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[Jul. 26th, 2008|10:49 am] |
Okay, so we're talking about setting up a system to let us read stories in advance, and discuss them at the meeting.
If you haven't already, go to Google Docs and set up an account. If you have gmail, you use that account, but I don't think gmail is required.
I'm not entirely sure how Google Docs works, but I think that all you need to do is upload a file, and tell it who to share with.
Announce your username in the comments here.
This system is still open to tweaking and discussion, but here's my initial proposal:
1. Upload a file and announce it's existence here on ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) bham_crit.
EDIT: Keep each file to a sensible length. A chapter, 5000 words, whatever.
2. Everyone read the file to critique in your desired manner--print out, mark up, type up notes, whatever.
3. At the Friday meeting, we'll start out by discussing the stories in question, using Clarion format. (Everyone speaks one after the other for a set amount of time, author staying quiet until the end, when they get to ask questions.) I'm setting an initial, arbitrary limit of two stories per meeting. First come, first served. I think our group is small enough that we can get away with that. We all communicate and respect each other.
4. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Any suggestions, or do we have a system? |
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| Meeting Tonight |
[Jul. 25th, 2008|07:32 am] |
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Meeting at Spencer's tonight. See you there! |
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| Meeting at Black Drop this week |
[Jul. 17th, 2008|09:26 pm] |
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This week, we're meeting at the Black Drop. See you there! |
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| Random thought |
[Jul. 17th, 2008|01:17 pm] |
I wanted to post this idea before I forgot. I have that tendency. Anyway, this might be more appropriate for the Wednesday meetings. Are those still going on? But it could also work on a Friday when there isn't much to read. This is actually similar to that time we wrote characters and story genres on slips of paper.
Lately, I've been wanting to get out of my comfort zone with characters. I've been making little attempts to write from the POV of someone I'd never normally think to write about. Someone I can't relate to at all, perhaps someone I'd hate in real life. I think it might be a good exercise for voice, character development and perhaps a way to make the 'villain' more real in stories.
But you know what? It's not much fun, because I'm still choosing who to write about. I'd rather have no control over it.
So, what if we gave each other a main character profile? Only, instead of it being random (the luck of the draw), we pick a character specifically for someone in the group based on the types of characters they tend to write about. I know there are a couple new members I haven't met yet, but I've read most of your work, and I think we all tend to gravitate toward the same types of characters. Because, hey, we like what we like. Some of our MC's tend to be more sarcastic and full of angst. Others are goofy or self-deprecating. Some like to sever dicks or play with whips and chains :P
For example, here's ideas for a few of you off the top of my head:
Lisa: How about the POV of an angsty 15 year old girl who is dressing punk to get the attention of some boy at school? :P Can you find a way to make her sympathetic?
San: A passive and devoutly Christian woman who never questions the world around her. Not even her bad marriage.
Keffy: A hunky lead singer who plays girls better than his guitar. He's the ultimate con-artist with a God-like complex.
Chelsea: A snarky 30-year old prostitute who has seen it all and wants out of the life.
So, this may be a really BAD idea. But I thought it might be fun. Feel free to hate it :) |
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| Friday Meeting-Official announcement. |
[Jul. 10th, 2008|10:32 pm] |
I know there's been a lot of confusion about our meetings lately, since there's been lots of exciting distractions, and I apologize for all of it.
Okay, here's the deal for this Friday:
Spencer's holding the meeting at his house until 7:30, when he's going to see various movies.
I may or may not be there.
Have fun! |
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| Hey y'all |
[Jul. 10th, 2008|01:37 pm] |
First off: Happy Birthday, Lisa! I hope it's a good one :)
Okay, so I've been on vacation the last few days and have been catching up on LJ posts. In doing so, I gathered from Lisa's journal (if I remember correctly) that there will be no meeting tomorrow?
