I have long harbored a dream that I would write the great American novel… or “young adult” fantasy novel… or surreal cyberpunk mind-bender… I’ve always wanted to get one of the many stories in my head out in a complete text. My thesis, in its glorious quantity, has quite sadly given me hope.
Some people are exploring the artistic and aesthetic options provided by the web as they output their creativity. Writing novels in diary form is reasonably fashionable, and for good reason: they provide ready access to the character’s mind as he or she divulges his or her private thoughts, and the reader doesn’t have to deal with the intercession of some snarky narrator. One of the more notable blog-novels is Tropic/of/Cubicle by Roderick Maclean. I’ve read bits and pieces of it, and it’s definitely worth a look.
Ever heard of Na-No-Wri-Mo? It’s moved on to the blogs, too… somewhere. Sadly can’t find a good link for you all.
There’s also, of course, my original exposure to a version of this concept (and you’ve probably all seen these a million times because they are, as Anonymous says, “old as the internets”): The Very Secret Diaries, which you may read here or in their original milieu here.
Edit:
Blog Your Novel Month
Blog on your own novel seems to fall onto the same page as Deviant Art in terms of collective feedback leading to better personal growth and the ability for anyone to post.
That said, and this just may be my own pretentious English majorishness rearing its ugly head, but I feel like the internet lends itself much more to visual art than to the written word. And I was never a huge fan of “novels” in installments (yes, I know Dickens did it that way… but these people aren’t Dickens and aren’t paid by the page). I think that this is a trend that will probably never catch on in the literary community, but it will definitely be interesting to see where it goes.
I mean, I know fanfiction writers have just switched names around and ending up turning their stories into beach reads.