An Experiment; Also, I Am Neurotic
Tomorrow is Choose Your Own Blogventure day here at, well, here and elsewhere. CYOB is the brainchild of NPW, and this sentence contains lot of aconyms. Twenty-two bloggers have written chapters of a short story, all of which have to go live tomorrow at 10:00 AM Eastern/7:00 AM Pacific and various times in between. Because it’s a collaborative effort, if one person doesn’t get his or her chapter published, it can mess up that branch of the storyline. I finished my chapter a couple of weeks ago and now I just have to publish it tomorrow morning. Thus, here is what I’ve been thinking for the last two weeks every time I look at my blog:
What if my internet connection isn’t working on the 30th?
Maybe I should send my chapter to someone else with instructions to publish it in case my internet connection isn’t working on the 30th.
I could send it to Stefanie. I don’t think Stefanie is doing it this time.
Why isn’t Stefanie doing it this time?
I hope Stefanie is okay!
If my internet connection isn’t working on the 30th, I could go into the office to publish it.
I don’t want to go into the office at 7:00. Larry will be the only one there and he’ll talk to me.
The last time Larry talked to me, he guessed my weight and got it exactly right.
I hate Larry!
I think I ate all the Halloween candy.
I hope my internet connection is working on the 30th.
And so on and so forth. The upshot being that there might be a story chapter here tomorrow morning and there might not, depending on whether my internet connection is working. Incidentally, it has never not worked before; I just like to worry.
You may be thinking, “why don’t you just schedule it to post automatically tomorrow, nitwit.” Which, that’s rude. But yes, excellent idea. Except I’ve never scheduled a post before, and I have no idea if it’s reliable so I will check the WordPress forums to see what others have to say. Ah. They say it’s unreliable. Of course, some of these people are saying things like “supposably it will publish tomorrow” and “I would not be phased if it didn’t work,” so … you know. I suspect these are people who have written long blog posts discussing their “preggnent hampsters.”
This is where the experimental part comes in. This post, the one you may or may not be reading right this second is a scheduled post. If you are reading it, then no problem. If you’re not, then you’ll never know. But again, if you are, then that means tomorrow’s post should publish as well. Unless WordPress as a whole crashes. I think I will worry about that for a while and then stop.
I always put up my Thursday Travel post with Mr. Linky the night before because 1) all the what if’s and 2) my time zone is so behind everyone.
The collaborative story sound cool and I will be back to follow it around this weekend.
Dude, I totally screwed up the CYOB trail last year. It was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. And yes, I’ve been having those moments of panic about not getting it posted on time this year.
Don’t fret. We’ll make it happen. (And yeah… I might end up posting mine tonight JUST TO BE SAFE.)
I can’t wait to read it! As long as you don’t screw it up. Don’t screw it up!
This post FELT scheduled to me.
Can’t wait to read tomorrow’s post!
Also, I just broke down and opened the bag of Halloween candy. I am so screwed.
Did you check to make sure this isn’t the weekend we set the clocks back? Just one more thing to worry about. You’re welcome.
Our brains work in alarmingly simular ways (see, I have been hanging out on the message board, too. )
Oddly enough I’m reading this yesterday, but not after the midnight/tea time shift. Of course that takes into account the barometric pressure over the Bermuda Triangle during the Spring Equinox, wich is supposably the most interesting place in the world irregardless.
I’m sorry, I forgot what we were talking about.
Oh, yeah, I see your post.
I was worried about screwing it up, so I just publisehd it early instead of trusting that my scheduled time would work.
I love it when my name shows up in a post that has nothing to do with me. To answer your question, I didn’t participate because I am a lousy blog reader lately, and am always at least three days behind on all posts. By the time I saw NPW’s post about the next CYOB, I was already too late to sign up. Oh well. But I am pleased and amused that you were thinking of me!
I was similarly paranoid about scheduling my first WordPress post for The Greenists recently. As it turns out, I was paranoid with good reason, but the fault was with my ability to tell time, not WordPress’s ability to follow my instructions. This just in: midnight is ZERO hours on a 24-hour clock, not 12:00. Whoopsie.