Today is very warm, wonderfully so without being uncomfortable. I've made one of my famous day-camps out on the balcony and have been organizing the stacks of notes associated with my book. This project should feel overwhelming, but for some reason it doesn't.
When I make a day-camp, I surround myself with everything I might need for a long, uninterrupted stay in one place. Besides the stacks and stacks of papers with notes I've made over the last five-plus years, today I have both phones, something to drink, reading glasses (regular) as well as reading glasses (for sitting in the sun), the remote control for the awning, several pens, my microcassette recorder, my camera (just in case something remarkable happens), and my giant 2011 calendar.
It doesn't make for a very fascinating blog post, but I want to go on record that I've been reading through these notes and working out story details all day. A while ago I stopped and took a few photos of a great blue heron and a snowy egret hanging out by the creek. It's OK to take a break, right?
Finally, it's quiet out here. This morning saw (and heard) quite a bit of maintenance work going on in the form of gardeners on riding mowers and some wood chipping down the block. But it's just after 2 PM now, and all I hear are the birds.
Today I am focusing on the characters, one by one. What do they want? What is stopping them? What are their secrets? What do they bring to the book's themes? What can make them more vivid to the reader?
Maybe I'm just in a good mood, but as daunting of a task as this novel is, I suddenly am beginning to feel more positive. Maybe all the vitamins I've been taking over the last few months are finally having an effect. It's not that I don't still feel awful about how long I've spent on this multi-volume epic extravaganza (because I do), but because I recognize such agonizing is counter-productive if it goes in circles and doesn't lead to improvements.
Social media doesn't account for all of my wasted time, but it does eat up a couple of hours each day, time I could be spending on any number of book-related activities. Including writing the damn thing.
* * *
Before I go to bed tonight, I want to have a specific schedule for the book's completion.
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social media. Show all posts
Friday, April 15, 2011
Monday, July 12, 2010
world of 'worlds' revisited
...and now that I'm actually "there" again, it's all coming back to me. What a strange, strange virtual world Worlds is. It was one of the first virtual places I ever visited, and I was surprised to find out it's still there. I feel like a time-traveller.
The setup has scarcely changed, except that I hadn't remembered just how unbelievably giantpixel super-clunky funky-stiff and crazy of a place it is. I first visited Worlds several years ago; since then I've found my way to Second Life*, a world that sets such a standard of realism and user power (not to mention, sheer size) that nothing else comes even remotely close. The contrast is almost ludicrous.
But back to the world of Worlds. This realm is organized into, well... worlds, as in, a little cartoon image of a cluster of orbs, and then you click on where you want to go. To call each area a world is a bit grandiose, as each amounts to little more than a series of interlocking rooms or a few plots of cartoon terrain. Each world has to be loaded onto your computer separately. Some of the options are a clue as to when the whole thing sort of fell out of interest: Hanson World, for instance (remember those guys?), and an old sign in the cocktail lounge home area that Worlds.com Supports Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Just now, during my years-later revisit, I was able to find my way to a garden, a boxlike affair with zagged chunks of computer rendering the size of toasters arranged into hedges and walls of repeating flowers. I remember it differently.
The funny thing is, for all it's wooden low-rez early VR crude rendering, it still somehow manages to feel like you're somewhere. You feel like you're somebody, too, even though when you first show up they make you walk around as a virtual penguin. It continues to be remarkable to me how little nudging we need to accept an artificial environment, and lock into it.
Oddly enough, all this low-tech rendering and wooden perambulation results in a kind of retro charm, and it forms a new layer of awareness over my decidedly surreal memories from years ago. I'd love to figure out how to get some screen shots because this place just can't be explained.
Fascinating.
*By conscious choice, I am not in Second Life with the time-eating frequency of when I first wandered into it three years ago. But readers are welcome, while there, to say hello to an avatar named Reverielarke Wirtanen.
The setup has scarcely changed, except that I hadn't remembered just how unbelievably giantpixel super-clunky funky-stiff and crazy of a place it is. I first visited Worlds several years ago; since then I've found my way to Second Life*, a world that sets such a standard of realism and user power (not to mention, sheer size) that nothing else comes even remotely close. The contrast is almost ludicrous.
But back to the world of Worlds. This realm is organized into, well... worlds, as in, a little cartoon image of a cluster of orbs, and then you click on where you want to go. To call each area a world is a bit grandiose, as each amounts to little more than a series of interlocking rooms or a few plots of cartoon terrain. Each world has to be loaded onto your computer separately. Some of the options are a clue as to when the whole thing sort of fell out of interest: Hanson World, for instance (remember those guys?), and an old sign in the cocktail lounge home area that Worlds.com Supports Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Just now, during my years-later revisit, I was able to find my way to a garden, a boxlike affair with zagged chunks of computer rendering the size of toasters arranged into hedges and walls of repeating flowers. I remember it differently.
