Our writings are precious to us. And to give up the opportunity for them to get published is brutally hard (or if Chronicles were saying this: "'bloody' hard!" . If anyone wants to keep their electronic rights on the material produced from our writing exercises, they can send their stories through email. Or we can write in a locked-down (password-protected) area where people can post for only the member group to see (maybe they do this in the bootcamp section where members post complete stories).

However, I have greatly considered this, and I urge us to all to just write and post here, in the writers workshop, where everyone can access. I would suggest we take a look at the children's forum. It's convenient, with hardly any hassle involved in posting a story. I want to borrow that aspect of it.
Remember, the 13 lines limit only exist if you want to save your writings for selling. However, we are doing writing exercises. Of course, some of what we write will be good and great, but I'm willing to relinquish even my good and great parts to the public domain for free. Why? Because I know I what is good and great now will be mediocre to the good and great of later. And because I will force the growth of the creative mind. And because of the reasons I have already mentioned in another post and will mention again shortly. While I love my "hatchlings" I want them to sprout wings.

So...I will post my writing exercises here, giving up my electronic rights, or my rights to use them as ideas for a future non-free manuscript. I will do this alone if need be. However, it would be much more encouraging and motivating if we did this as a group. And I would want us all to commit for these reasons:

--we'll be compelled to write

--we learn best by doing this

--we get to exhaust our supply of "crap"

--we learn to stop being so meticulous with our word choice and our style, instead focusing on telling the story effectively (emphasized in OSC's Writing Class)

--increased writing rate and productivity

--giving the members of this forum nice holiday gifts (our stories posted for all to read)

--it'll be fun

The time this writing will take place: Dec 13-Dec 20. As for word count, I realize that 10,000 is too much for most of us to start with. As for 5,000 words, that's averages about 700+ words a day. Let's round up it up to an even 1,000, making the new word count 7,000. It's not that much more than 5,000 (only about eight pages more, in Arial or Times double-spaced 12 font). So, between the 13th and 20th, we will write 7,000 words. We can write whatever we want--stream of consciousness, poetry, novellas, short stories, chapters of novels, essays, etc, or a combination of any in any order. The goal is 7,000 words but we can go well beyond (I would not want to impede any of our more prolific writers). Grunt, we write our own stories. Trist, as for editing--you can edit only after you write 7,000 words. However, I recommend don't even bother editing (I'm going to post what I write as is, typos and all). I know how self-conscious we can be, but this is a writing exercise, with the intent to get us in the habit of writing. Quality will come later. If you're done with 7,000 and you still have time, then write more. Yes, there's anxiety involved with posting grammatical errors and not-so-inspiring stories for others to read, but it pales in comparison to a rejection letter. Ideas--develop your own or ask others to assign or suggest something, or use the character generators some of us have already mentioned. Critiquing--I ask that people respond to a story by mentioning only what they like about it. If you want a critique, in the post itself or through email, just say so. I think, however, that most of the critiquing will be done naturally as we read what everyone else and ourselves have written. The flaws will be apparent to us.

Let me refresh what I've said . Start writing on Dec 13. Post your writing (>7000 words) on Dec 20.

Kathleen, I'm aware of the electronic publication rights policy, but what about choosing to give up that right, and post freely here? And we wouldn't do fanfiction either, as prohibited (http://hatrack.com/writers/writers/index.shtml).

My intentions are to stimulate writing, and foster a habit for it. If for some reason, it can't be done (having a writing event, setting goals, and posting for all to read), well...there are other means, I suppose.

My other question should be: how many people are actually interested in doing this, posting in the public domain, knowing you won't sell any of the exercises you write? Let me know.

As far as publishing my exercises on here... I don't have a problem with it. A question I have is if I write lets say a couple super duper paragraphs in my exercise and then I go on to use them in a short story/novel... is that okay?

My other question is if each person posts 7000 word post every week wouldn't we bog down this forum board? Are we going to use a special area as the writing decision group is doing?

All in all I think this will help my writing productivity... though I have to say I will be some what intimadated to post next to some of you. I have been lurking around here for a week or so and my writing skills are very under-developed compared to all of you. I'm up for the challenge tho.

