Here is an illumination of the language in my novel Illumine, the largest dataset I own. I am pondering how this relates to the original concept of “illuminations” in text.
(You need to open the blog in Safari or Internet Explorer and then click through to the graphic.)
A tag cloud:
PS. I obviously have to research why the word “back” is so important.
mpanttaja on June 11th 2007 in The Illumine Storyline, Technology
Illumine is a coming-of-age story set in northern California and Nepal.
It concerns George, his sister Sarah, and her husband John and explores their experience of a catastrophic illness that catapults them into a spiritual journey that carries them around the world to the mountains and cities of Nepal.
The novel is currently in its third major draft and is in the hand of a select group of readers. It will be going through at least one more draft before the process of finding an agent begins. In addition I will be exploring solutions for publishing it digitally using the potential of dynamic delivery to explore the material in new and dynamic ways.
(This could lead into a further digression about a evolving model of creating “stories” that use some dynamic technology to build fictional contexts—-but not today.)
There is more to the Illumine story. That is, there is another novel that is slowly taking shape that continues the stories of George and Sarah and the people in their lives.
The inclusion of Nepal in the story has both inspiration and practicalities in its source. I have friends from Nepal which has opened up travel there for me as well as the opportunity to stay with Nepalese families. But additionally, since I was young and first read a book on Marco Polo and then Maurice Herzog’s “Annapurna”, I have had a strong affinity for the rugged trails through the mountains of Asia. So it was natural for me to set my novel there for many reasons.
As I prepared for my first trip to Nepal, I was surprised to realize how much of my reading over my life has concerned itself with the region. I still own a small green hardback book that was my childhood exploration into the travels of Marco Polo. I know that I read Herzog’s book on his expedition to climb a 8 thousand meter peak when I was fairly young, perhaps twelve. And, of course, in my late twenties “The Snow Leopard” by Peter Matthiesen became my constant companion. (And now, I am amazed to say, I have actually looked from a distance into the land of Dolpo.) And the reading list continues. I hadn’t realized how much I had invested in reading about a land so far away—that I had not yet been compelled to visit. It was my first foray in traveling into a very foreign culture on my own—I guess that is significant.
I will be going back, hopefully this year, to extend my research for both the current and the following novel. And maybe the travel writing from my Asia travels will start to arise on one of my blogs.
mpanttaja on April 2nd 2007 in The Illumine Storyline
This week I am starting to post some of the materials for my next book—not the next novel, but the book on the creative process. I am starting to play with building navigational models for how to move through the material. There are so many directions to choose from, many types of material that can address many audiences. I see that there is the capacity and ability to write books—well, not books per se, but some kind of published object—-that are totally non-linear. They can be read non-linearly, but that I can also envision writing them that way.
I knew when I was writing my novel, Illumine, that linearity was something I wanted to play with, that is, it was important that the structure of the telling of the story reflect some of the ambiguity inherent in the philosophy underlying the story. And that without some ambiguity in time and sequence the novel would not properly embody the meaning. The structure needed to reflect the meaning so the reader would experience some of the ambiguity that the subject matter represents. So the threads of the novel are woven into a texture that represents the meaning of the book itself. I have chosen a sequence for the weaving, though the material could as likely be reorganized to produce a different experience.
My next book, which is to start appearing shortly on the site catchingtheupdraft.com, is even more complex. This is one reason it has taken me so long to write it. (In fact, I have already written three versions of it and hundreds of powerpoint slides.) It is very difficult to choose an optimal entry point: for who, or which topic, or which style of reading, or which interest group?
I see that this book in particular has a whole meta-structure. It looks something like this:
So one of the intriguing ideas percolating on the edge between my writing and my technology research is about how to build tools that help the writer and then the reader to describe, employ, and deploy the meta-text that can structure publishing objects that are inherently non-linear. What do the meta-structures look like? How could one implement them? What do the readers do with the meta-structures? How does the whole experience with the material evolve?
