Research Blog

I’ve been proselytizing this method for a while now, and have used it in a range of creative writing and publishing modules. It’s been wildly successful for me (though of course I’ll continue tweaking it),… Read more: My Take on Specifications Grading (or, How I Learned to Not Spend My Weekends Marking)

Me, lately I spent my PhD years going to many, many conferences. When you’re in a small department in an isolated part of the world, they’re kind of a necessity. You go to meet anyone –… Read more: In which the Apathy Monster is curtailed

First of all, hello again, old blog. I haven’t visited you, much less nourished you, in quite some time! What’s that meme that goes around about the best friends being those that can go months… Read more: Can Digital Fiction and Commercial Publishing Work Together?

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon was strong with me this week. It’s end of term, end of the academic year, and we’re all caught up in the requesting (begging) of student feedback, along with its requisite trauma.… Read more: Satisfaction, y’all: what is it good for?

I’ve been thinking quite a lot lately about the use of “found” art, as in re-appropriating images, video, code, etc., in stories.  Obviously, in my case, that means digital fiction, though I don’t really think… Read more: “Found” Art

I seem to only do my blog writing on trains lately.  Must see to that… I presented at the Great Writing new-and-improved-London-edition conference this weekend, a talk that focused on one of the finer points… Read more: Great Writing 2011

I’m on the long train(s) ride home from Kent after a one-day digital fiction workshop with Andy Campbell (Dreaming Methods).  It’s the first time I’ve met Andy IRL – great to put a face to… Read more: Thoughts on @dreamingmethods Digital Writing Workshop

First, a note: This blog is moving away from the specifics of my PhD research and experiences.  If anyone was interested in those, well…sorry.  The work is progressing, and it’s a delicate balance!  Best to… Read more: Ruminations, Musings, and Other Cud-Chewing

I spent yesterday at the Teaching Digital Writing day at the Phoenix Digital Square in Leicester (yes, again – I seem to spend more time in Leicester than anywhere else, which is probably because Sue… Read more: Not so much teaching digital writing as teaching digital literature…

My supervisor brought to my attention today that she actually does read this thing (if anyone wonders, my supervisor is rad and awesome and the best ever. Ahem.), and that it’s very interesting for her… Read more: Gotta get a move on

Fresh off mid-semester vacation, our New Media Research Circle had a mini-poster session today.  I threw together mine based on the method I’m using to take my stories from print to digital, pompously titled “From… Read more: Posters that don’t involve women draped on cars

A friend posted this short, collaborative film on Facebook the other day. It was cute, and included an actor I like, so I was amused. At first. After exploring the hitRECord site a bit, however,… Read more: Crowdsourcing hits Sundance

I’ve finally done it. I have entered nerdhood, via the rather embarrassing route of sustaining a significant injury from too much time spent in front of a computer screen. My osteopath was beside herself. It… Read more: #1 tool for digital creativity: a #2 pencil

I spent 3 days in London this weekend, and almost all of it can be classed research. Amazing. Friday was spent entirely on the Underground – no joke, I saw sky only when the trains… Read more: Underground and in the net

 According to my iMac widget dictionary (reliable source?  who knows…), the verb ‘transgress’ means: to infringe or go beyond the bounds of (a moral principle or other established standard of behavior) I’m putting together an… Read more: These are not the transgressions you’re looking for…

Saying straight lines are bad isn’t going to suit well with Amy, my very OCD friend and colleague. But when it comes to stories told in digital environments, I’m discovering it’s true. Those of us… Read more: Straight Lines Get Broken: The Issues of Linear Storytelling in a Digital Environment

This is the presentation Amy Chambers and I gave at the Transliteracy Conference, complete with annotations for those who weren’t there to hear us rush through the topic in our short allotted time. Visualizing the… Read more: Visualizing the Story from Text to Screen: Presentation at Transliteracy Conference

One – The Phoenix Square Digital Media Centre is the epitome of a British location, in that you are only capable of getting there if you already know how to get there. Next time I… Read more: Transliteracy Conference 2010

I have “Blog Entry” on my To-Do List today, among other things. It seems I have not been very good about posting in the past couple of weeks, in addition to not having been very… Read more: On the Up Side

