Sunday, September 18, 2016

2016 WRITE: The state of writing. Writing community in the virtual worlds. Invited article by Jane Watson

The state of writing.  
Writing community in the virtual worlds. 
An invited article by Jane Watson
Virtual worlds have a number of writing communities.  Here is one such community led by Australian writer Jane Watson and located in the OpenSim world of Kitely.  
The Muse Visitor Center
Click image to enlarge

Go there

  • hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/The State of Writing/562/598/23
  • In Kitely, put Firestorm Hop into the Nav (top) bar of the viewer*
  • Hypergrid address: grid.kitely.com:8002:The State of Writing
  • Put the hypergrid address in the Find box of World Map.  Click Find, TP
  • Web address: https://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Arton-Tripsa/The-State-of-Writing
  • *Same instructions apply to other Hops given below.
Arton Tripsa 
  • Hindustan Contessa
  • A novel by Jane Watson
  • ISBN: 0 330 36361 1
  • Picador - Pan Macmillan Australia
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  • (More after the break)
  • Where is Arcadia?
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Metaverse events, current and upcoming
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The State Of Writing

In the centre of my world, The State Of Writing, a giant typewriter hangs in the air, above a hill that overlooks the main body of water. In the sky beside it, there is a mesh avatar of the Little Prince, from the book of the same name by the French writer, Antoine de St-ExupĂ©ry, and a flock of birds. Down below the Little Prince, sitting on the pinnacle of the hill, there is a little fox. Those of you who know the story will remember that it is the fox who teaches the Prince the important principle of life: “…what is essential is invisible to the eye…”
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The Little Prince
  • hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/The State of Writing/395/714/66
That motto more or less sums up my understanding of the value of virtual worlds and why I am here. I believe that we log in not just to play but also to be in a community that allows us to understand other people’s real essence, which may be hidden by their outward appearance in the real world. A group of writers hangout regularly on my world. We talk and connect around the topics of poetry, writing in general, various works in progress in particular and in ways to promote that work. You are welcome to join us, any evening.
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I will touch very briefly on various locations in The State Of Writing that I have set up to promote this community.

The Muse Visitor Centre

The Muse Visitor Centre is the first point of log in and the hub of the teleport system. It contains a map of all the places in the world that had been set up to support writers. You can teleport to the Writers Village, The Quiet Writer, The Writers Lodge, the Writers Meditation Centre, and various other places that support inspiration, contemplation and deep thought. If you have time you can also sit in the main lounge room and watch some great TED talks given by writers.

Avatari

Your next destination after The Muse, if you are new to Kitely, should probably be Avatari. I set up Avatari to provide the newcomer with a set of clothes and an avatar, slightly better than the generic kind. Despite my emphasis here on the inner life, I found one of the obstacles to getting some of my friends into Kitely was their desire to look good. This of course in no way negates the importance of the inner life - it just makes it better clothed :-)
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Avatari
  • hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/The State of Writing/322/197/21

The Writers’ Village

The Writers Village is located on the largest continent of the world. It contains free shops for creative folks – writers, bloggers, artists et cetera. The Writers Village also contains a large art gallery where any artist can display their work. As well as that we have the Story Emporium, which is still under construction.

Writers village

  • hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/The State of Writing/517/347/40

The Quiet Writer

Now that you are clothed and orientated, and have a shop to fill with your writings, you may like make your way to The Quiet Writer, an outdoor meeting place where writers can work undisturbed. Writing is a lonely pursuit and sometimes even sitting with someone else virtually, while you actually pursue your writing in real life, can be helpful. As the name suggests this is a quiet working place. The area has desks and chairs, refreshments and some easy chairs. The desks and chairs, made by Witchy's in Kitely, who, by the way, kindly gifted me the flying typewriter in the sky, have wonderful typing poses, including a most unique one for a blocked writer, the head banging pose. At the appropriate moment your avatar bends forward and gently and rhythmically bangs their head on the keyboard, in abject writerly despair.

The building right behind this area will soon house a collection of info graphics and quotes on the writing life… and will provide shelter for the quiet writer in case it rains;-)

The Writers' Travel Club

Once you tire of this world and want to venture further afield on the hypergrid, you may like to visit The Writers' Travel Club to get your bearings, before you leave. The Writers' Travel Club was the brainchild of one of our residents, who felt that he would like to write something about the places he was visiting on the hypergrid. Not only did this seem a worthwhile writing exercise but this type of review process could perhaps be helpful to people who would like someone’s opinion on a particular place before they go. So we now have a chest, which is gathering written travel reviews, for anyone to access, in The Writers' Travel Club cafe. Come in, read the reviews or add you own!

Our Residents

In closing I should mention our residents. In order to create the community here I have drawn together a collection of writers and artists and housed them. In this way I hoped to seed and bring together a group of of creative people. If the world functions well as a community it is only because of this close-knit and inspiring group of creative people who live together on this world. I am very grateful for their presence :-)
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News and Notes

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    The Hypergrid WIP Show

    The Hypergrid WIP is a one hour "show & tell" of works in progress or recently completed. All builders from beginner to pro are invited.  Presentations are in voice and text.  For text presentations, best bring the text in a notecard and paste it into chat.  Voice presentations may be captured in video.  Stills and videos from the show may appear in this blog and elsewhere.

    Next WIP show 

    • Next WIP show: Sun. Sept 25, Noon SLT 
    • Cookie II location (fourth Sunday of the month)
    • HG address below: paste into the World Map next to Find. Click Find, TP
    • grid.kitely.com:8002:Cookie II 
    • in Kitely: paste into Nav (top) bar of Firestorm, Enter.
    • hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Cookie II/68/369/22
    • Narasnook  location (second Sunday of the month)
    • Pandora allows presenters to run high threat OSSL functions.
    • world.narasnook.com:8900
    • Put the line above in your World Map next to Find.  Click Find. TP
    • At Narasnook, use World Map to search for Pandora
    • Cookie II location (fourth Sunday of the month)
    • HG address below: paste into the World Map next to Find. Click Find, TP
    • grid.kitely.com:8002:Cookie II 
    • in Kitely: paste into Nav (top) bar of Firestorm, Enter.
    • hop://grid.kitely.com:8002/Cookie II/68/369/22

      Previous Articles from the WIP show 

      HG links-- depending on your interests 

      Radio in the virtual world

      Metaverse beginner help

      Schools in virtual worlds

      • I publish 5 or 6 days a week, skipping 1 or 2 days in midweek
        •
      • For more on topics like this, follow Selby Evans in Google+ 
      • What do we do in Virtual Worlds? 
      • Google search this blog: Search bar, upper left--or:
      • Put site:virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com at the end of the search terms 
      • Annotated screen shots made with Jing
      • All original content on this blog is Creative Commons License, attribution only. 
      • Second Life, Linden, SLurl, and SL are trademarks of Linden Research Inc. 
      • This blog is not affiliated with Second Life or anything else. 
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