Lounge II (The Lounge Strikes Back)

[kais]

LOL!

But coming from S' POV, it would eyebrow raises and then side eye shame for being outside a guild and trying to do your own work.

[mrwizard70]

I'm back. Glad yall are still doing well. 

[kais]

I was in transit yesterday coming back from Houston and the gate right next to me was filled with a bunch of Writing Excuses people who had just come off the cruise! I chatted with one. Such a fun coincidence!

Oh, also, I have an agent!!!!

[Robinski he/him]

2 hours ago, kais said:

Oh, also, I have an agent!!!!

Excellent!  

[Mandamon he/him]

8 hours ago, kais said:

I was in transit yesterday coming back from Houston and the gate right next to me was filled with a bunch of Writing Excuses people who had just come off the cruise! I chatted with one. Such a fun coincidence!

Awesome! Now I want to know details...I've been following their adventures online this year.

8 hours ago, kais said:

Oh, also, I have an agent!!!!

Looking forward to more great books!

[industrialistDragon]

There were local apples in all my varieties on supersale at the grocery store and, cat-gods of the internet preserve me, I'm making my holiday pies almost two months early. I AM NOT MENTALLY PREPARED FOR AN UNDERTAKING OF THIS MAGNITUDE. What have I done to myself? Send help (or apple corers). 

(pay no attention to the bagged apples, that's last year's photo. I haven't even photoed this year's ingredients yet @_@ )

[Mandamon he/him]

1 hour ago, industrialistDragon said:

What have I done to myself? Send help (or apple corers). 

I am agree! I just made baklava for our game night tomorrow...

By the way, the mince pie from last year was awesome!

[industrialistDragon]

 

1 hour ago, Mandamon said:

I just made baklava for our game night tomorrow...

Baklava! That looks delicious! I'm impressed, because that's far too many layers of flaky pastry for me to manage. Mincemeat just involves lots of chopping...

[industrialistDragon]

Hey @Silk (or anybody) I have a random administrata question: how would we go about getting the subtitle/description of the our subforum here updated? With NaNo starting up, I noticed a bunch of activity on the Creativity subforum, and it got me thinking. "Reading Excuses" doesn't sound like a crit or writing help group, and the subtitle description under that sort of makes it sound like we're a fan group for Writing Excuses, so if we wanted to be more accessible to the 17s forum as a whole (and NaNo's a great time for a crit and help group to be accessible I feel like), there ought to be some mention of the crit and help functions of what we do, I think? But like, how does somebody even go about suggesting something like that? Is there some kind of quorum needed to vote, or just, like, PMing an admin or...?  

[Silk she/her]

Good call! I  would think we could just message Chaos (or another admin?) with our requested text changes, yeah.
Also, your pictures upthread are reminding me that I meant to post about my baking (mis)adventures...

[industrialistDragon]

19 hours ago, Silk said:

we could just message Chaos (or another admin?) with our requested text changes,

Then the next question becomes, what do we want the text to say? 

[kais]

20 hours ago, industrialistDragon said:

what do we want the text to say? 

Writer's Critique Group

Aspiring Writer's Critique Co-Op

Super Awesome Writing Group of the Shard

Sharders for Better Drafting

???

[aeromancer he/him]

20 hours ago, industrialistDragon said:

Then the next question becomes, what do we want the text to say? 

Currently it says: "An online writing group by the fans, for the fans. Inspired by the popular podcast Writing Excuses."

I suppose we'd want something along the lines of:  "An online writing group, focused on peer-critiqued work. All Sharders welcomed, regardless. Inspired by the popular podcast Writing Excuses."

Though, if we're being honest, we have very little connection to the Writing Excuses podcast (besides the fact that the probable majority of us listen to it). Aside from the handful of times someone uses an episode to bring in a point, it's not mentioned much, nor do we do the writing prompts. Or, any writing prompts, for that matter. (Which may be something to consider - I'd be all for using a week of submissions to do some form of a group prompt.)

That said, we'd also have to consider how exactly the rules would work if we let non-RE members submit. I will state now that I am not against the idea - in fact, I'm all for it, but there's a reason we have the '3 critiques to 1 submission' rule of thumb in place. I can brainstorm a decent set of placeholders, if needed.

[industrialistDragon]

3 hours ago, kais said:

Writer's Critique Group

The longest subforum description on 17S clocks in at 192 characters. So, if we take that as an outside limit, we have a decent amount of wiggle room.

