About this thing…

So I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year.
… Except for this one leetle project. Nine of us are doing intertwined short stories in a shared setting, using a little set of ‘rules’ to make sure that the stories are all intermingled. In the end, it should be 50000 words.
We’ve all agreed that we’re not going to link to the site where we’re doing this until (at least) after the thing is over, but that we can talk about it. I’m going to talk about two things.
1. The rules, cuz I think they’re pretty spiffy. This is the Very Simple Summary of the rules.

1. 925 words, minimum, due on the 3rd, 8th, 13th, 18th, 23rd, and 28th.
2. In the first turn, you put a link at the end of the story to two new, unwritten story titles that (a) sound like something cool you want someone to write and (b) you want to have ‘touch’ your story in some way.
3. In the second through sixth turn, you have to write a story for one of the titles that someone else created in one of THEIR stories, and do a mix of (a) creating new titles for unwritten stories that someone else will have to write and (b) linking your story back to stuff that’s already been written. ((In the detailed version of the rules, there’s a pattern for this.))
Example of creating a new title: in your first story, you mention ‘the ghosts in room 141’, but that’s all you do with it. At the bottom, you make a link to a story called “141 Ghosts”. It doesn’t exist yet, but it will, because now someone else has to write that story in a later turn.
Then…
Example of connecting to a written story: you have an ornate salt cellar in your story. Joe has an ornate salt cellar in a story that he wrote a few turns ago… you put a link at the bottom of your story to Joe’s story, simply because, in your head, it’s the same salt cellar.

There’s a version that’s a lot more detailed, but that’s pretty much it. I think it’s kinda spiffy (for all that I didn’t really think of it, just tweaked rules from another creative writing thing I’ve done).
2. What folks are writing.
Stuff for the first turn is coming in from the other authors.
Holy crap it’s good. Damn.