Work of of fiction in which each chapter uses only one vowel

Eunoia is the shortest word in English containing all five vowels - and it means "beautiful thinking". It is also the title of Canadian poet Christian Bok's book of fiction in which each chapter uses only one vowel.

I thought the constraints of the form made the prose strangely compelling. Necessity is the mother of invention is it not? ( although the problem is self created in this case ) Whether i could read a whole book of it is another matter.

Creative Criticism

Our exercise this week is to upload to the DMU Blackboard a piece of creative writing which we would like some feedback on. I admit I did this with some trepidation - it's hard receiving a critique. At the back of my mind there's a demon that may well take things personally. I need to banish this and separate my self esteem from the writing. I think the trick is to get the balance right, needing to understand valid criticism and learning from it while discarding criticism which you feel is

Be interesting to see any posts i get back. Also be interesting to see how the criticism is worded compared to the vitriol that the 'real' online world can spew up ;-). One of the hardest aspects of posting on the intrenet is that unlike the transliterate many people do not interact with appropriateness.

Online Presence Creation

Aim: To create an online presence for a fictional character from my feature film Zombie Undead.

Questions:

1 What is an online presence?
2 What applications create this presence?
3 Which applications would this character use for his demographic?

I answered these questions through researching on the web and also asking people what they thought the components of an online presence were.

Answers:

1 A footprint of an individual which may encompass home and work life both of which, by the nature of the presence, become public. The footprint can include : blogs, social networks, video diaries, websites, social bookmarks, aggregators, comment posts, forum posts, photo sharing, social messaging.

2 Blogger, Facebook/MySpace, Seesmic, any web space provider, Delicious, Retaggr, blogs/Delicious/Flickr, specific subject forum, Flickr, Twitter.

3 A blogging, social networking, social bookmarking and photo sharing appear to be the most used methods of constructing an online presence. As my remit is to create such a presence then I need to use several of these. As social networking by definition involves raising your online profile as high as you can then it makes sense also to use the most successful of these applications. Also demographics are important. I wouldn't use Bebo as this is for younger people. Also MySpace is often for a younger demographic or musicians. Both of which he is not.

An interesting part of this for me was the comment posts. Posting comments on others blogs would add an interesting aspect to the presence. Only having a blog, joining social networks etc would limit the realism. Most of us while blogging also comment on others posts if the blog is of sufficient relevance to us. It is this swarming of social connections that would raise the bar on this project. Also that is how I hope to get entangled with the 'real' social presence online. If i only create blogs, Facebook profiles and the like there will be no interaction with others as, obviously, the fictional character has no friends. Barry Wellman's concept of 'networked individualism'

Note to self : as character dies in the film, why not have posts about him missing online? Have his avatar die in Second Life?

Problems:

1 To construct a digital footprint which reflects the fictional characters personality and profile but with all the nuances, inconsistencies and contradictions inherent in a real human presence. Drunken posts at 3 AM? Rants about Facebook pokes that get no response? Again an interesting point is to see if the character can get any Facebook friends - do people accept friend requests even if they don't know this person?

2 Time need to create real media e.g. photos

3 Obtaining permission from actor to use likeness.

4 Need to create multiple emails so can post comments?

5 Time constraints - this could be a VERY large piece!

6 How do i record it?

Note to self : character uses mobile in film. On release could have him send a Twitter message when he is trapped.

Note to self : Need to create email address for character in Hotmail.

Flickr

OK - just registered with Flickr. First annoyance - having to register with Yahoo which i'd always avoided because of i) the mess that is Yahoo groups and ii) the invasiveness. You HAVE to give DOB and postcode. Apparently giving my DOB will enable Yahoo to give me a better experience. Do they really think we buy this? How naive do they think we are? Making DOB and postcode compulsory is so web 1.0 ;-).

Now i'm in. Seems one of the tricks with Flickr is to go in with a theme, idea, project in mind. Thinking today about the project which will need some WWII photos. So I entered 'World War Two'. Got some great results - 27, 643 of them. Like any search facility you sometimes have to be more specific 'World War Two Cars' narrowed it down to 1,133. Each picture is tagged by the 'author'. What was interesting was that many of these tags seemed to have no obvious relevance to the pictures. Hidden meanings below the surface. I believe tags can be added by people to pictures which are not their own as well which would further add hidden depths.

