VAGABOND MIND: An Overview
Did you ever wonder what goes on in the mind of an inventor as he or she tries to make something new? Hang on. The train is about to enter the funhouse.
Welcome to a very special kind of madness. If it gets to be too crazy, just skip. If it’s not crazy enough, you might just be an inventor yourself.
Innovation often begins innocently enough when you are thinking about something else. I’m a writer. I was writing a novel, trying to keep track of its scenes, its characters, and the plot. I assembled a spreadsheet to help keep track.
I also took notes, mostly to keep track of what was circulating in my head. Some ideas started to creep into my planning. One was that the spreadsheet could be automated, scripted. Another was that the story pages could be linked. Another was that the book could be all web pages, and I could forget about printing it. It would be an e-book. Back in 2003, that was a relatively-new idea.
Spreadsheet code turned into software code. The web pages became readable on all kinds of devices. The notes grew into a book – this book – as I tried one idea after another, and succeeded or failed. Some ideas just hung there for a long time. Some ideas were just crazy cool.
Many friends offered help and support. Most of them appear here.
In the midst of the work, I discovered virtual worlds, and found ways to integrate the book in a virtual-world setting. The convoluted, frustrating, and amazing possibilities appear right here.
And along the way there were the patents… a whole story unto themselves.
In the end, it’s all about how I ended up producing the work of fiction titled Descending Road – along with tons of unexpected stuff, some of it good. Think Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and the Mad Hatter’s tea party, running for 13 years. That’s about it.
Here’s the whole big shaggy story.
Here’s where some of the work began.
Three books. Go ahead. Pick one. Dive in.
