Wiki Novel?
Topic: Writing Challenges
It's clearly a big news day. I saw this and couldn't let it go by. I may check out the site later... It could be a lot of fun. EY


Publisher launches its first "wiki" novel
Thu Feb 1, 2:13 PM ET

Fancy trying your hand at creative writing but can't quite find the time? Tired of scribbling away all by yourself?

British publisher Penguin may have the answer -- a Web-based, collaborative novel that can be written, edited or read by anyone, anywhere thanks to "wiki" software, the technology behind Web encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

The novel, "A Million Penguins," went live on Thursday and its first lines are already being written, edited and rewritten by enthusiasts on www.amillionpenguins.com.

Penguin, which embarked on the project with a group of creative writing and new media students, says it is using the novel as a test of whether a group of disparate and diverse people can create a "believable fictional voice."

"This is an experiment. It may end up like reading a bowl of alphabet spaghetti," Jeremy Ettinghausen, head of digital publishing at Penguin UK said, adding there were no plans as yet to publish the completed work.

"We are not making any predictions. It would be utterly fantastic if we could at the end create a print remix."

So far, the first chapter includes Carlo, a troubled man walking his dog, and "on the other side of the globe" a seductive murderer, Tom Morouse, "known as the Tango poisoner."

The experimental novel, which Penguin says is the first "wiki novel" to be started from scratch by a major publishing house, will be online for at least six weeks.

But it warns budding artists that the work is not a talent search and insists it expects a variety of tones and abilities.

"In an ideal world we could throw in a sense of plausibility, balance and humor," Penguin's blogger, Jon Elek, wrote in an entry earlier this week.

"That's asking a lot, and in truth I'll be happy so long as it manages to avoid becoming some sort of robotic-zombie-assassins-against-African-ninjas-in-space-narrate d-by-a-Papal-Tiara type of thing."

Copyright ? 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Nanowrimo progress
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: The Right Kind of Lover - Patti Labelle
Topic: Writing Challenges
Friday 10:01pm 17Nov06

I've creaked past 14,000 words. I'm way behind schedule but clipping into the 4th chapter. I'm pretty tired and ready to go down for the night. I can still make it to 50,000 words before the end of the month but I've got to keep the butt in chair and type like a fiend. Bopping my head to some high energy music especially when I hit the sad and depressing scenes in the novel. Man that shit can set me into some serious avoidance.

I've got several notes to self within the novel telling me what I need to add. Just trying to stay organized and focused. I'll have to procrastinate on procrastinating, if you know what I mean.

Where's the laundry service, chef, housekeeper and all the other people to take care of my stuff when I need it? I'm just wondering.
Of course I've got my yearly evaluation due for work on Monday. That bad boy is detailed and all consuming. I wonder when exactly I'm going to fit that all in. It's gotta be done.

EY

I Remember
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Itunes on Shuffle
Topic: Writing Challenges
4:36pm Sunday 15Oct06

Well I've been attempting to do some work with music playing and have been doing more singing than working. Funny how that happens. Somehow it makes me think about the warm up mentioned in The Weekend Novelist by Robert J Ray. The warm up is to write for ten minutes using the start line, "I remember..."

In keeping with music... I remember listening to Elvis Presley on 78's. My favorite song was Teddy Bear. I'd play it over and over keeping myself amused in my bedroom. The 78's were the only records I could touch as we (society) had moved into LP's and my mother didn't want me to ruin those. She didn't really have to worry though. I was already aware of the delicateness of albums and worshipped music too much to ruin an album as an experiment like maybe cutting my Barbie dolls hair (which I regretted.)

One of my last memories of still living with my father was me in my bedroom listening to Sly and The Family Stone on LP with my brother Charles' old record player. I loved Sly and The Family Stone, aside from their music being fantastic, primarily because they had the words to their songs on the album inserts. I still can't understand why a singer doesn't give the lyrics to their songs. In my room I sang Family Affair and Hot Fun in the Summertime and Stand. My father peeked in at me and smiled watching me enjoy myself in my own performance for my imaginary audience.

