I will not blog Stoker's novel this year. This is a hiatus.
The main reason is time. As the only person behind the curtain, I'm simply not going to have the hours, especially during May, which requires the most work.
I'd also like to explore new ways of Web 2.0-ing Dracula. Twitter feeds for chapters, Flickr images, aggregating video, podcasting... and the hours are simply not there.
Hopefully we can do this next year. I would be glad to hear from volunteers/
WW1: Experiences of an English Soldier publishes the diaries of one William Henry Bonser Lamin, a British soldier, as a blog. Each dated document appears on the Web on the same dates they were composed. It appears in two sites, one with commentary, and another offering the journals themselves.
From one entry:
September 23rd 1917. Dear Jack I have received your letter and I got the cigs alright. You did not mention about the mug you had got for Willie it will be very nice. I will tell Ethel he has to use it. The raid you read about in the papers was made by our Battalion. B Coy went over and we, no 12 platoon C. Coy stood to. It was made to get a prisoner or two, to get information which they did, they lost one man and two wounded, it happened about five one morning. I got a slight wound in the face with shrapnel but not much it is alright now, I did not go to the doctor. There as been a big advance this last day or two but I have been left out. We get left out in turns.we are expecting our Coy out tonight. We have some rough times out here but I think the Germans have it rougher. We have to make the best of it. I should be glad when it is all over.
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Moyra Davies died yesterday. She was Ceredwyn's mother, and my mother-in-law. Moyra was a lifelong fan of horror films, especially Hammer vampire movies, and so I dedicate this year's Draculablog to her memory.
Another literary text is being blogged. This time it's an eighteenth-century naturalist's text. More over at Infocult.
My apologies for delaying this past week's worth of Dracula posts, friends. A combination of intense travel and poor health have played hob with my schedule.
I've now caught up with backdated posts. If you'd like to read them in order, they are linked as follows: Jonathan Harker's journals of 25 June, 29 June, 30 June, then over to good Dr. Seward for 1 July.
The rest of July is now in order. I've taken advantage of Typepad's nifty forward-scheduling feature to arrange for each post to appear on the correct day. So work, travel, health should not interfere.
As a small token of my mea culpa, a glimpse of the setting right outside of my office:
Onward! Jonathan Harker has fallen mysteriously silent, Mina Murray and Lucy Westerna are going on holiday, and Dr. Seward treats a patient, while a grim ship wends its way to England...
Tomorrow we return to the novel, and commence once more our blog progress through Stoker's masterpiece.
I really appreciate the enthusiasm of our readers, as well as the generous and thoughtful comments to the last post about the project and how to do this. Here's what I think we can get away with:
I'd appreciate help with the images and maps, please. Feel free to post links in comments, and/or contact me directly. On my end, I'll be scanning Flickr and including images I've taken. I'm also hoping to do some minor site design - I kept things minimal when we began in order to focus on the text. Steve, would you be able to help with maps, as per your suggestion? Any Google Earth fans wanting to take a crack at setting up a .kml file for, say, Drac's route to Whitby?
Podcasting: a fabulous idea. Unfortunately my schedule is far, far too crazed for the next two months to really do this (including teaching a series of workshops on podcasting, ironically). Should we volunteer to read selections for the first part, as we can? I can set up an OurMedia account to hold content, if that's acceptable.
As an alternative, or an addition, Marty Busse suggests a podcast commentary. Again, my time is nonexistent through June. Elizabeth, perhaps one of us could interview you? I'd be happy to start commenting in July.
Tagging: I'd like to nominate "dracula2007" as a general tag for this year's run, unless someone has a better term. Agent Zelda, would you like us to do more?
If you're blogging on your own, please link to us when you can. Comments and reflections on your site would be appreciated.
Thoughts?
Greetings, Dracula readers. As we look forward to May and Jonathan Harker heading east, it's good to see comments on this novel from old friends (hello, Baby Jinx) and new (welcome, Trevor).
What do people have in mind for the count this year?
I'd like to put several options on the table:
What says the community? Thoughts, responses, suggestions?.
We're a few days into another pause. It's been four days since the last entry. After such a flurry of activity - two, three, even six items per day - this sudden silence is shocking, especially when brought out in this blog.
It might be worth comparing to the September pause.
Just a quick post to note a small pause in the novel. Here in mid-September there is nearly a week without letters, recordings, journal entries, etc. The most recent entry: September 13.
Why this silence? What is the dramatic purpose of pausing a growing flurry of exchange?
Once more, the experience of blogging the novel draws out these chronological notes.
DailyLit is similar to this project and its genre, in that it publishes pieces of long works on a regular schedule. It differs in that the slicing of content is not based on a book's structure, and that it is email based.
Yes, they do have Dracula.
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