It's another week, again. It's funny how these things happen. I once again don't have a great deal of Station Keeping news to relate to you. Last week was somewhat frightful in terms of school. I'm graduating in about two weeks, my final grades are due in a week and a half, and the vast majority of my work will be completed by the middle of this week. Because last week was so intense (on top of the sinus infection episode) there isn't a lot of work left, but I have more than enough on my plate to keep me busy, so while I will have entries for your consumption and edification this week, I can't make a lot of big promises about overall productivity this week. But I have some things to talk about now, and that's all that matters, right?
News of TealArt
I have two more essays for the hypertext series after this week's piece, but I do feel as if it's wrapping up, and similarly the knitting series, I think will see a bit of a summer transformation as I have basically completed what I set out to do. I think we'll see more content concerning what I'm actually working on, and some of the things that I've already made, and of course coverage of knitting camp. I'm playing around with the idea of starting a slightly more academic series to follow up the hypertext, that might be a fun summer project to work on in addition to all of the other summer things that I have planned.
Thoughts on Station Keeping
One of my intentions with SK is to provide an outlet for short form (science) fiction. I think there's a lot of focus and prestige given to The Novel, in the genre, and it's certainly earned. The Novel allows authors to write extensive stories that make it possible to put the reader into another world/perspective. But there's another sense that shorter form fiction allows writers to pose specific questions, handle language very precisely, and practically distribute his/her work easily [1]. SK is also not exactly short fiction as it has serial elements, plot arcs, and an ensemble of regular and recurring characters, but I think from a writing perspective, there will be stylistic and structural similarities between short fiction and SK installments. In the group setting, this makes particular sense: we can all create desecrate individual stories, participate in the planning of a larger story without anyone person needing to feel obligated to maintaining an entire project solely on their own. I think there are possibilities.
Anyway, stay tuned, it looks like it's going to be a pretty interesting week around here.
best, tycho
| [1] | It's easier for publishers to take a risk on a piece of short fiction than it is for a publisher to take a risk on a novel. While the digital age might eventually change this, for the moment, this remains true. Interestingly, SF is somewhat unique as there remains a somewhat viable commercial short fiction market. Also, having successful short fiction publications makes is easier to publish longer fiction, and while the system isn't flawless certainly, it's better than some crap shoots. |