I’m not sure if this is the last update on the project but I can definitely say I have finished my final project this weekend. I’m also not sure if I ever fully coherently described by project but here ya go: For my final project, I created an interactive story on Twine. The story is called “Straightener Spirals”. This story follows a girl who struggles with anxiety and OCD, and her thoughts spiral around as she fixates on something as simple as a hair straightener. Through clickable choices, the player will attempt to guide the speaker into a calmer direction, but the story highlights that anxiety and OCD look different for everyone. Sometimes rational advice is neither realistic nor helpful. This platform allows the player to explore multiple options, but each choice reflects how intrusive thoughts can overpower logic. “Straightener Spirals is meant to create empathy by placing the reader directly inside the experience of spiraling, where they are unable to control even if they are just trying to help.

Now, the only thing that disappoints me is that if I had more time, I would’ve like to found another website that allows me to add music or some kind of ominous soundtrack to add to the readers emotions as they are making their way through the piece. Additionally, I am literally going into class blind, for some reason the course website did not work for me this Sunday. I wanted to check to see what exactly I should have prepared, but hey..at least I am done :).

I’ve been really excited for this project because I had an idea that I have wanted to focus on for awhile. While I necessary do not have an outline, the website that I am using is an outline in itself. I was able to write out whatever I was thinking and Twine also gives the option to “Press play” so I can see how my project will look when everything comes together. Personally, whatever I do have so far is pretty cool for me but I think I can definitely play around a lot and perfect the piece. Twine is super easy to use so I am not afraid of losing any of my work. Honestly, since I kind of figured out how to use Twine, my project should probably be done by end of this week. I provided what I have so far in terms of the interactive story that I am working on.

For my final e-lit project I plan to create an interactive story using Twine. I sort of went down a rabbit hole on topics and platforms to use to help me with interactive stories because I really want to make a good story. After being exposed to so many creative writers, I have this yearning to create something with electronic literature. Twine is a website where it allows texts to pop up and jump into a new page after clicking it which feels like a perfect way to capture the topic. My topic focuses on how it feels like to live with anxiety and OCD. For example for me, when I fixate on something, it becomes almost impossible to focus on anything else. The words in my head become louder and more frequent, and also more repetitive. I want to use Twine to recreate how words suddenly appear in my head and redirect the reader back to the same place because thats how it feels like for me when I am overthinking about something. I would want to call this piece a “Mental landscape” because that’s essentially what it is. I am taking the reader into the mind of someone with anxiety and OCD..keep in mind… mental health looks different for everyone. I want the readers to feel the chaos, the fixation, the difficulty of grounding oneself. I believe Twine would be the best platform for me to use since it offers clickable texts and will sort of show how “spiraling” feelings like in a sense. 

This one was so cool! First I would like to say that I thought it was really interesting that the website would offer us 3 excerpts from very popular novels. We had The Great Gatsby, The Time Machine, and Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus! I also appreciated that for those who are not familiar with Black Out Poetry, there was a clickable option to get the definition. Now, lets move on to the work itself. I actually never thought about using an excerpt from a novel to create poetry you know? Let alone team up with a “bot” to create something. It was definitely a unique experience. The whole concept of this e-lit piece is innovative in the sense that it allows writers to discover new meanings through existing pieces of literature. I would also like to add that working along side the “bot” was quite comedic because I tried to “trust the vision” and it absolutely did disappoint haha. 

Example 1: You select; bot selects __

I think I was old instrument happy, unhappiness 

(Literally what does that mean) 

200 Castles

I’m going to be honest, this one overwhelmed a little bit because I wasn’t sure what was going on. It’s probably a me issue because I suck at analyzing things and finding a bigger picture. However, what I did pick up is that this piece is like virtual reality with an iPad? I scrolled down to watch the short documentation.. but I’m confused.. what was she reading? I guess my question is where is she getting the readings from? Unless its on the iPad and thats essentially what it is? But it also did get me thinking about VR and what a cool experience it would be to read a story with a virtual reality. But not an iPad, more with the VR headsets possibly. I think the concept of VR stories would be absolutely the coolest thing ever but also expensive. Imagine reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier in real time and experiencing Maxim kill his wife but you’re witnessing it! Or better yet, some kind of Edgar Allan Poe story in real time woooahh!!!

