It has not been long since the last one, but there’s a new story at webyarns.com…

“This Is Not A Poem” is a toy, a game, a language engine, and a poem all at the same time….

The new plaything is at http://www.ThisIsNotAPoem.com

Also, in case you missed it, “My Nervous Breakdown,” released a few months ago, is available at
http://webyarns.com/MyNervousBreakdown.html

For other stories, both new and old, please visit http://www.webyarns.com

Many thanks for your interest!

yours,

alan
–
stories for the web
http://www.webyarns.com

To be a digital writer, it’s probably best if you like to write, or at least not hate it.  Then, if you can pull as many muses into your corner as you can, that might help: history, music, dance, astronomy, and art….

Patience is a virtue with digital writers, as you will have to explain what you do to a great many people who have never heard of it….

Having a thick skin and (again) more patience will help protect you from the slings and arrows of outrageous critics.  Critics love to criticize, and when it is something new and without precedent, they will laugh and grind it under their heels….

(2) Do I need to take a class in digital writing to be a digital writer?

Most of the digital writers working today teach courses they never took when they first started out.  A truism of the avant-garde: there are no teachers in your field, so you have to teach yourself, so you can become a teacher.

(3) Is it true that digital stories were on the web back in prehistoric times, when humans lived in caves?

This is totally true. Plato writes about it in his “Allegory of the Cave.”  Caves were a perfect place for projecting digital works, and cave dwellers were among the first to recognize this (before them, it was nomadic tribes, who used deer hide tents).

The web back then was less sophisticated than it is now–being constructed of stone, goat’s intestines, elk horns, and camel hair–but its reach was global, with fewer system outages and faster download times.

In the Middle Ages, this technology was lost, and only recently reconfigured through electronics.

(4) Are digital writers flesh and blood people, or are they virtual, like their stories?

It depends where you meet them.  If you meet them online, they are virtual, and their primary substance electrons and code…

If you meet them in the flesh, their virtuality plays second fiddle to the fact that, at any moment, they could bleed all over your favorite carpet.

(5) Is it easy to be a digital writer?

If answers were songs, try this (sung to the tune of “Yesterday,” by the Beatles):

Digital

All it takes is
lots of time

and what you make

may be fine
if going digital

is on your mind.

(And so on, with feeling…)

(6) Does it cost a lot of money to be a digital writer?

After you have made the initial investment in a good computer, some software, a sound recording device, and whatever other tools you need to make multimedia works of literature, the overhead is remarkable low.  It would be best (to build branding and reader loyalty) to have your own website, so add about $10 a year for the registration of a domain name.  Then add another $10 a month for server costs (provided you don’t go viral, in which case you’ll need a bit more than that).  Finally, if you use them, there’s the periodic cost for royalty-free images or audio files purchased online–most of the code you’ll need will be free–so tack on another $200 a year.  At these rates, your total for a year of publishing digital literature is approximately $330, which is cheap compared to most other businesses.

Since you won’t make much (or any) income, it’s money down the drain, but don’t worry: you can list it as a business expense on your income tax (I’d love to hear your conversation with the IRS agent).

(7) Can I make any money being a digital writer?

Let’s do the math:

Expenses a year (see #6 above):           $330
Income publications:                                 $0
Income readings:                                       $0
Income exhibitions:                                   $0
Work sold:                                                 $0
––––––
TOTAL:                                                 -$330

Your talent? Priceless.

(8) Is there a website where I can read some electronic literature, and learn about the authors who create it?

Do a Google search on “Electronic Literature” or “E-Lit” or “Hypermedia” or “Digital Literature,”  and here is some of what you get:

Born Magazine–http://www.bornmagazine.com

Chico.art.net–http://www.csuchico.edu/art/net/

CONT3XT.NET–http://www.cont3xt.net/

Digital Technology and Culture–http://digitaltechnologyculture.motime.com/

Drunken Boat–http://www.DrunkenBoat.com

Eastgate–http://www.eastgate.com

electronic book review–http://www.electronicbookreview.com/

Electronic Literature Directory–http://eld.eliterature.org

Electronic Literature Organization–http://www.eliterature.org

Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2008–http://vancouver.wsu.edu/programs/dtc/elo08/media.html

Electronic Literature Organization Library of Congress/Archive-It Project–http://www.eliterature.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Electronic Poetry Center–http://epc.buffalo.edu/e-poetry/

