Deus Ex Machinatio

Creative Spotlight: Caitlin Burns

I've only recently had the pleasure of meeting Caitlin Burns, who is a key part of the Starlight Runner transmedia crew and a feminist after my own heart. I could tell you she's super-creative and lots of fun to hang around with, but I don't need to. I just need to tell you the name of her summer project and you will know.

Jurassic Park Slope, you guys. The movie. I am not even kidding.

This epic adventure is going to go heavy on participatory collaboration and crowdsourcing, so if you're in the metro New York area, reserve your Saturday, July 17, to head into Brooklyn. From the JPS official announcement:

When Dinosaurs Roamed the Burg... 
 July 17, 2010, Location TBA, 1pm 

Dress up like a dinosaur and congregate with you Cretaceous Brethren in searching for the finest watering hole in Williamsburg! 

The first in a series of parties and events to support Jurassic Park Slope a transmedia experience, When Dinosaurs Roamed the Burg is part film shoot, part normal day in the burg, part party.

Check out the complete announcement for more info on what to wear, what to bring, how to act, and more. If you don't think that's going to be the best time ever, I... I don't even know what to say to you. Because this is pure, unadulterated awesome, my friends.

Last Chance for a Super First Day!

As of this writing, submissions for My Super First Day will be closing in about thirteen hours. Internet, let me be frank: so far you have disappointed me with your lackluster volume. Dare I say, even: Your apathy. I know you have more than that in you. 

C'mon, don't be shy. Hurry up and tell us about your Super First Day while you still can. Check out the MSFD FAQ for guidelines and how to submit. And then type something up and just send it in, so that I am not very, very sad. 

Time is of the essence! After today, submissions will be closing for at least two months, and possibly quite a bit longer, depending on how many other shiny things distract me through the end of the year.

Can't wait to see what you come up with. And you are coming up with something, right? Right?

Creative Spotlight: Naomi Alderman

I have another beautiful thing to show you, and it is called The Winter House. This jewel of an interactive experience was written by Naomi Alderman. I won't spoil it for you, except to say that it's a short but simple interactive mystery, heavy on ambience and light on puzzle-solving. Go and gobble it up. It is delicious from start to finish.

Some of you may recall Naomi Alderman as the lead writer of Perplex City (and, not to sell him short, her collaborator Jey Biddulph as a key designer). If you do, it won't surprise you that the same pair were the ones to bring you the Library of Babel, which is similar in execution; this is the obvious next step in that style of storytelling, poised at the intersection of visual and literary arts.

This is poetry as the future will know it, you guys.

What you may not know is that Naomi is also an award-winning novelist. Her first book, Disobedience, came out to massive literary acclaim in 2007. Her second book, The Lessons, has just been released in the UK. I've had the pleasure of reading The Lessons, and it is likewise a beautiful work full of achingly real characters. If you can get your hands on it, absolutely read it at once.

I have an inkling what Naomi will be working on next, and trust me when I say it's going to be amazing. I can't wait to read it, and I can't wait to tell you about it.

Help Make April Super!

I am delighted to announce that we've opened My Super First Day for submissions from now through the entire rest of April! Put on your brainstorming cape and break out the keyboard. Show us what you've got! 

To submit, post your story on your blog and email us a link. Be sure to include the title of your story and the name you want to use on our site. (Or if you don't have a blog, email the whole thing to us and we'll host it for you.) For other questions, check out the MSFD FAQ.

There are already a couple of new posts up, but we're hoping to get a bunch more on this round. We can't wait to see what you have to share!

Welcome to Heroes Week 2010!

February is kind of a lousy month. It's transitional; not yet spring, not really winter anymore, gray and salt-crusted and slushy. That's what makes it the perfect time of year to get in touch with the secret wellsprings that keep us going. Heroes Week is a time to celebrate the people who motivate and inspire you, particularly in your creative life. 

This comment thread is an open forum for people who want to participate by writing about their own heroes this week. I have some guidelines written up, but only you can say if they're right for you. Go ahead and pop a link to your post in the comments. I'd love to read about your heroes, and as the week goes on I'll post about some of my own. 

 Let's rock this thing!

And Now For Something Super!

So yeah, that soup thing is pretty crazy, right? Just to spite Campbell's, I totally ate a 320-calorie frozen meal for lunch today. 

This is the kind of post that was on my mind when I was talking about personal and professional personas a few weeks ago. I've traditionally shied away from talking to much about ideology, unless it's related to my work. But this is something that is important to me, even though it doesn't have much to do with games, and certainly is only a tangent from my career as a storyteller. 

Which brings me to today's topic: My Super First Day! I'm gearing up for another round, folks! If you're an MSFD alumnus, you're free to build onto your Super Second Day, work with others on a big collaborative Rashomon piece, or start fresh with a new character. 

If you haven't participated in MSFD before, it's dead easy! Just scribble out the story of your Super First Day and email it in by... oh, let's call it Feb. 7 at 6pm EST. 

Read the MSFD FAQ for our guidelines and other important info. Get cracking, supers!