The portion of the blogosphere devoted to digital/new media writing and e-publishing is filled with concerns, despairing, and a truckload of theories about how this emerging (emerged?) literary genre is to be organized, recognized, distributed,… Read more: ELD 2.0: A “Card Catalogue” for the Web Generations

My plan for yesterday was to spend the entire day immersed in the beta for the Electronic Literature Directory’s new site, and post about it here. Unfortunately, I woke up feeling as though gnomes had… Read more: Art and Story

I stumbled upon an online story a couple of months ago through one of the digital fiction feeds I actually pay attention to. It was a really fun, neat little story, and I subscribed to… Read more: Ground-up Projects

Neil Gaiman got an interesting question at the reading last week: how does he come up with such wonderful names? Coraline was a typo (he misspelled Caroline on a letter, and thought the result was… Read more: Names, Dammit

I went up to the Edinburgh Festival last week, mostly to hear Neil Gaiman read (yes, again). It also meant that I bought far too many books, more than I’d given myself leave to purchase.… Read more: Telling Stories Around the Campfire: There’s Always One Guy Who Rocks

I’m sure I’ve written this post before, and I probably will write it again, but I’m such a dope I seem to always be forgetting about this issue. It helps me to reiterate it, and… Read more: The End, the Means, They’re All Big Deals

I was invited to sit in on a talk today in the School of Computer Sciences. Yes, I was the only woman there. We won’t dwell on that. What I will dwell on is my… Read more: The Arduino: Bringing Interactivity Out of the Computer

I did indeed survive to write about my first yearly PhD supervisory committee meeting today. I came out roses, actually. Nice. I’d prepared a summary report a couple of weeks in advance, detailing my current… Read more: Hurdle Hurdled (with as it turns out, a smaller hurdle than I thought)

My day yesterday was full of discovery. I learned things about people, and rather than smiling and nodding and thinking to myself “Wow, people really suck for not being just like me,” I actually absorbed… Read more: Neural Wiring, To-Do Lists, and Knowing Where Your Keys Are

That’s my goal, every weekday, from now until classes start at the end of September. If I can hit it, that will mean approximately 105,000 words in 7 weeks, translating to a finished draft of… Read more: 3000 Words a Day

I’m in the process of researching some background/inspiration material for my PhD project, gathering myths & stories. If you have one, please post a comment, send me an email, FB message, note (tag me), whatever.… Read more: What’s your favorite myth/story? Please share!

I see a lot of proposed business models floating around, blog posts on what works and what doesn’t for making a living off of storytelling online. So far, I really like the idea of “pay… Read more: Moolah: I want some

No, there’s not much chance I could keep up with things enough to post a weekly update every week. But I wanted to pull together a collection of the things I’ve been looking at and… Read more: This week in digital storytelling…

Okay, technically not really, but if this blog is evidence, I’ve been comatose from either natural or artificial causes for the last month. In reality, I have: Revised my online novel communities paper (and it… Read more: I’m such a slacker

Well, it was exhausting and nerve-wracking, but I gave my first presentation amongst actual professionals in my field today. I barely got the presentation done in time – isn’t that always the case – and… Read more: Great Writing Conference, 2009

Bruce Sterling over at Wired.com posted eighteen of them for Contemporary Literature. It’s a skeletal overview: a list of statements without background or exploration of any. I’d like to offer a few brief thoughts on… Read more: Did Somebody Offer a Challenge?

One of my supervisors is a big champion of the free and open source. To you, I offer my apologies. I tried. I really did. I got to know GIMP well enough to actually use… Read more: I Had To Do It. Really

We all toss around the word ‘interdisciplinary’ like it’s a good thing. “We’re an interdisciplinary department”, “I’m doing interdisciplinary research”, blah blah blah. But when it comes down to it, we often just mean we’ll… Read more: Muwah-ha-ha-ha…the Labyrinth of the Mind!!!