FILE (Electronic Language International Festival)–http://www.file.org

furtherfield.org–http://www.furtherfield.org/

Grand Text Auto–http://www.grandtextauto.org/

Hermeneia: Literary Studies and Digital Technologies Group–http://uoc.edu/in3/hermeneia/cat/

Hypercompendia–http://www.susangibb.net/blog2/

Hyperrhiz–http://www.hyperrhiz.net

The Iowa Review Web–http://research-intermedia.art.uiowa.edu/tirw/vol9n2/

Java Museum–http://www.JavaMuseum.org

netpoetic.com–http://www.netpoetic.com/

newmediaFIX–http://www.newmediafix.net/

New River Journal–http://www.TheNewRiver.us

nt2–http://www.labo-nt2.uqam.ca/

Rhizome.org–http://www.rhizome.org

trAce archive–http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk/

Turbulence.org–http://www.turbulence.org

Vispo–http://www.vispo.com

Word Circuits–http://www.wordcircuits.com/index.html

WRT: Writer Response Theory–http://www.writerresponsetheory.org/wordpress/

And the list goes on…

(9) Are digital writers happy people?

You can’t get much happier than a digital writer.  Because they practice in an emerging form, they have nothing to lose.  This makes them reckless, and beyond sadness.

(10) If I wanted to be a digital writer, how would I begin?

Read the FAQs above. If you have any questions, make up your answers.

Here’s a new one from webyarns.com:

“Archetypal Africa” takes a look at common objects in everyday life,
and their symbolic resonance within myth and culture. The piece plays
with fact and fiction as it leads the user toward an opportunity to
define their own archetypal moment….

You can read the story at http://www.ArchetypalAfrica.com

Also, Brainstrips (a three-part knowledge series) is now packaged as a
single piece, and can be found at http://www.brainstrips.com (and also
in Blackbird, VCU’s online journal).

Have a great holiday!

So in an act of exorcism, I list them here….

TEN REASONS WHY I HATE DIGITAL LITERATURE!

(1) I hate having to explain what I do to people who have never heard of digital literature. That would be most people, maybe 99.9%. This includes, well, instead of listing 99.9% of all the people in the world, I’ll mention the ones who don’t need an explanation: digital writers.

Do I exaggerate? Try this test. Go into any bar, restaurant, museum, or any other place you choose (except a digital writers’ conference), and ask, “Who knows what digital literature is?”

No one will raise their hand….

(2) I hate that you need a computer to make digital literature. And with a computer (and its variety of applications) comes a learning curve, and lots and lots and lots and lots of time spent in a chair staring at a screen. It’s not wasted time. Oh, no, my time isn’t wasted because every minute I sit at my computer is one less minute before my death. And death is my release from digital fiction (there’s no computers in the afterlife)…

The point of all that work is to (3) create what some people think are beautiful Net objects. But I can’t appreciate them. In fact, I hate them. I’m my own worst critic, never satisfied with what I’ve done, always looking to make it better. I have edited stories to death, tweaked and twiddled with them until all the naturalness was squeezed out of them, leaving them dry and lifeless. And even then, I don’t stop. I edit some more, until I’m back where I began…

I can’t help it–I’m a perfectionist, so much so, I create imperfect works every chance I get.

(4) I hate being a slave to my work. It’s not fair. I could be riding a carousel, drinking in a neighbor’s garden, watching a movie, eating ice cream, reading a book, smelling the flowers, eating lunch, or dinner, or fishing, but instead, I’m glued to my computer. It’s my boss, my hump, my god, my crutch, my friend, my enemy, my brother, sister, mother, father… I’m lost without it, and lost with it. Either way, I can’t shake it loose…

Which brings me to (5) The typo. The typo in traditional text is just that: a typo. As long as you catch it before the story is printed, your work is done. And even if one squeaks by, it’s not your fault, it was the editor who missed it, or the publishers (not you)….

But in digital literature, the typo is your fault, a fault that everyone sees at once. There’s no grace period, no “book coming out in the fall.” It’s right there, on the web, instantaneously published in its typo glory for all the world to see.

I hate that typo. It’s embarrassing, and it’s all digital literature’s fault. If only technology was not so efficient, not so immediate, that typo would just gi away.

