Dan T's writing machine
My writing machine is a little cardboard model of a stageset. It hasn't machined any actual writing yet, apart from the following list of PLAYERS
THE STAGE - An anthropomorphic structure made of interlocking plywood pieces. An arrangement of planes on X and Y axes holding each other in place.
A CARTOGRAPHER - Standing at a fixed point on top of the highest point on an X axis plane the cartographer can only see the stage from above. Mainly conscious of the Y axis. Heir to an analytical tradition.
A FOLKLORIST - Moving around on the main flat Y axis surface. Interested in the experiential contours of the stage, does not think about how it looks as an abstract totality. Heir to a storytelling tradition.
AN AUDIENCE - A mute chorus of troglodytes. Can only see the stage from below. Heirs to an aesthetic tradition. Probably Europeans.
The Cartographer and The Folklorist compete to describe and analyse the stage for the audience. Neither the stage nor the audience respond.
here are some pictures of the model as it is now
Also, I got excited about thinking about writing machines and tried to retro-actively make ones to account for the writers I'm reading at the moment, which Steve said I should upload here. So:
Elena Ferrante: 'The “I” who narrates my stories is never a voice giving a monologue. It’s always a woman writing, and this writer always struggles to organize, in a text, what she knows but doesn’t have clear in her mind.' (This is a quote from her. I think establishing that meta-narrative of there always being a woman-writer-as-character is really interesting)
Ovid: narrate the entire history of the world through linked "anecdotes"/episodes, but there must be a metamorphosis in each episode.
Maurice Blanchot: The syntax must never break down, the logic of language must be strictly maintained. And yet the logic of character must at all times be dissolving, escaping, unravelling.
Calvino: The Castle of Crossed Destinies (I'm not actually reading this at the moment but it's a really good example. It's a novel in which a load of strangers get trapped in a castle on a stormy night and all mysteriously lose their voices. They each tell their story by laying out the Tarot deck in an order which the other characters mutely interpret. Calvino wrote it by actually laying the Tarot deck out in loads of different shapes and then devising narratives from the progressions they suggested and then weaving them together.)