James Gottlieb

Some Writing Observations

Posted by james at 11:59 am Writing No Responses » Tagged with: Fiction, Writing

Mar 202012

The working title for my new novel is Silent Rain. When the novel opens, it’s already been raining non-stop for a week or two. The reservoir up river from Sherman’s family is overflowing and the dam is showing signs that it might go at any time. Pretty soon, it does collapse and all the water races downstream to wipe out the town below it. This sets off a series of events that finds Sherman searching for his family after he sees them get taken by an armed gang.

At this point, I have almost 31,000 words. Sherman hasn’t found his family yet, but he has an idea of where they might be. He’s run into a monster, scavenged for food, and escaped from someone. I think he’ll eventually meet up with the rest of his family, but it may be a little while. Or it might not. He’s about to open a door and explore a place where he might find them, eventually.

An Adventure!

Posted by james at 4:01 pm Digital Humanities, MITH No Responses » Tagged with: JavaScript, Programming

Mar 152012

In my last post, I talked some about the need to look across projects and find common elements that could be factored out. I’d like to start a series of posts in which I talk about some of the work I’m doing at MITH in developing some foundational libraries that we are using to build digital humanities projects. Along the way, I’ll discuss some of the philosophy behind those libraries and our approach to the projects.

Today, I want to walk through the design of an example application I’m working on that implements the classic Adventure game as a JavaScript web application. I’m not finished with it yet, but the framework is there. I’m just adding content and tweaking some behavior now, such as handling darkness. You can go into the hut, pick up the key, and then go down and open the grate to get into the cave.

Coding and Digital Humanities

Posted by james at 11:33 am Digital Humanities 5 Responses » Tagged with: Digital Humanities, Programming

Mar 082012

Miriam Posner’s post, “Some things to think about before you exhort everyone to code,” has touched off a series of conversations on twitter and elsewhere. My own feeling is that she’s nailing some things square on the head and, fortunately, doesn’t conclude saying that we should banish coding from the digital humanities. We just need to be careful how we cast the need for coding.

I’ve tossed around a nugget in my mind for the last few weeks, and Mariam’s post is making me focus more intently on it: A digital humanist afraid of the digital is like a scholar of French literature who is afraid of French. You can’t be a digital humanist if you don’t understand the digital. That doesn’t mean you have to be able to code any more than being a scholar of French literature means you have to be able to write French literature. You just have to be able to understand the nuances of what you’re studying and how you are studying it. Otherwise, how can you properly interpret the results?

The Irony of Editing

Posted by james at 5:22 pm Writing No Responses » Tagged with: Kindle, Writing

Mar 042012

Before I get into the meat of this post, I’d like to point out that I have removed my novel, Of Fish and Swimming Swords, from B&N and Smashwords (and all of the markets fed by Smashwords) so that I can participate in Amazon’s KDP Select program for the next three months. I didn’t have any significant sales through those channels, so I’m not losing much by doing this. I’ll make it available for free on the Kindle every once in a while, including all day tomorrow, Monday, 5 March (Pacific time). Take a chance on it when it’s free and, if you feel like it, write a review or tell a friend. You don’t have to own a Kindle to buy a book for Kindle, especially if the book is free!

The Role of Statistics

Posted by james at 2:08 pm Digital Humanities No Responses » Tagged with: Statistics

Mar 012012

This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Narrative Statistics

English: Hydrogen Density Plots for n up to 4.

Image via Wikipedia

In the Narrative Statistics series of posts, I’m exploring different ways to characterize fiction using statistics. I’m recovering from a flu or cold as well as a nasty cough that followed, so instead of delving into deep math, I want to review what I see as the role of statistics, at least for this series. Many people consider statistics to be magical formulae that give questionable answers. In the humanities, there seems to be a lot of mistrust for statistics because people don’t understand them.

