I opened a word document to type out this blog about 5 hours before
any words were actually put onto the page. No, it was not
procrastination (well, okay, a little bit) it was technical
difficulties.
First, I was busily searching for a
reference point for my original topic of research methods. As I was
browsing the crazy, wonderful world of the internet my modem cut out.
This happened about another 15 times before the old girl finally gave up
and carked it. I had a spare modem with a separate router lying around,
so I delved in way over my technologically illiterate head and
attempted to install it. First things first, plugging the cords in.
Simple, right? Wrong. As I went to insert the power cord into the back
of the modem, I don’t know whether I pushed too hard in my technology
induced rage or the thing was so ancient that it pushed the chip inside
into the modem and it was broken.
I tried for a great
deal of time to use tweezers to pull one side out and plug the cord into
the other side. My housemate was busily laughing at me as she pointed
out I should probably turn the power point off before I electrocute
myself with all the poking around. Good one, Kirsty. I ultimately
couldn’t get the cord in so I thought it would be a good idea to unscrew
the back and try and pop the insides back in place. I tried every tool,
which isn’t many, in my house, and whatever other random object I could
try to unscrew the tiny screws with. I came to the conclusion that I
needed to go out and buy a smaller screwdriver.
I went
to good old Kmart and to try and save money I bought a little
screwdriver attachment. When that didn’t work due to the lack of handle,
I had to go back in and buy a proper screwdriver. Turn out it wasn’t
the lack of handle, the thing was so old the screws no longer twisted
and I’d just wasted $7 and an hour of my life. Finally, I gave into the
ultimate reality that I needed to buy a new modem. A trip to Office
Works and minus $75 later I was back with my new modem-router. A quick
stop to feed my hungry stomach and then I got to setting it up. 45
minutes and various swear words later I finally did it!
These
adventures made me wonder how the writers went without any technical
misdemeanors during the Willow Pattern process. They were working in
PressBooks, which for many of them was an unfamiliar program. That could
explain the exceptionally high number of saves from Krissy Kneen and
Christopher Currie, while Nick Earls lived on the edge with the smallest
amount of saves. The data can be seen on the Willow Patterns website. Some of the authors worked straight out
of the PressBooks document, whilst others chose to rest on their
laurels and work in a Word document, pasting chunks of text over as they
went.
Through interviews with the authors and
communication with Simon Groth, I thought I had asked all the questions I
needed to get a sense of how the 24-hour process went. Even now I’m
constantly thinking of other things I want to know like, was there an IT
expert on hand in case of technical difficulties? Or was there any
problems with losing words of not pressing save, I know I’ve done that a
few too many times! This made me realise that the complexity of the
project is way bigger than I thought. I don’t know if any of us will
ever understand the hellishly
brilliant ordeal that is Willow
Patterns, not even the participants themselves! But I guess that’s just
the beauty of the whole thing, constantly wondering and searching and
asking the question; what’s next for the book?
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