'This picture also belongs to' feature reminded me of the 'Customers who brought this also brought this in Amazon'. The friendship network idea goes to the root of what makes a friend. Why are we friends with someone - partly because we share the same or similar values or interests. This is a great feature and very helpful for finding photos whih have a similar theme, style, emotion etc.

'1930's car' followed by '1930's car man and woman' found only 4 pictures but the first image was spot on - Found_005 by thenimmo. Another interesting one was Johnny and Josephine Road to Ward CO 8_3_1940.

Other interesting features were the comments section and the Creative Commons. The former again extends on the meaning with each reader constructing their own narrative of meaning, which in turn may influence others who can then comment or tag. The Creative Commons is an awesome concept and something I heartily agree with.

For both picture finding and on;line presence I think Flickr is a strong possibility.

Flickr

As part of Sue Thomas' lecture she talked about Flickr and, by extension, other web 2.0 applications. I'm still having problems seeing the worth in these applications. Are they not just extensions of peoples ego's? Do we need to know what you are doing every second of the day however mind numbingly dull? I mentioned this in a tutorial with Sue and we talked briefly on this issue. Sue was saying, I believe, that it was the patterns and swarms within the linking in these applications that can create meaning. In Flickr it is the comments, the linking, the tagging which construct new meaning over and above the picture, text, audio itself.

The trick. I believe, is not to think in terms of structure or organisation - what goes where and why, but to dip in pull something out and see what comes with it. I feel a leap of faith is needed. So here I go. I shall register with Flikr and see what may.

CWNM Project

I have a couple of ideas for my CWNM project. Both pitches i have made will need to use web 2.0 applications:

The first is a multi-media adaptation of a short story. This would require researching multi-media authoring tools and also image depositories on the web for source images. Adapt 'Last Photograph' short. 'Asleep refrain, images fade in, b+w to colour.

The second idea is creating an online presence for a character in my feature film Zombie Undead. Necessitates researching social networks. Random ideas : Facebook posts asking where he is after terrorist attack in film. Messages go out on Twitter, from parents etc, Wiki for missing persons - see Hurricane Katrina - wikispaces.com, Phil's last message.

Interesting if i choose this option as it involves many applications i dont really like!

Over the next few weeks i shall be listing these tools and my notes of what, why, where and how.

Butterflies - Tweaked

Slightly tweaked version. Added a couple of lines from the story and also moved the ink blot/blood stain to a lower level as before the edge of the pattern under it was sowing as a straight line.

Briefly debated adding red to the blood. Not an overt crimson but a darker, grimier dried blood. However i couldn't work out how to do this. Shall work this out for another project.

Loved this exercise - how to use montage to create a mood piece. As part of the process next time i shall try and take some photos myself for use in another project using this style.

Butterflies

The brief : No writing to do this week, but a challenge to find or make an image, video or sound to accompany the following short memoir. Post just the material, no text or explanation, in this thread. Let's see how you can manage without words!

Source: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/But.shtml#2

My image is shown left. I constructed this in photoshop. First time i had ever created something like this - an image to create meaning. Did it as an experiment to use a different creative tool and whether I could create something more New Media ish than plain text. I used Photoshop to set the layout and construct the form. Have to say it was a joy to use and fairly quickly i created a basic backdrop. The images were from open source Cd's. I chose the door to represent closed thinking and decay. The paper layers add depth to the image and add a feeling of symbols and signs - perhaps as signifiers of hidden feelings. Experimented with the eye dropper tool to remove background colors, then tweaked opacity. Think it works, creating an atmosphere. I'm pleased with this!

Flow

Flow exemplifies when you are 'on a roll'. When there is quiet in the house, when no interruptions are going to happen, and you have time to relax. Generally after 9 PM when kids asleep.

Parts of Flow familiar to me are - loss of self-consciousness, distorted sense of time, effortless, personal control, focus, rewarding. I often experience Flow on a film set. When i am directing goals are very clear. In my head i have shot the film and know which shots i have to get. I know which shots bookend the shot we are taking. I know what transition on the edges of cuts i need whether it be motion, colour, sound or emotion. I also know which shots can be binned if time is pressing while still getting coverage of the scene.

