2007 has ended, and we’re off to a start in Two Oh Oh Eight. To welcome the new year this post will be full of nonsensical fun, as an aside, perhaps, to all the serious thought that goes on around Novelr every other day of the year.
The Kindle
When the Kindle first came out the entire blogosphere dedicated huge chunks of their time to talk about Amazon’s brave move into the ebook market. I admit they’ve got a lot going for them, but I was also wary of talking about it - wasn’t everyone else already doing so? Now that the hype has died down somewhat I can wade through the aftermath and find the good stuff. Here’s Phillipe Stark saying some honest-to-goodness things about the Kindle.
The lolcat Bible
‘Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.’ Need I say more? Priceless.
Up Yours, Keen
We’ve seen Keen angering just about everyone with his Web 2.0 polemic The Cult Of The Amateur. Bill Hilton’s written a great piece about ‘Amateur vs Amateurish‘, Tinstaafl pointed us to another great response to Keen’s book, and now I’ll help out with this Youtube vid of extravagant predictions. Not really sure why - it might be the accent, it might be the cool animation, but I’d like to think it’s the unrestrained gleefulness in the narrator’s voice that gets me going. Watch it. Vairy funny.
Hangovers notwithstanding, Novelr wishes everyone a very happy new year.
Novelr started 100 posts ago with a simple Introduction. It seemed like a good idea ( at the time) to cover what writing fiction on the web would mean, and how to go about it. I apologize for slowing down the pace of posts and ideas these two months - real life has literally swept me off my feet and carried me far away from the blogosphere.
Here are some posts that I’m particularly proud of:
‘i’ is a Cardinal Sin. This was early on in Novelr’s history, when I realized that typing uncapped ‘i’s in sentences made my writing seem juvenile. This was my first taste of Internet impressions, where the written word is everything.
Shut Up and Write. I did this for Problogger’s group writing project, and it promptly gathered 81 comments. I was particularly proud of the post - it was whimsical, light, and I attempted to belittle that horror called Writer’s Block we all get from time to time. I think I succeeded.
Crossfire: All Blooker Prize Winners Are Amateurs. This is perhaps the one of the hardest posts I’ve ever done. Took me two days of thinking and discarding replies. Ed-infinitum’s got a great mind screwed on his shoulders - I do hope he directs that formidable intellect of his towards blooking again.
There has also been a number of guest posts on Novelr, by writers whom I am particularly grateful for. Their ideas have helped shaped the discussions in and around this blog, as well as on blooking overall:
Beginning, Middle and End. Scott Mackenzie outlines why we should all finish a story before blogging it. And if it is a work in progress, tell your readers!
I’ll Look At Your If You’ll Look At Mine. Here Gloria Hindelbrandt talks about the selfish tendencies us writers have: we tend to read our own work, and overlook the efforts of others. It is provoking, and all the more better for it.
On Editing. Blooking because you won’t get edited. Lee tells us why that’s a good thing.
And there’s of course the Ultimate Blooking Guide, which was an absolute chore to do. It did prove helpful - I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve thanked me for compiling the resource, especially when they’ve just started out blooking.
Little things like that makes the work on Novelr all the more worthwhile. Thank you all, and here’s to more stuff to think about in the next hundred posts!
Let’s see how far we can push this experiment: digg Horton’s Folly (or at least one episode of it) here.
Fingers crossed. Online fiction on the Digg frontpage? Now there’s something I’d like to see!
[Update]:James has posted a call to arms in his blog, explaining the fundamentals and what we are trying to get accomplished from this experiment. Check it out here.
I’ve just changed the permalink structure of Novelr, so you can expect dead links to be everywhere for awhile. It’s messy and I wish this needn’t be, but I realize that some of the posts might clash under the old setup.
I’ve also changed it because I’m setting up a Movable Typeblog on the same server. Going to do a review on it very soon, and then use the platform to experiment with the different ways fiction can be presented onscreen.
Please alert me to any dead links I’ve missed out, especially in articles. Sorry for the hassle.
PS: We’re going to digg Horton’s Folly this Wednesday (the 22nd), to see how far we can push online fiction to the frontpage. Get ready your accounts and vote!
Novelr started 100 posts ago with a simple 
I’ve also changed it because I’m setting up a 
