What's it about?
In the winter of 1401, as Damascus teeters on the verge of ruin, two strangers plan a daring raid into the Umayyad Mosque against impossible odds. In the fall of 1944, Nazi and Allied forces scramble to find a deadly, ancient weapon that could change the tide of the war. And in the spring of 2011, a pair of Archivists scour Belgium for clues that tie these mysteries together... and could save the world from destruction.
This is #3D1D The Archivists
Livewriting a historical thriller in 3 days
From March 24 to 26, 2011, I created a book live online, using random insanity from people like you (yes you!) to make the most mind-blowing century-spanning adventure of all time! But this time it wasn't just online... it was in Belgium!
Stats!
I wrote 52,000 words in 45 hours, which comes out to 1,115 words per hour, or ~20 words a minute. The longer chapter was 1,939 words, the shortest was 264. There were 87,000 questions and answers submitted from 12,000 users. Overall, something in the range of 300,000 people watched the writing unfold, and the PDF of the final product has been downloaded over 10,000 times in the three days since it was released. Also, I had exactly 4 chocolates thrown at my face while I wrote. And I ate two of them. Mmm.
The rest of this page is legacy, to show you what happened. Stay tuned for announcements on the final Archivists book, coming in about six months!
What can I do?
WATCH
Want to see a story come together? Click on the "livewriting" tab at the top of the screen, and you can see the current chapter being composed in real time. Click the "video" tab to see a live feed of me sitting at my computer, trying to sound smart.
ANSWER
Down at the bottom of your screen is a long bar with an "A" on it. In that space, a random question is begging for an answer. Every hour, the system picks an answer at random, and I need to integrate it into the next part of the story.
QUESTION
Make life even harder for me by writing questions to be fed to the community. Make sure your question can be answered in 120 characters or less, and is clearly-worded. Do as many as you like!
DISCUSS
Join in the discussion at The Dispatch, the official home of commentary for the #3D1D event!
Schedule
| March 24 — 8AM-2AM CET |
| March 25 — 8AM-2AM CET |
| March 26 — 8AM-10PM CET |
the game is up!
The festival the game is up!, hosted by Vooruit in Ghent, is a playground for inventive artists who bring performances with a twist. Who are you? What is a spectator? Who or what is the audience? From March 15 until 26, artists from the entire artistic spectre will bring you a bunch of projects which will neither leave you cold or passive, which will engage en provoke, which make you feel what you have forgotten. The artistic play as a place where people can come together, looking for new possibilities.
A lot of these projects have an atypical character: limited visitors capacity, special locations, unexpected interventions, the spectator as participant, main character or unexpected extra... And a source of inspiration for a livewritten novel.