Creativity and technology

The OC Voyage is not only a trip across the sea, it’s also a dive into storytelling. Since I'm a true geek, I’ll be trying out different ways to capture the experience, using a mix of tools that range from the handmade to the high-tech, from the quiet to the collaborative. Some stories might become blog posts. Others may take the form of audio diaries,  podcasts of conversations, collages, or pages from a visual journal. It’s a kind of creative laboratory, part documentation and part daydream, where the format will shift around, just like the journey itself.

Here’s what I’m thinking so far:

A website and Substack

I need a place where I can gather all my stories under one roof, so that is the purpose of the website. Eventually, all the material here might become a book.

Substack will have blog articles and podcasts for Oldendorffer employees and the Substack community.

Technology: a URL, use Publii to create the site, a Substack account, Google photos and Unsplash for images, and probably some graphics with Affinity.

Blog posts

I love writing blog posts and have been a blogger for over twenty years. I imagine the bulk of my thoughts and experiences will find their home on the website. I haven’t considered yet exactly what I will be posting on Substack. The content will undoubtedly be leaner and less often, but it should also have another focus.

Technology: ChatGPT and Claude as editors, and Grammarly to help counter my dyslexia. I'm also thinking of reactivating my old Flickr accounts for photos and collages.

Collages

Collage-making has always felt like the most fundamental form of storytelling to me, piecing together scraps of life into something whole. I haven’t made collages in any serious ways in over 15 years, maybe it’s time to explore this format again.

Technology: Affinity and Procreate.

Interviews

I’m going to plead, grab, and coax anyone willing to be interviewed. The oral tradition of storytelling is one of my absolute favourites.

The interviews will become podcasts or written stories, depending on what each person feels most comfortable with.

Technology: RODE microphones, Auphonic for audio editing, Dropbox for storage, maybe a bit of intro-outro music... and again, ChatGPT and Claude as editors. I'll probably also use Audacity for some of the manual sound editing.

Monologues to Dave

I want to bring Dave, my long-deceased father, along with me on this journey. His love of sailing shaped so much of who I am. There’s no one I’d rather have riding along in spirit. So, I am thinking of creating a audio logbook with daily entrees.

Technology: same tools as for interviews.

Visual Diary

I also keep a visual diary, part drawings, part text, a quiet record of my days.

Technology: a good old-fashioned diary, coloured paper, coloured pencils, a carpet knife, scissors... and maybe some paints, though probably not.

These ideas are just what’s floated to the surface today. It will be interesting to see what kinds of stories I end up choosing to tell — and how the right technologies will find their way into the journey.