Insomniac

Yes, I read about the Insomniac in the papers, too. --Actually, I know her, can you believe it? We went to high school together. Yeah, for real.

I can't decide if I want to look at diamonds or sapphires today. It's for a blue gown, but I wouldn't want to be too matchy-matchy, you know? Why don't you take them all out so I can see?

Right, the Insomniac. She was just a mom at the same school as my girls, you know? We weren't close friends or anything, but there wasn't anything really unusual about her. Always tired, but that describes all of us when they're that age.

Hey, that pin with the rubies just caught my eye. Maybe what I need is a little contrast. Let me try it?

Anyway, the morning that the nanocytes broke out, she said she felt like a million bucks, but I was tired just being around her. Of course nobody knew what was going on at the time, and it took us a few weeks to figure it out. I mean, it's not like she could do anything showy, not like Astounding Man or Origami Girl. She just made you really tired, and she got more and more energetic. Some of our friends called it manic, but I didn't see it, myself.

Oh, goodness, I'm yawning. See, and now you're catching it too. Ha! That would be funny, if the Insomniac struck here while we were just talking about her? What are the odds?

No, it's not ten jewelry stores, it's eleven -- twelve -- and nine banks. Oh, and that art gallery in Stockholm. That was amazing, wasn't it? I always had a soft spot for a good heist film, how about you?

Goodness, I can't decide which of these I like better. Which do you think, the chandelier earrings or the hoops?

There you go yawning again!

Do I think they'll catch her? Oh, probably they will one day. They'll have to catch her off her guard, though, and you know she doesn't sleep anymore, right? Sorry to point out the obvious. Real shame about that officer who fell asleep at the wheel last week. I hear she sent half a million dollars to him at the hospital. She must feel really awful about the whole thing. I would, too.

Oh, goodness, no apologies necessary! It must be the cold air in here, it makes me yawn, too. Oh, you think I should try the opals? Certainly, I'd love to take a look, I adore opals.

Aw, look at you putting your head down. Poor baby. I promise you'll wake up in a couple of hours. I'll just help myself to a few things while you're out, don't mind me.

Sweet dreams, honey.

Shhhh... can you keep a secret?

Remember that day, one year ago, when you first woke up with your new superpower? Was it awesome or terrible? Did you save the world or did you turn to a life of infamy? 

This is an exercise in massively collaborative storytelling. What I want you to do is write a blog post about that magical technoscientific first day and how it’s affected you ever since. Don’t worry about consistency; this is all about a little semi-spontaneous fun. ^_^ 

Your deadline: It’s a squeaker, think we can get it up before Comic-Con is over? I’m thinking let’s all go live at 7pm Eastern time on Saturday night – that’s July 25. 

Meanwhile I’ll put up a goofy site somewhere that aggregates all of our posts for the sake of posterity. When you have your post up, email me and I’ll make sure you get the link love.

This is going to be so much fun.

Updated: If you have a blog to post your story in, that's fantastic. If you don't, I'm working on a site to collect contributions so everybody can participate. No need to email me your blog URL right now -- just email me the URL of your super first day on Saturday night. Shhh, keep it a secret until then! I'm so excited by all your enthusiasm. Thanks so much for your willingness to play along with me! 

How Many Licks DOES It Take? A Challenge!

Let's let the owl explain:

And thus was the challenge issued. You can't let a statement like that go unanswered, can you? I set out with my daughter to do a trial run, but her result -- 614 licks -- is merely one lonely, unscientific anecdote. (I didn't manage to actually count at all. Oops!)

There have been a few valiant efforts to find the truth of this matter, but none have achieved anything like a conclusive sample size, and have omitted factors that might be key to finding your PTPLE (Personal Tootsie Pop Licking Estimate), such as tongue width and Tootsie Pop flavor. Even if I were to lobby every friend I have to conduct this experiment, few would follow through, and I would wind up with paltry tens of data points, if that.

But we live in an era of phenomenal crowdsourcing and collaboration. There is no reason we can't all get together to create a conclusive formula establishing the PTPLE. And so, one and all, I invite you to conduct your own one-person Tootsie Pop experiments and record the results in our Google Spreadsheet.

Soon, thanks to all of you, the world will finally know... how many licks DOES it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

Digital Storytelling Brings Kids Together

This isn't what usually springs to mind when I think about digital storytelling, but it certainly caught my attention. There's a storytelling program going on right now connecting high school kids in Aspen, Colorado, and Oakland, California:

Using MP3 files transferred via the website Words.Sound.Life, which bills itself as “the social network for digital media learning,” students at Oasis High School, an alternative school in the Oakland District, recently shared personal stories with students at Rifle High School.

...

Now the students will convert each other's stories into both written work and art projects — and in the process, learn about art and writing.

So we have teens coming together via technology to share life experiences and collaborate on different creative ways of conveying their personal stories. I love this to pieces, because it widens kids' horizons by exposing them to people with vastly different life experiences; it fuels that idea that everyone has a story to tell; and it encourages kids to dabble their fingers in making stuff.

In an era when practically all we hear about education is that students are mainly being taught to excel at taking standardized tests, this is quite a breath of fresh air.