I remember the calm nights after the violence sitting in the living room with my mother while she played Stevie Wonder's album with Blame it on the Rain, Looking for another Pure Love and I believe (when I Fall in love it will be forever). That was Talking Book with Stevie in braided hair. My favorite song for the longest time was Big Brother because I understood it and knew that it was deeper than my young thoughts could fathom.
Lyrics - My name is secluded. We live in a house the size of a matchbox, roaches live with us wall to wall. You've killed all our leaders, I don't even have to do nothing to you. You'll cause your own country to fall...
More recently Tuesday Heartbreak is my favorite off that album. My mother played that album so much that it skipped on You are the Sunshine of My Life. We just sang the song with the skip.

I remember her playing Sam Cooke's Album with Only Sixteen and Chain Gang and Everybody loves to cha cha cha. My favorite song then and now is Bring it on home. I loved that deep voice that sang the harmonies to Sam Cooke's silky smooth voice. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out that it was Lou Rawls singing the harmony and it made me love that song more.

I remember that as early as five years old my mother liked my singing voice. If a song I liked came on the radio I was expected to sing it. One Less Bell to Answer from the Fifth Dimension was one of them and You Make Me Feel Brand New by the Stylistics.

I don't remember when I got fanatical about knowing everything about the music my mother owned but I do remember when it started making a difference. When my mom and I went music shopping I would pick up an album and turn it around and read the album cover until I recognized a name. If the songs were written by someone who wrote songs on someone else's albums, people who produced albums. They weren't playing a lot of black music on the radio. You had to be a music detective in order to discover new good artists. I could hand an album to my mother and say, "Buy this." And she would without question.

I knew that Luther Vandross sang on Quincy Jones' album Sounds and Stuff Like That. That his was the same voice on Change's Searching and was prepared when he went solo. I knew the voice as we called him in LTD was Jeffrey Osborne. I took the chance without fear and bought Jonathan Butler's first album (a double album) because he was produced by the same man that produced or worked with George Benson, Al Jarreau and Freddie Jackson. My ex Jeff still talks about that purchase in hushed awed tones. ha ha!

EY

Blog a Day
Now Playing: 2Pac - Keep your head up
Topic: Writing Challenges
I subscribe to The Writing Life 2 She blogs an entry a day with the following Rules:
This blog is an exercise in anti-perfectionism, discipline, and practice. I designed My Five Precepts of Blogging for my parameters: 1)Write 250-1,000 words per night. 2)Post first drafts only. 3)Write it in under 30 mins. 4)Never blog about blogging. 5)Be nice, fair, and honest - without selling out.

Yesterday Katey reached one year of blog entries. One Year She said:
What began as an impromptu creative attempt at motivating myself to practice writing everyday has led to (at its peak) forty readers a day, a few published narratives, some new contacts, and almost 400 pages single-spaced of new creative material. I was even dubbed “e-woman” by a local regional publication for the blog – a label that I find occasionally flattering and always humorous, given the fact that I’m on dial-up and pee in a bucket. But really, this has all led to much more than I expected – and what can I say?

I can say this: I have finally begun to understand the notion of practice for a writer. I have dug my heels into the notion of an audience – that’s you – and seen how important, inspiring, and encouraging that can be. I have discovered inspiring threads in my life that I want to write essays about: my former students, healing and Chinese medicine, friendship, my physical surroundings, matters of the heart, to name a few.


So I'm strongly thinking about adding that to my blog under a Daily Practice column. I used to do 1000 words a day. I got it from Ray Bradbury, Zen in the art of writing. He says in it that he's always written 1000 words a day and he's damn prolific. So Yes, I'll be adding a 'Daily Practice' topic and slapping my daily entries into that.

Today is also the Blog-a-thon. While I'm home I think I'm going to throw in an entry each half hour in honour of those bloggers that really are doing it. Good luck to them all!

EY

Blog-a-thon
Topic: Writing Challenges
Thursday 27July06 9:30pm

I heard about this one late in the game so I'm not entering. But it still sounds like enough fun to try at some point during the year.
Blogathon
It starts 6am pacific and basically all you have to do is post a blog entry on your own blog every 30 minutes for 24 hours beginning on July 29... well, this saturday.

It's going to be a beautiful day so I don't want to be strapped down to my computer. It's too bad they don't have one in the winter.
You get pledges for people to donate money to the charity of your choice and blog away.

Sounds like fun to me...

EY