Our last class of the semester was both exciting and a little bittersweet. The potluck-style gathering gave us a chance to unwind and celebrate, while presenting our projects one final time made me reflect on how much we’ve all grown. As I shared my work, I felt like I should be further along, but I reminded myself that progress isn’t about perfection and that the project would eventually come together. I really valued everyone’s feedback, it sparked new ideas and gave me motivation to keep going, even with the work that still remains. I had originally started my project in WordPress, but it became challenging to manage, so I switched to a custom website at the last minute. It feels more secure and easier to work with, and I’m excited to see the project fully take shape.
This course has been an incredibly meaningful experience. It opened my eyes to how different electronic literature is from traditional storytelling. Working with it encouraged me to think beyond words on a page, taking into account design, interactivity, and user experience as part of the narrative. The process challenged me to be creative, problem-solve, and step outside of my comfort zone, particularly while developing and refining my final project. I’m grateful for the feedback, support, and ideas shared throughout the semester as they shaped my work in ways I didn’t anticipate.
As this journey comes to an end, I’m excited to continue building on what I’ve learned and see where these skills take me next. I can’t wait to finally finish my project and see it all come together.
Wishing everyone the best of luck with their final projects and future endeavors, and wishing you all a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season!
I hope everyone is moving forward with their respective projects. I am really looking forward to our last meeting on Monday, not only because it just brings me one day closer to completing my degree, but also because each project is so unique.
As far as my own project goes, I feel I am at about 70% done, so 5% less than what is required for Monday. I have most of the haikus written, just want to have seven more, so each section I have to organize it all has four haikus, plus each section’s landing page haiku. In total, I should have 24 haikus, all original to me. I’m really happy that these haikus are being put to use, as I have been writing them without knowledge of this project since the beginning of the semester.
So, I’m not sure if I will have all of the haikus written by Monday, but I have enough to give everyone an idea of how this project will look fully finished. I have the design of the website down, so even without all of the haikus posted there yet, you all will be able to get an idea as to how it will look.
The 5% that I really want to fill in before Monday is the inclusion of sound. Again, I’m not worried about this, as I found that website that contains thousands of free-use audio. So, it’s just a matter of finding ones that I like and inputting them. I’m not sure if I want to include sound of every page, as there is some overlap of the content of a couple of haikus being about the same bird. But, what if the reader doesn’t read both haikus? Well, I think I just answered my question, and I will have sound for every page.
In all, I will try to have the rest of those haikus written, but we’ll see. I do want to have some sounds in there. I might not have all of them, but having it for some of the pages is a definite. I have also begun carving out the narrative a bit and hyperlinked some pages to each other, but not all of them yet because I don’t have all of the haikus. I will have some examples of this for Monday, but I might not have all the pathways picked out just yet. Though, we’ll see how many haikus I can write this weekend.
We are winding down to the end! I am happy that things are finally winding down, but I will miss class as well!
My final project is going really well. Last class was really inspiring for helping me hone in on my project. I have finished the visual part of the project and have been working on my outline. I have a basic idea of what my narrative is and the events that I will include in the project. My project will be based in poetry and it won’t be a straight forward narrative like my thesis. Instead, my project will be a series of events that are connected, yet the moments don’t spell out a concrete story.
The moments in my project will be memories of a deceased person and I think it serves the themes of the project better if the story is more abstract like All of Your Time Tossed Selves. I have decided to include an intro page that serves as a frame work for the story. I will let the reader know that the protagonist has killed themselves and that it is up to them to unravel the memories of what was. I think this will be a gentle entry for the reader into the work instead of no intro and letting the reader figure things out on their own.
