MA Creative Writing Part-Time (The Novel)
Transmission Project – Commentary for www.creativemission.net
1. Introduction
In September 2003, when I first began on the Masters in Creative Writing course, I began a weblog to try and catalogue my writing progression and learning. This has developed into my transmission project and an exploration of the ways that blogs can be used to communicate and pass on information. It is a web site that can be found at www.creativemission.net.
The initial idea behind the blog was to track my development throughout the course, and create a commentary. It began as a website, with a number of pages related to what I was reading and writing, but the blog itself became the most successful and easiest part to develop. The feedback from those who read the blog was positive and so the site became a journal rather than a half-empty information site, constantly awaiting development. The ‘information pages’ were put on hold until I had more time available to develop this aspect properly, which I have slowly begun to do in the recent months.
2. Objectives
My initial objectives in setting up the blog were as follows:
To track my development throughout the MA Creative Writing course
To create an ongoing portfolio of samples of my writing
To gather and organise online writing resources such as competitions and online journals
To develop a space where I can express my own ideas and opinions and develop my writing experience
To develop a tool by which I am able to communicate with a relevant ‘audience’, with an aim to develop this into a future ‘author’s’ website
3. Research
”Weblogs, typically, are personal web sites operated by individuals who compile chronological lists of links to stuff that interests them, interspersed with information , editorialising and personal asides. A good weblog is updated often, in a kind of real-time improvisation, with pointers to interesting events, pages, stories and happenings elsewhere on the web. New stuff piles on top of the page; older stuff sinks to the bottom.”1
The weblog initially began as a web page where the author ‘logged’ other web pages they found interesting – with links and comments. The lines between a journal and a weblog have, however, become blurred and more and more blogs are used as personal diaries or accounts of particular situations. An article in The Independent on 4 August 2005, listed extracts from a huge range of diverse weblogs. These included blogs from the famous – Barbara Streisand, Moby, Gillian Anderson, Jaimie Oliver, to the everyday author, journalist, teacher, to the downright bizarre – an anonymous prostitute, a 7 month old baby and a chocoholic. A weblog is for anyone who wishes to share an experience or an opinion with others and provides a filtering function for surfers, getting rid of the need to surf hundreds of sites that give irreverent and irrelevant information. They have developed from a filter style weblog – “a list of links with commentary and personal asides”2- to the now more popular, journal style blog.
In ‘The Weblog Handbook’, Rebecca Blood outlines just three motivations for keeping a blog – “information sharing, reputation building and personal expression. And though any one of these may be the primary reason for a blog, no one maintains a blog for any length of time without eventually doing all three. Whether you write about your evocation, your day, your business or your take on foreign affairs, when you publish a blog you are sharing information. As you research and write you will gain an expertise in your subject. As you publish, you will accumulate a body of work, no matter how short the individual entries, and in this you will create an online representation of your thinking.”2
A BBC news report on the 2 August 2005 reported that the online company Technorati (http://www.technorati.com/) – a search engine that keeps track of what is happening in the ‘blogoshphere’ – recently reported that number of blogs it was currently tracking as of August 2005 stood at 14.2 million. In just 6 months, this number had doubled. Technorati suggests that, on average, the number of blogs is doubling every five months. What is it about the weblog that it began as a way of compiling a list of links and yet became one of the largest, most successful forms of textual communication?
Blogs are easy to set up and, if you have the time, to maintain. There are a huge number of online blogging tools available, such as Blogger.com and MSN Spaces, where an individual writes their information in an online template, clicks a button, and there blog is available immediately. You can post as much and as often as you like and can choose whether or not to allow comments on your entries, allowing interactivity and conversations with those visiting your site. Alternatively, if you know (or are willing to learn) html, you can use an html editor, such as Dreamweaver, to create your posts and upload this content to your server.
Blogs also make it easier for non-technical, ‘unpublished’ writers to publish and voice their opinions. Some examples of blog use are campaigns, personal diaries, art projects, online magazines, community networking. They can be a valuable communication tool for those with no other publishing means. A blog can be used to communicate efficiently with a large number of people, manage classes, private journals, and keep ongoing records of a project. They can be an “uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled voice.”2
4. Development
During the initial stages of setting up the blog, I tried a number of free weblog hosts but none of them gave me the flexibility or design that I wanted. So I began playing around with html and developed a prototype website. This has undergone a number of design changes throughout the last 18 months (all of which can be seen in the development section of the site) until I came to realise that for easy, quick updating I needed a very simple layout and site, which is the one that is ‘live’ today. It is a simple design, with a nice visual layout, whilst being mostly reliant upon the text as its main content. I felt the most important aspects in the development were that the content was well-written, engaging and humorous in parts, and that the site is updated regularly and includes links and topics of interest to the visitor.
