I’ve thought about writing a novel for years. Sometimes I’ve thought about doing it in a strange format; as hypertext or a semi-illustrated journal like I used to and sometimes still make. I think that would be fun to make, possibly easier than a straight novel, but I don’t think people would like it as much as a straight novel. The fact that the novel has not evolved into something like a hypertext document, or that graphic novels are not the norm is a credit to the immense sophistication available to the written word.

The written word is very nearly pure thought from my brain in to yours. Especially when it comes in the form of this functionally stream of consciousness blog. You’re able to pick up what I’m puttin’ down. Wittgensteinian impossibility of actual connection side, I feel pretty connected to the folks who read this blog, and I feel pretty connected to the one other blog I read, Jack’s. That’s because largely the writer-reader relationship of this blog is not parasocial, it’s just social. There are a few people who read this, I think, who don’t talk to me about it and who don’t text me when I’ve forgotten to properly set the home page first thing in the morning,

I just began reading The Crossing, by Cormac McCarthy last night, and it is incredible. The clarity of his words, the beauty and simplicity of the story he’s telling, man’s an incredible writer. And as much as I love reading his work, I’d take Jack’s blog over Cormac’s entire body of work any day. Because I love Jack in a way that is a lot more tangible and nourishing to my soul than my love of Cormac Mccarthy’s skill as an author.

While I love the art that inspires us, the sort of art that goes in museums, I prefer the art that is the bricks in the walls of our lives. The little sketches by family members, the marks of height on the wall, the bad cover-up painting of plywood, a scrawled signature, a birthday note written with real feeling. I think that’s far more interesting than any great oil painting. At least to me, and that’s the point.

Which brings me to MUs, MOOs, MUSHes, M*s, the bizarre text-based games that unfold a story accessible to almost nobody. Jack and I estimate there are fewer than 10,000 players globally. Perhaps fewer than 5,000. Even in the games they passionately play, by the very nature of their structure the entire story is inaccessible to any one person. It’s like trying to read hundreds of novels simultaneously. I suppose a person could time-stamp things, export, and read everything side by side, but who has time for that? Perhaps it has been done, but I doubt it.

I think what I love about MUs is the limitation of access. They’re hard to get in to, and even once you’re into them, there’s a ceiling to what exactly you can understand about their totality. Sorta like real life, except expressed through a living collaborative novel, instead of memories and actions and sights and sounds.  

I have an idea for a MU but I’m not going to start it until I’ve written the novel that precedes its narrative.

We’ll see if either of these things ever happen.

It’s not like I have a wealth of free time over here.