It’s not often in this life we get to do something we think of as new, something no-one we know has ever tried before. With The Mural Gazer I am on that threshold. I have never met anyone who has consciously set out to write a Direct to Web novel.
I’m not saying it hasn’t been done. Obviously it must have. On a planet inhabited by some 7.5 billion of my own kind there’s nothing I could ever think of that hasn’t been thought and tried many times. But I can honestly say I have no templates to follow as I embark on this project, and I have deliberately avoided looking for precedents.
From my vantage, I want this to be terra incognita, and the discoveries I make along the way to have that thrill of the unknown about them… Okay, perhaps that’s a bit melodramatic! But only a bit. The Direct to Web approach to literature opens up possibilities that have enticed me for a long time, but which I haven’t been able to embark on until now.
My experiences as a novelist, journalist and communications specialist have all led to this juncture. The impetus is literature, and the desire to have stories concocted in my own imagination recreated in the minds of readers.
That essentially collaborative relationship lies at the heart of this initiative. In my view the unique appeal of literature is the creative capacity it requires of readers. My audiences, more than the devotes of other art forms, have to create their own versions of my stories in their own minds. Reading is a creative act, and the enduring attraction of books is that sense of engagement it calls for.
Every reading of a book is essentially a new book.
Direct to Web writing takes the interaction as step farther. It allows me as author to share my story with an audience as it’s being written, before words are set in print, and in a venue where revision is not only possible but is part of the mind-set. I can reach out to people whose experience can help with the storytelling in real time. I can include images and references relevant to specific passages of the story. My audience will be able access the unfolding story any place, any time in text or audio.
All of those things add up to a unique way of experiencing literature in the making. Taking advantage of the opportunities the Internet and social media have to offer during the creative enterprise of writing a novel is what Direct to Web publishing is all about. I hope you’ll join me as I write The Mural Gazer. I think the experience will be enriching, rewarding and – most importantly – entertaining.