For the foreseeable future

With these weeknotes I publicly track and archive whatever it is I spend my time on.

Last week the video of my TEDxDelft talk was published, nearly two months after the event. Other than some heavy breathing and a few too many ums I’m happy with the result, I think it explains the hybrid writer concept in a personal and well-structured way. I’ll be using this for the foreseeable future to try and get my point accross. If you haven’t seen the talk yet, check it out below. And feel free to spread the word by sharing the video in your network.

The next milestone is The Future of Publishing Summit on June 24th, where I will present some of my hybrid writing research as well as the Geometry Girl prototype that we’re working on as I write this.

Last week Maurice at Codeglue continued the programming part, SonicPicnic delivered some preliminary audio tracks, and I visited Saskia at her new shared workspace at Makerversity in Amsterdam, to discuss colors and symbol animations. I also met up with Nina Polak, one of the writers on my board of advisors, to get her feedback on the app’s current state.

What else? I…

• Published the interview with Annelies Verbeke, the final (for now) and perhaps my favorite episode in the Hybrid Writer’s Podcast series.
• Gave a lecture at the symposium ‘Social Technologies’ at Leiden University, on invitation of Max van Duijn, whom I met at TEDxDelft. The video of his talk isn’t up yet.
• Visited Two Tribes, pitching the first properly working version of the RIVE ending to them, to much enthusiasm. Additionally, the voice-overs came in from our voice-actor and started being implemented in the game, making it truly come to life.
• Had my monthly meeting with Sytze, discussing the literary side of his world-building interactive theater game project, as well as hybrid writing in general.
• Same with Menno, which was energizing as always. He also bought me some cake.
• Judged Dore van Montfoort’s finished graduation project, together with book reviewer Sebastiaan Kort. Dore is the creative writing student I also mentored; it was interesting to see a traditional critic’s reaction to her interactieve fiction.
• Met up with author Liesbeth Dolk and her husband, technologist Hans Kleijn, to discuss a project funded by the Dutch Foundation for Literature.
• #hobbydevved with Hessel, diving into Unity and C# for the first time in a while. After spending some time on a new idea, I got back to porting my last Game Maker project, the puzzle shooter, which is proving to be a useful exercise. Last week I got my version of Dijkstra pathfinding working in this new environment.
• The week was cut short by a long weekend out camping in the province of Zeeland, celebrating our neighbors’ anniversary with their friends and family. The children played and I danced for the first time in ages, and even though my entire body ached afterwards, I had a jolly good time.

Average step count per day: 12.371
Average staircase count per day: 11
Average sleep per night: 5:54
Average weight: 87,0 kg