The Annotated Providence

I'm a trivia sponge. Any weird facts I read, any little snippets about this celebrity or that scientific theorem or those historical events, get logged in my brain for later use in impressing people at parties. If that weren't damning enough, I was also a Literature major in college. When you combine these two things, you are probably not surprised at my deep love for annotated editions. It is one of my life goals to own the Annotated Sherlock Holmes, along with the Annotated Alice; I don't want the Annotated Ulysses only because I am concerned its density could collapse the spatial integrity of my living room.*

Now, the point is, as I was sitting on my computer one day, trying to do some work, a friend mentioned that they would love to see an Annotated Not Providence. This appeal to both a not-so-secret obsession and an even-less-secret vanity was too much for me, and I set about wondering: how would I even make this happen?

And the answer, as so many bloggers and Internet celebrities have learned, is simple: talk to the readers. It's called the Internet; lets put its "inter" to the test.

So, here's the plan, short and simple. If there is some reference in Not Providence, some joke or allusion or piece of slang, that you want explained, tell me so, via the handy-dandy Annotation Request form, a link to which will soon be creeping, cancer-like, onto the Not Providence update pages. Each week (tentatively; depends on the demand, but it will not be more than weekly), I will go over the requested annotations, and create annotated versions of the relevant Not Providence updates for your perusal, and post to announce where your request appeared, so you can go and see it and enjoy being one step closer to True Internet Celebrity. These annotated versions will be linked to by, but stand separate from, the original updates, so that those who do not enjoy annotations can avoid looking at them if they don't want to.

Now, like any project of this nature, there are a few ground rules:

No spoilers. I will happily explain asides, slang, references, and other assorted trivia of both my writing style and the Not Providence universe; I will not, however, explain how a statement ties into the greater plot. At least, not before the connection is revealed in the course of the story, and even then, not in public—see the final rule.

Annotations will appear with the earliest relevant update. If you ask me to explain a slang term first used in Book One Part One, you'll find the information there; if enough people ask about something already covered that I think I've mislinked/miscoded the file, I will refer back to said file in a later update.

Annotation requests should be submitted via either email, a blog comment on a Not Providence-related post (preferably the Annotation Project post), or an @reply on Twitter. All three of these options are available on the Annotation Request page.

I will tell you that your request has been received. If you do not hear back within 3 days of making the request, feel free to re-submit it.

I will always respond to annotation requests. The response may be an email or a comment saying that fulfilling your request would result in spoilers, but I will always respond. Again, if I take 3 days or more to respond, please feel free to see if your request was received.

There. Rules outlined, system more or less prepared. I've already gotten a couple requests from people to whom I rumbled about this idea, so I'll go ahead and consider those added to the pile for this week. For the rest, please to be following the link to the Annotation Request page to see that any requess you might have make it into the running.