J P Smythe’s Website.

I’m so sorry, if you are still hanging in there, waiting for my Lazarus-style return.  Things that might be of interest:

- Becoming Dr Smythe hasn’t changed me.

- My novel is being sent off LITERALLY AS I WRITE to agents.  It’s a sprawlingly epic family saga, set over hundreds of years, and covering topics such as family history, illness, sex, death, infidelity, murder, torture, three different wars, insanity, oranges, newspapers, and fate.  It’s called Hereditation, and is – if I say so myself – technologically bleeding-edge, designed to be completely readable both on the traditional printed page and in digital form.  If you know anyone who might be interested, please send them my way: jp.smythe@gmail.com is the best way.

- This website needs a revamp and a rethink.  I’d like to start presenting something more current, more daily, with links to competitions and online fiction and stuff that writers – and readers – would like to know, but I feel that I haven’t the time.  I don’t want to do it half-arsed, so I am putting it on the back-burner until the Summer, when my teaching at Uni finishes and I have nothing on my plate for 3 months.

- So, until then, I have set up jpsmythe.tumblr.com.  I love tumblr. This will exist as my personal blog, with updates and links and silly things and really useful things, as often as I can find them.  I’m not saying I won’t be posting here – don’t delete this from your readers or anything! – but I won’t be making any promises, as I haven’t been able to keep them to you lot lately.

So, that’s your Lazarus, and he doesn’t amount to much, I’m afraid.  But he’ll be back – and he’ll bring that much-touted redesign with him.

Well, I passed, and am now Dr James Smythe, PhD MA BA.  I’ll write more in a few days, about the Viva itself, and the process, and more about the thesis, but for now I am going to rest and not think about writing or the internet or anything even slightly complicated for a few days.   Thanks for your well-wishes, by the way! 

Well, it’s been forever.  If you’ve managed to keep hope that I’ll return – and thanks for the emails and well-wishes, I really appreciated them! – then here’s your payoff.  I’m back.  Slowly at first, I must admit, but I’m back nonetheless.  My Viva should be happening in the next few weeks, and then after that I’ll post my thesis up here, or at least chunks of it turned into nicely digestible blog entries.  The final title of the Critical part was ‘Taking The Index Back: What Print Fiction Can Learn From The Internet’, and is a subject that I find fascinating.  Where do we go in print fiction with all the advances – or, what seem to be advances – that have been made to fictional forms using the internet?  Are there ways to adapt?  Are there things that authors and readers alike can do to prepare for the day when books will be available in either a print or digital form, and to adapt for the methods of reading that those forms will include?  Well, be patient and I’ll stick up some of my answers, at some point.   So, it’s all go here.  There’s been no major advances in blog fiction over the last few weeks – indeed, /fact HQ has been pitifully quiet.  Eli over at Novelr has had some interesting guest posts the last few weeks,   if:book has some stuff on Douglas Coupland’s new work (which is really interesting, as it features a novel ghost-written by DC that purports to be by the main character in his new novel), and today a new blog celebrating all things Sci-Fi went live over at io9.com.  I’m sure there was lots of other stuff, but then, I tried to have a little break after submitting the PhD: that stuff really takes up your time.  Any suggestions for stuff I should be reading?

I can’t pretend that I have the time for blogs at the moment.  This is terrible, I know: I am neglecting the thing that has really driven the reason that I am neglecting it.In other words,  the thesis that I am doing about blog fiction has stopped me writing my blog.  I am weeks away – less, if I admit how scared I am – from submitting.  My Viva panel has been decided and my forms are right in front of me.  The Critical Component/Commentary thing has taken my very soul, and I fear I might never get it back.  I’m ten thousand words over the word limit in both sections and I don’t know how to cut them back.  So, this – this thing here – I don’t really have the time for.  So I’m going to point you in the direction of some things and you can see how you feel about them.   The Booker Prize entrants are going to be digitized for everyone to get for free for a lot of money. Interesting article about whether the net is good for writers.  Were the Hardy Boys gay? An article over on Novelr about increasing readability on the net: is this why people don’t read blog fiction?  At some point I’ll pop back on and update about the PhD progress, and also start to diversify what I writer about: looking more at literature as a whole is the first step, with some articles based around my recent experiences teaching – and workshopping – Creative Writing at University level. 

For my PhD, I am conducting some interviews.  Some will be with regular readers, people who read fiction in whatever form it takes.  Hopefully, that’ll be you.  Below are some questions.  I’d be eternally – a long time, all told – grateful if you would answer them, and then either leave your answers in the comments here – with your full name etc – or email me the answers at jp.smythe@gmail.com. Answer as many or as few of them as you like, with answers as long or as short as you can be bothered to provide.

Many thanks: I’ll remember you when I’m rich and famous etc etc.

Questions For A Reader.

1. What do you think that the internet has to offer fiction that traditional print doesn’t?
2. What do you think that the internet – or, online fiction, more specifically, in all of its forms – has to offer print fiction?
3. Have you ever read anything in print that you wished you had been able to read online?  And vice versa?
4. Have you ever read online fiction?  If so, do you read it through the sites themselves or via RSS?  Do you think that either method is beneficial?  Are the aesthetics of the internet, such as they are, important to fiction?
5. Do you agree with the statement that “the notion of fiction belongs with the print book”? [Please read article before response, or leave answer blank.]
6. Is there anything that would make you want to read online fiction more?  Big name authors, writing that can only work in the format, legitimization… Anything?
7. Do you feel that online fiction is a genre unto itself?  If we assume that 50% of online fiction doesn’t utilize the format, and it is just a means of vanity publishing – big assumption, I know – does that make it any different, really, to reading a novel made famous in print as a text file?
8. If it became accepted that novels should be given away in digital form when you buy a print edition, would that entice you to read more digitally?
9. Say I am a famous author.  My early novel – 20 years old, let’s say – is going to be published again, only this time on the net.  Remediation has added hotlinks, imagery, hypertextual stylings; all those things that were going to revolutionize writing.  Do you instinctively think that this would be detrimental to the original text?
10. Would you ever shop at, say, lulu.com as easily as you would shop at a Borders or Waterstones Book shop?  Or even amazon.com?
11. Did the announcement of this years Blooker prize winners drive you to buy any of the books?  Have you even heard of the Blooker Prize?
12. For you, personally, what is your definition of ‘interactive fiction’?