Twitter Fiction Festival - yay or nay?

Later on today sees the launch of a new 'Twitter Fiction Festival', as announced on the official Twitter Blog from the 18th October. The microblogging giant has been recruiting both professional and amateur writers to collaborate on a number of projects taking place today. For the curious, they've set up a dedicated page: https://twitter.com/hashtag/twitterfiction - so log on and have a look!
Among these online events are TwitMashes hosted by South African writer Lauren Beaukes, and author Jennifer Wilson is inviting followers to help her generate stories from a series of photographs of graves.

Twitter seems to be gaining in popularity with writers; frequent literary tweeters include Ben Okri, Margaret Atwood and Neil Gaiman (all worth a follow!) There's no denying that it's a great platform for writers: any promotional work for an audience of millions is a positive thing at a time when the financial climate is as tough as it it. But aside from promotion and contact with readers, is Twitter an appropriate medium for literature itself?

In the early 90s and turn of the millenium, the possibilities for harnessing the power of the internet for writing seemed endless. Hypertext author Shelley Jackson notablly spawned many of her projects via her website, integrating writing with visuals and hyperlink - her most famous work 'Patchwork Girl' is a great example of this hybrid form, and well worth a read.

My own problem with Twitter is that although it's great for collaboration and immediacy, it's also hugely limiting. From my own point of view, I feel that literature needs space for possibility; although I can appreciate that it also forces the kind of constraints that can make great literature. After all, some of the greatest short stories ever written are under two pages long; and of course the Haiku form is one of the most culturally pervasive of all poetical forms.

What is your take on this Twitter festival? Is it possible to create something great in 150 characters? For now, I'll reserve judgement. Tweet tweet.

(You can follow me on Twitter @JessicaEOliver. I promise not to tweet any bad poetry.)

In praise of doorstop novels.

I'm feeling that my world is being slowly condensed to quick 150 word bursts of information. Twitter, Facebook, texts, quick glances at the news and my out of control magazine habit has fed my summer reading. I've also been working on 'the pig' - my 15,000 word MA dissertation which has seen me flicker between quotes and snatches of ideas, and thumbing pages for a quick fix to make some obscure point.

I haven't had the time to do my usual summer thing of being greedy with novels: gathering my wordy treasures and sitting around them covetously like Smoug on a pile of gold. Its been a sad summer; I've only managed Jonathan Franzen's Freedom (brilliant, throughly recommended etc. etc.) which is, getting back to my point, a doorstop novel at 597 pages.

Last week, the Penguin blog suggested to us all to 'Take the Anna Karenina Challenge': at 829 pages its the K2 of novels. I'm ashamed to say I haven't read it, but its in my BIG BOOK LINE-UP, along with A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel (872), and David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest - an ungodly 1088 pages long. I can't bloody wait.

Taking on a doorstop novel is a terrifying thing: and it's horrendous to be seen reading one when you're on page 20. You just know that people around you are thinking, 'it's never going to end. S/he'll never finish that.' But around page 400, you are the balls. You are on a home-stretch that will end with a feeling of accomplishment and unbearable smugness that will override any qualms you may have over the novel's quality, or if it's to your taste. Finishing a doorstop novel is worth the sweat and blood, and produces a euphoria that could never be replicated by wading through thousands of statuses and blog posts. Even mine. (Kidding.)

As always, tell me what you're reading! Make me jealous with your reading endeavours and tales of the shoulder ache borne from lugging Finnegan's Wake around. Or join me in misery at your lack of time to read a BIG BOOK.