This process is not dependant on shot or chronological order. If shots are out of order from the shot list for the day i can scan along mentally to track where i am chronologically. Imagine a tape loop that can be scanned back and forth

I have strong concentration and focus on my Flow as film sets can be pretty distracting places. I argue as well that directing is creative writing as you are amending, cutting, repositioning, re-scripting on the fly.

Creative writing wise i really need to develop my concentration and focus. I also seem to try things too adventurous sometimes.

Dreamer, Maker, Critic

Dreamer - I can be alone or in a crowd. Solitude is not necessary in fact sometimes this can distract. I need to be at a point whereby i am listening but not hearing. The listening can be to a person in real life, the sea, a film. This seems to lull me into a sense whereby i'm not consiously trying to dream hence the dreams feel free to emerge. EDIT - just got to the description of Flow in the workbook. Part of Flow is my Dreamer state - loss of self-consciousness, distorted sense of time, effortless. The othere traits of Flow - conecntration, balance, control, reward come under the Maker for me - in addition to the above two.

Maker - This changes depending on the medium. With scripts I create individual scenes to get a sense of character. Then I plot ahead creating the bare bones of the story. With stories I just write, then enter the Critic stage almost simultanously. Initial ideas are alays on pen and paper. All this is in solitude with NO DISTRACTIONS. Very hard as i have young children. Coffee is a must.

Critic - I actually enjoy the critic stage especially with scripts. With these I follow the maxim of enter a scene late and leave early. I get a perverse sense of joy at this mutilation, knowing, however, that it makes the work tighter. Initial changes are pencil on the script itself, which i then print and check against the revisions. With stories i edit as soon as i reach a sentance i dont like. Very much a rolling process. Then i go back and toighten things upo. With any prose i read the dialogue outload myself or, ideally, with actors.

Trans-Literacy Tools

Spent most of today going through the tools in the workbook. Registering, playing, learning. First impressions, how they work, how can i use them.

Facebook - what can i say. Intensely annoying yet incredibly powerful. Can connect with other like minded people across the globe but we use it to tell people what we had for breakfast. It's value for me is in how you use it. Great for events and happenings, smart mobs and protests. I use it for my feature film group Zombie Undead.

Blogger - Well here we are. I use it for my movie and for a journal of my time at DMU. I equate my use to that of Facebook. Non-personal and creative. This Web 2.0 business is great to a point but there is very little interest to me reading someones diary unless there is some create insight or knowledge to be gained. Search i guess is the key. As with Facebook its how you use it that creates value.

Twitter - take the worst feature of Facebook, 'What are you doing right now' and make it into an application. Surely no sane minded person could have thought this would work? But it did and it does. Used this briefly a while back with the question 'Filming zombie film in Leicester. Need toilet location for xx/xx/08'. The responses i got all wanted a location fee but i got answers from people i didnt know. My network was widened. Twitter is a concept which i initially detested, see Facebook, but am gradually understanding and coming round to.

It would be very naive academically or personally to write off these tools as they do have great value. I just have to find that value and take a leap of faith.

Continue This Story

Continue this story :

Wrapped in dreams, I lay on the night in question tranquilly sleeping, but gradually roused to a perception that discordant sounds disturbed the serenity of my slumber. Loth to stir, I still dozed on, the sounds, however, becoming, as it seemed, more determined to make themselves heard; and I awoke to the consciousness that they proceeded from a belt of adjacent jungle, and resembled the noise that would be produced by some person felling timber.

Shutting my ears to the disturbance, I made no sign, until, with an expression of impatience,......

My response:

I reached to the bedside, grabbed my MP3 player and plugged myself in. As the sounds of Sepultura drilled into my skull the ceiling fan trudged its lazy arc. 24 hours. 24 hours then I’d be out of here and back in L.A. Air con and a cool beer.

I sank slightly into the soaked bed, the linen clinging to me like a shower curtain. Sweat dribbled from my body, pooling on my upper lip, under my adam’s apple, in my belly button. A beeping jars my attention, then the music stops - battery dead. No way.

