Blogging a book chapter

Suzanne Stefanac is writing a book for Peachpit / New Riders’ “Voices that Matter” series, called Dispatches from Blogistan. She is interviewing a number of bloggers (including yours truly) and of course blogging the process of writing the book.

Now she has posted an entire chapter in her blog: Dispatches From Blogistan :: chapter two: the urge to publish is universal and irrepressible and is inviting feedback.

It’s a brave move and one that I think we’ll see more of. Why not get commentary and insight and even criticism before the copy is locked down on paper?

Here’s a little excerpt, but you have to click through to get it all:

By the time Julius Caesar assumed power, the written word had become a powerful political tool. Caesar was quick to realize that the roads linking his far-flung provinces could facilitate more than just the movement of troops and merchants. In 59 BCE, he dictated that daily reports from Rome be posted throughout the empire for all to see.

Called Acta Diurna—literally, “news of the day”—these missives recorded on sheepskin and metal sheets not only listed official decrees and judicial rulings, they also broadcast the results of gladiatorial contests, announced notable marriages, births, and deaths. They also recorded astrological omens, as well as recaps of ever-popular celebrity trials and executions. These uniform daily reports lent a sense of cohesion to the motley Empire. Respect for the written word wasn’t universal, of course. In 48 CE, Caesar’s successors sacked and burned the Alexandrian libraries, but the Acta did continue without a break until the year 200. By then the marauding hordes were moving in from the eastern steppes and not that interested in old news from Rome. But the legacy of the first daily news lives on.

Some etymologists believe that the word journalist derives from these Acta Diurna.