31
votes
A Writing Club
I'd like to gauge interest in a writing group. The quality of expression I find at Tildes and the nature of some of the Timasomo projects prompt me to wonder if maybe there aren't enough regularly-writing members to form a circle for critique and support. I have some experience teaching, but never have run a group. I'm a committed generalist--I don't think I would want to limit it to a particular form or genre.
Anyone interested? Have you taken part in one before / belong to one now?
I’m heartened to see some interest! My preliminary ideas about how this could work revolve around the number three.
A three-week cycle. Three weeks feels like a long enough interval to afford you some days without any progress, but it’s not so long that you’ve moved on completely by the time you’re receiving feedback.
Three critiques gets three critiques. @Grzmot Your question raises a good point. I advocate for organization. There is a realistic worry that submissions will die on the vine if members don’t commit to providing feedback on a schedule. I suggest we assign readers to a submission each time.
@wcerfgba My hope is that we could workshop drafts out of view, with only select polished pieces getting published to Tildes. We could collect the submissions off-site, assign readers, and vote to push the best pieces to their own Tildes thread? A featured piece would be an achievement to aim for and would allow us to maintain a minimum for quality to represent the group. A member sharing your inclinations could offer sporadic feedback at this “featured” level, reading a thread that grabs their interest and leaving suggestions in a comment. That would divide the group’s activities into three venues: threads tagged “Writing Club” for organizational questions, housekeeping, suggestions, chatter, etc.; an off-site space to collect and distribute drafts; featured pieces for wider attention in their own threads.
If it goes this way, what platform/venue would work for sharing and assigning the draft submissions?
Love this idea; also agree with @Grzmot that a tri-weekly thread should work okay. Though I think we should also have a zine!!!
Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes! A Tildes zine would be so wonderful.
once we can get the writing club put together then, let's totes get some publishing happening :D
What's a zine? :)
Like a home-made magazine! Usually they're copied out and stapled together and distributed, but you can also have a e-zine (like my friends at the tildeverse) or whatever else. Zines have a rich history in punk and fandom communities, read more at Wikipedia!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanzine
3 weeks sounds like a plan.
I think it doesn't need to be uniform. As long as it can be read in a non-painful way it should be fine. I've used Google Docs in the past, and I'd prefer uploading PDFs, because I like using LaTeX to typeset my stories in a pretty wayyes I like selecting pretty fonts a bit too much ok and I think opening a PDF is something I can expect everyone to do (maybe more than using Google Docs on Tildes, I think people would crucify me here).
I personally don't see why we need an off-site to do this though. A collective update thread every 3 weeks with potential separate spotlight threads sounds totally fine to me. It's not like it'll get buried in endless activity.
I also like latex, but I think some people may object to pdfs on the grounds that they can't easily be re-flowed and don't render well on mobile devices.
That said, pandoc can convert latex to html, which may be an option (though it may mangle some more precise bits of layout).
I would also like to avoid google docs, for privacy reasons.
Yeah, PDFs and mobile doesn't jive well. Which sucks, because how else would people see my BEAUTIFUL BASKERVILLE FONT?DID YOU SEE THE ITALIC AMPERSAND? LOOK AT IT! PERFECTION 👌
And I try and use customization to make my texts more interesting to read and convey information through styling.
This can be achieved with any WYSIWYG editor, but Gdocs would also allow comfortable reading on the phone. I don't know of any privacy conscious choice which hits the sweet spot between all these options.
Latex is overkill for something like that, I think.
How so?
Markdown fulfills every need while writing latex is far from trivial for regular people. Not every Tilder knows latex, but most of them probably know at least some markdown. Latex is an unnecessary complication. Besides, PDFs are meant for printing.
I don't think anyone intended latex to be the only option.
Postscript and dvi are meant for printing. PDF is meant to guarantee consistent layout while still providing vector graphics.
In any case, PDFs are terrible to read on small screens...
I'm not sure exactly what you had in mind, but I would be interested in participating in some kind of workshop or support group. Like so many things in my life these days, my follow-through might be somewhat lacking, but for the moment at least, sure, count me in.
I started writing my first novel at around age 8 or 9, finished some 7-8 chapters, 50+ pages, before I petered out. I have started to write a book (generally, but not always, novels), every ~5-ish years since then, 8-10 separate efforts, plus another couple dozen ideas sketched out but never pursued. I generally tend to lose interest around the time I figure out how the story ends ... after which point, why bother writing it down?