In case it's helpful to mention, in the Boot Camp 2001 forum, a Web-savvy member just set up a separate, password-protected site from which stories could be downloaded. It is an extra step, but it does sound as though 7,000 word+ posts here would get a little heavy fast.

Let's see what Kathleen suggests.

For example, if I wrote something with a title, "For Whom the PDA Tolls" the following topic would be created in the forum (The writer would create the thread).

Topic subject: For Whom the PDA Tolls - Feedback

blah blah blah
-so and so

We could also only post our word count for the week as well. This would keep both the forums clear and deal with the publishing rights.

*shrug*

Breanna, thanks for the link to the Story Starter. I think it'll be helpful in jumpstarting my writing exercises.

Having our own forum for posting stories would be the most convenient, and we could post the feedback along with the stories, enabling us to share in other people's reactions as well. But if that's not possible, I'd rather do the e-mail thing. That way we don't bog down the forums, no one has to worry about losing their rights, etc. If anyone -does- want feedback from this forum, they can still post on Feedback and Fragments, as Survivor pointed out.

Our posts here could consist of thoughts on how the writing exercises are working out for us, obstacles we run into, etc. A kind of support group, if you'll pardon the term. :-) I was looking forward to that more than the critiquing and reading of stories, to be honest!

Anyway, just my two cents worth. I really hope we can do this, however we do it!

Jen

Breanna
bk0@email.com

I noticed that most of the people in this thread are new members. Did you sign up to be in a writing group? The group does what we are attempting to do now, but is provided a pass-word protected forum to do it in...check out the page elsewhere on this site and see what you think. I put my name in a few days ago.

www.stoweartgellery.com/writers/index.html

as I said before i maintain a website for work and we have tons of space leftover that we are not using... so if you guys want a website for keeping track of wordcounts and posting anything you have worked on to be critiqued let me know. I'm looking into a password for the site now.

Anways let me know if you guys are intrested in it. Beleive me I have PLENTY of time at work to do this.

Also I forgot to mention that I disabled all right clicking on author pages so that someone would have to type it out word for word to copy it.

Breanna
bk0@email.com

A minor typo in the URL: you accidentally have gellery instead of gallery. A British accent.

Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do to straight text on a Web site to prevent its being copied. You could present all text as an image, but even that can be gotten around, and it's horrendously slow and difficult.

So you could for instance highlight the text and select Copy from the Edit menu ...

I think the main issue with Web publishing is that it's available for people to read, rather than the that something would be stolen, though, so as long as you're able to protect with a password, you should be golden.

Cheers,
Luc

Using edit menu *duh* I didn't even think about that. oh well... yeah I'm going to put a password but I won't put it up until beginning of next week.

Grunt,
If you want I can put your paragraphs on the site www.stoweartgAllery.com/writers/index.html
if you want... no password as of today but you are welcome to email your text to me. I can also throw your text into word and give you a word count.

The goal: >7,000 word count written between Dec 13-20. Let's keep ourselves accountable. Everyone is welcomed participate.

Vincent De Lafeyete

I adore the site. If you just tell me what to do and where, I'd appreciate being a member.

I already have e-mail addresses for the following people
Grunt
Trist
Jen
Shadow
Marianne

The latin is just filler just to show you guys what it would be like. I havn't taken latin in like 8 years so I have no idea what it says. I also need to know which people are going to want to post work. So i can fill in Author1, 2 etc with names. Remeber though we are still focusing on writing 7000 words of whatever by 12/20! Also if some people would just like to post a few paragraphs of their weeks work.... instead of the whole thing thats fine too.

Anyways let me know.

On another note I just became a member and not a junior member. wooo hooo for me

Breanna

Vincent De Lafeyete

My update: I just spent the last 3 hours typing 4,266 words

My sense was that this project is a combination of setting ambitious writing goals and feedback on first drafts. That's somewhat different from my understanding of Critters, especially in the specific writing goals.

