Mentoring

CLMooc 2017 Maker Cycle: Animation

I've always been interested in telling stories in different ways. And when I saw the makers cycle for this week, and I read the description about telling a story through pictures, it brought me back to a concept that I had a long time ago. 

The idea was to create the image of a house destroyed by a tornado and bring that to the computer. By clicking on the interactive screen, people could read about the various clickable pieces of debris and from the story they think is important, based on their desire to click on elements in the debris. That being said, I never found the right way or even the possibility of doing that project. 

For this cycle, it is important for me, as a writer to hold on to the writing part of my projects but still do something that is animated in some way. I still wanted to create something similar to the tornado story, but I had a vision. The concept and the vision came all at once. I would write The Fire. It would be 10-20 flash fiction stories woven together based on an image of a fire. Using an image from the tragic London tower fire, I am trying to connect and make the story work. 

The first part will be the stories and how they connect. The next part will be navigation. And finally, the overall look will be important to the story. While I know that not everyone will love reading this and connecting the concepts, the most important element is to try it. Prezi seems to do the job right now and I think it will work out in a linear fashion. I think my vision of clicking into a space and having it tell you a story would work, but for this first prototype, I will have to let the presentation play itself out in order. 

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY EXPERIMENTAL STORY 

Storytelling can be interconnected and there are a lot of different elements now to teach and tell these stories. I worked with students to create panel cartoons to tell stories. I gave the students complex stories and asked them to tell those stories in five panels. In some cases, it was near impossible, but there is something important to cutting it down to just the basic story and attempting it. I also had them create their own superhero or (as some preferred) anti-superhero to create their own satirical space for storytelling. I created the Dyslexic Man comic because of my own issues and created the dread "homonym brothers" who always confused people with their confusing words. 

The infusion of image and word and the evolution of the digital age has brought us to an interesting time and space. In The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, the visual need to engage the world is returning. And the coded (male dominated) alphabets and convoluted languages are falling away. Storytelling and the modes to tell our stories will certainly change. With abbreviated text-language and memes evolving into shorthand, we are already speeding along in a new way of seeing the world, laughing, and making complex and satirical points about society, politics, and our own experiences. 

Projects and Tools: Small Project and Tools that have Big Impacts

Over the last five years, it feels like my passion isn't in creating a lasting digital legacy, it is about contributing to something. When I was a student a Western Connecticut State University getting my MFA in Creative and Professional Writing, I started a digital literary magazine. This is where I saw my imprint on the world as a publisher and editor and I really enjoyed it. But what I thought was a project turned into a very significant organization. To this day I am grateful to that community that fostered my experience in editing and publishing. However, it was a massive undertaking and the saving grace was how naive I was about creating something like that. After more than three years, I finally let Miranda Magazine. Not because it wasn't productive, but I couldn't keep up with the hundreds of submissions, deadlines, and the support of the people who were helping me. 

In 2015 I started immersing myself into a community that was different than poets, writers, and artists. I immersed myself in teachers and learning gurus. I joined the Rhizo15 - a Massive Open Online Course and my whole world shifted. There were so many ways to approach learning, creative things, and there were tools and connections to make these things happen. Not only did I meet some of the most prominent thinkers in the field of online learning and thinking, they were also some of the kindest in supporting the course and the community. I then participated in Digital Writing Month and then continued with groups as they emerged over the last few years. During this time, my thinking shifted. I didn't want to make websites that created massive organizations, I didn't want to create three hundred page websites. I wanted to make projects.

I introduced the concept of Digital Humanity Projects to my students and why that is important. How to create a directory of resources is better than explaining one source. I spoke to them about collections, curation tools, and learned that students would gravitate to their own interests in a project. For example, we wanted to catalog historical buildings on campus using an interactive map that would explain how and why all the building are campus came to be. We discussed and created QR codes that we put on bookmarks for virtual book reviews that students could read. I wanted to make tools that connected. 

What does that mean? I didn't want to create a massive product and sell it. I didn't want to create a service and sell it. I wanted to make something that connected people - students, writers, scholars, and just browsing people. In CLMooc - creating and making things digital and real is the cornerstone of the community. But I had been thinking about websites, blogs and connections that were smaller, different, and useful to other people - if only in how they might use it. 