Honestly, as someone who is writing an intergenerational memoir of their Bangladeshi grandmother as their thesis, this piece of literature hit home for me. At first, I will say I searched everywhere to find some kind of translation option, and even if it was there.. I probably didn’t understand it haha. I will also say that, I love when writers include their native tongue in their work because representation truly matters. I can’t imagine how readers of Latin American or Colombian descent feel when they see their roots being told into a story. As someone who is married to a Puerto Rican Colombian, I was ecstatic while going through this piece. Now, on to the actual piece itself. Retratos vivos de mamá is definitely a read that made me work work work! Having to translate every page was tedious, but worth it. The topic of your parents life before kids isn’t usually spoken about that often… until its too late. I see many grieving videos of people who lost a parent and they always add: “I wish I asked them about their childhood”. I know so much about my grandmother who is so dear to me, but not as much as my own mothers life. I grew up in a very rocky relationship with my mother, and have resented her for many years for a traumatic childhood. After I moved out from NYC and started my life here in NJ, we have gotten closer and our relationship has been healing. Now that we’re closer (ish), I do find myself wondering how my mother was at my age.. or even younger. Im 26 and by then she already had two daughters lol. This may be quite dark, but I have this feeling that my mother will be the topic of all of my writing when she passes one day… as she is the topic of all my poetry now. After reading this piece, I want to know more about my mothers childhood, her boyfriend, the men before my father, and all of her interests that probably were passed down to me. I especially enjoyed towards the end of the pages when the writer says “ I found out how much of her lives in me and his much of me I put in her when I write”. Because thats essentially what my own work consists of. Lastly, I do appreciate the “book” form the electronic lit piece takes because you get to flip through a sort of old “Scrapbook”. 

Writers are not Strangers 

I am a sucker for interactive stories. Ever since we did Facade and then Tyler’s Google Forms one, we’re been on a roll! I will say the connection between Alix’s mother dying and us also reading Retratos vivos de mamá is uncanny! I think as writers we were all pretty honest with our ratings because we would want the same for ourselves. I have been really enjoying having the control in a story because maybe thats the chaotic person in me trying to ruin things. I guess I was also trying to see what would happen if rated it like a 1 and then pressed on the options that weren’t so great..which is what I did. I feel like the game was trying to punish me because I swear it was never ending. I think since I was playing the game as a jerk, there were significant pieces I was missing out on.. so I am really interested to see how Hunter tackles this piece! 

Paper: Cindy Rodrigues Formal Paper

Presentation: Hana Feels

All Your Time Tossed Selves

I can finally say I have a read a story through Google Forms. From past few semesters, Tyler has always had such amazing presentation’s and always has such great picks. I knew getting into this Google Form read, it was going to be very exciting and very different in a good way. Before you even start the piece, if you’ve used Google Forms before, you know you are usually met with a choice of some sort. The “choice” concept of this interactive piece is pretty on theme with Hana Feels! It was nice to step away from Hana Feels and enter a new world of choice. With All Your Time Tossed Selves you get a choice but the ending sort of remains the same. What is different about this piece, is that whatever you click will dig you deeper into the experience. I guess I would call this a reflective piece due to the nature of this “Dying City” and the narrator is reflecting their past in a sense. At the end, I did appreciate the glimpse into the data collection of the 11,000 folks who have participated. It was interesting to explore our collective choices and it made me want to play the story over and over again for a new but “shared” experience.

Ask me for the moon:

The one was one of the more shorter pieces we have been assigned so far. Its short but the meaning behind this piece is so massive. One thing that defintley stood out for me was that we as readers had no control over what we read. Once you click “Begin” the words just keep appearing and you sort of HAVE to read it. Nothing else on the screen is clickable so it kind of seemed as of we were trapped in this space. Don’t think I used “trapped” in a bad way. More or rather, the reader has to come to terms with the major point of this peace. “The land is now called real estate, rather than our mother”, caught my eye because it sounds a bit lyrical. In the sense that I can see this as a poem, as well as a song. However, one thing I have been enjoying about this piece is that there is always some kind of historic background information that makes this peace so much more heartbreaking. As readers you’re shown the beauty of this island but also the heartbreak every local goes through because their home is no longer a home, its a showcase.