In between, intermittently, I've written a lot of short stories and journals and such-like, in part for my own benefit, and in part because I am convinced my life story is so fascinating that everyone would want to read about it, if only I took the time to write it down.
I quite recently re-re-restarted blogging a bit. Trying to write actual, quality bits of fiction and thoughtful little vignettes and such, with the goal of rekindling that urge, improving my writing, looking for new ideas, etc.
I'm going to spend the day mulling options and my own feelings on the need for structure, uniformity, and deadlines. As @mrbig points out, The DestructiveReaders subreddit presents a great analog to model our writing club after, or to distinguish ours from. I agree that we could start out more relaxed than having to display critique social-credit numbers, but I am still on the side of off-site docs, a three-week deadline, and assigning readers (but additional readers passing by to give critiques are welcome). I can plan to put together a voting thread tomorrow for all the options we've so far considered?
Sounds good to me!
I would certainly be interested! I enjoy writing quite a lot, but rarely have critical feedback for what I'm putting down. I've thought about participating in something of this nature before, through meetups in my city or at University, but never made the time for it. Since we're locked down, and we have nothing but time, I may be ripe for another go, and trying to build up the writing habit again.
I am 1million% interested in a creative writing group. Since leaving college with the regular writing workshops I've struggled to keep up a regular writing habit, plus I want to ping my ideas off others (and giving feedback is a great way to /get/ ideas!) to see if they're any good.
So yes! I'm mostly poetry but might try some short fiction.
100% interested, though I might be mostly reviewing if we do any kind of workshop stuff. But I think it'd be nice to have a writing community here on tildes. We could use discord, element, or a number of ways to gather in chat rooms.
Something to consider is also file format and making sure whoevers work is being reviewed, that they can access it for any comments made. Or just in general, like if someone doesn't want any of their work on Google, Don make comments there by importing their work etc. Might seem fickle but definitely something to bring up when people review!
Absolutely. Finding a standard for files is critical. I'm going to very strongly push for FOSS, privacy-respecting services and software.
My preference would be Org Mode, but due to easiness and adoption, I think markdown is a no brainer. Github Gists are very adequate for that, but Tildes also support markdown and can be read without an account. Why not post everything here?
/r/destructivereaders have such a system. IDK how much of it is automated.
Thanks for sharing this subreddit. I'll pore over their rules and regulations for ideas.
I agree with the sibling.
I think that we should start without formal rules, and only have a guideline that people should prioritize giving feedback to works that haven't received any yet. If it's a problem in practice then we can start looking into a more rigid structure.
I think it’s a good system, but I’d rather have something more relaxed. Like one review given == two texts shared. And without so many demands for length.
I only write sporadically, mostly non-fiction articles on ideas I am thinking about. I'd be happy to provide critique on people's work if something catches my eye -- I wouldn't want to commit to reading and critiquing X articles a week/month though, since my motivation is very flighty.
How are you imagining this would work? Is it just a free-form forum where people can post stuff whenever they have something and other people can critique it if they are interested, or would there be more structured happenings like calls for submissions on a theme (e.g. this month, write a story on theme X)?
Either way, probably a
~by-tilderinosgroup orshow-tildestag or something would be a good way to allow labeling and finding this content and initiatives? (I'm still not too sure of the distinction between tags and groups, I like a unified and multimodal information architecture with 'one obvious way to do it' so I see groups as redundant given we have tags).I write fiction as a hobby, so I'd definitely be interested. We don't need to lock ourselves on fiction or non-fiction I think, for me just a critique and the feeling that someone has read it and cares is enough motivation for me.
It depends on how organized we want to make it, should we have recurring threads? Or should people just post their stuff and hope someone critiques it?
I’d be definitely interested in something like that!
I'd be down. Currently I'm just starting two different regular poetry workshops so I'm not sure how much I'd be able to participate, but I've been told that I give good feedback and I'd love to offer up some help.
If I do bring things, it'd probably be essays and poems.
I would be tentatively interested, assuming flexibility with subject matter and format. I often write creatively, or rather have fleeting inspiration to do so, but lack the structure to see most of my ideas realized.
I'm interested. My writing muscles could use a bit of exercise, though my process isn't exactly deadline-friendly and right now I'm still putting together the music bestof. I'd definitely dip in from time to time though.
Late to the party but i am interested!