5. Results
To track my development throughout the MA Creative Writing course
The process of undertaking the above has been a very successful and fun aspect of developing the blog. I was able to openly express my opinions about course matters, particularly with relation to the workshop pieces and, at times, be able to release frustration via posting. When I began the course, I had no idea that it would be such an up-and-down learning experience and to be able to track this and my development has been very satisfying.
To create an ongoing portfolio of samples of my writing
Developing the site has given me the chance to showcase and promote examples of my writing to an audience that otherwise would not have the opportunity to see it. It is a way of demonstrating expertise and, hopefully, building up a reputation for my future career as a writer. My initial thoughts on showcasing my writing were, however, quite mixed. I had to consider whether or not to do this anonymously or let those reading the site know my identity (this is also true for the blog posts) and needed to consider was some of this work too personal? Who is going to read it? Is my blog personality different to my ‘real life’ one? I decided that anonymity was not the way forward. To showcase work and gain reputation (as highlighted above) I chose full exposure and the feedback received will be added to that from the course workshops to hopefully aid my future writing.
To gather and organise online writing resources such as competitions and online journals
This has been a very straightforward part of the site development. I have chosen links to sites that I have found helpful and informative and that I thought would be helpful to those visiting the site.
To develop a space where I can express my own ideas and opinions and develop my writing experience
The site began as a journal of thoughts about the MA Creative Writing course and has developed through a number of identities, and come full circle with the main emphasis once again on the blog. Blogging has helped me to identify areas of my writing that I am happy/unhappy with but has also helped me to build on my editing skills and become more confident about writing. When done frequently, it is a tool that gives a reason to write every day, even if only for 10 minutes, but also gives the freedom to experiment with different styles such as humour, abstract, and in the first few editions of the site, begin to write reviews. I have however, found time to be a major factor. Due to work and time pressures at various intervals since the project began, I have found it quite difficult to blog frequently and keep the site updated constantly. This is an area that I plan to work on and develop within the next year whilst completing my novel. A blog is a tool that needs to be updated constantly, if not daily, to keep the audience interested so that they continue to return. It is easy to direct the content of your own blog, but I need to establish when and what I will post and then adhere to this. I feel it important to let my audience know what to expect and when to expect it. The blog has become a way of cataloguing my thoughts and has helped me to come more self aware, more expressive and less afraid of sharing an opinion.
To develop a tool by which I am able to communicate with a relevant ‘audience’, with an aim to develop this into a future ‘author’s’ website
One of the main aims of writing a blog is not only to share your own opinions and thoughts but to gain feedback and comments on what has been posted – to develop the idea of virtual interaction. I haven’t yet promoted the site outside of friends and family and therefore this aspect of the project is under further development. To present your private journal and extracts of writing for comment from the entire internet community is a big step to take but this is the next step in the site’s evolution. As my novel develops over the next year and I become more expressive about my writing, I hope to join an online community, such as www.authorsblogs.com, where feedback and criticism will be widely available. I also plan to promote the site via numerous websites that act as blog search engines to increase exposure. The end result will hopefully be a website to promote my work, if and when I become a published writer, so that I can communicate with readers and the larger internet audience about my work and aid in its promotion. There are already a huge number of authors who have begun to do this and I believe it will become a highly successful future tool for budding and successful writers.
6. Conclusion
Blogging has developed enormously over the last 5 years, and in the next 5 it is likely things will continue to change. Blogging is becoming more of a way to share experiences and interact virtually with other like-minded individuals rather than being a way of expressing internal ideas and opinions. This development on interaction and communication will mean that the blog will develop alongside other online communication tools such as email and instant messaging. For me personally, it has become a journal of expression, which helps aid the writing and creative process and a way of communicating my ideas and work to others and to begin to make use of the comments feature for constructive feedback on my work. A lot of the posts within the blog detail for themselves the progress (or lack of it, in some cases) that I have made throughout the course and with this project. It is something I plan to continue to develop as a tool to aid my writing and thinking processes and use to communicate with a relevant audience.
7. References
1. The History of Weblogs – www.weblogs.com
2. Blood, Rebecca. The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog. Perseus Books, 2002.
