This week, I launched a new section to Armistice Designs called "Paragraphing." What's that, you ask? It's a button in the top right corner, you see. And more than that, it's a story. A collaborative fiction project—which is to say: a story written one paragraph at a time by two people at a time.
See:
My collaborator in crime? Jamie. Jamie Steidle—my brother of...well, 26 years, at this point. Which, incidentally, happens to also be his age. Jamie is a fantastic fiction writer—he's actually in Ireland at this exact moment, doing just that. Fantasizing about fiction. Oh—and getting his Master's.
This isn't the first collaboration—in fact, the last one resulted in a book cataloguing the misadventures of Marc Bedsum and Alexander Grey. That project was large, though. It started just like this one: a paragraph at a time. But very soon it became a scene and then a chapter at a time. Then the chapters grew into sections—and the sections into weeks. By the time we were working on the sequel, it was a month or more between writing and reading and then writing again. It was like living on one of the far out planets—Neptune or Jupiter. The orbit was just exhausting. That was too much, even for an ex-mayor and his bearded accomplice. So...
Attempt number two at bottling that magic. Because it very well is magic. To write a story and not know what's going to happen next. To write a story where your control is limited to a chance sentences! To write a story that isn't even wholly your own. It's like the story of life—only more prosaic! (And fun!)
This time, we'd like you to join us in the fun—as the story slings in tight rubber-band circles. We're writing a paragraph and passing the keyboard back and forth across the Atlantic (and the whole of the North American Continent). Daily!
So, if your day is dragging or you're standing in line at the grocery store, bookmark over to "The Paragraphing Blog" and see what's happening. Or follow the story on Twitter @graphingblog
But that's not even the best part: each week, we're going to record a 30 minute podcast. We'll start the 'cast by reading the week's seven paragraphs. Then we'll get on to talking about story in general—and writing to be specific. It'll be a boisterous 30 minutes, and the time'll fly. I'll drop the podcast link in here as soon as we finish with these first 7 days. Already, since the time you've started reading this post, it's day 2 of the story—! And the eggs are sizzling.
Will they fry? Will they curdle? Will they burn? Whatever will happen next?
Every answer is just a paragraph away—