Writing about writing about writing...

So, as some of you will know, I have a fair few blogs. One of these is documenting the development of my major project, currently code-named "Open Words". The idea behind my project is a website that allows users to post various pieces of creative writing and uses various web technologies in order to build and foster a helpful community. This community would allow users to help each other improve their writing.

As my programming/web design/etc. skills aren't very advanced, the project will be focusing on the creative side of things. This means I will mostly be working on designing the various elements rather than implementing them. For example, it will be much more important for me to design (at least conceptually) a set of tools and/or a system that would allow users to easily post and edit various pieces of writing and have other users comment on them, than it would be for me to build a database to store all the pieces/comments.

I came up with this idea after thinking about how I improved my writing. As a member of the Tabcrawler forums, I found the community of helpful users that existed in the Lyrics & Poetry section really helped me improve my pieces when I posted them. As the membership of the forums shrank, I found that the help offered on the forum dwindled (in quality as well as quantity). I also found that the forum, as well as other sites like DeviantArt, didn't work well when posting longer works (even a short piece of prose on DeviantArt is rather unwieldy).

Another thing is that on sites which cover a variety of creative work, I found that writing is often pushed to the back, as visual or audio art is more "immediate" or "accessible". There are some sites dedicated solely to creative writing, but I feel that these don't encourage enough discussion of a piece, or don't allow you to go into a lot of depth easily. Comments are stuck at the end of a piece, meaning that if you want to comment on specific lines, you either have to start referring to "line 33" or whatever, or you have to copy and paste chunks of the text into your comment. Another annoyance is edits of work. If you read a piece and then the writer updates it, how are you to know what they've done? You could be stuck reading it all again, when all they've done is added a full-stop.

Other than trying to create a site which addresses these issues, I'm hoping to build a community that values openness and collaboration. I'll attempt to create the site using open source tools and technologies and I'll encourage users to give their ideas on how to improve/enhance it (and even to help with the programming, if they're so inclined). I'll also encourage users to release their work under Creative Commons licenses. This means that not only can they give each other advice, but they can also share ideas and maybe even things like characters and whole worlds!

Further down the line, I could turn this site into some sort of business. Initially starting off making money via things like advertising and subscriptions, but then moving onto independent publishing of works (or collections of works) from the site. Sort of like a book version of CDbaby. There's probably various other directions it could go that I haven't even thought of yet.

So, if you want a more in-depth look into what I'm doing and how things are progressing, click the link over on the right. I've just started posting my initial ideas/notes on what I plan on doing. After I've finished all that, I'll start posting some of the design mock-ups I've come up with. This should be good. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan.

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 45: The Devil's Panties is a comic by Jennie Breeden about various odd things that happen in her life. The comic for the 31st March depicts her sister, Summer, stating that she's "got rocket ships on [her] undies", to which Jennie replies "I've got the Cheshire cat, see?". Jennie then proceeds to accidentally give herself a wedgie.

Edgar Allen's search history

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 44: Early today, I found an image (linked as it's pretty long) on Fukung (a site where people post random funny images) featuring the keyword suggestions given when beginnings of questions are put into Google's experimental search (such as "is it easy to...", "why am I...", and "aren't you..."). When "why is..." is entered, it comes up with "why is a raven like a writing desk?" (as shown in the picture).

It's a different book, I swear...

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 43: I've mentioned before about the "Fables" series by Bill Willingham. I mentioned how various Alice characters are featured in the books, but not Alice herself. I discovered today that this is because she is resident in The Golden Boughs Retirement Village. I found this in Jack of Fables #21, where Alice features prominently as the object of Wicked John's advances. (if she has appeared before in the series, I haven't noticed)

She'll be my final word

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 42: Once again we have a reference coming from the world of goth/alternative/fetish photography. This time, the model Pyretta Blaze in a picture for Devil Doll Photography can be seen dressed as Alice, holding a knife to a white rabbit.

Où est ma chatte?