FOR 6-10==

And there’s more (there’s always more) because (6) I hate there’s so little of digital literature on the web. And lots of that so little is good, and worth a look, but lots isn’t….

I search hard, tempted by every link, only to find not digital literature but something else. Maybe it’s static text and image, or video, or just bare text, and it’s all digital, sure, but the web is a multimedia environment, groping toward its full potential, so multimedia digital literature is what I’m looking for.

I move on, looking for more, and in what I do, it may be less when (7) what I make today, because of evolving technologies, could be gone tomorrow, unplayable in the newest browsers. I worry about everything, so this newest worry makes me lose sleep at night, and I have dreams…

…I’m walking among a crowd of admirers. My clothes are touch screen monitors, heavy as armor and clanking with every step. People touch them as I walk by. Each touch triggers a Flash event as their fingers navigate my body. Suddenly, the monitors flicker out, the metal and plastic melt away, and I am left naked in the crowd. Their oohs and aahs turn to laughs of derision, and I cover my shame…

I wake bathed in sweat. A pen and a piece of paper are on the bedside table. Their technology is quaint , like a butter churn, or a horse and buggy…

Here, take my money because (8) I’m going broke making digital literature. Well, not exactly broke, but certainly losing cash, and I don’t like it (who would?).

It’s not just the basic hardware of computer, monitor, and mouse, but the applications (at $1,000 a pop), audio equipment, high-speed internet, still and video cameras. Then there’s postage for grants and gallery submissions, BIG dollars for gallery displays, and more money to attend festivals and conferences. Add to this the incidentals of CDs, CD covers, envelopes, gas for the car (to get to the post office), and so on, and so forth, until your pockets run dry…

All this money spent, for what? To share your digital stories in any way you can…

It’s a pity, mostly, a sign of the Art Form (and another peeve) that (9) No one knows what to call it. Depending on the hour of the day, and the season, it’s hypertext literature, new media literature, computer literature, elit, eliterature, electronic literature, digital literature, digilit, bitworks (or byteworks), generated text, hypermedia, hyperliterature, web art, web-specific literature, and the list goes on…

If something does not have a name, does it exist?

And finally (10) I hate that the last thing I hate about digital literature is that I have ten reasons why I hate digital literature…

Why couldn’t it be nine, or eight, or none?

For this third in a series of ten posts on digital literature, I asked myself, as one would interrogate a terror suspect, Why do you write digital literature?

At first, I choked (it was a kind of psychic water boarding), and then I came up with this….

(1) Because I like it.

I like the excitement of an empty Flash page waiting to be filled. I like the challenge of starting something new, and hoping it will be different than anything I’ve done before. I like playing with text, images, and audio, looking for ways to synthesize them into a single, cohesive whole. I like the puzzles of code, the goal of lower load times, the fickleness of browsers and portable devices…

Sure, I curse at the ceiling, tear my hair out, and contemplate suicide when things go wrong. But mostly I’m happy, and, as it is with so many writers, that’s enough.

(2) Because I feel special. No kidding, I do. There’s something about working in an emerging art form (and yes, digital literature is an emerging art form), exploring the undiscovered territory where the signposts are mostly the ones you put up. And you put them up not for others, but for yourself so you know where you’ve been, and how to get back, so you can go someplace else. For sure, it’s a kick, marching among the avant-garde….

For years, I wrote traditional text fiction, lost among the many, and now I find myself among the few. Somehow, that’s reassuring.

(3) I’ve got to write something, don’t I? and…

(4) If I stopped now, what would I do with my time? I’ve tried tarring roads, teaching (I still do that), grave digging, nude modeling, parking cars, ghost writing, driving a tractor, fixing fences, giving blood, donating sperm, collecting trash, life-guarding, illegal merchandising (years ago), library shelving, writing specifications for the Gallup Poll, selling Italian ice, changing bedpans, washing dishes, salad prep, cutting grass, delivering newspapers, delivering flowers, grocery bagging, and so on, but none of it works.

There is no substitute. I’ve tried, but it doesn’t work.

(5) It’s expected of me. Yeah, I know, not too many people are out there reading digital stories for the web–it’s not high on their To Do list. But there are some who read my (and other digital writers’) work on a fairly regular basis, and after the first few years, they expect us to produce. It’s not a written contract, and it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece every time, but it has to be something so they can drop in, take a quick look, and be satisfied that, yes, the world still turns. The sun still rises and sets in Buffalo, Portland, Sydney, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Rome, Bergen, Barcelona….

