Latest Entry

18 March, 2003

This will be my last entry in the journal. I met with Sue Thomas yesterday to discuss the end of the project, and, as far as my contribution goes, that's it. It's done. Before too long I'll close down this journal; it will migrate to the transition site itself where it will be archived - still available online to those who want to have a look, but no longer open to new entries.

My plan is to start a second, fresh, online journal when I embark on my next electronic project, which will, hopefully, begin in the autumn. Am currently engaged in the process of writing a funding application - sigh - and part of the evaluation process for the next project will be an ongoing online journal, like this one.

In the meantime, it's back to the world of print, namely my unfinished novel, and to teaching both online and offline and more of the general and vague ferreting about that passes for research in my part of town.

Over the next few days, I'll replace all of this stuff in these pages - the hyperlink survey, the audio interviews, etc - with a single link to my recently finished project, 'Branded'. 'Branded' will live here will I get my next electronic project up and running.

7 March, 2003

Officially, this project finished on 28 Feb. Certainly, the toolkit and the guide are finished, and have been launched on the trAce website. I continue to tie up a few loose ends, not the least of which is my collaboration with Talan Memmott.

The collaboration has been a real eye-opener for me. I'm tempted to call it a 'collaboration' really, as the amount of work that Talan has put in on the piece so far seems to far outstrip my own contribution. Granted, the piece is based on my ideas, and these are ideas I developed over most of the last year, but when it comes to making the piece Talan's skills and input far out-strip mine. That feels odd to me, unbalanced, although it also reminds me of what happens when you write a film script - you do all this work to get your ideas onto paper, then it takes dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of people with complex and specific skills very different to your own to get it up onto the screen. All of which is so very different from the process of writing fiction. Although, perhaps even that is an illusion, and I'm forgetting the people and processes required to get work into print.

Where to next? Well, I'm meeting a couple of people over the next few weeks to discuss different aspects of further work online. There's the virtual residency I'll be doing with the Royal Literary Fund, and I'm hoping to pursue some funding for my work using Stephan Schemat's breathing software. When the piece I'm making with Talan is finished - end of next week? - I'll have a couple of opportunities to present it live - to 'read' from it, so to speak. I'll continue to teach online. And who knows what else will come my way.

12 Feb, 2003

Continuing with the winding up process. I still have to re-write my article for the electronic journal 'Leonardo'. The online toolkit and guide that the team has been working on are almost ready to go. I've given Talan a fair amount of material for our collaborative piece, and can't really go ahead with that until he's had time to work up the design of the piece.

I'm looking forward to finishing my novel, 'A Little Stranger'. I'm hoping that will be done in the spring.

Now that this project is nearing its end, I feel kind of self-conscious about what I write in this journal. Maybe that's part of stepping back and taking stock of the situation. Hmm. I've learned a lot about keeping an online journal, mostly about what NOT to include. For a long time it felt like talking to myself, despite the fact that I receive e-mails about it (proof that people do read it). Funnelweb analysis of my website shows that the most read pages are the fiction extracts from my published books, although - hmm - now that I think of it, perhaps funnelweb doesn't include this journal, because it resides somewhere else on the server... I look into it.

Read This! is going from strength to strength since its launch last week. As of yesterday, it already had 38 entries, which is about three times as many as 'clean' had at the same stage. Plus I've got a stack of paper contributions at the Library that I need to input.

7 Feb, 2003

My online journal has become a neglected thing. This is due to the general pressure of AHRB work as Mapping the Transition enters the final stretch. We're trying to finish off the toolkit and guide within the next week - we won't, but we are trying. I say 'we' but other people are doing all the work.

Have also been busy with a new web project I've devised at The Women's Library. It's called Read This! and it's about what people read when they were teenagers. The website was launched two days ago, and already there are 25 contributions, plus 8 contributions from well-known writers. Please go and have a look and contribute. This project is an off-shoot of an earlier project I did at the Library, clean, one difference being that Read This! is supported within the Library itself by a reading lounge area in the foyer where books and magazines from the project booklist are displayed. The foyer of the Library has always been a little forbidding, but now it has two purple sofas and a huge coffee table messily covered in magazines and books, and people do actually sprawl there, which is great to see.

The people I work with at the Library are divided over whether or not the books and magazines will all gradually be stolen during the three months the reading lounge is in place. We started with 45 novels and 12 magazines. Stay tuned.

I've been feeding Talan Memmott bits and pieces of text and sound files. We are working together to create a small multimedia web piece based on 'Branded', the story I've been developing since the dawn of time (well, it feels that way). I haven't seen what he's doing yet, I just keep feeding him more and more material, like he's a kind of virtual sausage machine. Can't wait.

I pitched my idea for a television series based on 'Branded' to a tv producer who spent four years trying to make a feature film out of one of my novels (she gave up in the end, not for want of trying), and she got very excited and claimed she wants to commission me to develop the idea. It would be very ironic if, after my year spent in the nether regions of new media writing, the result was a good old-fashioned tv commission.

As I move toward the end of this project I can see that what I definitely will come away with is a clearer understanding of what the field has to offer a writer like me. I'll have the piece I'm making with Talan, and I hope to be able to give live readings of this as well. And I have the beginnings of a piece using Stefan's HTF software - the breathing wall - which I will continue to develop. Lots of contacts, lots of ideas, lots of possibilities.

And all of this leads naturally onto my next gig, which will be a virtual residency, sponsered by the Royal Literary Fund. I am hoping that I'll be able to offer my virtual services, and my virtual office space, to a group of computer programmers. More on this as it develops.

When this project reaches its conclusion, I'll close down this journal and it will be moved to the Mapping the Transition website. After that time TrAce are going to give me a studio space, so I'll start fresh with a new online journal there. So watch this space.