One week. Seven glorious days. The equivalent, for me, of a snow-in. I got s**t done, people. My husband signed up to attend a conference in Erice, Sicily for a week in the end of… Read more: Retreating to Write

Which I left to more supremely capable people to actually carry out, as is my habit, of course. When I did my MFA, we had a monthly Student Reading Series, which was created during my… Read more: Showcasing the PGs – Totally My Idea

You may have noticed few writing or PhD-related posts in the past couple of weeks. That would be because I am currently crushed beneath a dump-truck’s worth of student papers to mark. Back to our… Read more: Yes, I’m Still Working

I won a coloring contest in the second grade. The item was a lily, and I won not for my extreme crayon skills, but because I was the only one in the class to use… Read more: So That’s What Color Means

I have a sore throat. For this malady, I requested popsicles, preferably anything resembling Jell-O Pudding Pops (click the link, seriously. It’s more than you bargained for). My Australian husband, who has never known the… Read more: If It’s for Children, Why Is It So Naughty?

Chris Joseph posted today about the Digital Resources for the Arts & Humanities 2009 Conference in Belfast. The abstract submission deadline is two days away, and I sat for an hour trying to come up… Read more: Oooh, Shiny Conference

Yesterday was CEDAR‘s third session in Leicester, at De Montfort University’s Institute of Creative Technologies. We covered blogging for academics, using Web 2.0 resources for document collaboration, creation, and presentations, and a bit on creative… Read more: CEDAR, Session 3: On Academic Blogging, Collaboration, and Creativity

I just want to offer a giant upraised middle finger (or an emphatic two-finger salute for you Brits) to the university. Five million pounds. Five million pounds you are offering in studentships to increase postgraduate… Read more: This Will Be Short

New experiences are rad. Scary sometimes, occasionally baffling, often frustrating…but every once in a while, they’re just rock-on cool. I lead a seminar for an Intro to New Media course in our department. Part of… Read more: Teaching in Second Life

Lots of things suck this week. One, I am an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest loser. Didn’t make the next round. Didn’t really think I would, but it’s a bummer all the same. So I sent… Read more: Dumps Week

It was inevitable: give me three weeks on my own, with no work responsibilities, and I will read. Straight through. I haven’t been able to actually read a book since the winter break; between teaching… Read more: Why Didn’t I Write That?

Finding a Web-builder First, I’m not a giant corporation with tons of cash to spend to hire a web developer to create the all-singing, all-dancing web extravaganza I’d envisioned. I’m a broke PhD student, struggling… Read more: Choosing Software for Digital Fiction: Step 3

Features But what kind of website? I could build a simple flash site that takes my readers through my stories click by click, the way Inanimate Alice does. It’s a pretty simple option, really, and… Read more: Choosing Software for Digital Fiction: Step 2

Deciding on a Platform This was pretty simple. All it took was my supervisor handing me some CD-ROMs containing the premier examples of electronic writing (all hypertexts in Storyspace). Then me sitting down at my… Read more: Choosing Software for Digital Fiction: Step 1

I love Spring Break. No teaching. No office hours. No meetings or training sessions. No having to talk to people. I just get to sit in my home office, make my list of tasks for… Read more: Choosing Software for Digital Fiction: Intro

It is officially Spring break, mid-semester break, whatever you want to call it. I will not call it Easter break, as the school officially does, because I find that officially dunderheaded. Ugh. Anyway, for the… Read more: Prototyping

I attended the second session (having missed the first due to being brain dead) of the Collaborative Digital Research in the Humanities (CEDAR) postgraduate training program this past weekend. (Don’t ask me about the acronym.)… Read more: CEDAR: Corpora and Wikis

I should have done this a couple of months ago… I guess I could post-date it, but I’ll be all honest and stuff. At the beginning of this semester, I had a supervisor meeting, which… Read more: Checking up on Myself

It’s called Easter Holiday here, but that does not clearly express the sense of freedom and liberation that is a 3-week spring break. Plus, I’m not Christian or pagan, so Easter just means more Cadbury… Read more: Only 8 Working Days Till Spring Break

Yes, I remember entering this contest…vaguely. Very vaguely. Oh well. Received notification this morning that I am one of 500 quarterfinalists (out of a maximum 10,000 entries, that’s not bad). You can see my novel… Read more: I’m an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Quarterfinalist!

