DISPATCHES: Hag
OCT. 18, 2010: AND NOW HAG IS A NOOK, TOO
Check out the Barnes & Noble version here.
SEPT. 24, 2010: A NEW, LOWER PRICE FOR THE HAG E-BOOK
Amazon has changed their royalty structure, and I am now able to lower the price of the HAG—from $9.99 to $3.99. If you havent seen it yet, check out her website or go directly to Amazon's Kindle store. Here's the cover for the e-book:
MARCH 29, 2010: THE HAG NOVEL AND E-BOOK
The HAG novel was started years ago, and I fussed over it for a long time before turning my attention to the movie version. Over the last year I've gone over the thousands of words I wrote, revised them, added a final chapter, and then 161 photos. It is now, at long last, available as an illustrated book, at Amazon's Create Space. I've also formatted it as a Kindle e-book, and it has now been accepted and is on line at Amazon's Kindle store. The movie itself also continues at Create Space, Take a look...
FEB 20, 2010: YES, THE HAG NOVEL...
...is in progress again. It began as a novel, became a movie, and now—I see a novel again. I've been laying out the pages for publication at Create Space. I'm taking some of the hundreds of photos of Jacqueline as the HAG, and turning them into black and white illustrations. Here is one page:
You can see more, larger examples, and follow my progress here.
JAN. 22, THURSDAY 2010: YOUTUBE
I've just uploaded three short videos from the HAG disk, to Youtube, with links to the HAG site. I'll have more to upload over the next few days. They will also go to Revver, ITube, and other places, all part of my effort to drive traffic to the dear lady. We'll see if it works....
DEC. 2, TUESDAY: IT'S LIVE!
I've now approved the DVD for sale...finally. You can order it at Create Space, the publishing subsidiary of Amazon. So please browse through the HAG site—hagmovie.com—and check it out, and if youre interested, grab a copy...and let me know what you think: don@hagmovie.com.
Nov. 25, TUESDAY: THE HAG PROOF
The DVD proof of HAG arrived today: I need to test it, make sure everything works, give the ok, and then proceed to—well, sell it....
NOV. 4, TUESDAY. THE HAG IS OFF...
...off in the mail, at last. I'll be getting the proof copy in a couple weeks, I think. Then I'll see how it does in the marketplace...and meanwhile, I can resume my work on this website and on my novel, Evidence of a Lost City.
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OCT. 21, TUESDAY. WAITING FOR THE HAG
I've finally finished the DVD for HAG, my movie. I'm now designing the disk illustration and the insert. This is what the disk looks like:
The front cover:
And the back cover:
DISPATCHES: Evidence of a Lost City
JUNE 9, 2011: THE FREAK
The Freak is a new character, one of the grotesqueries, for the movie...
JUNE 1, 2011: A NEW OPENING VIDEO
The opening page of the Evidence website now has a new short video, which includes, well, myself, talking about the novel and movie. Yes, that's me...take a look, and learn what I have to say...
JUNE 22, 2010: A REAL BLOG
I was never happy with the blog set-up on this website: no one could add comments. So I finally hit Google's Blogspot, and shifted my commentaries there. Take a look: http://evidenceofalostcity.blogspot.com/
MAY 19, 2010: LOTS OF NEW WORK
I havent updated this section in a long time--which means there's a lot of new work at the Evidence site: more writing (including the whole first chapter, revised) and more video on the Scenes page, more Blog entries, and some new character studies, especially with Enoja, John's first guide.
AUGUST 4, 2009: UPDATED SITE
I've finally found time to work on the site itself--that is, re-designing the pages using CSS, and adding individual pages for the different characters. They each deserve their own page, dont they? That will give me room to experiment with each one, adding videos and notes to help define who they are.
MARCH 31: THREE CAGES, A NEW VIDEO
I've been experimenting with new characters--Chamelea, Judith, and now Metalica. You can see some photos of these creatures, and some short videos on the characters page. Here's a photo:
JAN. 12, 2009: A NEW YEAR
It has taken me a while to shrug off the past year, and all the year-end celebrations. But at last I've started some more work with my new novel, Evidence of a Lost City, and have posted some images and short videos on its site. Here is one image:
OCT. 4, SATURDAY: THE TWELFTH NOVEL
Evidence of a Lost City will be my twelfth novel, and second movie. Presuming, of course, I actually manage to finish it. One should never be presumptuous when dealing with art. These creatures, I long ago discovered, have tortuous lives of their own, and I can never be certain if they will embrace me and carry me with them, or not. My past is littered with fragments of novels, some quite lengthy. I revisit them sometimes. Holding their pages in my hands is a strange sensation. I see remnants of my life there—like the bones left by some animal. Well, I must avoid becoming too fanciful. In any case I wish to write here about the new work. Its themes have become increasingly significant to me, for reasons which will doubtless be explicated later. I wrote the first couple thousand words over the winter, an agonizing few at a time, and then spent months re-working them. This is not my typical procedure. Eight months to write 2,000 words? That is crazy. Normally I leap into a novel and write a couple thousand words a week. I immerse myself in it. I carry it with me wherever I go. For the last twenty years I've been doing this in Mexico. I wandered all over that country. I found bits and pieces of my novels in the streets, the buildings, the faces of the people. It was a strange experience. Yet I produced only five novels during this period. And one movie, of course—HAG. For a man who prides himself on his discipline, on his ability fo focus completely on his work, this is a paltry output. My argument is that a novel has to be discovered. I dont simply sit down and decide to write one. I search until I find it, and its entrance. My life has been a search in a very concrete sense, that is, I have wandered through the world, one continent to the next, across one ocean and then another, a kind of exploration. I lived with Moro pirates in the Sulu Sea, hitch-hiked down Africa, took a canoe along jungle rivers in Guatamala—well, and much more. Buses, trains, motorcycles, ships. Nuku-Hiva and Tai-o-hai, Alice Springs and Carnarvan, Pulcallpa and Manaus. This physical search has been the metaphorical equivalent of my search for novels.