This year I made a few specialty blogs including a political art blog Art from the Resistance and a literary science blog about the ocean titled The Ocean Journal: Writing and Art from the Sea. These two sites are collectives of ideas and connections and not meant to be a complex web magazine. And they create an opportunity for writers and artists to collaborate on topics and ideas that wouldn't find mainstream acceptance. If a fiction writer wrote one obscure piece on falling into the ocean, then it might be an excellent match for the Ocean Journal. Beyond that, perhaps there are marine science writers who like to write essays on their favorite locations and connections. And of course, everything would be a welcomed consideration. 

This year, I created a website called The Experimental Novel Index. Every entry is an explanation of an experimental novel and connections. While there is room for people to write critically about these books, share links to scholarly articles, the point is to connect. Creating tools and resources is practical. And while you create them, you may also find a community who would also use them. We see the all the time as teachers using shared resources. It doesn't need to be epic, you don't need to create an LLC, it just has to connect to something that is meaningful. 

Ultimately I want to create fiction. But what is fascinating to me -- is to take up the challenge. Look around you, what resources are missing in your creativity, in your life, and why? And then start thinking of a process, a way, and creative entry point to make that resource and sustain it. We are in a new era of making. Building something electronically, physically, artistically, or methodically is easier now than ever before. It is a form of creativity, just like writing a poem or painting a canvas. All you need is a little inspiration. The rest will happen. 


Feel free to discuss what you make and how it came about in the comments section. Would love to hear from you. 

The Ocean Journal 
Experimental Novel Project
QR Code Project 

CLMOOC 2017 Make Cycle #2

Postcards are interesting in that they can convey things and give us an image, an idea, data, connections, and they are often welcome, unlike ads or bills. 

This weeks postcards was a combination of ideas I had kicking around. One was to write half truth, half fictional newspaper articles that might resonant with people. I find that no matter how big the town, people have their share of quirky people living around them. This is a project to document some of those stories, and capture some interesting jump off points for stories and anecdotes. 

This group has turned my thinking around and while I know the type of content I want to include, I started this with template making and finding the right application to make this work for me. I tried a few different programs and apps, but landed on Publisher. Even though I don't love it, it worked for this layering of textboxes and other elements. 

Postcard #1 was about a screaming lady and while I don't love the content, I was more concerned with the entire look and size. During our Makers Hangout on 7/18/17 we considered the idea that the post card has two sides -- the content side and the address side. While these two sides may be different, they also may be connected - one showing part of the idea and the other the answer, or the reveal, or a clue. 

We also discussed the personal nature of writing and sending a unique correspondence to someone and what that means as a transaction of social or connective significance. When I was creating the back, I wanted to create an orientation to the article and project. But I also wanted to number them and personalize them like numbered prints or series collections so people would be excited about finding and reading a series or collection. (More in the collection here). 

Data Postcards

It sounded like the group had been working in data and using data cards to establish a connection. I have to say, thanks to Kevin, I was able to watch the data video Big Bang Data which really helped me understand the concepts and the connections. I really love this concept and idea. And I think it will be a fascinating connection to do with writers. How often to you think about your characters, novel, plot -- or how often did you write a poem. Part of collecting this kind of data for writers is not only for the collections of data, but to see productivity. Writers have a terrible self view and they always feel like their work is kept behind closed doors. This proves their worth, their working, and that they are constantly seeing the world through the lens of a writer. Fascinating and an evolving thought pattern in creating connections to writers. 

Visual Imagery 2.0 / A Writer's Tool

In a previous post, I discussed how Pinterest could be used as a complex and easy to search platform to replace what writers know as Pictorial or Visual Dictionaries. These resources help writers quickly refine their words and add some granular detailing, typically about things they probably don't know well. Trains, aircraft, boats, and all kinds of technical parts that enhance the focus and the purpose of significant and meaningful detail in storytelling. 

