Twiller on Twitter

It had either passed me by, or I knew but had forgotten, that Matt Richtel has for the past two months been using Twitter to write a real-time thriller called, inevitably, Twiller. The author writes: "It’s about a man who wakes up in the mountains of Colorado, suffering from amnesia, with a haunting feeling he is a murderer. In possession of only a cellphone that lets him Twitter, he uses the phone to tell his story of self-discovery, 140 characters at a time. Think “Memento” on a mobile phone, with the occasional emoticon." If you can't face reading the novel in 140-character chunks including spaces, here's a slightly longer plot summary at Matt Richtel's blog, to allow "new followers" as he calls them, to catch up.

I don't know if this is supposed to be the actual novel, but here is Mr Richtel's Twitter account. The most recent entry reads:

"as u no, im drivin deadmans bmw 2 dc. in glove cmpt: pink slip in name Dave Ito of DC; &, photo of Lev Kind (ME) but 10yr ago, in fatigues" Maybe he should try FriendFeed, they give you more space per post over there. Matt Richtel is a journalist with the New York Times and author of the previously published novel Hooked, half of which I read (in ink-on-paper, conventional bound form) a year ago but could not finish. It wasn't bad, just not my cup of tea.