Tuesday, February 5, 2008

How Long Before Someone Writes This Novel?

In the half-sleeping time this morning, after Onkel Hankie Pants had taken Rusty for his walk, and before their return, I dreamed a plot for a story or book, possibly a romance novel. I doubt very much that I shall ever write it, so if you want to, feel free.

It's a blog romance! There is a blogger who is a youngish (30+) woman, a bit of a hipster -- she may perhaps spike her hair and have tattoos. In my dream her blog was (mystifyingly) called something like "always a suit." There is another blogger, a man in his mid-60s but still quite vigorous and good-looking in a craggy, slightly grizzled way. Both are unattached and assume they will remain so. Somehow they start reading each other's blogs, and commenting on them. This goes on for quite some time with the relationship unfolding until another person who reads both blogs gently points out that the two have fallen in love. At first they don't believe this but finally arrange a meetup and then another and pretty soon they are together. Oh, and the older guy turns out to be a fairly well-known poet (blogging semi-anonymously) who's originally from London.

I could go on about where all these characters came from (I believe most of my dreams are processing events in my life, books I've read and films I've seen) but I have much more to blog about. But when you see the first epistolary novel in the form of blog entries, remember -- I thought of it first! (Or maybe not. Maybe one has already been published, or at least is being written.) (According to Wikipedia, there is actually a novel/blog that is a blog...For Ilford Dyson, I Hope You Find This which is actually on Blogger just like me. But I was thinking of a print novel.)

Oh -- and the difference between this and other epistolary novels, also between it and stories of people who've hooked up via the Internet (with sometimes disastrous results) is that the whole courtship, at least until the face-to-face meetup, takes place in full view of, and with comments from, all the other blogreaders.

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