I’ve written fiction now for a while, always intended for print publication. The adages there are always “first drafts are shit,” “we’re not writers, we’re REwriters,” and “revise, revise, revise.” We hear about Hemingway reworking… Read more: First Drafts are…Not(?) Crap

It’s a lovely week. I teach two classes (same module, twice) for the English department, and on the schedule this week rose two lovely words: “Reading Week.” It’s a really fancy way to say “no… Read more: Getting Rolling

We had another departmental discussion on practice-based (and practice-led…the difference is subtle, but definite) research today. The first time I heard GH’s talk on the subject, it was amongst a bunch of postgrads, most of… Read more: Practice-Based Research…Again

I’m Super Organized Girl. Maybe it’s my father’s diluted OCD in my genes, recombined with that of my maternal grandmother. Maybe it’s the decade I spent as a professional writer, coordinating projects and people and… Read more: The Evolution of the Research Proposal

My department started this incredibly helpful, cruel, beneficial, nerve-wracking thing they call the Shark Tank. It’s open to any staff or postgraduate in the Humanities (I think the Sciences have a similar thing). Every so… Read more: Surviving the Shark Tank

I got some really great news this week: one of my former students, who took his first writing course from me last spring, has had a short story accepted for publication. I have no idea… Read more: Eaglet Publication

It’s been a crazy week already. My ninja plan is in place, and making me feel a bit excited, even though nothing is for sure. At least I have something to work toward. I also,… Read more: And Now for Something More Academic

Now that I’ve been able to post about how depressing this week was for me without sending myself into a spiral of tears, snot, and hiccups, I should counter it with a reminder of the… Read more: …and on a more positive note (me?!? positive? where???)

The last “Oh #@$((&%@” post was prescient. I didn’t get a dressing down for having nothing done by this point. I got a lot of concern and suggestions, and a much, much scarier picture of… Read more: …emerging from my protective shell

My dad would call this pucker time. As in, you get so freaked out about what’s about to happen that you clench your butt so nothing comes out of it at an inopportune moment. It… Read more: Oh, S@%@#T.

It comes down to this: I need funding. So. Very. Desperately. I’m teaching 7 classes this semester – and I have to design all the lessons for 5 of them. This is the amount of… Read more: Early Death Knell

Second day of the conference, and what an interesting day it was. The schedule listed a slot at the very end for “prizes”, which mystified us. Were there categories? Awards? Statuettes? I didn’t know, so… Read more: Conference Update

Gave my very first academic conference presentation today. It wasn’t the best experience it could have been. The conference was put on by a student organization, and none of the organizers seemed to be very… Read more: First Conference Talk

I gobble up two television shows like an addict in a heroin shop: Stargate Atlantis and House. I don’t care about the plotlines – they’re always the same, recycled from old scifi or old medical… Read more: Forbidden Characters

First, I’m not a computer geek. I’m an online geek. There’s a big difference. Computer geeks are heroes, for one, because they can bring back my computer from the dead. They can read and write… Read more: Software I’ve Been Trying

I’m in school again. I’m a student. It’s so cool, and yet so weird at the same time. I haven’t really been a student in a long time. My Master’s was an experience in “this… Read more: (no title)

I finally got sick of it last week. Not being a postgrad myself, but hearing so many others whine about their experience while simultaneously not doing a darn thing about it. Note to PGs: no… Read more: On Being a Postgrad

I haven’t posted in a while. One, because the job that is paying for my PhD suddenly jumped the bounds of its original job description, and I lost my marbles. Two, because life itself jumped… Read more: The Allure of Research

My short story “A Queen for a King” has been published in the October 2008 issue of Electric Spec. Brief description: Mabon’s father warned him about the temptations in the forest. But you can’t stop… Read more: “A Queen for a King” Published in Electric Spec

I played hooky last night. I played fangirl. I giggled madly throughout the evening, like I imagine my mom might have about Paul McCartney, back in the day. I’ve lived in LA, worked in movie… Read more: I Want To Be Neil Gaiman When I Grow Up

What exactly am I trying to do? On a basic level, I can call it a digital story, or digital novel. I will have “digital” elements such as photographs, audio, possibly film. But when I… Read more: Ironing Out My PhD Pitch

I just spent the last two days looking at still shots of avatars and raids, learning about first person shooter games and suicide bomber games, and pondering the gender-imbalance issues in World of Warcraft. I… Read more: Intro to the Other Life: Creating Second Lives Conference 2008

Paul and I had a free day today – no rugby, no work, no errands. So of course, we spent the first half of the day trying to decide what to do with ourselves. We… Read more: Ancient Anglesey

The ICCWR in the form of Graeme Harper gave a little session exploring the topic of practice-led research (PLR) for we folks at NIECI, which is of course what I am doing for my PhD.… Read more: Recording the Process of Practice-Led Research

My short story “Wish in One Hand” has been published in the Summer 2008 issue of Glassfire Magazine. Brief description: One wants freedom, the other a hole to hide in. Magic and desire drive two… Read more: “Wish in One Hand” Published in Glassfire Magazine

The word “idea” sounds all fresh and innocent, doesn’t it? It sounds exciting, refreshing, hopeful. In truth, ideas are dirty little buggers. Deceptive and manipulative, they worm their way into your mind like microscopic parasites,… Read more: Mommy, Where Do Ideas Come From?

