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To begin, I would like to share my thoughts regarding Pressman. To clarify, these thoughts were generated after reading Pressman, but before interacting with Twelve Blue. Thus, this may be subject to change once I have interacted with Twelve Blue for the allowed one hour. What I mainly would like to dissect here is the idea of authorship. Pressman relays the idea that because electronic literature asks the reader to click or hover or insert text, the reader thus shares, to some degree, authorship with the writer. When I first read this, I was not convinced. Yes, in the case of hyperlinking, the reader must click around to be taken to the next part of the narrative, whatever it may be. Yes, the way in which one reader goes about finding their way through said narrative will be different than another reader. Though, I do not think that this is akin to authorship; I think it is more akin to chance.

Relating this idea to dance, as I always seem to do at one point or another, is an interesting thought that I would like to share. Merce Cunningham, a well-known modern dancer and choreographer, was known to implement the chance technique when choreographing. Cunningham would produce a number of short dance phrases, then used dice, coins, and later computer programming, to determine the order in which these phrases would appear. Thus, an entire repertoire would be created. It is, at its core, him and what he created, but by chance, it is the way is it. This is what I feel interacting with electronic literature is like; we do not know exactly what we are going to get, but whatever we do, it is our experience, not necessarily something we have written, because someone else has created the narrative. It is chance that brings us to the exact order we click or hover on something, and thus chance is what crafts what we take from it.

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Twelve Blue Reflection

This was my first order:

1. How she knew
2. Long time after one
3. cornflowers
4. each ever after
5. seething
6. each ever after

And then, there was nowhere other than go (or so I thought). So, I started again.

1. fates
2. seething
3. each ever after
4. Eleanor Crosses
5. the roar of the sea within her
6. Salt shores
7. minor characters
8. we are all night swimmers
9. fates
10. seething
11. each ever after
12. crabapple hollow
13. each ever after

Again…

1. riven wishes
2. Blue Christ
3. a white witness
4. minor characters
5. we are all night swimmers
6. fates
7. seething
8. Death’s blue waltzer
9. waves
10. the cities of the air
11. white moths
12. a taste of stone
13. balancing
14. a surprise
15. a spectacle

Then I became stuck in a loop, so I reset by way of the small picture on the left side of the screen.

1. butterfly
2. Fierce eyes and a mother’s fears
3. Run off

Here, my hour was up. Everything that I came upon, and what each of my classmates discovered, was by chance. Getting stuck in a loop of Delores Peters, constantly finding my way back somehow to “each ever after”, was chance. As far as realizing the whole narrative, I could not find it. Though, I had a good grasp of the drowning, which was very intriguing, as well as Delores Peters and the ride. Towards the end of my browsing, I kept hoping that I would continue to run into each ever after again, because I felt quite connected to that one. It was chance that was bringing me back to it, and I read it in full each time I came across it. Despite the disappearing links, I still kept finding my way to it, even if I should have just reset. This was chance, too. Everything can be read.