SXSW: Why Digital Media Matters for Writers
The SXSW Interactive conference and festival was held in Austin, Texas last weekend, and I was lucky enough to attend for the first time. Among the chaos of thousands of people descending upon Austin—multiple trade shows, exhibits, meet-ups, bands, parties (free drinks!), food trucks (BBQ and tacos!)—were the educational panels. During a couple of panels I attended, there was wistful mention of wishing you could be in more than one place at once, as it was impossible to go to everything on the official SXSW schedule. (At one panel Martine Rothblatt, author of Virtually Human, discussed “mind-cloning” and the future possibility of actually being in more than one place at once, but that is a whole other topic.)
Each day of the conference, there was a tough decision to be made: do I check out bands and get delicious local tacos, or feed my brain instead? Although it was tempting, I tried to more often go with the educational option—the one that fed my curiosity about the current state of the digital world we live in, rather than the instant gratification of the here and now.
One of the things I have been working on in my writing is sustained focus and concentration. It is the easiest thing in the world for writers to get distracted from the task of writing, especially if the Internet or a smartphone is within easy reach. Writing itself is a process of focus, and once you do you get on track, then look out!: there’s no stopping you (the phrase “get the juices flowing” would be apt here, I kind of hate that cliché, personally. What does that even mean?)
Once your attention is taken out of that place of focus (maybe, you think, I will just take a break and pop in on Facebook for a sec, and then before you know it, precious minutes have ticked by as you scanned and scrolled through posts of what others are doing with their lives). It can then become very difficult to get back into it. A similar situation comes up in the workplace concerning multi-tasking. I don’t find hopping between multiple projects throughout the day as fulfilling as being able to concentrate on one project at a time.
One panel I attended at SXSW was “Disrupting Innovation: Book Publishing and New Media” moderated by Aaron Lammer, Co-Founder of longform.org, with Iris Blasi, Marketing Director and Senior Editor of Pegasus Books; Ryan Chapman, Managing Director of Marketing and Digital Projects of BOMB magazine; and Jeff Umbro, Digital Marketing Manager of Goldberg McDuffie Communications.
A topic that was discussed during the panel was the eBook, a relatively new digital format that has gained popularity within the last 10 years, but is still in its early stages of evolution.
Blasi mentioned that even if publishers have interest in taking advantage of the technology to make eBooks more interactive translations of print versions—for example, through audio, video, additional content, or enhanced user experience—Amazon has little interest in doing so because they make enough money off of eBooks without that content.
It’s an intriguing question: if you were to translate Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past into an interactive and experiential storytelling narrative, what are the different ways that could be done? How could you convey the essence of a story through a digital format? A couple of examples of interactive narratives include the novella Pry, and book and story publisher, Atavist. Antioch alum and former Lunch Ticket editor-in-chief Lise Quintana is the CEO and founder of Narrative Technologies and Zoetic Press. (Check it out!)
Image from Pry, http://prynovella.com/
In considering innovative digital formats as a writer, there is an inherent dichotomy: the only way for me to really write a story that comes from a heartfelt place is often through the age-old and solitary process of putting pen to paper, or typing away at the computer—not figuring out how to involve elements like images, audio, or video to complement the story.
Attending SXSW this year, I was jolted back into the modern age and out of Proust’s. I remembered there is a kind of creativity that comes only from collaboration, not from solitude and quiet. In connecting with the exciting and innovative digital world we live in, I do think it’s ideal to have one foot in the past, the other in the present, and to maintain a semblance of our selves outside of collaboration. As writers, it’s also relevant to consider how we can collaborate on, innovate, and create stories within new formats and through digital storytelling elements.
Erin Anadkat is a MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Antioch University Los Angeles. http://www.erinanadkat.tumblr.com/, https://twitter.com/erinanadkat
