It’s widely held that one of the hallmarks of great writing is the ability to bring together things that don’t usually belong together. And, moreover, to do so in a way that invites contemplation or, ideally, some kind of wider understanding of life, language, society, politics, humanity, relationships, religion etc - a eureka moment, if you like. This is less true of fiction than poetry, but the dexterity and inventiveness with which a writer moves from sentence to sentence or idea to idea is often a measure of his or her talent. As with everything, great risks can bring great rewards; but while the pay off can huge (Finnegans Wake; Midnight’s Children; One Hundred Years of Solitude), the chance of failure is high (discretion forbids exemplifying).

I see that you, the 6 billion writers of amillionpenguins, have decided to gamble. I, your miserable and long suffering editor, admit to feeling completely at odds with the novel as it stands. In Stalinist Russia they would have considered this a good thing: that the familiar had somehow become very strange indeed. But in this, our stupider age, I find I just can’t get very far. (Note: “stupider age” is platitudinous; I’d much rather be here, despite the snow, than in Stalin’s Russia, which I gather was also rather snowy).

The main problem I have is that every time I go back to the website it’s changed, a bit like my girlfriend’s mind. And perhaps like that it resists rational enquiry. I’ve found the best way to approach amillionpenguins is to sample it basically at random. I don’t think that this is the place or the time to start handing out medals but I’ve been very impressed by some of the individual contributions. It’s like a whole lot of white noise and then you get something really fantastic - these moments of real clarity or insightfulness or depth. I’ve also noticed that some contributors are exploring the technological possibilities of the wiki format, possibly for my enjoyment (there’s one entry where each word in the paragraph is hyperlinked to its definition, and another where each letter takes you to a quote from a well known martial text (small “m”, not the Roman epigramist, which come to think of it would be wonderful)). So well done you, amillionnabokovs, for getting so gamey on us!

We’re a week in and the jury is still very much out; in fact, I think they’re off drinking white wine at the Groucho. But keep up the good work, my milliontorturedsouls, and let’s see if we can’t get something resembling a plot up there soon.

Yours

Jon

Okay - the wiki will be up and running (stumbling? leapfrogging? playing twister?) in about 30mins. We have tried to organise the structure a little to make navigating the wikinovel(s) an easier proposition - you can help this process by fixing any broken links you might find and unifying formatting.

There seem to be (at least) three separate novels being worked on at the moment. On the front page is the beginning of the novel that was on this front page before the break and you can find a link to Novel B here. Links to a rumoured ‘Alternative’ or ‘Real’ story can be found in the discussion pages.

We hope you think this reading break is a sensible idea - do let us know whether we’ve got anything hopelessly confused, or alternatively, get involved and make it work! If you want to get in touch directly you can of course use this blog, the discussion pages and there is even a contact email on the wiki front page - we’d love to hear from you.

I’m off for a soothing cup of chamomile tea - play nicely everyone.

Jeremy@penguin

PS I see Jon scrawling on his monitor with a red marker pen - expect an editorial report soon!

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Well, this is all quite overwhelming, isn’t it? What a response so far - contributions from all over the world flooding in at a vast rate, almost 100 edits an hour! But this inevitably leads to some problems - keeping up with what is happening on the wikinovel is a challenge too far and, looking at the discussions, it seems that some of you are frustrated with this aspect of the experiment.
We’ve also had periodic bouts of vandalism which are valiantly being tackled by you and also by the students at De Montfort who are circling the wagons and attempting to repel all attacks as fast as they come in.

Jon too is struggling as by the time he has read the novel and written his report, something completely different has appeared on the screen.

So we’ve had the idea of creating a ‘reading window’ where we lock down the wiki for a few hours each day. (I’m thinking 12-4pm GMT) This will enable us to do some housekeeping (restore links, remove pornography (!) and Chinese (!!)), Jon to have a read of a static novel and perhaps you, the community, can also use this time to read the work so far, check in on the discussions and have a think about where the story might be heading. Above all, it will also give us the chance to catch our breath - another five and a half weeks of this might send us over the edge!

So, what do you think? Unless we get any fundamental objections we can have this in place tomorrow.

Jeremy

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When we launched this experiment we didn’t anticipate the huge and passionate response. Three days into it we’ve seen thousands of words written and a similar number edited and deleted. Every time I refresh the page something has changed, sometimes a simple spelling correction, the creation of a new character or even the reversion of an entire storyline. We’ve had creativity, obscenity, poetry and vandalism - and we’ve still got weeks to go! I dare not sleep!

So we’re already learning lots about how people can come together to work on a project like this and I’d encourage everyone to read the main discussion page to see the really interesting conversations people are having about moving forward.

So we now have a dilemma as the creators of the site - do we take a hands off stance and let you, the community sort everything out for yourselves with the freedom and anarchy that that will bring? Or should we try and add some additional structure to this project in the hope that it will improve the experience for many and minimise the frustration caused by reversion wars?

Looking at the discussion some ideas have emerged and we’d be interested to know your thoughts on them.

• Locking chapters and allowing them to be edited one by one.
• Placing each chapter on a separate page to prevent reversion of entire story.
• Encouraging people to create new stories on new pages so that multiple stories can coexist without replacing individual stories.

I am sure there are other ideas out there - please do add them below and we shall try and act on a consensus view. Of course, if you want us to keep our sticky beaks out of it, then let us know that as well.

Jeremy

PS A big thanks to everyone for your participation so far - it is hugely exciting to watch this unfold!

You want to know what’s weird? Turns out the guy with the van who’s coming to coming to move my stuff is called Carlo (not kidding). He’s now an hour late (I think he’s from one of those countries that don’t prize punctuality). So I’ve had a bit of time to read the wiki, while I keep half any eye on my life’s possessions which are out on the sidewalk right now.

Anyway, I feel our novel is beginning to resemble something by Thomas Pynchon, but not quite - or sorry even remotely - as good (sorry). One of our Penguin writers, a sociologist who just wrote this great book about football, told me last time he was in the office that he was reading Pynchon’s Against the Day and that he thought he had finally found a way to understand it. He said (I’m paraphrasing) that it was basically full of randomness, disconnected stories that really led you nowhere. But that this was kind of like life: it’s totally without narrative coherence; it’s a series of things that happen which may or may not be meaningful. I sense this is the direction that you, the writers of amillionpenguins, may be heading in.

I would humbly suggest that you re-think this. Can someone go in and try to unclutter it a bit? Like, for instance, we’ve got Bababooey’s sensei - in the new opening - giving him pearls of wisdom in French. I’m not saying this could never happen, but a) the epithet makes no sense (from what I can tell) and b) why does he have a French (or Quebecois) sensei? Why have a sensei at all? The cultural references here are all over the place. Obviously this reflects the global nature of the project. But we need some continuity, and fast.

Ok, there are some people checking out my stuff and I need to go shoo them away.

Jon

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