"A writing help and support group specializing in critiques for new and beginning writers who intend their work for publication. All genres and skill levels are welcome."

 

[Silk she/her]

On 11/8/2018 at 2:44 PM, industrialistDragon said:

The longest subforum description on 17S clocks in at 192 characters. So, if we take that as an outside limit, we have a decent amount of wiggle room.

"A writing help and support group specializing in critiques for new and beginning writers who intend their work for publication. All genres and skill levels are welcome."

 

This looks pretty good to me. I only wonder if we should say something about trading critiques with other writers so that people realise right off the bat that it's a reciprocal thing?

[industrialistDragon]

2 hours ago, Silk said:

I only wonder if we should say something about trading critiques with other writers so that people realise right off the bat that it's a reciprocal thing?

Sounds good to me.

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

On 11/8/2018 at 11:44 PM, industrialistDragon said:

The longest subforum description on 17S clocks in at 192 characters. So, if we take that as an outside limit, we have a decent amount of wiggle room.

"A writing help and support group specializing in critiques for new and beginning writers who intend their work for publication. All genres and skill levels are welcome."

 

There are also several published authors on here, so maybe take out the "new and beginning" part?

[kais]

12 hours ago, Eagle of the Forest Path said:

There are also several published authors on here, so maybe take out the "new and beginning" part?

I don't mind it being in there, especially if it helps make the board more welcoming for newbies. I know sometimes the 'published author' thing can be intimidating.
 

[Silk she/her]

How about something like:

“A writing support grou where you can trade critiques with other writers who intend their work for publication. All genres and skill levels welcome. Beginners encouraged.”

[industrialistDragon]

2 hours ago, Silk said:

A writing support grou where you can trade critiques with other writers who intend their work for publication. All genres and skill levels welcome. Beginners encouraged

That sounds good to me!

[Mandamon he/him]

5 hours ago, Silk said:

“A writing support grou where you can trade critiques with other writers who intend their work for publication. All genres and skill levels welcome. Beginners encouraged.”

I flipped it around a bit to be more active. How does this sound?

"A writing support group for all genres and skill levels of writers. Trade critiques with others who intend their work for publication. Beginners encouraged." 

One note--how much are we for all genres? Most here are primarily SFF. I mean, I will critique anything, but I prefer SFF.

[kais]

2 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

how much are we for all genres?

I'm for it, mostly because a random romance writer or horror writer could be a fun change of pace.

[industrialistDragon]

1 hour ago, Mandamon said:

I flipped it around a bit to be more active.

I... think I like the more passive version a bit better. ^^; 
I'm willing to be outvoted if the consensus thinks otherwise, though

[aeromancer he/him]

1 hour ago, Mandamon said:

One note--how much are we for all genres? Most here are primarily SFF. I mean, I will critique anything, but I prefer SFF.

This probably won't be much of a problem, seeing how the prerequisite for this website is reading at least one of Brandon's weighty tomes, but I do kind of concur.

1 hour ago, kais said:

I'm for it, mostly because a random romance writer or horror writer could be a fun change of pace.

While that is true, and I try doing shorts in other genres occasionally, I think, as a whole, we're more suited for critiquing SFF than any other genre. I mean, sure I technically can critique a horror story, but I fair a lot better when dealing with SFF. (Mostly SF, if I'm being honest.)

I wouldn't vote to change the 'all genres welcome' line, but it's more along the first reason I mentioned, I don't think it'll be much of a problem.

[Robinski he/him]

On 12/11/2018 at 10:58 PM, Silk said:

This looks pretty good to me. I only wonder if we should say something about trading critiques with other writers so that people realise right off the bat that it's a reciprocal thing?

I agree.

On 13/11/2018 at 7:17 PM, kais said:

I don't mind it being in there, especially if it helps make the board more welcoming for newbies.

I agree.

On 13/11/2018 at 7:17 PM, kais said:

I know sometimes the 'published author' thing can be intimidating.

I dunno, I think that maybe would attract a lot of people; that chance to get publisher authors' eyes on work (without paying for the privilege in $£€).

On 14/11/2018 at 4:32 AM, aeromancer said:

One note--how much are we for all genres? Most here are primarily SFF. I mean, I will critique anything, but I prefer SFF.

I agree.