So. Evidence of a Lost City. I find it lying just in front of me. I believe I have stumbled upon its entrance. What will I find here? We shall see, indeed, if I discover anything....
DISPATCHES: Artifacts
JUNE 1, 2011: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A WANDERER IS NOW AN E-BOOK
Autobiography of a Wanderer was my tenth novel, written in Aguascalientes, Mexico, in 2000. It's also the second in my "Lola Trilogy"--a series of novels about the muse, which began with Orifice and ended with Hag. All three are now available as e-books for the Kindle and the Nook. Check out its page to see a new short video, some photos, and more information.
MAY 24, 2011: NEW VIRTUAL PHOTOS
MARCH 20, 2011: ORIFICE IS HERE
Orifice is now published as another e-book, available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, for $2.95. You can see some of its illustrations, and a couple videos, on its page. Here's a sample:
DEC. 22, 2010: MOFA IS NOW PUBLISHED
Mofa was my second novel, begun in Costa Rica in about 1968 and finished in Riverside, California about a year later. It is now available at both Amazon (for the Kindle) and Barnes and Noble (for the Nook). You can see more (including a couple videos) at the Mofa Novel page....
NOV. 1, 2010:
INSPIRED BY ORPHE
The Orphe woman, I mean. I've been visualizing her in my mind, placing her in different locales, differnet postures—amd then creating the image in Poser. She's on the Orphe Novel page.....
OCT. 7, 2010: AND NOW ORPHE IS A NOOK, TOO, ANDSOON WILL BE AN ILLUSTRATED PAPERBACK
Check out the Barnes & Noble version here.
SEPT. 25, 2010: ORPHE IS NOW A KINDLE E-BOOK
Orphe is my fourth novel, and I've just finished formatting it as a Kindle e-book.It's now available at Amazon.com, here. It's only $3.50 to download. You can learn more about the novel on its own page. Here's the cover:
There are also five interior illustrations. And I've already begun work on the next version: a printed paperback, illustrated with dozens of images. When it is finished—I hope before Christmas—I'll make a note here.
JUNE 14, 2010: THE NEW SCULPTURES
I've been working on the Serpentine Hallway—a series of sculptures that will eventually cover the walls and ceiling. Here's one image:
I've started sanding down the figures. The first results are here, on the Serpentine Hallway page....
MAY 25, 2010: A NEW PAGE FOR THE WILDERNESSI've been slowly revising the pages for my novels, and have just finished laying out the Wilderness page, with its video. The Wilderness now joins Maya, Orphe, Metropolis, and Mofa in the new format, each with its own short video.
MAY 18, 2010: ORPHE AS AN ILLUSTRATED NOVEL
My novel version of HAG is finished, so I've started working on my next publication project: Orphe, my fourth novel. You can now see a short video and three photos on his page...
DECEMBER 28: A NEW PAGE FOR MAYA
I've finally found time to work again on this website—I've been wanting to re-design the pages for each of my novels. They really need something more exciting than the pages I've been using. Today I uploaded the new version of Maya's page: it now opens with a Flash presentation, a short video of the character Virginia White as she bathes by the cenote—
—and some excerpts and copies of reviews. I also added a small guestbook, courtesy of Google, so it should be possible for viewers to leave a comment. I expect this page will be the template for each of my novels—as soon as I can find the time to work on them. Take a look, and please leave a comment...
SEPTEMBER 29: THE FORUM IS BACK
A couple years ago, I had a forum page here. The spammers soon found it, however, and it became too much trouble to delete the crap. This time I've set it up as a moderated forum, which means I'll have to approve the message before it is posted. You can see what others have said, and write your own comments. I'll be adding forums to both the HAG and the Evidence websites too. It would be nice to see some robust arguments here....
