Watch the World’s First Real-Time Novel-in-Progress

When he was just twenty-four years old, Charles Dickens wrote what would arguably become the publishing world’s first literary sensation: a serialized collection known as The Pickwick Papers. The story’s readership grew enormously with each monthly installment, and by its completion, in late 1837, it had spawned theatrical adaptations and a swag of spin-off merchandise, everything from cigars to ceramic tchotchkes (all of which probably makes Dickens the OG authorpreneur).

Fast-forwardto 2015. Brooklyn-based writer Joshua Cohen, author of the critically laudedBook of Numbers,is updating the concept for our hyper-connected, information-overloaded times. Each afternoon this week, from 1 — 6 p.m. EST, Cohen is writingPCKWCK,his version of The Pickwick Papers,live. You can watch his progress— as he types each word — in real time. While the text grows on the page, a webcam keeps an updated view of Cohen at his computer. You can comment on the proceedings on a chat feed and click on your favorite parts of the text. It all contributes to a dump of data thatthe author can incorporate (or not) into the story.

Watching it allisan oddly mesmerizing experience,made possible bya custom-built interface developed by the irreverent internet publishing collective Useless Press. Would Dickens, publicity hound that he was, jump at the chance to write under the all-seeing eye of a webcam? Or would he chafe at the digital incursions of the surveillance state and the tyrannyof analytics, data, and user reviews over the geniusof the artist?Will Cohen wrestle his plot to a satisfying conclusion by Friday night? Tune inhereto find out.