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The Family Bandwagon

Our family is spread out across the country and across the world, and what better way to keep in touch than a collaborative digital journal?

Saturday 27 January 2007

A story in parts

[daynoir: this is an experiment - mostly to see how Google docs work, but partly to see how we go with stories too.
write a sentence or a paragraph - whatever feels right.. try not to make a "dead end" and keep the story flowing. enjoy]

[glennji: I like the idea of putting comments up the top here, too. Plot ideas, or even just thoughts about decisions taken by the various writers (I hope everyone participates). For example, I felt the first paragraph with kind of creepy and dark, so I'm continuing it that way! This is so much fun (I've done a similar thing before on some public websites, before getting kicked off for strong language like, "Oh my God!")]

[daynoir: yup - great idea glenn.. i'm not going to write more to the story until someone else has a go. :) ]

[Well it looks like you might be waiting a while. Is it because not everyone has editing permissions? Since you sign into Google to use Blogger, could you send it to everybody's Google accounts?]

i don't know what everyone's google accounts are... do you?



Our story begins in a city. A city much like any other - bustling and busy and slightly grotty on the edges. Tonight the traffic banked back for kilometres, a red line of rear lights slowly moving past the high-rises and the industrial zones, impatient car horns squeeking and squawking in the dark. "I'm glad I don't have a car," he thought as he watched the crawl from his office window. The wind seemed to have died down from the gale it was at lunchtime, so the half-hour walk home would be more refreshing than tiring after the day in front of the computer.

Or so he thought. He packed away his meagre possessions - a translucent-blue lunch box of crumbs, remnants of his latest attempt to stop buying lunch out; his prized "space pen" (it writes upside down! Underwater! In space!); and an MP3 player filled with 80s music and animated Disney movies (a guilty pleasure he indulged in more often now the weather had turned) - slung the soft brown satchel over his shoulder and headed for the door.

The office was all but empty, with more and more people "teleworking" these days, logging in over the Internet and connecting to the company's secure network with passwords, smart cards and random-number generators. Those remaining were invariably grouped in little clusters around a single monitor, basked in a greenish-blue glow in the dim office downlights, their faces temporarily cast to a dull hue the palor of the undead, B-grade movie zombies. Eyes bright and spectacles glowing completed the ghoulish look; he couldn't help the chill that ran down his neck as they turned, as one, to watch his passing.

"'Nighty night!" he said with a joviality and familiarity he didn't feel, before walking quickly past and turning the corner to the elevators.


Was it his imagination or was this corridor darker than usual? He tried to whistle a light-hearted tune but it seemed to disappear into the white noise that surrounded him. A buzzing that seemed to get louder as he walked away from the technology filled office he had just left. Maybe it was coming from the single fluorescent that lit his way to the elevator. He quickened his step, wanting nothing more than to get out into the fresh air.

3 comments:

  1. ok, so what do I do? I added some to the story and saved it, do I do anything else??

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yay!

    Once you're finished, go to the "publish" tab and click the republish button.

    Good to hear that someone else is writing too!

    ReplyDelete
  3. well that was harder than it sounded, I had to put in the blog site settings and make sure I had the right name/password... bleugh, took me about 4 goes - am I just a noobie or what! :P

    ReplyDelete

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