Hypercompendia

Today is day #51 of a summer of artistic endeavor. I’ve been reading, viewing, appreciating each and every entry and often am simply awed by the level of work being produced by this group. I see consistency and I see exploration. There are visions of daily life seen through the eyes of photographers, artists, writers. Artists encompasses the group as a whole and each individual can be called an artist as well, despite the medium used. Another thing they can all be called is storytellers, for each piece tells a story.

In going back over my own contribution of stories told in the hypertext format, I find myself struggling with keeping all the ends together of story under the technical side that hypertext requires. To a visual artist, there is composition, subject, and medium whether it be lens and focus or color palette and brush. To the writer, the technical will require grammar, language, keyboard and for all, internet access.

What this project has come down to for me is a self-learning exercise and what I’ve produced may require much editing, but it also has made me aware of the possibilities of both story and the hypertext form. With Tinderbox as my base of operations, I’ve been able to cut back on some of the technical requirements by duplicating the format for each story and simply changing color and moving writing spaces around to suit mood and plot.

What I’m planning on doing with this eventually is creating a website that offers updated hypertext short story and poetry on a free-to-read basis that will be open to all, sectioned into areas for reader interest and age, and without this forced daily writing, it would have been just a plan in the back of my mind and somewhere floating on my “to-do” list. If nothing else, I’ve gotten a jump on this idea and am ahead of the game in learning the intricacies of writing narrative hypertext. Summer may be fun and work, but I’ve a feeling it’s going to get even better after that.