I am finishing up my outline. Once the outline is done, I just need to create the poems for the piece. Some poems will be written by me and others will be blackout poems of songs. They will be “emo” songs from the mid 2000’s. These are the songs that many millennials, including me, have grown up on. The genre is called emo because these songs are highly emotional. Many emo bands sing about depression, anxiety, and heartbreak. The song that served as a large inspiration for this piece is called “Die Romantic” by the band Aiden. Link here: https://youtu.be/YbygUxEjnos?si=A8oqqqkXBTso4Mom
The song is very dark as it is about suicide and how there is romance in dying. The video shows the singer of the band following around different people who are thinking about self harming or committing suicide. Rather than tell then to keep going, his character is the finally whisper that causes the people in the video to commit the act. It almost subverts your expectations because a happy ending is more acceptable to society. But I think that’s the whole point of the video. It’s that there are people who think and feel dark things and the words they hear can be the final thing that push them over the edge. Rather than thinking in a negative light, it shows that we have the power to help people, but we also have the power to harm. And maybe if we look at someone who committed suicide, like the protagonist of my piece, we will see moments that seemed simple on the surface, but held deep seated trauma. And maybe we’ll start to see things in a different life and embody the phrase “Everyone is fighting a battle that you know nothing about.”
To begin, I express my hope that everyone had a great holiday with friends and family. Thanksgiving break always comes at just the right time. For me, I always feel invigorated when I return after this specific long weekend. Not doing work for three days was great. Despite thinking about it from time to time, because I am quite the thinker-holic, it was great to be able to just forget about it after a moment because I didn’t have to do the work in that second. It could wait, and that it did. Well, until tonight.
I finally embarked on creating my website. By the recommendation of Sarah, I created a Wix website (am I allowed to mention a competing website creator? ha!). I am really enjoying how it is going so far. It looks just how I wanted it to: simple. And, even though I have used WordPress for quite some time now, I feel Wix is a bit easier to navigate. For some reason, I just could not get a handle on WordPress. Ever.
So, I came up with a title for the whole work: “Migration: An Interactive Flock”. I found it funny and thought using the word interactive would really just hit the nail on the head. Of course, it is not set in stone, but I do not see myself changing it. I created the home page, about page, and created the first page for the first haiku each reader will begin with. I also put up pages of two other haikus just to mess around and see what I would like those to look it, if I would want some kind of variation between the sections I laid out in my head, etc. I have said this to my peers in small groups, but I really would like my website to be simple like Twelve Blue was. There wasn’t much to Twelve Blue in terms of design; there was the text, the hyperlinks, and the reset button. There was no nonsense, and I liked that.
I will not link the website here even though it is currently published. I want you all to see the finished product. Or, at least the finished product at the end of the semester. I think I will keep up with maintaining this website and continuously adding to it because the whole thing is just cool.
I am also scouting for audios of the birds I write about to really immerse the reader. I think I can actually record some of the audio myself, but with birds at this time of year, I will definitely not be able to catch all of them. Though I do think I can record some audio for the more general haikus that talk about the weather and the overall season. In fact, I recorded a 15-second audio earlier this week of running water in a small creek to be used in conjunction with a haiku I already have. I think including sound will give the work a bit of an exciting edge.
My goal for tomorrow, Sunday, is to create pages for the rest of the haikus I have written so far (so, about 10). I will also play around with that audio and see how I would like it to appear on the page. Then, starting next week, I will really dial down on the audios and write more haikus; both of which I do not anticipate any hardship. I am looking forward to seeing this final project.
Some early ideas that have been generating since last class towards the final elit project is possibly creating an interactive poem that uses word scape movements on the screen with animation tools in a Microsoft WordDoc. There seems to be many options to animate text, images, using this platform and turn into a creative way to experience my poetry and also interact with it. I was thinking about creating some letters in Adobe Illustrator using clipping mask technique to add an image inside each letter that is associated with emotions, or events. Not really sure yet. Then export into a Word Doc which you can do as a JPEG or PNG file image or even with Adobe Acrobat using the “Export to Word” command.
I would really like to sharpen my skills again in Adobe After Effects but there may not be enough time to rekindle and do what I have planned creatively to the letters. Mister Horse is a free program extension of Adobe After Effects that gives you options of making text animated in various ways. I would like my poem to be in a way a task for the reader to transcribe the words or letters that show up on thw screen at variables in different colors, sizes, sequences compared to mine that was separated prior at a given point of time. This process can attempt to recognize the order of how we put words together to express a thought, emotion and our thought process contemplating our structure of putting things together, so they are comprehended by others . Meaning Making of words. There is also an effect called Clipping Mask mentioned earlier that can replace the inner part of a letter character, number with an image. This can be an effective technique also I may want to experiment with to emphasize certain particular words with a feeling.
