Let's start an INSTANT Mail Art Book!

[Valentine Mark Herman]

It would work like this:

1. We decide who wants to contribute

2. We decide on a common theme (this is the difficult bit, but we shouldn't get bogged down in it, a fairly general theme will do)

3. We each write our own chapter

4. Within a 9-day period (thus including 2 weekends). Only work submitted (by post? by email? to be decided) at the end of that 9 day period is accepted, so no delays permitted.

5. At the end of the 9 day period, the person responsible for this (NOT ME 'cos I am digitally challenged) pulls it all together, and

6. We have an INSTANT Mail Art Book.

Voilà!

 

Your views, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen?

And, of course, who wants to be the 'Editor'?

Regards, Val

[Mary Jo Cartledgehayes]

Love this idea.  The 9 days / 2 weekends is a smart deadline.  Get in, get focused, get it done.  Let's set a range for chapter length -- say between 1 and 10 pages? 1 and 6 pages?   I'm a little concerned about viruses if chapters are sent by e-mail; but if we do postal the person doing the editing will need to pay for photocopying and mailing --

[Mary Jo Cartledgehayes]

I take it the book can be written however we choose -- poetry, novel, etc.?  So we'll have a nice range of different styles.

 

Themes:  Global community is our overall theme for mail art, isn't it?  So we could choose one aspect of global community.  My suggestion is "harmony" because it can be personal or interpersonal or musical or whatever the person wants it to be.

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Dear Boo, Thanks for these messages. On 'Harmony', perhaps -- let's see what other folks, if there are any as we are only two at the moment, have to say.  As to length, --  I would suggest 5 -10 pages, words plus art, but ther have to be some seeious words, and not just a string of images loosely connected. As to viruses, I don't know -- the other Digital Novel seems to be able to exist in a virus free world. I suspect that at the end of the process we will need a compete digital file, and that will mean sending text across the ether....unless we all make up our own books along the lines of Cheryl Penn's works.

We need more people to make this work.

Bonne Weekend, Regards, Val

[Ruud Janssen]

I suggest to make a new group for this. Invite people, decide on who is the one in lead, etc....

[Valentine Mark Herman]

Thanks Ruud.

At the moment -- about 24 hours since I floated this idea (partly because of peoples' seeming frustration about the relatively slow lack of progress of the 'other' Digital novel ) [what did Katerina say: '57 pages in 10 years, and it vtakes time?]-- I have only had one positive response, from Boo Cartledge.

A Group of 2 isn't viable -- in fact it's hardly a Group-in-the-making.

What do you advise me to do?

1. See if Boo is willing to be the leader, and, if so, launch the Group and see if people will join it?

Or,

2. Leave things as they are for now, hope that people will join up and that a Leader will emerge, and then launch the Group?

Or,

3. ???

Would you like to be the Leader?

Regards, Val

[Ruud Janssen]

As I suggested. Best make a group out of it. Advertise it to the friends, and the participants will decide on who the leader is and how it works. I don't have the time to monitor yet another group, so anyone who thinks this is a good idea: go for it. Ruud