Saturday, May 21, 2011

"And so, have them for yourself, whatever kind of book it is, and whatever sort, oh patron Muse, let it last for more than one generation, eternally."  -Catullus

I posted this quote a few nights ago, but today, I am an author with my work preserved and protected by the NY Public Library. They were hand binding the book pages as we wrote them. What a wonderful, crazy, exhausting experience. I think around 3:30 am I started writing rhyming couplets about my amazing new philosophy: "Don't be a jerk." Yeah, we were all a but punchy around 3 AM. Ask me about the video I took of the squad who sang Kokomo... Or perhaps it's best you don't...

The challenge was multi-layered: Everyone broke out into squads had to "unlock" the 100 artifacts by finding and scanning their code via smart phone, then writing about it. Next layer: The book could only be 600 pages. That's 6 pages per artifact. For 500 people. Folks signed up to write so everyone knew what was being worked on. Next layer: The first 25 challenges had to be done by midnight. Another: Certain rooms were closed at certain hours! It was hard to fit artifact finding then writing. Fortunately, we found the way to hack the game and everyone was able to unlock the assignments they wanted to.

There were several points during the night where we'd glance at the time and realize we had only a few minutes left to publish it!

It was fabulous and frustrating and tiring and I'm glad I got to be a part of it. I was up for 24 hours and have had 4 hours of sleep since. I hope to get back into the swing of blogging properly tomorrow. For tonight, you can go Find The Future for yourself!

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