I was also thinking about doing cut outs of letters and some images I have or digital artworks to add to the animations in a Word Doc being untraditional to how this program is usually used to communicate. Though this is too ambitious at this point of the Semester and would require too much time.
I’ve had the idea for my final project for a little bit now. This semester, I’ve been living in a new space, so a lot of the last four months has been dedicated to not only researching and writing for the requirements of this program, but also for learning about the environment around me. Because of this, I have been writing a lot about the birds I’ve been seeing. Writing this out, I find it quite odd. Though, It’s something that I have been really enjoying. With each passing day, the number of birds I see are less and less, and that makes me sad. It makes me feel a bit like Tony Soprano, when he becomes depressed after the ducks leave his pool.
So, I have quite a bit of poetry about these birds. Specifically, haikus. So, what I’m thinking is doing some sort of hyper-text poetry with my haikus, and maybe throw in some tankas. Overall, I want all the poetry to have some kind of syllabic format. So, I’m thinking the haikus will see these birds throughout the seasons. Four sections, maybe three to four haikus per season, with a tanka to indicate the changing of seasons. Thus, it will be narrative driven, as it follows a sort of environmental sequencing, and it will also follow the same kinds of birds.
I have not started building the website yet, but I am gathering all of my bird-related haikus. I know I will have to compose some tankas about the seasons themselves, but I’m not worried about that. Overall, I’m just thinking of what the website will actually look like and how the hyperlinking will work. I really enjoyed the simplicity of Twelve Blue with its quiet background. I think I will replicate that in a way that complements my work. I want the work to speak for itself and not let random effects override the meaning of the haikus. Also, I am not that great at detailing digital spaces, so I will see how far I can push myself.
This piece is really cool. I really like how there are different methods of selection.
My favorite method of navigation is synthesis where you select and the bot selects. What a fascinating way to work together with AI! This is a really unique way to be creative.
This tool seems like a great way to find inspiration by taking something that already exists and blacking out parts to create something new. I like how there are an infinite number of combinations of poems that the reader can make simply by selecting different words and phrases each time.
Using AI to help with the blackout poems feel like a great way to use AI to be creative while letting the reader work together with the AI rather than having the AI do all the work.
I love the simple interface of this piece and how the possibilities for new poems from the existing texts seems endless.
200 Castles
The concept of this piece is very interesting. It seems like the piece only fully works if you experience it in person. It seems like it’s a digital version of a museum tour guide / historian. On top of getting a story about each photograph, the video also showed how the pictures pop out on and change on the Ipad.
I have experienced augmented reality before with video games and it really is awesome. I think more places in society should have augmented reality components. Maybe this is a little dystopian, but how cool would it be to point your phone at different pieces in a museum and have them come to life and tell you a story?
I think this piece would have been really cool to experience in person and the effects would probably pretty mind blowing.
This piece does make think about the conversation around preserving electronic literature. Especially with a piece like this that was meant to be experienced in person to understand it’s full potential. What is the best way to capture and preserve a piece like this? And maybe a better question is, is it possible to preserve all forms of electronic literature or will some pieces be unable to be fully experienced in their original form as time goes on?
Okay, so what’s cool about this is that in the beginning of the semester, when we had to browse the volumes and choose a piece to discuss with the class, I actually played around with this one for awhile. Of course, it’s been about two months, so I do not remember all of the intricacies of this piece, though I do remember a feeling of annoyance. Though, I think that it is only natural to feel that way when working on a blackout piece, or a cento, or any sort of form that forces the writer to deal with only a certain group of words. But, when you finally make it work, and what you are left with, or what you pasted together, all makes sense, it is quite rewarding.
Here, you will find what I created as my thesis. I liked it for the most part. It’s weird when you make something from something you otherwise would not have made. What I mean is, I’m not sure I would ever come close to recreating such a piece with these words, this spacing, this tone. It really is quite an odd feeling.