The funny thing is, for all it's wooden low-rez early VR crude rendering, it still somehow manages to feel like you're somewhere. You feel like you're somebody, too, even though when you first show up they make you walk around as a virtual penguin. It continues to be remarkable to me how little nudging we need to accept an artificial environment, and lock into it.
Oddly enough, all this low-tech rendering and wooden perambulation results in a kind of retro charm, and it forms a new layer of awareness over my decidedly surreal memories from years ago. I'd love to figure out how to get some screen shots because this place just can't be explained.
Fascinating.
*By conscious choice, I am not in Second Life with the time-eating frequency of when I first wandered into it three years ago. But readers are welcome, while there, to say hello to an avatar named Reverielarke Wirtanen.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
early virtuality, remembered
An unknown number of years ago, before I heard about Second Life and found my way there, I paid a few late-night visits to a couple of the most curious early virtual worlds.
The first so-called virtual world I ever visited was called Dreamland Park*, which I chose from the handful available at the time because the name was similar to what I called my lucid dream and media group (now the name of this blog).
Dreamland Park was a funny little place, occupied mostly by people whose text chat was mostly conducted in German. Earnest and eager, I stopped by for several days in a row, keeping my English confined to a worry-free present tense, and tossing in a few German words from a dictionary now and then, just to show I had the right spirit.
This situation, as you might imagine, had its limitations, this funny little Euro chat room. If there was more to it that what I saw, which is entirely possible, I never got there. The highlight occurred one day when someone stood in front of me-- their avatar, that is-- and made a few comical dance moves while staring out from my monitor: my first avatar interaction, and it made me laugh out loud for real. The people there, I came to understand both directly and implicitly, were a cheerful assortment of youngish geeks. The world itself seemed not a great deal more than some gray terrain, and the avatars were a bit limited in movement and expression. I have a dim memory of running up and down some jagged, low-resolution bluffs. For all of its shortcomings, I was very excited to be somewhere, in there... because that's what it felt like. It was a start. The possibilities!
And then I stumbled into another world, one a bit more fully realized, called Worlds. At least, this is the name I recall now, years later. Here, you could run around with an avatar that had a bit more to it, although with little relationship to who you were in real life; at least it seemed that way to me. You could be something decidedly non-human, but I was more comfortable as a female human. Learning to move it around in a virtual space was a startlingly powerful experience.
There was one big room that always seemed like a kind of cocktail party, with a kind of American Southwest view out the long window. And I recall a bunch of hallways that looked like you were on a spaceship. Like a dream, there was one wing where you could choose avatars, a long hallway with a series of figures on display to the left and right like a kind of museum, but I could never find it again- much to my frustration. There was a building kind of like Animal House, and I felt a kind of mild panic there with the antics going on, so I left immediately.
One night, very late, a kind person with a female avatar took me to a beautiful garden, and told me how I could return there; "she" might have been someone trying to promote membership (which I could never bring myself to do), and I don't think I ever went back. But I still remember it as an act of genuine helpfulness early in my virtual history.
In another part of this odd place, you could find a ladies room, and a mirror there, and gaze into it, disconcerted by seeing something foreign staring back at you. My avatar somehow ended up as a large, strong-looking brunette woman with a suggestive sway to her hips, and a long black dress; I accepted this because didn't want to be a little blue orb or a cartoon cowboy. I did what I could.
Now and then I still have dreams about this surreal twilight world of pixels and crude backdrops, usually right after I fall asleep on a night when I am both tired and wired.
* * *
*I've provided a link to a page that has some screen shots of the old Dreamland Park, just as I remember it, about halfway down the page. The glamorous avatar shown is far more sophisticated than anything I encountered there. At any rate, if this place still runs, I can't seem to find how to get there.
The first so-called virtual world I ever visited was called Dreamland Park*, which I chose from the handful available at the time because the name was similar to what I called my lucid dream and media group (now the name of this blog).
Dreamland Park was a funny little place, occupied mostly by people whose text chat was mostly conducted in German. Earnest and eager, I stopped by for several days in a row, keeping my English confined to a worry-free present tense, and tossing in a few German words from a dictionary now and then, just to show I had the right spirit.