The Vine and The Fish

Reading this one felt like an interactive comic book. I appreciated the art, the moving images, and the choice of colors the illustrator decided to use. This one was similar to “Ask me for the moon” as it was also not clickable. One thing about this piece that stood out to me was that as a reader, I was already hooked by the moving images, and so when I would scroll and wait for a page to load up… I was more excited to see what was coming next. Aside from the digital framework, the author compares how immigrants are treated to how people view invasive species like the Kudzu vine and Asian carp, showing how harmful words and labels can spread prejudice and fear. Which is why adding in the Trump’s headline of Corona virus being the “Chinese Virus”, was very significant to this strong pieace of e-lit. Leise Hook’s The Vine and The Fish brings awareness to how the human society and our ecosystems are intertwined in a sense. We must be compassionate towards one another, urge empathy and hold people accountable for the words they decide to use.

Yardley, PA 1997

Todd Anderson, the author of Hot Writing created a collection of 17 digital poems aka interactive poetry. Yardley, PA 1997 being one of them introduced us to a whole new type of poetry I didn’t know existed. I thought this was a very interesting take on keeping those who don’t really enjoy poetry to be entertained. Not me, I love poetry. But I can definitely see someone playing around with this and making multiple different poems. I deeply appreciated the fact as readers who get a say on how we’d like this poem designed as well as how we’d like this poem to sound. I played around with this poem quite a bit.. I would literally press each key multiple times just to see what would happen but that in itself was a bit poetic. I was like “ Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret! Secret!” a whole bunch. I have noticed that with the few e-lit pieces we have completed, they all have a different experiences in terms of how I feel. Throughout this piece, I felt a sense of nostalgia.. like when as kids we’d have xylophones in school or little fun entrustments to keep us distracted at doctors offices. I also tried  playing multiple keys at once, and the tension definitely arose. It was a bit chaotic, as if I had to read the lines really fast so it doesn’t disappear. 

I did find this reddit post where a user named “Toddwords” was answering a few questions about their work with Hot Writing and Yardley PA 1997 gets brought up through the thread. Im obviously not too sure if this is the real Todd Anderson answering these questions but I thought it was kind of interesting. (https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/5xbwwh/i_am_todd_anderson_creator_of_hotwriting_the/) 

Avenue S 

So for this one, I decided to review the piece “By date” because when I initially started, I will definitely say I was getting a little overwhelmed with all the clicking and where it was taking me. However, clicking through by date was a lot more fun for me because COVID for me feels like it was yesterday. Each date that was provided was a date I vividly remember 5 years ago. I was an essential worker during that time working right by Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, NYC during the time. That hospital was practically ground zero of Nyc due to the high number of cases of covid plus deaths. They literally had body bags outside because there was no room inside. I had to go into work everyday, and if you know anything about the city of Elmhurst, its never quiet. But during covid, it was a ghost town. So the fact I got to choose the date made this a lot more relatable. But again, thats what this e-lit piece is meant to do. The experience depends entirely on your own interaction of it. Honestly, I feel that if this piece included words, it wouldn’t work. The pictures of the desolate city, graffiti, and drawings all create an experience. A haunting experience.

I will say that this piece is about being isolated during this time of covid but going through this piece did not make me feel alone. I felt a sense of connection because its as if we were living this horror at the same time? The dates were like a journal entry and we were living it together. For example, on May 19, 2020..it was my 21st birthday and I didn’t really do anything because covid was at its peak and that date in the poem portrayed the same experience. Masks and social distancing. Lastly, it seems that this poem will not have an ending…because covid is perpetually open in our lives. I still talk about that time as if it was yesterday and my future will be shaped by everything that we went through in 2020. 

This week’s reading introduced us to a much easier understanding interactive poem (in my opinion). In short, this poem explores the immigration of Chinese settlers on the west side of Canada. I thought it was really interesting that the authors used a body as the whole premise of the poem. For example, the body’s right arm was highlighted with a blue dot that represented all of Canada. But then we have other body parts that represent other cities in Canada. I guess my question would be, “Why a body in the first place?”.

And then I thought to myself, isn’t migration a physical thing? These journeys literally become embodied in peoples lives.

However, it was really illuminating seeing the different works of each other. Every point that was clicked had a different voice and led to a different aspect of an immigrant experience. My favorite part of this piece would have to be the sensory experience itself. The Chinese instruments playing in the background, followed with literal stories being told from real people. Additionally, the deeper meaning behind this interactive poem got me thinking about “having a choice”. Throughout this entire piece, us as readers had a choice on what our next move was, or what we wanted to see next. The authors gave us a choice, unlike the “characters” in the piece who had to move to another country for possibly a better life. They sort of had a choice, but also not really.

Lastly, I was thinking about how this would be such a cool project to work on with my thesis because I am sort of discussing cultural preservation. This interactive poem that keeps cultural memory alive would be such a huge part of my research.