Writing Community....

[absolutelyfatal.livejournal.com]

I know for a lot of people, if not all people, the month of November is a really bad choice for NaNoin'. I have a bunch going on and a bout of depression didn't help my writing. I'm bipolar and I write best when I'm manic. So November blew for me, I got to 8000, got a few days behind then I lost my job, so I just stopped.

Like some people in this community I plan to have a writing career, I'm a writer and an actor. So this isn't just a monthly thing for me, it just gives me some motivation and a community of people to be involved with. My point is, I would like to create community for those of us who write year round. We wouldn't have a short-term 50k a month sort of goal. It would be something like "This month we are going to get 20k" and if you hit that then you get an e-brownie(NO IT DOESN'T HAVE E IN IT, IT'S E FOR ELECTRONIC, DON'T GET TOO EXCITED.) and your name on our userinfo. We would be weekly, instead of daily, word count posts and excerpt posts. And words of the week. This won't only be for novels though, because I write poetry as well. I haven't figured out all the kinks and all the pro's of this. I just know it would help me motivate myself and having a group of others that are working with me would be supportive.

My question is, who would be interested in this type of community? Do you think it's a good idea? Any suggestions for it?


~Alistra

PS: Pumpkin Spice Ice Capp Supreme at Tim Hortons is fab...ULOUS.

Comments

[hendrikboom.livejournal.com]

I tried freewriting this month. I've reached 22000. Some of the stuff I can use. Some of it is drivel.

The reason we naowrimoers allow ourselves to write crap is that is you put a censor on what you write, creativity stops. You need to be able to write crap to write your best. Amid the crap there's reallyu good stuff that you can really do something with.

That said, I see little point in setting a wordcount goal that so taxes your spirit that all you can write is crap.

What works for me in nanowrimo it the community. Not the on-line community, though that is what organises it -- it's the offline community. The once-a-week regional meetings, where we mention out word-counts, get gold start for passing the Tuesday 2000-word challenge, and talk a little bit about writing but mostly about anything else. Writing is a lonely activity. The social context helps.

So there's the local social context, the wordcount challenge, and the feeling one is caught up in something larger than oneself via the international cevtral website.

Would it be possible to get something like that up? Would it need a website and dedicated staff? Would it need enough participants to have a local group that meets? Every year there's talk here of continuing it in some form through the rest of the year. It never happens. There's been attempts to set up an editing month, a script-writing month, and so forth. I haven't noticed any of these having enough critical mass to create the social context, although there are people who participate, and, apparently, find it useful.

So -- what's necessary to create the social context? Any ideas?

[absolutelyfatal.livejournal.com]

After the overwhelming response to my previous post about a writing community year around and the underwhelming response of previous communities for writers I decided to make one for us and all writers.

The community name is our_eloquence because it's hard to come up with a good name. Starting December 1st there will be posts regarding mods(I think I will be needing 3 to start off) I need and a layout.

So go join after your done with your NaNo's! Welcome welcome welcome!

~Alistra.