When Khaled approached me, asking for some help with exporting his blog content, which would eventually become Broken Kode Season 1, we spoke a little about blogs, blooks and what moving your prose from this medium of immediacy and interaction, to a more traditional, non participatory one meant.

I also confided in him that I was thinking along these same lines as well (publishing some or all of my posts here on Sillyness as a book through LuLu), I just wasn't ready yet.  One reason that I wasn't ready to undertake this large task was that I had no idea what I wanted out of a dead tree version of Sillyness.

Yesterday I had an idea that I think will be fun, and possibly worthwhile.  I would like to take just a minute to lay it our for you and see what you think.

Time changes people, places and perceptions

One of the things I love most about blogging, is that it allows us, in a very real way, to interact with earlier versions of ourselves.  What I mean is that I can look back in time, say 4 years, to a post I wrote before the advent of children, deaths and triumphs.  That Chris no longer exists; should I mourn for his passing or be overjoyed that I have matured, leaving that man to the cold blankness of time?

Reading that post, I can answer myself across the gulfs of time and cyberspace, and say "No, you weren't an idiot.  You were brave enough to believe in an ideal, one that had no possibility of making a difference.  But you believed and that, is worth more than can be imagined."

And that is the essence of what I want to do with a blook entitled "Sillyness, Now and Then".

The Premise, as it were

So the basic idea is a conversation or exchange if you will, between earlier versions of myself achieved through selecting various posts from the annals of time, and the current incarnation of myself, the Father... the Husband.

I have no idea what this will become, but I do know that I am excited to write it, and I am excited to create something new, something that hasn't been tried before... as far as I know.

The plan will be to create two versions of this blook, the first and easiest will be a free form conversation, in the form of a novel.  I hope to have it finished by January 1st; at that time if it isn't a complete disaster I will enter it into the Blooker Prize and begin on the second version.

Version 2 of "Sillyness, Now and Then", will be a book more in the lines of what Khaled has given us, I am waffling between 7.5 x 7.5 and 9 x 7.  It will be full color, with illustrations and photography interspersed with the text.

Barring any unforeseen complications I hope to have the second version finished by May of 2007.  So, what say you internet, is this something that seems interesting... interesting enough to purchase?