MY HYPERTEXT PROJECTS (An Intro Page)

*I have three hypertext projects going on at this point, and I felt that they needed an intro page. The result is below!

I like this picture, because it is interesting and confusing at the same time. I hope that readers will find my hypertext projects equally intriguing as they ask themselves: "What is going on here?".

Hypertext book is a nonlinear format that requires a digital form and a number of pages/entries connected through links. After publishing a print book, I realized that there are just too many ideas and directions to explore. So, I decided to explore them all simultaneously! 

​Once in a while, I complete a page. But most of the time (when I have time to write), I organize my ideas in existing draft entries, of which I currently have dozens and may have hundreds in the future. (The only one of the three projects without draft entries is It's Not about "Them" on Medium, where I decided to try a different approach.) Let's be honest, the result will surely look messy to an outside observer. My commitment to vulnerability allows me to show my raw creative process to strangers, but it's not easy (especially because I am also a freelance editor, and editors are not supposed to be messy with their writing). 

So, what are the three projects I am talking about? One focuses on issues of meaning, the other one is about power, while the last book that I started is dedicated to polarization. In my mind, these three topics are interconnected. However, I found that it's useful to separate them in order not to smash everything together (said the person who decided to explore all of her ideas at once). But, seriously, there is order and there is logic in my explorations - only I find a traditional linear format too restrictive for my intellectual journey. 

The hypertext format helps me keep track of my ideas, to continue writing even when I have little time for creativity, and to collect materials for future print books. I do want to convert my work into linear texts eventually. In the meantime, I will let my hypertexts grow in the most perfectly imperfect way possible.  

As for the picture above, I will tell you what it is! Back in the summer 2019 (oh, sweet pre-Covid times), I travelled to the United Kingdom with my family. There, we visited Cambridge (we actually lived there for a couple of weeks). The picture shows one of the old cathedrals. It had an area with huge mirrors that reflected the ceiling so that visitors could see it better. (I am thinking now that they may have been showing a model of the ceiling, which adds another layer of confusion to the image.) You can see me bending over the railing in order to take a picture of the reflection (of the model?) and the surrounding walls. It's still hard to make sense of what is going on, but it was surely beautiful to observe. In a similar way, my hypertext books are about capturing the beauty, complexity and confusion when it comes to the big questions of human coexistence.