Ficlets

I know you're probably sick to death of me going on and on about how much I dig Wil Wheaton (and I don't mean that in a stalkery fangirl kind of way either. I reserve that behaviour for James Marsters, Kiefer Sutherland and David Boreanaz :) )

No I just count myself lucky that I found his blog oh so long ago because he's never steered me wrong when it comes to finding the coolest stuff on the Net. As a writer who's had some success with his nonfiction books and as a blogger - two things near and dear to my heart - I really enjoy following his journey from getting an idea to getting it 'out there.'

Anyway, enough being gushy, I really wanted to to post about the site I found through his blog called Ficlets. I read about it yesterday and as of five minutes ago I've published five ficlets and am so eager to write some more.

The purpose of Ficlets is to write a story in 1,024 characters or less. That works out to about 4-5 short paragraphs or so. The beauty of the idea is then other authors on the site can write a prequel or sequel to your ficlet and pretty soon a whole story is born. It's really fun to see the twists and turns a story idea of yours can take when other people take control. I know the idea of round robins in storytelling is nothing new, but it's still fun.

For instance, a ficlet I posted is actually the beginning to a finished story I wrote while ago. So I know where my story goes, and how it ends etc. The main character is a male. When I posted just the beginning of it, a commenter assumed the lead char was a female. Another writer just posted a sequel to one of my ficlets (my first sequel!) and went in a completely different direction than my actual story did. It's just so interesting, you know?

Anyway, I'm totally hooked and would not be surprised if I stay up far too late tonight reading and writing ficlets because this site is getting me so jazzed about writing. I haven't felt like this about it in forever. It's teh awesome.

Thanks Wil.

(oh and off-topic, but my Vampcakes were a big hit at the office. Woot!)