Call me crazy, but I’m writing a novel on Twitter. You can watch the magic in real time at twitter.com/gregsnovel. From time to time, I’ll post compiled chapters here, along with my notes for what’s working and what isn’t and what I might do in the next draft.
Click here to read Chapter One
Click here to read Chapter Two
Click here to read Chapter Three (part one)
Read on for the next chunk of Chapter Three, written last night, followed by some notes-to-self. WARNING: Some adult language!
CHAPTER THREE (continued)
When Rima awoke, night had fallen and the cat was sitting on her chest, purring and kneading with its eyes nearly shut and its fat cheeks pulled up into something as close to a smile as she’d ever seen on an actual flesh-and-blood feline.
Rima felt great. Rested and refreshed and utterly alert. She put her arms around the cat and sat up, stroking its chin as she looked around.

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Call me crazy, but I’m writing a novel on Twitter. You can watch the magic in real time at twitter.com/gregsnovel. From time to time, I’ll post compiled chapters here, along with my notes for what’s working and what isn’t and what I might do in the next draft.
Click here to read Chapter One
Click here to read Chapter Two
Read on for the first chunk of Chapter Three, written last night, followed by some notes-to-self.
CHAPTER THREE
Rima always knew she was strong. Once or twice a year since she was fourteen she’d challenge Chris to an arm wrestle. And she’d always win.
But until today she didn’t know she was strong enough to push a 150 pound man in a wheelchair 200 yards up a 15 degree incline through two foot tall grass in less than three minutes.
The alien birds lunged at them. But the old woman running at Rima’s side snarled and swung her umbrella. And the young man with the cat swung his cat, who shrieked and yowled within its soft carrying case.
The birds fluttered away and returned to the dead bodies alongside the wreckage of the subway car.
“Scavengers, not predators,” thought Rima. “Good,” she said aloud. With eerie calm, she took note of her eerie calm.
She also noticed her failure to collapse into tears at Chris’s disappearance. And then she noted to herself that perhaps she was merely being rational and hopeful — better for Chris to be absent than among the dead currently being liquefied and guzzled by the birds.
Once she cleared the hill, Rima headed for the edge of the forest adjoining the savanna. Chances were excellent that something horrible and sharp lurked among the orange trees. Hell, the trees themselves would probably eat them.
But we evolved from arboreal simians, thought Rima. Can’t fight that instinct. Gotta head for the trees.
The trees did not eat them. But as they passed under the first branches, pollen pods exploded all around them and a soft mist of sweet smelling nectar filled the air. Rima felt an immediate surge of tremendous well-being. We’ve been drugged, she thought.
And then she burst out laughing. The old woman, the young man, and the man in the wheelchair all stared at each other, panting and smiling.
“Not funny,” said the young man, grinning. “The trees. The pollen’s an opiate,” said Rima. The old woman sat down on a fallen trunk and let out a deeply satisfied sigh. “At least we’ll die happy,” she said. The cat began to purr.
Rima sat down. Stared through the tree trunks at the birds lazily flapping away from the dessicated corpses by the subway car.
She lay her head down on the soft leaf litter and fell asleep.
NOTES TO SELF
1. Found myself finally cutting loose a bit with wordplay. Might be over the top here and there, but I can revise later if that’s the case. Nice to be relaxing a bit, having a bit more fun with the language. The interesting thing is that I didn’t realize I wasn’t relaxing until I started relaxing.
2. Still haven’t named those supporting characters. Come on, Pak. Get on that!
3. Made Rima a doctor a couple of days ago without thinking about it too much — very happy with the decision now. Gives her the professional background to react coolly and analytically under such extreme circumstances. Makes her interesting and helps with explaining/exploring the world. Also reminds me of an improv maxim, which is to play every character off the top of your audience. Rima’s SMART. She’ll be right there with us or a beat ahead of us in figuring out what’s going on in this new world, which will (I hope) help the story and mystery constantly move forward and get more interesting.

Yes, I’m writing a novel on Twitter. You can watch me write it in real time at twitter.com/gregsnovel. From time to time, I’ll post compiled chapters here, along with my notes for what’s working and what isn’t and what I might do in the next draft.
Click here to read Chapter One
Read on for Chapter Two, written on 01/11 and 01/12 (WARNING: Some violence and profanity.)
(Special thanks to the awesome Chad Bonin, who kindly compiled some of these tweets.)
CHAPTER TWO (01.11.2012)
Rima never saw the bird; she just saw its three foot metal talons shattering the windows and puncturing the roof of the subway car. And then the entire car lifted from the tracks. Sparks and fire erupted as the car broke away from the rest of the train, which careened off the elevated tracks and slammed into the line of apartments and shops below.

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By Greg Pak
The rumors are true — I’m writing a novel on Twitter. You can watch me write it in real time at twitter.com/gregsnovel. And from time to time, I’ll post compiled chapters here, along with my notes for what’s working and what isn’t and what I might do in the next draft.
So here’s Chapter One, in which we meet our heroine Rima, who’s trying to kill her husband with her eyes. (And special thanks to the awesome Chad Bonin, who kindly compiled these tweets.)
CHAPTER ONE
Rima stared at her husband and killed him with her eyes. He just sat there, stupidly, reading a comic book, as the 7 train clang clanged up out of the tunnel and over Flushing into the dusky orange shafts of late afternoon sunlight. He looked up as the light hit his face, then turned to her and smiled, oblivious to her stare. The light was in his eyes; he couldn’t see. But she’d given him the same look a dozen times before, just to see if he noticed. And even in the softest light, in the clearest conditions, he always gave her the same calm, sweet look.
“Headache?” he said.
She kept killing him with her eyes. He just reached into his satchel and pulled out a bottle of Advil.

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By Greg Pak
UPDATE: Click here to read Chapter One!
Over the years, I’ve had a number of story ideas that I thought would work best as novels. But given my other comics and film deadlines, I’ve never been able to organize my schedule or section out the brainspace to do something as huge as write a book.
But the other day it occurred to me that I might be able to kick myself in the pants and crank out a first draft of one of these stories by writing it publicly — on Twitter.
I started last night. You can follow the madness at twitter.com/GregsNovel (the username will probably change once I figure out what the actual title of the book is).
My ground rules for myself:
1. I have a story in mind with a beginning, middle, and end. But I pledge that all of the actual writing of the story will be done only in Twitter, 140 characters at a time. No cheating by drafting stuff ahead of time and cutting and pasting it in. What you see is a genuine, unvarnished first draft, written in real time right before your eyes.
2. Any non-novel-writing on the account will be preceded by an asterisk.
3. I’ll post compiled chapters right here on my website, along with notes-to-self about what’s working and what isn’t and what I’ll try to correct when I hit the second draft. But I’m going to do my best to keep moving forward and hammer out the whole story before going back to revise. Revisions will probably happen off of Twitter.
So that’s the big plan for this crazy experiment! Again, check out twitter.com/GregsNovel and let me know what you think!