The first few rejection letters you receive as a writer are heartbreaking. You’ve worked and strived and sweated to create this story that shines, that is perfect in your eyes. You had every sympathetic friend… Read more: The Debate Rages: Form Rejection or Personal Note?

Writing is hard. We love it, we’re addicted to it, can’t live without it, but it’s definitely a long term relationship. You have to work at it. Every darn day. Vacations really screw the dynamic… Read more: Forcing the Swing of Things

I should know better than to so much as crack the spine on a book with those words inscribed on the cover. “Never Before Published” translates to “this author is a big name, brings in… Read more: “Never Before Published” = Never Should Have Been

If you’re in the publishing industry at all, as an author, an editor, or even just an interested consumer, you’ve probably read about the controversy surrounding Amazon’s new POD publishing plans, and the restrictions it’s… Read more: My Alternative to Amazon

A couple of months ago, I broke my nose playing rugby. I mean smashed it all over my face. Took the surgeon two tries to get it mostly straight, which meant I was icing my… Read more: “Reading” Books on My Mobile

The question comes up a lot, in classes I teach, when I tell people I write fiction: Do you use people you know in your stories? Well, duh. Of course I use people I know… Read more: Don’t I Know You?

Every writer, at least every writer I know, has at some point expressed a desire for a sugar daddy. Or mama, whatever. Those first scenes in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where he has that great apartment,… Read more: Did Paul Varjak Feel This Way?

Previous: Prologue & Chapter 1 Gloria rubbed her eyes open, her fingers scrunching through the dried tears that had clotted in her lashes. She reached over to her left, beginning the Saturday morning cuddle ritual… Read more: The Pathfinder: Chapter 2

I recently completed (for now, of course), my novel The Pathfinder, and I have been embroiled in the grueling process of finding an agent to represent me, and failing that, a publisher willing to take… Read more: The Best Way to Handle Rejection

Previous: Teaser PROLOGUE The sky had taken on that sickly olive drab tinge he had known so well a lifetime from now. The hurried crowds coursed through the streets of the city, always passing through,… Read more: The Pathfinder: Prologue and Chapter 1

A few people have bemoaned the fact that I have not posted much on this blog recently. It is not because I haven’t been writing. Rather, it’s because I’ve been too busy to work on… Read more: Teaser: Pathfinder

Douglas Adams, creator of the world (literally)-famous Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, invented a concept that I am now fully convinced actually exists: the Somebody Else’s Problem (SEP) Field. This field makes items, people, events,… Read more: Deconstructing the SEP Field

For those of you who haven’t heard already, I’m getting married. Yep, that’s right. Me, married. You may pick yourself off the floor now. I want to elope. All over the place are these gorgeous… Read more: The Utimate Wedding Checklist

I’m sitting in my (“our” he keeps reminding me) living room right now, with our “kids” (two dogs, two cats, nice and round) sleeping all around me. The first Christmas tree I’ve had in over… Read more: The Road Home

1. Double Your Creative Power!, Stebel – a great book for any writer trying to create a worthy long piece (i.e., novel or screenplay). Really helps you to conceptualize ideas and put them into a… Read more: Books I’ve Read – 2005

The Maker’s Diet – Diet is based on the Bible;subtitle: “The 40-Day Health Experience That Will Change Your LifeForever” This book is number 132 on USA Today’s top 150 book list. I had to rub… Read more: Once Upon a Time, the World Was Flat…

Welcome to the twentieth Storyblogging Carnival. Previous Storyblogging Carnivals are archived here. Today we have ten entries from some of our favorite writers. Please note: As this is my first time hosting the carnival, I… Read more: Storyblogging Carnival XX