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One thousand words on the hour every hour for 24 hours?

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Any takers? I did this in 2002 and 2003. A blogathon. The first? The process is extraordinary because if you haven't developed an immediate conversational style online yet this obligation to write 1,000 fresh words on the hour will develop in you the ability to write what you think as the thought is formed. Google 'stream of consciousness' it has many past masters.
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On blogging vs keeping a diary or are they the same thing?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Monday, 29 Aug 2011, 18:18

Maketh up a quote at ye beginning of thy book; it will make people think thou art clever.

Christopher Marlowe ‘The Obscure Tragedie’ Act II, Scene ii.

The following comes from a seminal book on diary keeping by Tristine Rainer.

Here are some key thoughts

Some of this thinking can be brought up to date in the context of keeping a diary online; the essential principals remain the same.

A dairy is many things:

‘Everything and anything goes. You cannot do it wrong. There are no mistakes. At any time you can change your point of view, your style, your book, the pen you write with, the direction you write on the pages, the language in which you write, the subjects you include, or the audience you write to. You can misspell, write ungrammatically, enter incorrect dates, exaggerate, curse, pray, write poetically, eloquently, angrily, lovingly. You can past in photographs, newspaper clippings, cancelled checks, letters, quotes, drawings, doodles, dried flowers, business cards, or labels. You can write on lined paper or blank paper, violet paper or yellow, expensive bond or newsprint.’

Tristine Rainer, ‘The New Diary’ 1976.

‘Flow, spontaneity and intuition are the key words. You don’t have to plan what you are going to do. You discover what you have done once you have set it down.’ Tristine Rainer.

Keep it all in one place

‘When the dreams like next to the fantasies, and political thoughts next to personal complaints, they all seem to learn from each other.’

This works for blogging:

Write Spontaneously

Write quickly so that you don’t know what will come next. How the unexpected can happen. Surprise yourself.

Write Honestly

Be open about what you really feel. Few diaries actually lie to themselves in a dairy, but many out of shyness with themselves avoid writing about the most intimate aspects of a situation.

Write Deeply

Anais Nin, disappointed with her childhood diaries, developed the practice of sitting quietly for a few minutes before beginning to write. She would close her eyes and allow the most important incident or feeling of the day or of the period of time since she last wrote to surface in her mind. That incident or feeling became her first sentence.

Write Correctly

Expressive language is not a science. There are no rules. You are writing for yourself, so self-expression is the key. Test the range of your natural voice – it will develop. Errors are part of the form of the diary, as they are part of life.

Choose your audience

Your best audience is your future self. In ten years time you won’t remember the situation unless you capture all its sensual vitality now.

Value contradictions

In time they will develop towards a larger truth; leave them in.

‘Some diarists find when they go several weeks without writing they begin to feel off balance and take it as a signal that they are avoiding the inner self.’

Those of us who keep a diary regularly are stuck with it; whether it appears online, and which bits of appear online is another matter.

‘We taught the diary as an exercise in creative will; as an exercise in synthesis; as a means to create a world according to our wishes, not those of others; as a means of creating the self, of giving birth to ourselves.’

Anais Nin, December 1976.

There’s more to follow from Tristine Rainer on basic diary devices and special techniques.

P.S. The Marlowe quote is John O’Farrel’s invention and appears in ‘I blame the scapegoats.’

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Signed up for H800!!!

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 7 Jan 2011, 15:15

Why I thought I'd need to delay this 'til 2013 I don't know. I'll press on no matter how busy I get. I'll be busy doing what the course teaches which makes it somewhat easier.

Have I ever written such a short entry? Not often.

The rule us 'serious' bloggers established in 2002 was 1,000 words per entry. Crackers. Even more crazy were the 24 hour writing marathons we did. 1,000 new words, on the hour every hour for 24 hours while messaging each other to make sure no one cheated (as I did) by writing 2,000 words in an hour then catching some sleep (which is exactly what I did).

Under 500 words sounds about right, 350 possibly optimum for one of these.

And on your own blogsite so that you don't nark the locals.

If I organised another Blogathon it would be 350 words an hour I think based on wanting to and being expected to read and respond to other people's entries.

If there is a theme it is suprising what this kind of effort produces, it captures some of the exam fever you get sitting in an examination hall, where a few neat sentences come from nowhere as the cut off is reached. When you've exhausted the possibilities it is surprising what gems the mind then throws up.

OU 'til October 2011 then.

wide eyes

Now, what's this about a Unit 10 task for H808 on wikis to write and an ECA to submit????

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