It is no surprise that in our #CLMooc for 2017, I was inspired by a website called Sketch Lab. While there are too many connections, tools, and ideas to tell you about here, Sketch Lab is a fascinating 3D modeling site that allows you to take subjects and view them in in three dimensions. You might think that this is merely a fun, time wasting cite, but for many visual thinkers, this could be a significant source of inspiration and ideas. I like this because it allows you to look around. It allows you to see different angles. And the range of items and ideas are growing. If you are looking at buildings and locations, this is great (see example below). But if you really don't know what a Fender Strata-caster looks like, in detail - this might be the site for you. Of course you won't use the details, but you will have a better sense of what things look like, how things are made, and why they might be important for your story. 

The example below is of a house. I selected it because I like the size and the shape of the house. If you notice, you can look up under the porch roof and see the supports. You can see access points, and where windows are. You can walk up the front steps. Or find the secret back door. For me this tool is really interesting. I would also like to use this as prompting for students to write or analyze how things are made. It would also be helpful in guiding students to see things at various angles and distances. This is a great tool in looking and visualizing things. And if it doesn't replace your visual dictionary, it should be a go to resource for writers. 
Example: 

C002 by Renaud Havret on Sketchfab

CLMOOC 2017 Make Cycle #1

Being a writer, the more visual, artistic elements of creation often come to me in different ways. When we start thinking about coloring pages and books, I started thinking how would I think of a coloring page for a novel or a story. 

Honestly, I wanted to make a coloring sheet for a character -- what they look like, motivation, and outcome. People could fill in their responses and have a visual sheet for a character. But once I started creating this - I started having an existential conversation with a would-be character. I am not sure how this turned into a kind of conversation but I made some interesting comments here about how I feel about creativity - writing, the process, and the muse. Not sure if this fits into the coloring page idea completely but it showed me some insight.

What I started to think about was how this sheet could hold a variety - perhaps limitless conversations. What happens when we place out subconscious on the page (in the shape of an outline) and ask it questions, give it reason, and converse? Perhaps it would shift a visual brain? Perhaps it would inspire someone to see interconnections? I want to color one of these and accent some of the elements that are important to me. I want to use this type of creation to show and bind a visuality to words, and the ownership of words to the visual.  Thanks for your time in looking this over to everyone in 2017 CLMOOC -- it is such an important place to consider the world.

Add On: Sometimes, after making something like this, I sit and think about it or have a conversation with someone and I find more to think about. While this image was meant to be a coloring page for a character -- based on the idea from Janet Burroway concerning conflict and desire, and then spiraling out to something else -- it would be interesting to take an essay or a chapter from a book and see how it would map out in a visual diagram. What would be the focus, what would be the elements that we need to know the most? And then how would we color this in? What significant details mean the most to make the scene work? And how does it work emotionally? I could see people using scales and meters to measure emotional investment. I could see readers taking pull quotes out and adding them to make impacts around their maps. 

One of the best books on literature and creativity that I've read and admire is Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi.

It is from that influence that it is easy to see how the imagination can be very specific and wonderfully complex, needing a place for maps and signs, way-points and directionals.

In a class of thirty students, taking one scene from a book and mapping them out will create thirty unique maps. Then we could compare them, and see what elements are common in them all (characters, setting, action), but more importantly, what beats, what moment, what words specifically changed the reader? That will be unique and different. We are constantly coloring our imaginations, we are constantly rediscovering a childhood memory (recoloring perhaps), and I am constantly trying to contribute to why books, writing, stories, and literature is important. (Maybe that's just me) The black and white outlines are the form, the frame, and the logic we need to speak to one another. The colors are the imagination, the turn of a phrase, and vision. Visually, I don't think I've thought about the craft of writing this way. I've spoken a lot about form and content -- but now perhaps there is a new dimension there. The beauty is that it brings into the discussion whether writers color in the lines or embrace the infinite possibilities that blur the human experience. 




Ron's Words: On Art and Writing by Kevin Hodgson

Trying to find a poem in there #CLMOOC colored layers pic.twitter.com/KbCewxhZ4f

— KevinHodgson (@dogtrax) July 12, 2017