You name the place, and the sun rises and sets. The seasons change, the watch ticks, the world turns.

(6) Because digital literature is an art form that I enjoy reading. My policy as an artist/writer (one which is sometimes difficult to adhere to) is never write anything I would not want to read myself. I tell it to my students, invest its importance with biblical resonances, and expect them to follow it.

My hypocrisy does not extend so far as to exclude myself, but it’s no problem, because for me, digital literature is the thing. I am constantly reading it, studying it, bookmarking it, creating it, and talking about it with anyone who will listen. I’ve taught it, curated it, performed it, published it, and copied it. I admire it, hate it and, in the end, there is only one word that sums up my relationship with it: obsession.

Do I always write what I would want to read? Yes, unless, for the moment, I’m someone else.

(7) Because text is not enough. For years, I wrote stories for the static page, relying on print to say it all. I had fun, worked hard, and had some success, but in the end, it was a wall which I wailed on so many times, it was impenetrable, I lay broken beneath it. I was a wreck, and looking for a way out, and digital literature was it. Maybe one day I will go back…

(8) Because I only have seven reasons so far. Which is to say, I don’t need a reason….

(9) Because I don’t have a hobby, and although digital literature is not a hobby for me, if I did have a hobby, there might not be time for digital literature. My time would be taken up with, well, you name it: knitting, golf, drinking….

(10) I want to be rich, and digital literature is the only way I can imagine to make it happen. This tells us two things: one, my imagination is so deficient, and my awareness of real-life economics so lacking, that I could laugh (or cry); and two, I am a fiscal romantic, one who, in the face of all the facts, denies them with the ferocity of a hedge fund manager.

By which I mean, digital literature may soon make money for its authors. In 2007, of the year’s 10 best-selling novels in Japan, five were originally cell phone novels. Sure, they may not be exactly what we consider to be digital literature, and they’re still ultimately selling as hard-cover books, but they were originally read on cell phones, and by LOTS of people. Cell phone novels (or keitai shousetsu) are already being serialized for money. If Japanese authors can do it, why can’t we?

So, why do I write digital literature? It’s not for money, it’s not because I’m bored, and it’s not because I want to be famous…. It’s because, for now, I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Alan Bigelow competes with his shadow

Ten is a round number, it has a nice ring to it, so I’m using it for a series of blog posts. Ten, of course. The first was Ten Misconceptions About Digital Literature, and this one is Ten Predictions. The last will probably be Ten Reasons Why I Should Not Have Done This, but until then…

There has been a lot of press about digital literature over the past few years, some of it negative. This is to be expected–when does any art form, emerging or not, get only positive reviews? The problem is more acute, though, when there is an impression, however ill-founded, that an art form is endangered, and every nick in the armor portends a mortal wound.

Digital literature is not endangered. In fact, my confidence is so high, I venture the following predictions:

Within five years:

(1) Many online journals and magazines now only publishing traditional text-based fiction and poetry will, as part of their online offerings, publish digital literature on a regular basis;

(2) Most major universities and many colleges (if they don’t already) will offer courses in New Media, and those courses will cover/include digital literature;

(3) Accomplished scholars who assess the whole of digital literature by examining exemplary models from early hypertexts will be saying “oops!” and seeking a vocabulary that accepts the continual flux and explosive change of current practices in digital literature;

(4) Most everyone will accept that finding a Joyce, Beckett, or Faulkner in the world of digital literature might take as long as it did in the world of print, and considering the radical differences in these forms, that any such search is probably bogus to begin with;

(5) The average digital writer on the web will be more read, and have a higher visibility, than his or her counterpart “midlist” writer in traditional print format;

(6) Publishing houses will be reaching out to digital writers in an attempt to monetize their creative work–they will be generally unsuccessful, because digital writers will have already figured a way to do it for themselves;

(7) The field of digital literature will be crowded with writers. Where now they number in the hundred(s), in the future, they will be in the thousands;

(8) The entertainment industry, fueled by New York and Hollywood dollars, will have a big stake in developing digital literature for the web. Individual artists will be able to compete by collaborating with their peers and (as some do now) using audio, still image, and video files available, either free or through subscription, online;

(9) Digital literature (as it is already) will be displayed in galleries and museums not just in group art shows, but in solo shows. Works will be bought and sold, not as computer installations, but as interactive artworks to be hung on gallery walls, and;

(10) Yes, there will be rock stars among digital writers. Fans will ask for their autographs (virtual or otherwise), companies will run ads on their websites, radio and TV talk shows will invite them for interviews, and documentaries will be made. When they die, mourners will fill the corridors of the web….

