’m thinking of now is either a hypertext poem (short and easy) or a short story a day, just enough to leave time for two other concepts I’ve been putting off–stretchtext and another flash piece or a movie.

And, of course, the garden, reading, and sitting around drinking wine.

(UPDATE: via Dorothee Lang (Blue Print Review), this most interesting echo of my own feelings: Jason Sanford, in storySouth — this may even call for another post.)

Just remembered that May is Short Story Month (no, I don’t know who started it) and since I made a conscious effort not to conform, I’m thinking of writing a short story a day throughout June.

This goes contradictory to my nature of editing and polishing (though some of my best published stories are those written on the fly). Last summer I wrote a story a day in hypertext for 100 days. While some are really good, the majority are eh and have more value as a learning of format and narrative than for actual story I think. I’m still working on editing them and this is a lot more time and work than I’d already put into them–probably an average of ten to twelve hours per story–originally. Particularly now, when there are several places on the hard drive and in different forms (Tinderbox, html) as well as the online version to update if a change is made.

So do I write my June away? Traditional or hypertext? Or should I just play with clay…

(NOTE: Realized that this will not be published until May so I’m making the images really small so as not to take away from the originals)

It occurred to me during last summer’s 100 Days Project that my tendency to work with Tinderbox in its Map View rather than Outline, Tree, etc. became an integral part of a story as I wrote. The visual effect of a narrative, as a writer, was not something I consider other than for imagery in the writing process whether it be poem or story and yet Dorothee Lang, of the Blue Print Review and Karyn Eisler, whom I’d met on this project, made that link.

Dorothee had emailed me about an idea for a hypertext poem she was working on, and with my Tinderbox program, I showed her how it would look in that format. From there and in working with Karyn, she layered the images and text into a piece that included the Map View and submitted it to the e-zine, otoliths, which accepted and will be publishing it next month in their journal.

This in, a link to what Steve Ersinghaus had spent 24 hours working on at the Tunxis Art Marathon.

Though I crept out at daybreak, just three hours short of completing the Tunxis 24-hour Arts Marathon (I’d run out of creative juice and was feeling a bit grumpy) I did manage to complete a new hypertext story during the first half of the session. Thanks to all who participated, and particularly Carianne Mack Garside for hosting this annual event which for the first time included a gallery classroom for creative writers along with the art, sculpture, and photography which drew the largest number of students. And of course to Professors Steve Ersinghaus and Jesse Abbot who oversaw the writing division, and fellow writers, Dan, Nick, Trent, Megan, and others who drifted in and out to spend some time writing and sharing. Steve did quite a bit of work on a new novel that he’s been considering, Jesse wrote a poem and recorded a great audio I hope to find online soon, and I know that Nick, Trent, Dan, and Megan were close to completing their own short stories and animations during this period.

So I offer now, since I couldn’t upload it online direct from campus, and after a couple hours’ sleep:

On The Very Last Day, He Imploded

Finally got around to some attempt at organizing my literary endeavors into some semblance of order with Tinderbox.

What I’ve come up with so far is a file called “Literary Endeavors” with containers labeled “Print Journals”, “Online Journals”, “New Media Journals”, and three more labeled “Print Stories”, “Hypertext”, and “Poetry”.

In the “Print Stories” container I’ve got notes for each of the stories I’ve written and within each will be the word count, genre, and maybe a separate note within each for where they’ve been submitted. Maybe all will be separate, so that they can easily be brought up according to genre, or word count or whatever since that will align with many publishing restrictions. The same format will be done with Poetry and Hypertext.

In the three main categories of journals, I’ll likely put in a note for which stories have been submitted and the dates of acceptance (Yay!) or rejection (Boo.).

This looks like a fun project to do between writing bouts and will prove invaluable  now that I is a published writer.

While I’ve sort of been accused of using an old fashioned form of hypertext narrative–and this may be true since I’m a bit behind the times learning on my own–I’m still very much aware of the fact that folks need to be eased into the concept of hypertext story.

In the 100 pieces I’ve done for the 100 Days Project, I can see my work becoming gradually more complex not just in the number of lexias but in the linking of those pieces. There are just so many ways of using hypertext that I’ve not learned all the methods and reasons yet behind it. For another, finding that most folks didn’t bother reading it (the usual reasons, ad nauseum) influenced a rather simplistic approach, trying to cover all the different purposes by focusing in on one at a time.

As way of explanation, one of the purposes/reasons for hypertext could be the deliverance of background information that can certainly enhance but is not vital to the flow of story. Another is to change the meaning of the story entirely by allowing a switching of paths or focus, perhaps to even come up with a different ending to a story. Another may be to emphasize one character over another in point of view. Maude Nichols is one of the few hypertexts I’ve written that really gives a reader a choice–at least a choice that is based on some form of informed possibilities because it includes a multiple choice at the end of each writing space as to proposed direction of story. This seems to be a good way of allaying the fears of the uninitiated hypertext reader about losing control of the story.

One of the things I need to do with my own hypertext work is to increase the level of visual impact, and that’s going to be a case of learning more about css and html and the various methods of display. I’d also like to get into the audio as well as video clips involved in most of the newer presentations while still keeping in mind that there’s an audience of the unaware and just plain resistant to welcome into the discovery.