Now, onto the annoyance. The bot created a very short poem which exudes a certain elegance I can’t quite place. I am unsure if this “elegance” is really just dissonance, but I appreciate it nonetheless. Don’t get me wrong, I am entirely against any sort of AI creating poetry. But, this is also weird. It oddly makes me wish I made this version instead. I don’t know what that’s about, because I am a successful poet. I’m not really sure what to make of it.
Yes, more annoyance. Co-creating with the AI was annoying. One, because I don’t know this AI. Two, because it picked its selections awfully fast. How can one just pick by means of an algorithm, rather than true consideration. It was quite off-putting. Plus, it picked weird stuff that didn’t take into account the rest of the words left. For example, it kept picking the preposition “in”, which was very hard to connect with other words as we went further down the given text. Relinquishing the control in this way, in the name of coherence, was difficult because what is a poem if you cannot understand it enough to feel something upon reading it?
My symbiosis was whatever. I’m not putting it here because I actually ignored the AI. At this point, I thought, “who cares what it wants me to do, especially when it picks nonsense?” So yes, I think the AI points me in the direction of nonsense, for some reason. I think it has it out for me.
Yes, it is just making nonsense. Here, I would like to discuss aesthetics. As many of you may know, I am quite versed in concrete poetry. With that, I deeply understand the purpose behind making shapes with my words to convey meaning. What annoyed me in the last section was the idea of the wave, which most likely will amount to no sense in the name of shapes. All I have to say is, if you want the words to represent something other than the meaning of the word itself, there must be more consideration of such symbolism.
After looking at the documentation video provided on the website, I can see the augmented reality really come to life. I have zero prior experience with AR, so it was cool to see what exactly is being augmented. Seeing the pages transform with a new texture layers on different meaning and experience. What I really enjoy about this piece, too, is that you have both versions in front of you. So, one cannot work without the other. Instead of translating a physical piece into an electronic state, which may lose, like working with two languages, the essence of the original, the reader can navigate both simultaneously. Overall, this seems to be a really awesome piece that blends together the analog with the technological in a way that complements both mediums.
When I first opened All Your Time-Tossed Selves, I didn’t expect much from a Google Form. Within moments Porpentine transformed the familiar interface into something strange, poetic, and unexpectedly emotional. The structure itself: the radio buttons, drop-down lists, required fields, multiple choice questions, and linear flow became elements of the narrative. These components contributed to the story. I felt as though I was moving through a world where every decision mattered, yet nothing could truly change the outcome. That illusion of control perfectly echoed the piece’s theme of loss and inevitability, reminding me of a digital, choose your own adventure style poem.
What struck me most was the moment I realized I could see the responses of others who had played before me. At first, it felt like an invasion of privacy, as if I were glimpsing something I shouldn’t be. But soon it turned hauntingly beautiful, it was like uncovering traces of other travelers who had once wandered through the same ruins. Their words and choices added a new meaning onto my own experience. What I enjoy most about, All Your Time-Tossed Selves was how it reclaimed something ordinary and turned it into art. Porpentine used a Google Form to create something intimate and deeply human.
This piece was so interesting, especially in the way it blended mental health awareness with digital storytelling. Hana Feels stood out to me because it invited empathy through interactivity, turning the reader into an active participant rather than a observer. Taking on different roles and speaking with Hana made the experience feel immediate and emotionally charged. Every response carried a weight that language has real power: to comfort, to harm, or to heal. The multiple endings added depth to that message, showing how the smallest shift in tone or understanding could completely change Hana’s outcome.
What I found most impactful was how Hana Feels used digital form to model real-world compassion. The interactive format created a sense of responsibility. It initiated reflection. This encourages readers to think about how they respond to vulnerability in their own lives. In this way, the piece becomes more than literature. It’s a meaningful exercise in empathy and awareness. It shows how electronic narratives can engage both the heart and the mind.
The official class site for Dr. Mia Zamora's Fall 2025 Electronic Literature course.
