New Year, New Crazy

Hello and welcome to 2019, the year wherein I blow up my brain. I have a very busy year ahead of me on a whole slew of fronts (some of which I might be able to talk about soon, but some are actually so secret you'll never know I did 'em).

I'm still working on various TV series (internationally, strangely) and even writing another game (weird, right?) but what has me most excited is what I am tentatively calling the 2019 Project — ten years after livewriting, trying to do something crazy and new all over again.

What does that entail?

I have been ghostwriting novels lately, and much like writing scripts, that's a lot about following established rules and not rocking the boat. I really love it, but it creates an itch to try something wild and different — like prism fiction.

I started this once before, with Red Like, but this time I got a lot further than I ever have before. Prism fiction is hard to explain (it works best if you just experience it) but the idea is to explore the meaning of identity and self, and how we see the world.

Wait, you didn't answer the question

Let me try again. Let's say you have a piece of writing about a guy named Bob who goes to the store and tries to but the same bottle of wine as Alice, which leads to a passionate (but quirky) love affair. Got it in mind? Cool.

Now imagine you can define the characters however you see fit. So Bob isn't Bob, he's Jane. Or Alice isn't Alice, she's Emiko. Or Darius. Or maybe it's Pete and Floyd. How do the changes change the story for the reader? And if you're not locked into any one choice for the whole story, will you swap things around as you go, or stick with what you've got?

Prism fiction makes the act of reading into part of the experience, and hopefully even helps people reflect on their own biases and preferences a little.

So is this a story or--

It's a series of series, at this point. Each one approaches the same questions in slightly different ways -- including what I am hoping will be the most epic of all livewriting events -- and culminate in a huge finale in or around December.

No guarantees, of course -- things are getting pretty crazy around here -- but that's the plan.

When does it start?

Give me two weeks, and then I'll start breaking your brain. I just need to tweak the software a little bit, because this is all hand-rolled craziness, so it's probably going to unravel the second I make it public.

Stay tuned, folks. It's gonna be a bumpy ride, as always.