I visited Tours, in France, last weekend in order to see my step-sister. While I was there, I picked up a French version of both Alice books, "Les Aventures d'Alice au pays des merveilles" and "Ce qu'Alice trouva de l'autre côté du miroir". While I don't speak French, I can read it somewhat and so I can at least examine certain aspects of the book.

Most interesting is looking at the language jokes/references in the book. In the original, there's a few French references, which sort of don't work in a French version. Like where she wonders if the mouse is French and speaks to him in French, so they have to note that what she says is in French in the original. Or the part where she addresses her foot and refers to it as masculine, because it's a masculine noun in French. A joke that's obliterated in French as the foot has to be masculine anyway... Then there's parts like the line "curiouser and curiouser" which have to have footnotes detailing the original line and noting that it's bad English.

These language differences are of course most prominent in the translation of Jabberwocky.

Il était grilheure ; les slictueux toves
Gyraient sur l'alloinde et vriblaient :
Tout flivoreux allaient les borogoves ;
Les verchons fourgus bourniflaient.

" Prends garde au Jabberwock, mon fils !
À sa gueule qui mord, à ses griffes qui happent !
Gare l'oiseau Jubjube, et laisse
En paix le frumieux Bandersnatch !

Le jeune homme, ayant pris sa vorpaline épée,
Cherchait longtemps l'ennemi manxiquais...
Puis, arrivé prés de l'Arbe Tépé,
Pour réfléchir un instant s'arrêtait.

Or, comme il ruminait de suffêches pensées,
Le Jabberwock, l'œil flamboyant,
Ruginiflant par le bois touffeté,
Arrivait en barigoulant !

Une, deux ! Une, deux ! D'outre en outre,
Le glave vorpalin virevolte, flac-vlan !
Il terrasse le monstre, et, brandissant sa tête,
Il s'en retourne galomphant.

" Tu as donc tué le Jabberwock !
Dans mes bras, mon fils rayonnois !
Ô jour frabieux ! Callouh ! Callock ! "
Le vieux glouffait de joie.

Il était grilheure ; les slictueux toves
Gyraient sur l'alloinde et vriblaient :
Tout flivoreux allaient les borogoves ;
Les verchons fourgus bourniflaient.

Compare this with the original and even without being able to speak French, you can notice certain things. How certain nouns like "toves" and "borogoves" have just been carried over. How some of the words seem to have just been made "more French" ("frabjous" becomes "frabieux", etc). How the second stanza doesn't rhyme, or how the sixth inserts a rhyme where there's none in the original ("Callay" becomes "Callock" for no apparent reason). Of course, anyone who does speak French is free to point out certain things I may have missed.

Another poem that suffers from being translated is the final poem in "...Looking-glass". The translation means it loses its original acrostic nature and so no longer spells out "Alice Pleasance Liddell". This is again noted in the back of the book.

There's other differences that have nothing to do with the translation. Such as how the list of pieces is omitted from the beginning of "...Looking-glass". Or how the illustrations of Alice passing through the mirror are on adjacent pages, rather than on either side of the same page (intended so that you have the effect of Alice actually going through the page).

Aren't languages fun?

The jaws that bite...

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 41: On my way to the bus station this afternoon, I walked down Church Gate and happened to pass a takeaway named "Jabberwocky".

Exactly why it's called this is unknown to me. Also, I am unsure whether the little character to the left of the name is meant to be the Jabberwocky...

Tweedledum and dumber

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 38: Walking past Dominoes on Tuesday, I noticed a Dinosaur chess set in the window. Then I noticed that the set opposite it was an Alice one!

Upstairs I found the rest of the set as well as a plain "black & white" (or red and white) version.

Notice that the label calls it an "Alice in Wonderland" set, but the box just refers to it as "The Alice Chess Set". This is probably as it incorporates characters from Through the Looking-Glass (Queen Alice, the white king, the white knight, Tweedledum and Tweedledee) and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (white rabbit and the mad hatter). The box also features queen Alice and the queen of hearts.

