In the past, I have written about book-to-blog experiments. I have decided to create my own book-to-blog experiment. It will be a work of fiction called The Myth of Merula. The narrative blog will only be a part of it. The rest of the story, including art and multimedia, will emerge on the merula.dreamfishery.com site. When the story is complete, a novel will be published, and it will include a CD or DVD with multimedia content and computer graphics. The novel and CD will be edited versions of the content on the Myth of Merula website. They will also include additional original content not available on the web.

The fictional narrator of The Myth of Merula, Alice Mountolive, is a student completing her masters degree in digital storytelling. She has received a grant to digitially archive the story of Blackbird. Blackbird is a black woman astronaut who was born among the Dogon people of Africa. Blackbird was adopted by a wealthy American celebrity when she was a little girl. After coming to America, Blackbird proved a child prodigy, graduating from high school at sixteen. After completing a degree in astrophysics, Blackbird went to work for NASA. While at NASA, she made a space trip to Mars that was subsequently covered up.

This trip to Mars and back has been the subject of much conspiracy theory. As she was threatened with incarceration in a mental institution if she told her story, Blackbird chose to return to her childhood village among the Dogon. She has passed her days there quietly and alone ever since, filling her small cottage with strange artwork and other oddities, rarely seeing visitors. Among the people in her region of Africa, she is called Merula, which means Blackbird. Among skeptics who have debunked conspiracy theories about her Mars journey, her story is known as The Myth of Merula.

It will be the task of Alice Mountolive to interview Blackbird, to record transcripts of her hpynotic regression sessions, to scan or photograph her many drawings and paintings, to create 3D models of her strange inventions, and more. Generally, using every means of multimedia and programming that are at her disposal, the narrator must attempt to digitally render every aspect of Blackbird’s memories, to the fullest extent possible. The narrator’s education in digital storytelling has included web design, general programming, 3D programming, game programming, 3D modeling, creative writing, drawing and painting. The Myth of Merula blog will be the means by which she narrates the story of her process of interviewing Blackbird and of creating all surrounding content. The Myth of Merula blog will contain updates to all archived content, of every kind, with links to it. It will also be a story in itself.

Other Posts Categorized as Myth of Merula:

• The Philosophy Wiki is Back - December 31st, 2007
• Getting Caught Up on My Online Novel Writing Class - July 4th, 2007
• The Myth of Merula Expands from Fictional Story to Fictional Website - April 8th, 2007
• Online Novel Writing Class Is Helpful for Writing The Myth of Merula - February 18th, 2007
• I Rewrote the Beginning of the Myth of Merula - February 10th, 2007
• Why I Named Her Blackbird - December 28th, 2006