AUGUST 30: SIX NEW PAGES
New opening pages for Novels, Stories, Essays, Poems, Photos:and Videos, each in what will be the new format, a short Flash video above the information.
The individual photo pages have been re-designed, too. There's much more to do, but I hope the re-design will be finished in a couple more weeks....
AUGUST 5: A RE-DESIGNED PAGE
I finally returned to this site, and redesigned this page using some CSS coding. Now if only I can find the time to re-code the remaining pages....
FEBRUARY 20: FLASH
I decided the attempt to put all my photos in one giant Flash presentation wasnt working—it took too long to load. So I've decided to make a series of smaller Flash presentations...but havent had the time yet to do so, since I've been working on the layout of the HAG novel. (Take a look here.)
JANUARY 12, 2009: BACK TO WORK
I have been working on a Flash presentation for the Photos page. It is almost done, and I expect to upload it in another week or so. Then I will begin a new look for the Novels page. I've got some interesting ideas for its construction: a kind of 3d world, where different doorways and windows open onto different novels. We shall see how possible this will be.....
OCTOBER 18, SATURDAY: THE RE-DESIGN
Artifacts is undergoing one of its periodic re-designs. Which allows me to raise certain questions. There’s an ancient argument—I believe Aristotle first developed this—about form vs. function. In the early days of the internet, when connections were painfully slow, function dominated everything. Add video to a website? or even complicated graphics? Ludicrous—your viewer would have to spend hours waiting for things to load. Now, of course, with high-speed connections, powerful codecs, and applications like Flash, it is eminently feasible to offer motion and sound on every page. A Flash .flv movie can load almost instantly, and play full-screen. As designers, therefore, we have opportunities to play with form and content in ways that were never possible before.
I am primarily a writer, a novelist. Words lined up on a page allowed me to create worlds. But I always thought that words on a page, by their very nature, demanded an art that was non-realist. The form could be called magical realism, surrealism, expressionism, whatever—but if you used words merely to create (however poorly or well) a “reality” that mimicked our own world, our own streets and neighborhoods and friends, then your art—your created world—would always be second-rate. Words cannot actually compete with the touch of a hand on a silken thigh, or the anguish lingering in a broken heart. No matter how well you employed your words, the world on your page was inferior to the world around you. But these words, when employed to create a kind of hyper-reality, a reality that was not possible in our actual, quotidian existence—that was an idea that enthralled me, even as a child. Let me see if I can say this even more clearly. Words which attempt to be no more than a copy of quotidian reality are themselves—quotidian. Ordinary. Unremarkable. It is only when words attempt something greater, something particular to words, something deeper, something more magical, that they perform their necessary function. Words can do things that reality cannot. And reality is capable of things that words are not. The question, therefore, that the artistic writer must ask himself, is—What can words do, that nothing else can do? What is particular and peculiar to words scrawled on a piece of paper? What opportunities does this offer a writer? That is a question which has engrossed me all my life.
Which brings me back to the web. What can the web do—that only the web can do? that is different from novels and stories? different from paintings? different from music and film and stage? That is the question that I plan to explore in this version of Artifacts.
THE WEB AS CONTAINER
You can hang photos, paintings, sketches on a website, just as you can on the walls of your local art gallery. You can show movies, just like the nearby cineplex. You can listen to music, to poetry, to novels and stories, or even read them on screen if you can tolerate a computer monitor. You can get news and play games, visit virtual worlds, talk to or message friends and enemies--even instantly televise your communication. Try doing all that with your TV or your open book or your chess board, or telephone (though telephones are getting there). A website is capable of an extraordinary range of activities. Here at ArtifactsMagazine you cant play games--yet--but you can browse through some of my stories and novels, see movies, and so on. I'd like to set up a virtual world here some day, so your avatar could wander through the terrain and buildings I created. I can imagine visitors stumbling upon rooms full of old photos. Or pausing to watch through a window as a woman dances, or see a playlet performed, digitally, on a stage. Or find yourself in the middle of a movie--even given a role to play, as in a video game. Or perhaps within a "book" whose different chapters are acted out in different rooms. All this is actually possible now, and you can find aspects scattered around the web. But much of it is still primitive, and requires a technical expertise not available to someone like myself. Soon, however, a program like Flash or Director will make it easy to set up your own 3D world. I can imagine my ArtifactsMagzine as such a world, a small version of Second Life, with better graphics and smoother interactions.
Meanwhile, of course, each "page" of this website is a kind of separate environment: an art gallery, a movie theatre, a library. It's a container for different kinds of work. But how can I make each "environment" more web-specific? Not just a copy of a "real" gallery, or theatre, or library? More--what? Immersive? Intereactive? What?....D.N. Stuefloten
Comments? Contact: don@dnstuefloten.com
To see more of HAG, visit: http://hagmovie.com
and for my new novel and movie: http://evidenceofalostcity.com
