Hypercompendia

In an attempt to dress up one of the stories a bit, I’ve added (probably over-added) some graphics. The problem? The pages load the images so slow that it’s annoying to be reading and the background image might suddenly pop up, or the smaller images (just like the logo here) slowly “unroll” into view.

I’m not sure if it’s my server (Lunar), WordPress,  my css setups, my own Comcast cable, or my Mac growing old and pokey.

This isn’t the fun part of writing. It’s sort of making the whole project more effort than it’s worth and beginning to turn me off to whole new media thing. It seems that unless you know the programs and coding very well, the trial and error method loses its appeal after a few days.

. . .nothing like feelin’ the fool once again.

Coming into hypertext and new media and having none of your friends (yes, I’ve many master-degreed friends and even relatives) know what hypertext is makes you cocky and swell with the glory of being in on something new. So, though you know it’s been around a while, you sort of believe that it needs a kickstart to find its place in the rapidly changing world of new media arts, literature, and communication. And, by gum, you’re willing to take on the job.

You start babbling ideas and concepts of marketing and directions and all that fancy schmancy stuff you know nothing about but are willing to dive into. Slowly, tediously, you dive. And a long time later, you find it’s all been done before only nobody bothered to tell you.

So you make some dumb statements and you turn around and mumble a bit like an Alzheimeric dwarf and go back in your cave and press buttons.

NaNoWriMo’s getting closer and I still haven’t decided whether I’ll really go through with this. Checked at the NaNoWriMo site and asked the question on the forum to the others to see if anyone is planning or had before entered a hypertext piece of work. In Googling, I found one that claims to be hypertext but doesn’t appear to be so; another that is planning for this year to do hypertext possibly.

With all my feelings at cross-purposes to the structure of NaNoWriMo getting clobbered by the 100 Days experience this past summer, I’m still not sure it’s a good idea, either for me personally or for doing any good at all for marketing the hypertext form.

I wonder what happens to those who sign up and are never heard from again?

Just noticed something while editing a story that’s rather a drawback to hypertext–unless you’ve specifically asked someone to read for you.

I found a sentence in one of my 100 Days hypertexts that just didn’t make any sense. I realized that some words had been inadvertently deleted in rewriting it and never corrected. In straight narrative, this would tell me that nobody read the story. But in hypertext, they honestly could have read it and may have taken another path and missed this space.

Obviously, even with my own rereadings I’ve missed it too.

Wish I could post an image of my personal seasonal transitioning; the long John shirt underneath the satin short sleeved nightgown. It was spontaneous, the sudden cold night when you don’t want to take off warm clothes to slip into cold satin.

It reminded me of hypertext narrative. That crossroads of decision, the either/or, the moment the choice need be made: day or night, summer or fall. Then a third possibility–a combination. A layering of the seasons before comfortable routine sets in.

Have to make a decision on the NaNoWriMo (doesn’t that sound like an Indian word? Something Tonto would say to the Lone Ranger?).

Going to check out the rules (I signed up last week on a whim that I’d hoped would turn into commitment) to see if it’d be a waste of time and energy to do hypertext, and while I think it’s about time I got started on that second novel (the first is sitting on a floppy disk with a hard copy somewhere in the basement), I don’t think I need to tie in with this organized effort to write straight text.

A glimmer of an idea did come through this morning. I believe outlines are allowed pre-November 1st. I mean, they don’t expect most writers to clear their heads of story concepts and sit down at the keyboard, fingers poised at midnight without any thought of what to write (though for me, the narrative forms in the hovering fingers). And I’m sure at least some of the 15,000-plus entrants have a partially written manuscript already, despite rules.

So by this weekend, I’ll try to decide whether this is feasible, whether I’m up to it, and whether this is a good thing to do for myself and the hypertext form or if it’d just be a colossal waste of time and effort. Then, based on the final decision, I may be running to the grocery store to stock up on 60 frozen dinners. And get the laundry and ironing up to date as of October 31st with not so much as a pair of jockeys in the hamper. Oh and get the picture framing caught up and pray for a lull in Christmas business (like I don’t need the money).

That’s it. Oh, yeah; and cut my husband’s hair and take my monthly Boniva.

Huh. Interesting export results in Tinderbox; not what I was looking for, but it may be workable.

Naming a container as a prototype, and making sure the story notes inside that container follow that prototype, I think I can export each story with its own elements since each story container came through as a file folder with its story spaces inside. No sweat to through in the css sheet to make special themes.

The only problem still would be sending the whole kit and kaboodle through the export process each time a new story container was made.

Ah, just edited my crowning achievement, the two-space, three-word hypertext story #93 Challenge and Response.

Not much you can do with three words, they’d been wrung out to their lightest, unwatered weight. But there was something specific to the hypertext medium that could be done: placement.

As a dialogue, and one with conflict as its main theme, it became obvious that placement of the two (hmmm, just realized that this would be interesting if I added more boxes repeating the dialogue to indicate other speakers getting in on the conversation/confrontation, perhaps specifying by color the unique individuals–actually, could go up to the hundreds in repetition as the argument escalates, but meanwhile…) speakers would enhance and ground the two speakers. So back I went into the css and made one space <div id=”left”> and the other <div id=”right”>. This little tweak actually puts the speakers on two different sides of the screen/argument visually. It also adds action via movement, though I personally might find it annoying. But then, arguments are expected to be.

While I say that this element of enhancement to story is specific to hypertext, it’s obviously used in film and graphics as well. I can think of comics, for example, where two characters at odds might be placed at either end of the panel, or in separate panels, reinforcing other indications of heated argument such as text, punctuation (!), a few squiggley lines off the tops of the characters’ heads as possibly fuming, facial expressions, and of course, words.

Now I’ll look deeper into editing those three words, or maybe adding a few more speakers to the soup.

In this case, methods of working up funding for a project that someone may feel passionate about but can’t get others interested in backing.

Led by the notorious Anne (who has more skills at tunneling through the web than a mole underground) to Kickstarter, which seems to be a place to lay out your idea and hope for some promises of dollars to help you get started. This one, for example, caught my eye because it’s so close to what I took part in with the 100 Days Project: 50 Characters in 50 Weeks, spiels the maker, is,

“…an exploration of humanity. It’s an exploration of acting and storytelling, but also of what it is to be human. There are lots of laughs, there are some tears. There are nice people and mean ones, but none of them are two-dimensional. Each film is designed to transport you, to make you laugh, think, and feel, if only for a few minutes… and I’m trying to create fifty of them in a year.”

Hi, my name is Brent Rose. I’m an actor, writer, and film-maker, and I’m working on the toughest project of my life. I am trying to create fifty short films in under a year. The project is called 50 Characters in 50 Weeks (or “50in50”).

An ambitious endeavor, and as of this moment, he’s got $1748 collected with 44 backers and 26 days to go.

What then, can I promise in return for some cash to fund CD’s and a website on hypertext stories? This is a possibility to get this project off the ground, not just for the money–which would take it above the personally-funded hokey stage to a more professional level–but for the chance to generate interest in the hypertext medium.

Ach, more thinking to do.