Blog Flashback 1 - Fibs!

In kicking off my look back at my 10 years of blogging here, I figure there's no point in burying the story of Fibs. I mean, seriously - a viral blog post (or two, even), me and the blog in the New York Times, and a two book deal with Arthur A. Levine (at his imprint at Scholastic)? Yeah. All that happened back in April of 2006, and that's gonna show up in my memories. So, I am just gonna lead with it.

FIBS!!!!!!

I love those things. 20 syllable poems, following the Fibonacci sequence. Simple in concept but very hard to pull off well, I think. Back in April 2006, though, folks were writing them all around the web and showing off their brilliance (and seriously... people do amazing things with words). An online journal - the fib review - started in 2006 that's still going strong today. A Wikipedia page has sprung up since. And in 2013, my debut novel, The 14 Fibs of Gregory K., featured the poetic form (as plot and poetry). All from a blog post!


People ask me sometimes why I like social media so much. The Fib story is one reason. Not just because of the outcome for me (though hey... I admit to being thrilled by it) but because in that one month, I was able to watch an idea spread around the globe... be expanded upon and reworked and played with... bring communities together (there were Fib threads on actuary chat boards, in musician forums, at gaming sites, Slashdot.org, and even on a board of spanking fetishists)... and slowly ebb but stay firmly placed after the fact.

From a GottaBook perspective, one of the reasons I'd started blogging was to play around with experiments just like Fibs. I got lucky six weeks into my blog's existence. I've never again had the same amount of traffic as I had on April 7, 2006 (or in that month entirely). And that's never been a problem - other events and ideas have still found their audience. And who knows? Some day, something else may spark the same reaction. I certainly hope so! It was a ton of fun and truly a pleasure to be part of. And that is no fib.