I’ve been in the audience when someone has presented some statistical results and someone else comments that because the outliers obviously don’t agree with what they already believe to be true, the outliers must be mistakes and thus the statistical method must be suspect. They then turn around and ask what statistics can provide other than reinforcing what they already know. They first throw out any new information and then ask what new information the methods can provide. The profound lack of logic mystifies me.

Trying out Project Wonderful

Posted by james at 2:02 pm Publishing No Responses » Tagged with: Project Wonderful

Feb 182012

I’ve added a Project Wonderful ad to the sidebar. I’m not doing this to make any kind of significant money. Most sites with my traffic might get a penny a day in advertising if they’re lucky. I’m doing an experiment to see how Project Wonderful works, both as a publisher and as an advertiser. Advertising will come later. I have a few projects I’m working on that I’ll advertise as they mature.

There are two main reasons I’m trying Project Wonderful: funds are usable, and the system is more community oriented than other advertising networks that I’ve looked at.

The Publisher’s Dilemma

Posted by james at 3:54 pm Publishing No Responses » Tagged with: E-book, Self-publishing

Feb 112012

If you haven’t been reading A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, you should. As with any blog, read it with a critical mind, but Konrath does address a lot of good points about publishing and the effect that e-books are having on the industry.

I’ve been reading The Innovator’s Dilemma recently. I’m about two-thirds of the way through, but I’m feeling resonance with literature as well as the academic world of digital humanities. For this blog post, I want to address how I see it playing in the publishing world. If you haven’t yet, read “At Home With the Sixes,” a post on Konrath’s blog. He covers some of the same ideas, but in a humorous story.

MUDding

Posted by james at 3:35 pm Digital Humanities No Responses » Tagged with: Games, LPC, LPMud, MUD, Text-based game

Nov 172011

Image via Wikipedia

I began the month intending to write 50,000 words. I got a bit past 5,000 and then got sidetracked by another project. I shouldn’t be surprised. This is how it’s been in the past.

From the title, you might guess that the distraction was a game, and you’d be right. But I didn’t get sidetracked playing a game. Instead, I’ve been sidetracked creating a game. It’s one I’ve been working on now and again over the last few years, but I’m diving back in using my research day, evenings, and weekends to get enough stuff together that I can show it off at THATCamp Games near the end of January.

I might not be getting the 50,000 words done, but I am doing a lot of creating. At least I’m keeping within the spirit of the month.

NaNoWriMo, Here I Come!

Posted by james at 3:48 pm Digital Humanities, Writing No Responses » Tagged with: Digital Humanities, NaNoWriMo, Writing

Oct 202011

Image by ? Crystal Writer ? via Flickr

Every November, I mean to buckle down and write 50,000 words. Every November, something comes up that keeps me from doing it. Last year, I taught an introductory course to creative writing at Texas A&M University. The year before, I probably got too busy with work. This year, I’m going to make it happen! I don’t have any trips planned except for Thanksgiving. I don’t have any activities after work or on the weekend that take up a large amount of time. Nothing is standing in my way.

For those who haven’t heard of NaNoWriMo, hop over to the website and take a look. I’m raising money to help the nonprofit that runs it build communities in classrooms, coffee shops, libraries, and living rooms all over the world and help the inspiration flow for me and thousands of my fellow novelists. More importantly, your contribution will help The Office of Letters and Light build a more engaged and inspiring world.

For the rest of this post, I want to explore why NaNoWriMo works and touch a bit on what it could mean for digital humanities. Today is my research day, after all, so I need to tie this in with my work somehow.

Narrative Statistics: Revisiting Sentence Length Statistics and What to Do Next

Posted by james at 7:34 pm Digital Humanities No Responses » Tagged with: Book, Distribution, Statistics

Oct 052011

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Narrative Statistics

Last week, we explored the Poisson distribution as a possible distribution of sentence lengths. If you look at the figure for Hunter Crackdown, the Poisson seems reasonable, but it breaks down when looking at other works. In this post, I’d like to go back and try to derive a distribution that has the same qualitative features as the distributions we saw for each of the works. Then, I want to discuss a bit what we might want to do next.

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