Do the math. We take two steps ahead for every one someone sends us back. Anyone care to make a wager?

I was at the eNarrative5 Conference at MIT in 2003, and a Canadian critic claimed to a packed conference room that electronic literature was dead. He said it like the corpse was lying at his feet, and if we only looked down, we would see it.

He was wrong, of course. But even today, the claim still surfaces despite new generations of digital writers, the increasing number of online (and offline) venues for digital literature, demands for digital writers and theoreticians in colleges and universities, and international media notices.

So is digital literature dead? If so, then the world missed its funeral.

(2) Digital literature may not be dead, but what’s the difference if no one reads it?

Chances are, if you went to your local pub, or a gallery opening, or a church social, and asked how many people read digital literature, the answer would be few, or none. Most would not even know what digital literature is.

But if you are wondering who reads digital literature, maybe the answer is found in the virtual world, not your neighbor’s backyard. Maybe the question should be, How does a web-based digital writer compare in terms of readership to the average fiction or poetry writer in traditional print format?

Let’s say you are a digital writer on the web (which means you might actually write for the web, or your work appears in another medium but is available on the web). Let’s say you get twenty visitors a day–that’s visitors, not hits. Let’s remove the visitors who made it to your website by mistake, and the ones who took one look and fled in horror (or confusion), and the ones who read a bit and didn’t like it. Then let’s get rid of the multiple visits from a single reader–we’ll only count him or her once.

That leaves, say, five readers a day, which equates to 1,825 readers a year. I personally know a dozen traditional print writers who would kill for that kind of readership.

So is anyone reading digital literature? Don’t ask at the nearest art opening; check the number of your web visitors.

(3) Digital literature is all about hypertext, and nothing else.

Anyone who knows digital literature knows that–with new developments in applications like Flash, more sophisticated web browsers, interactive video, and enhanced technologies for new media installations and performances–digital literature now finds outlets in many related forms, and in diverse venues.

To say digital literature finds its voice just in hypertext is like scanning your radio and expecting to hear the same station every time. Who would want to?

(4) If you read digital literature, you are at a higher risk for strokes, brain tumors, car accidents, or insomnia.

Well, insomnia, maybe. Once you start to read it, you can’t stop.

(5) If you write digital literature, you are at a higher risk for strokes, brain tumors, car accidents, or insomnia.

This is undoubtedly true. Most writers, in any form, are driven. Unfortunately, digital writers are no different–they are doing the driving, and it’s at breakneck speeds on roads that are off the map.

(6) The next generation(s) of digital writers, and readers, are few or non-existent.

Let’s try a syllogism:

Antoine Anyone is on Facebook;
All users on Facebook use text, images, audio, or video in their posts;
Therefore, Antoine Anyone reads, or writes, with multimedia.

(7) You can take a book to the beach, but what about digital literature?

Rowling, Collins, Robbins, King, L’Amour… Add sand, surf, a Kindle, and a beach chair, and you’re at home with approximately two billion other people who have read these authors.

Mix in an iPhone that has a Flash player (or not), and soon, if not already, you’ve got all the digital literature you need, for free.

(8) But I like the feel of turning pages in a book. How can digital literature beat that?

Imagine a book that feels like a book, looks like a book, and has pages that turn like a book. But all the pages are browser-enabled, online, and infinitely refillable with any content you want.

This technology is already in the works.

(9) Digital Literature is a flash in the pan.

Flintlock muskets used to have small pans to hold charges of gunpowder. A “flash in the pan” was when, upon firing the musket, the gunpowder flared up without firing a bullet.

The metaphor endures today, even though the technology does not. Which is to say, attempts are still made to fire bullets, but from different guns, and for a digital purpose.

(10) Digital Literature is the death of the book.

The book isn’t dead–books will always be around. Now, they must share the stage with other ways of reading a poem or a story.

(11) Add your misconception here…