Hypercompendia

As a side note here, my own project name of Paths is going to have to change.  It was a temporary "holder" title and I’ll start thinking of something new to name it if I ever get it done.

Kate Pullinger, one of the authors of what is described as a network novel, Flight Paths, was gracious enough to address some of my questions here, particularly about the beginnings of the story itself.  But what it has me thinking about is more on the marketing of something like this, or any non-physical project available on the web as its main dispersal method.  How soon is too soon to offer something to the public?  And once something is online, you can bet–and hope–it’s considered available.  Even in my younger days in Production, Marketing, and Sales, there was always the argument that the product wasn’t ready even as the brochures were being printed.  I used to work for EFI, a company that made educational audio flashcards and you try to drag those units back out of the hands of five year-olds.

Two more things come to mind.  One is the intricate work on Storytron that had me more than interested in it until my interest waned with the seemingly slow progress (this is the microwave effect: the idea that no matter how much quicker something new is over the old, it’ll never be quick enough for some folk!) and the realization that it wasn’t exactly what I was looking to do with any creative force I could muster.

The other thing that the question brings up is that with the internet accessibility, and given the artist’s anxious nature, we often put things out as they begin to allow others to see how they develop.  Me, well I’m as guilty as the next guy, evidenced by my highs and lows, it’s finished–no, it’s not, workings with any project here or  in the past, on Spinning.  Right now, I’ve made one poor overworked professor read a work in progress in my initial wonderment with Storyspace (not Storytron; Storyspace) and through subtle hints he made me aware that it just wasn’t working.    On Spinning, my nature for literary review is to post as I read, just as my workings here in reviewing Storyspace, Storytron, Facade, Alice, Scratch, and anything else I’ve stuck my nose into.

As far as the lengthy and fine-tuned Terms and Conditions of Flight Paths, I’m sure there’s a good reason behind it.  It could be pressure from those that granted financing, or it could be something as simple as my own dopey little Acknowledgement in one of the first Writing Spaces I filled out in Storyspace.  When you’re into a project but you’re not sure of the next step, you tackle a different portion of it and hey, that’s done.

So patiently I’ll wait, check in on progress at the Flight Paths site and I’m sure we’ll all see some real directions laying themselves out soon.