24 hours. Air con and a cool beer.

100 Words About ...

100 Words about :
The New World Conglomerate announced today that any representation of cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates is banned, with publication carrying a minimum of 2 years imprisonment. As a result of recent events any images of fish are deemed too inflammatory for public viewing. The ban extends but is not exclusive to web, print, film, photo, hand drawing, computer image, hologram, or tattoo. Be aware this ban takes effect as of as of 12 PM Greenwich Mean Time today. The site owner will need to remove this image by this deadline. Rumours suggesting The Vatican will still hold representations in its library are un-confirmed.

Violet : PKD

Last lecture Sue gave us the remit to write on 'violet' ( she doesn't like to lead us much;-) ). I'm not sure why but this sparked off an idea.

"The data-stream shuffled minutely in his arteries. Mewing and bawling its life erupting once again as another iteration took place sending waves of nausea/ecstasy into his brain. Brendon Quail's veins pumped and gorged. He closed his eyes awaiting the clarity that would take him to the next level as the Violet : PKD kicked in."

What i wanted to do was write an extract from a possible short story in the sub-genre of science fiction constructed, I believe, by Philip K. Dick. As a note i'd like to add that this is only an exercise to write in the genre and not an attempt to emulate. Thinking about it the inspiration sprung to mind as many of the concepts in these kind of stories ( Jeff Noon, William Gibson and Max Barry included ) fit into the trans-literacy approach of the CWNM - emerging technologies and possible their possible extrapolations into something new.

To start this exercise I re-visited some of Dicks works as research to ascertain themes and threads that run through his work and and developed by other authors. Here's what i found :

1. drug use
2. questioned reality
3. short form
4. visionary predictions
5. blended juxtapositions of the normal and the extra-normal
6. an unreliable narrator
7. mental illness
8. fictional worlds inhabited by 'non-science fiction' characters
9. proliferation of 'distinct new ideas'
   

Dick creates worlds predicated on our own which is advanced in some way. Indeed Dick himself states that science fiction must contain this dislocation between our known world and the world created, by a conceptual idea which transforms the world with events that have not happened but could happen in the 'real' world.

Bibliography:

Harvard system of referencing included for my reference.
Author, Initials/first name., Year. Title of book. Edition. (only include this if not the first edition) Place: Publisher.

Dick, P.K., 1972, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?. 1997. Great Britain. Voyager
Dick, P.K., 1972, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. 1996. Great Britain. Voyager
Dick, P.K., 1972, Beyond Lies the Wub. Great Britain. Voyager.

Ok, i got a bit side tracked there but i leaned something. Spending time researching a genre or author is fine. But not when it stops you from writing!

Why Creative Writing and New Media?

What excites me about the course?

The freedom. The chance to explore my literary creativity within environments in which I haven't created before.

What worries me about the course?

Vocalising my work. Lack of ability to create consistently

Which specific problems do i think i will encounter?

Lack of time. Lack of vision.

What steps would i take to deal with these problems?

Organise better. Write free form at moments of block to push my way through.

List the people i know who can help support me.

Teresa Lewis, Martyn Quinn, Neill Phillips.
Do i expect my personal situation to be changed by the course and how?

As one of my outcomes is to be a feature length script then yes i hope my situation will be changed as this goes into production. Also I believe the course will help me become more prolific and open up other avenues.

List 3 creative objectives to achieve by end of the course.

Feature length script, online collaborative project, trans-literacy project.

First Short Story

A box containing an assortment of objects was placed in front of us. Our first writing exercise! Sue Thomas left the room, and asked us to write for 15 minutes something relating to the box and/or its contents. Here are the words what i wrote :

"The time it took for the girl with the skates to become Roller Girl was not a short one. A transition of sorts of comparable magnitude and length had occurred in her life previously but she didn't like to talk about it. So I won't.

The skates had belonged to who we don't know. The girl had belonged to no-one and was adamant she never would. Maybe this is why the bond between her and the wheels became so strong. A symbol of freedom, an ability to roll. To roll away from Glen Galla and his damn obsession with army style stencils. There was no way he was going to tag these eight wheeled babies. Free wheeling, thats what she was."

Kinda felt like more text when i was writting but hey.