Interestingly, there's a full list of pieces for both sides at the beginning of Through the Looking-Glass, but this doesn't include Alice. Likely the decision was made to have the set feature more well-known characters, such as the ones used in the Disney version (though the white knight is anomalous to that idea).

While finding information on the set, I also discovered the rules to Alice chess.

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 39: In the Simpons episode, "The secret war of Lisa Simpson", just after the kids enter the "museum of crime", Chief Wiggum warns them they are about to go "through the looking-glass".

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 40: Once again, on the Art of Neighbours group on Facebook; this picture of Mickey and Ben was posted by Sion Pennant-Williams and Rosie Hedger referred to them as "tweedle dum and tweedle dee".

Love-Lies-Bleeding

I tried a little experiment this weekend. I banned myself from MySpace and Facebook.

After deciding that I spend far too much time on the internet which ultimately results in very little, I thought I should maybe do something about it. I noted that my most visited sites are MySpace, Facebook and various forums. I chose only the first two as while I may visit forums often and much of my time there is spent on various trivial matters, I don't waste time there quite as much as I do on MySpace or Facebook. On a forum, if there's no topics or replies to read and none to be made, then there's really not much to do (unless you fancy reading member profiles or re-reading old topics). On Facebook, there's applications to play with, groups to read, friends to be harassed in various ways. The same goes for MySpace, along with random urges you can have, such as the ones to check out some band you've vaguely heard of, or to completely redesign your profile and update the information on it.

So, how did it go? I banned myself from when I went to bed on Friday night, till when I got up this morning. I managed to last both days without going anywhere near either site (I even refrained from posting the Alice sightings at the end of this blog as it would require going to MySpace). I did have urges to go to both sites. Sometimes just because it felt natural to click the links in my Firefox toolbar, sometimes because I felt the need to see what people are doing...

I think I would definitely say the experiment was a success. I got various pieces of work done (some recording, some C++ coding), I found other forms of entertainment (reading the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book, as well as re-reading the first), and I didn't lose any kind of social life (I still met friends at the pub on Saturday night as usual). When I returned, I found I hadn't missed much. I'd been tagged in a photo, someone wrote on my wall, I'd been invited to things I didn't care about, the usual...

It makes me wonder if we're losing things by being so connected these days. Whether things like connecting with old friends or hearing from someone special are having less impact and meaning because it all happens so often. Maybe we're losing the element of spontaneity that comes when you don't know exactly what's going on. No one gets a random call asking if they'd like to go out tonight, they just get an invite on Facebook. No one runs into a friend they haven't seen in years and suddenly discovers how much they've changed, as they've observed the gradual journey through someone's MySpace photos.

I remember reading somewhere a while ago (it could've been on Jess' blog) that, since the advent of mobile phones, people no longer just turn up somewhere and run into people or possibly meet new people. When I'm in Leicester, I usually only turn up somewhere when it's definite people I know will be there. I go to the pub twice a week because that's when the rock society meet. I go to a club when other people suggest it. When I'm in Bristol, it's the opposite. Most of my old Bristol friends have moved away or I don't know well any more (despite what might happen on Facebook). So, instead I go out on my own and run into people and make new friends. I enjoy myself on my own terms (though, of course, this isn't to say I don't enjoy myself when I'm out in Leicester).

I'm not trying to say that social networking is a bad thing. More that it's not everything. Also, it wastes a lot of my time. I should really make an effort to stop wasting so much time. He says while writing a blog about not a lot in particular...

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 36: The Firebrand (featuring fellow DMU MTI alumnus, Sarah Collins) song, "Arabian Nights", features the line "Alice in her Wonderland's got nothing on me".

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 37: There are multiple references to the Alice books in the various League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books. Most noticeably on the cover of the first book, where Alice appears alongside Henry Jekyll's refelction of Edward Hyde in a mirror. Another appearance is in the second book, where "The New Traveller's Almanac" talks about a "Miss A.L." and various incidences (these alluding to the events of the Alice books), including her subsequent death due to the positions of all her organs being reversed.

Special mention to Jess Nevins for his annotations on the various LoEG books.