I must admit, I'm stuck. And have been stuck for a few weeks now, and have kind of been putting off this project, but now I have to face that it won't go away, so I need to come up with something.

Not that I've done nothing at all, of course. Initially I was planning on investigating the idea of narrative blogging. Take the normally factual and diary-esque nature of a blog and give it to a completely fictional character as a way of telling a story, in which that character is the protagonist. I've always liked the idea, but I've constantly been in turmoil as to whether I could really pull it off or not, not having really written a story since GCSE English. I presented the idea to Joasia and Geoff as part of the interim presentations a few weeks ago, and their own concerns left me feeling that it's a project probably not worth doing. The general impression I got is that it's not really an original enough idea and I don't think they were convinced about how reader comments could influence the direction of the story by their direct interaction with the character. I don't think that necessarily means that that project would fail, but generally I just don't have much enthusiasm anymore, for it, or my ability to write it.

After my success with GPS in the IDAT204 project, Chris suggested I incorporate the skills I learned there into my negotiated project. This seemed like a good idea to me, and I wondered how a narrative could be played out in a GPS application. It should allow for a very non-linear experience as you could alter the direction of the narrative depending on where you go. I do wonder if it's a truly original idea though as GPS games and experiments are becoming more and more common, plus I'd still have to write a narrative.

I'm still leaving the idea open, but for another one I'm moving away from narrative, but sticking to the idea of a character who exists on the internet. I've been thinking about online personas and how the internet allows us to wear certain masks over our behaviour, personality and appearance, whereas in real life, social conventions and interactions prevent us from having that same amount of control.

On instant messenger conversations, or forum posts for example, I personally find I may talk to people differently online than I do in real life. As someone who is quite shy around new people, I find online interaction to be a great opportunity to gather thoughts and express them exactly as I want, in my own time, and without fear of the reactions of others because I may not know them personally, and therefore it offers a shield of anonymity. I can be someone who appears to know what they're talking about instead of someone who might have the ideas, but a lack of ability to fully express themselves verbally in certain situations.

Also this idea of avatars - the personality or appearance that people create in an online space such as Second Life or World of Warcraft. Is there a correlation between people creating a radically different appearance for themselves online, and a need to escape reality in some way?

I kind of thing there's something in these ideas, but what, I don't know. The only thing I can come up with is some kind of dynamic website where users can share these different personas they have (maybe on one forum or online space they act in one way, and another they act differently), and bring them together to create a spectrum that fully represents them as a whole. Removing the masks by combining the unmasked bits of their online representations. If that makes sense. Doesn't strike me as an amazing concept though.

So what I'm basically left with in these GPS and avatar ideas is an application without a concept and a concept without an application, respectively.. Maybe I can combine the two somehow. Meanwhile I could gain inspiration from my essay and do something that comments on Web 2.0 culture, but I don't know what that could be.

I hate this project, to be honest. I understand the reasoning behind getting us to come with an original idea, but in this day and age of online contributions, every idea has been done. And frankly, I'm not that interested in coming up with a single, completely fresh idea for something. I'm realising lately that I'm a technician, not a conceptualist. Give me Photoshop or Actionscript and I can make something cool, but give me a completely blank canvas for fresh ideas, and I'm stuck.