On Thursday, the workshop officially began. Eleven participants are working on projects. Already members have work to show! A couple of people forgot the meeting. I sent out a reminder but probably not soon enough. I was trying to wait for all bios and project descriptions. I will be sending out a note on some references that I promised the group. I have over 15 topics now in the conference section. Of course, quality not quantity. I think of a new topic every couple of days, the last one apparently touched a nerve: about carpal tunnel and RSI, work-related problems and what to do about them. Many quickly responded!

My creative work: I turned in "The Meeting of Image and Text," the 700 word + essay about visual and textual issues on the web. Ted Warnell is editing a special section of Ylem's Newsletter. At this point, I have 10 works in the Light-Water series. I completed the Fronds page and a title page. I sat at my desk creating rollover buttons in Dreamweaver for approximately 5 hours straight. It was supposed to be easy, but I decided they looked too regimented, those buttons. I decided to scatter them across the page. When I shifted from a table to the "div" command, suddenly, they wouldn't work. I was directed to use "switch image." Essentially, start over. I decided to go with the table and just screw up the orderly look with crooked alignment and multiple tables. A web-ezine wants this meditation. I feel a responsibility to The Little Magazine, perhaps they will take this work instead of "Fountain Albertas." The clearance of midi sound files is beyond me. All the Applet creators were so generous. A lesson.

The workshop met for the second time. A jolly, high energy group. Two participants have shown work sites, and Gen showed his journal. Several people are almost ready to share their work. I am considering asking for feedback on my Light-Water project.

I was notified that I am still in the running for a Dow Fellowship in Michigan. I hope this comes through. The project is to produce a creative web essay on The History of Intertextuality.

Sue is in Amsterdam for the Xenophobia project. I didn't think I had any examples of web misunderstandings. Suddenly, yesterday I remembered two doozies, which I recounted at the site. Because of the pain associated with miscommuniques, many incidents are probably repressed.

My creative work: "The Meeting of Image and Text" has been edited and accepted. I reached my goal of 10 meditations for the "Light-Water: Mosaic," but I am still enjoying working on the piece. As an exercise/discipline, I think I am going to include some text passages that have simple graphics. I am collecting stories on light-water. I revised the title page and the links for the individual pages. The pre-load still seems a bit sluggish, and I am not sure why. The Little Magazine, decided to publish "Fountain Albertas" without the midi files. Yipee!

We had our third workshop meeting. Janet showed work this past week, and Jennifer showed her revisions. This Thursday-Friday, there will be two meetings; one will be at a decent hour for our Australian members. I hope a couple more projects go up for criticism this week. I am wondering what I can do to stimulate more progress. I do feel people are working.

I am still in the running for the Dow Creativity Fellowship in Michigan. There are nine finalists and five available positions. The person who interviewed me via phone had just ordered Dreamweaver. In another development, I was asked by Andrew Chetty to propose a project for the Nottingham Now Festival. I suggested "Water, Water Everywhere," a collaboration among me, Reiner Strasser in Germany and Sue Thomas in England. I'm waiting for his reply. I would like to do something in which a split screen is focused on various bodies of water. People could write atop the water or beside it. I am thinking up variations.

My creative work: "Light-Water: Mosaic" has been accepted by Ed Falco at New River. He understands I want to add to the piece at a later date. I have been photographing and writing. I bought a throw away Fuji camera. I didn't realize the word panoramic meant the prints would be a foot long by three inches wide! A startling format that gives me ideas. I started a little exchange via URLs with Reiner Strasser. I don't know if the piece will shape up, but right now it is about racoons and ties and is in French and English. I am using some special effects for dhtml, a curtain and something called boxing in. Tee, hee, I found I can do some unexpected things with this effect!

I am gearing up to present work in Boston and Albany. The times they are a-changing. Daylight savings time is hitting each country on a different date. This makes it difficult to schedule the workshop chats. We had the Australian session last week, and will have another if I can discern everyone's time. Trace was upgraded this past week and then CommunityWare went down. My group is showing about one project a week. Two or three would be ideal.

My creative work: Simon Mills, who edits frAme, will publish my essay, "The Brain-computer Metaphor: a Consideration of Receptivity and Extension Vectors." This essay was given in a somewhat different form at the Society for Literature and Science. I have continued working on La Cravate Rouge, the piece in French and English that Reiner and I began. I found I could put images on the special effects; the curtain and the boxing in effect are now printed. Reiner created a really inspired section called "Blue Violin." The war has intervened, and he is working on something related to that. Not sure where La Cravate Rouge is going, the tone is not quite focussed. I have a character named Louise. There is a racoon and allusions to Apollinaire and The Little Prince