This situation, as you might imagine, had its limitations, this funny little Euro chat room. If there was more to it that what I saw, which is entirely possible, I never got there. The highlight occurred one day when someone stood in front of me-- their avatar, that is-- and made a few comical dance moves while staring out from my monitor: my first avatar interaction, and it made me laugh out loud for real. The people there, I came to understand both directly and implicitly, were a cheerful assortment of youngish geeks. The world itself seemed not a great deal more than some gray terrain, and the avatars were a bit limited in movement and expression. I have a dim memory of running up and down some jagged, low-resolution bluffs. For all of its shortcomings, I was very excited to be somewhere, in there... because that's what it felt like. It was a start. The possibilities!
And then I stumbled into another world, one a bit more fully realized, called Worlds. At least, this is the name I recall now, years later. Here, you could run around with an avatar that had a bit more to it, although with little relationship to who you were in real life; at least it seemed that way to me. You could be something decidedly non-human, but I was more comfortable as a female human. Learning to move it around in a virtual space was a startlingly powerful experience.
There was one big room that always seemed like a kind of cocktail party, with a kind of American Southwest view out the long window. And I recall a bunch of hallways that looked like you were on a spaceship. Like a dream, there was one wing where you could choose avatars, a long hallway with a series of figures on display to the left and right like a kind of museum, but I could never find it again- much to my frustration. There was a building kind of like Animal House, and I felt a kind of mild panic there with the antics going on, so I left immediately.
One night, very late, a kind person with a female avatar took me to a beautiful garden, and told me how I could return there; "she" might have been someone trying to promote membership (which I could never bring myself to do), and I don't think I ever went back. But I still remember it as an act of genuine helpfulness early in my virtual history.
In another part of this odd place, you could find a ladies room, and a mirror there, and gaze into it, disconcerted by seeing something foreign staring back at you. My avatar somehow ended up as a large, strong-looking brunette woman with a suggestive sway to her hips, and a long black dress; I accepted this because didn't want to be a little blue orb or a cartoon cowboy. I did what I could.
Now and then I still have dreams about this surreal twilight world of pixels and crude backdrops, usually right after I fall asleep on a night when I am both tired and wired.
* * *
*I've provided a link to a page that has some screen shots of the old Dreamland Park, just as I remember it, about halfway down the page. The glamorous avatar shown is far more sophisticated than anything I encountered there. At any rate, if this place still runs, I can't seem to find how to get there.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
no email, no posting, no computer, no problem
As I pack for my business trip, it occurs to me that although I could lug around my notebook computer, I don't really need to have it with me to conduct my life for the next few days. So I'll be on a media fast of sorts until I return home on Thursday. I must admit, I'm looking forward to the break.
Surely a human being can go a few days without a computer, right? I'll also be without my horseless carriage (although I will be accompanying others in theirs).
How did we manage before all of... this? Sometimes I can hardly remember.
* * *
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
an island villa awaits
My visits to Second Life are far less frequent than before, but it's still nice to know my lovely virtual home is there waiting for me.* * *
Thursday, February 25, 2010
being neal stephenson
Author of many edgy bestselling novels, two of which I find particularly fascinating-- Snow Crash and The Diamond Age-- Neal Stephenson has an unusual distinction: these dazzling flights of fancy have directly inspired the two very real modern developments of Second Life and Kindle.
to be continued
* * *
to be continued
* * *
Saturday, January 16, 2010
real art in a virtual world, part two
Remember that tiny watercolor experiment I posted about a few days ago? This is what it looks like hanging over my Corbusier sofa in my living room in the Cezanne region, the villa I've had for nearly three years in Second Life. I enjoy decorating and redecorating that space.
Now that I have it up on the wall there I'm not as fond of it as I thought I'd be, but the good news is, it didn't cost me a cent, and I can change it at will with just a few mouse-moves.
Just try that in real life. Not to mention, have you seen the cost of oriental rugs and baby grand pianos?
* * *
Monday, January 11, 2010
Friday, June 13, 2008
dream fragment
* * *
then something captured my attention;
in the little room I was in to the left of the closet
was a shuttered window
the shutters were almost completely open to the inside
and outside there had appeared
a brilliant, spectacular and highly detailed
surrealistic landscape;
it looked like a fantastic computer animation
breathtaking and colorful;
this was tremendously exciting
and I found myself exclaiming
it was a "digital landscape";
as I sought to examine parts
of what I was seeing, I noticed that the
imagery was fairly unstable
which didn't surprise me;
still the overall integrity of the image stayed the same
in the look of the buildings and the shapes and the colors
* * *
dream account taken directly from journal; photo was taken in Second Life by Reverielarke Wirtanen
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