The gobbledegook on the Web site is filler nonsense words, used to show what real text would look like when you have no real text. But it's weird though, ain't it?

Breanna

My word count is 3650 so far. I've been keeping it to little over a 1000 everyday. This week I have mostly been brainstorming tho so not much in the way of showing anyone since it probably only makes sense to me. Maybe I'll have a least a paragraph or two for someone to go over by friday.

On a side note, I've started to write long hand so I don't consult with reference materials that will slow down my writing. Stopping to look up words will cause me to start analyzing sentences and structure rather than getting the story on paper.

I will prevail.

Trist, how do you override your internal editor? First, you start by not worrying about whether the story is good or not. Second, if you start getting that sickening feeling, just stop with that story and write something else, whatever comes to mind. Third, remember the point of the exercise is getting the words to flow, and developing a habit from it. Once you have achieved that, then you focus on harnessing, guiding the words.

Marianne, how are you coming along?

Once you know the general arc of the story, I don't think that it's the number of words you get down that matters, but the quality of those words and the clarity of your ideas. Then again, I don't like reading books that take a hundred words to get to something interesting.

There are a few catagories to slip your writing into: writing that people who don't like to think or be intellectually invaded would read, writing that I would read, then writing that I would read and then at the end say, "That was a really good book."

I just think that the latter is the only book worth writing. I'll write ugly for a paragraph, but then I have to go back and try to find out exactly why it's so unappealing.

It's the difference between those readers who skim over the words they don't know; the readers who take the time to look them up; and those readers who take the time to look them up, and then write down a flash card for them. Having been one of each of those kinds of readers, the difference between the first and the third catagory is as stark as the one between life and death.

Vincent's got his material up too.

(I would grovel, but it seems to me that you all are doing just fine in the suggestion department. Almost makes me feel I'm not needed around here <sniff, whimper>.)

Anyway, I was going to say if you really had to post your 7000 words here on the Hatrack forum, we could have some kind of deal where I go in an delete each set of 7000 words after a week or so, so it doesn't bog down the site.

However, as you all have noticed, that problem has been solved. Thank you, Breanna, for setting this up for everyone.

One thing: the Hatrack groups are designed for people who have something ready to be critiqued (which is why I ask in the application form if you have something ready).

The Writing Class area, with its assignments, is designed to help those who don't have anything ready yet to be critiqued.

I am looking forward to hearing from those of you who take advantage of Breanna's website to get some writing done and thereby have something that can be critiqued in a group.

I'm feeling a little pathetic, especially since the others in the group seem to have had very little problem meeting the word count goal. But this is exactly why I wanted to join the group. You guys motivate me. You show me what can be done. I'm in for next week, so let me know what the goal will be!

You do the best you can, each day, and you resolve to do better the next day.

You don't beat yourself over the head if you didn't meet your goal today because you know you can give it another try tomorrow.

And you just keep going.

What I have for totals is

Shadow: over 7000!!! good job :P
Vincent: 460
Marianne: 2700
Jen: 1029 (you said you fell 5971 short hopefully I did the math right)
Breanna: 5900 (Some of that was focused on char bilding and going over ideas so I don't have anything worth showing...yet)

[editing something here that should have been emailed privately]

About the 5,000 words for next week--I did send out an email (right after Breanna's) about 4,000 but since you all want to do 5,000 who am I to stop you? By all means, strive to accomplish that goal. The more you write, the sooner you'll understand what it means to write well and to tell a story (it was OSC who made a distinction between "quality" words and "storytelling", and not that I necessarily agree: storytelling is so interwoven with quality words, that makes it stand apart from just "quality" words with no soul to them. Sorry if I'm confusing you .

All right. Happy holidays to everyone on hatrack! For those who are participating in the word goal (and for those who aren't--what are you waiting for? come play!), I expect to have lots to read when I return(tommorrow, I'm going away for a while).

For those who are not currently participating but want to participate, visit the website http://www.stoweartgallery.com/writers/index.html and email your submissions to Breanna, who manages the site, bk0@email.com
It will be password protected.

Word Goal for Dec 20-27: 5,000 words