I believe that this model of meta-structural writing reflects the evolution of ideas as they come into being and that perhaps now we can reflect multiple approaches to complex material in one such meta-object that includes the structure and the writing. I find it liberating to not have to find “the one” linear structure in material that does not lend itself to a single line of attack. I also think that we can produce more ambient fiction—that is, where the new model of digesting the material has more flexibility, context, and ambivalence, allowing more flexibility for the writer to reflect meaning in more complex structure.
New thoughts percolating. Now I need to research to see who is doing this and what tools are arising, and see how the meta-structures arise in the work as I go.
mpanttaja on March 28th 2007 in The Illumine Storyline, Technology, Catching the Updraft
Coming down from the hermitage…my first blog post.
I have been working in my little hermitage in the woods in Northern California for a few years now, writing mostly, but also engaged in those day-to-day activities that keep you busy when you live in the country. (It’s a little different from city living.)
I just finished the third draft of the novel I have been writing. It is a great relief to turn it over to my diligent readers for their reactions and suggestions. A bit of a breather on that side of the work load, filled with a few nerves and a lot of hope.
I am also coming into some self-consensus about how to experiment with the rest of my work, moving it and myself back out into the world—talk to people, get some feedback.
I have a odd and complex history of work—first in the theatre, then in technology and business, and now writing fiction and personal/business growth and management theory. It all makes sense organically but it sounds like a strange path to most people. Well, it even sounds like a strange path to me, but it feels normal.
So I am going to be writing a cross-linked set of blog threads—mirroring my evolving fictional structures in complexity and woven meaning.
Blogging is a new and mysterious medium to me, though it is still writing after all. But it’s form is so very different from other forms I’ve done. I keep asking myself, “What is the point?”. What am I trying to accomplish? But as a writer, it seems necessary to explore its timeliness, flexibility, ambiguity, and the weaving nature of narrative cross-linked by theme and time. It will not be easy and I must be ready to shift gears from the single focus of the novel, which, as a large and complex structure, has taken considerable time to build. Without strategic focus, it would never have come to be. But blogging as a format allows many threads of thought to be express simultaneously. The ability to capture the threads in a visible structure as they come to be seems like a very promising development for the practice of keeping the creative pipes primed on all fronts. So my work will not be “written” and complete, but instead evolving in the process of meeting an audience.
So what are my threads, the courses of thought that seem to demand my attention?
The Illumine Story Line
The story continues beyond the current novel format. I envision many ways to explore this material in time-based formats. This follows naturally for George’s journal, but also suggests more ways to imagine creating ambiguity in time and space.
The Travel Journals
I have written these independently but they are often part and parcel of the evolution of the Illumine story. It is wonderful to have a platform to observe and discuss the world and your experience of it.
Creativity: E-4/Catching the Updraft/The Arising World
These are all incarnations of the philosophical work on the process of creativity, innovation, and making things happen in the world. Different voices for different audiences. The key issue here is where to start the conversation. In fact, for a writer that is always an issue—what is the best entrance into the story. And is it always different for different readers? How can you choose/discover/evolve the perfect set of entrances.
Business and Technology
Having been only peripherally involved in the last couple of years, it is interesting to dive back into what’s going on. There are some stark contrasts appearing between “old world” business practices and work styles, and the new world—differences in habit, actions, belief structures, values—it is interesting to see. In addition, technology has shifted, but is also so much more volatile and dynamic—it’s hard to do more than identify a directional current.
How do these relate? Well, I can weave them together left to right, top to bottom; though it’s not clear how the weft moves back around. My travel writing is a major source for the story. The creativity work and the story are tightly woven together as the philosophy is a major current in the story. The creativity work and my approach to business leadership, management, and technology are tightly woven. So the weft is there, though it’s never obvious why a fiction writer also delves into business and technology so deeply. But there you go; that is what I do.
So now, I have begun.
Mary Panttaja on February 21st 2007 in The Illumine Storyline, Catching the Updraft, Travel Logs