Anyway, I have a suggestion you can take or leave. I know the meeting has been canceled a couple times lately, but I'm pretty sure I've missed a couple as well. This is mainly because (since the meeting moved from the Drop) I'm not sure where the meeting is or if there is one that week.
Therefore, my suggestion would be to make a post each week regarding the Friday meeting. Just basically saying--yes, there's a meeting this week and it will be at Spencer's or the Drop, etc. It would probably help with new members or even those who want to show up once in a while, I think. |
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| Clarion West Parties |
[Jul. 10th, 2008|06:06 am] |
Hey, hordes*, anybody want to carpool to the Seattle area and party with some authors and Clarion West students?
July 11: Cory Doctorow
July 18: Connie Willis
July 25: Sheree Thomas (but I won't be able to be there)
August 1: Chuck Palahniuk
*Just trying it out.
Julie |
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| Story Ninjas is Go |
[Jul. 9th, 2008|12:19 pm] |
I won't be here tonight, but ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) studphish will, so there will be a Story Ninjas.
I will miss you all, and I hope you find it in your spiny little hearts to type up/e-mail/post/whatever your writings, so I can read them ;___; |
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| Hey, will this work? |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|08:54 pm] |
I was working on a possible layout for the site earlier (I figure I'll make a few, and anyone else who wants to is welcome! and then we'll vote, if that's cool). I had to plug something in for the name. I used "Bellingham Writers (working title)" and realized that actually might be a good name. It's writerly, and even though other things have Working Title as a name, they don't have a fake name and then (working title) after it, which is much more clever in my opinion :P
If not, then start thinking again, or let's plan a day to do our all-or-nothing brainstorming, because it's holding me back a little. I want to get a domain for it, but... Yeah, I don't know what to BUY. hahaha! |
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| While I'm thinking of it.... |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|03:28 pm] |
Wondering if you all want to do a minor overhaul of how we do the Bham crit group? I think we've kicked around the thought before. I'm getting a schoolin' on how lots of critique circles actually operate, and I think we could do with a little more formality.**
I'm not calling for "Hey, let's figure everything out right now!!!!1" but mostly I'm wondering if you all would be up for doing something a little more crit intensive after I'm back and subject to withdrawals from it...
I'm thinking things like:
Once every other week, (or every week if we decide we like doing it this way) we all read and crit the same thing ahead of time, and then talk about it. I know we've thought about this before, but if we did it that way, we could maybe just do that for, oh, I don't know, half the crit group time, and then revert to our regularly scheduled reading and critting afterward.
ANYWAY, I'm in the middle of writing a critique right now, so... this is just a little food for thought. (Oh yeah, and I"m here for more than a month still :D!)
**Hand in hand with this might be in utilizing Google Docs for our non-Bham honorary members and just generally making the group more amenable to new people. Which, I think we ARE better at that, but we could always think of ways to make it more welcoming. :) |
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| Elizabeth! |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|12:11 am] |
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Either update the community info or give me the ability to do it, haha! There are probably poor sad writers showing up at Fantasia. XD |
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| Uhh.. |
[Jun. 20th, 2008|02:39 pm] |
Hey guys,
Sorry I've been a bit out of the loop lately. What's going on with the Friday meeting? Is there one this week? |
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| A Real Name |
[Jun. 15th, 2008|08:28 am] |
In 2007, the Skagit Writers League put on a mini-workshop up here in Bellingham. Those of us who were interested in starting our own league wrote down our e-mail addresses, and then never heard anything ;) We've been kicking around the idea of an official writing organization ever since.
I've been talking with some of my critique partners, and we're taking steps to form a group that would welcome all writers in Whatcom County.
At the moment, there is no system for local writers to find each other for critique, support, networking, or sharing resources. I know of several critique groups, but as far as I can tell, they can only be found through convoluted methods--knowing the right people is the easiest way, and that's unfair. It should be as easy as Googling "Bellingham + writer."
I personally find it unfair to ask potential members to sign up for a commercially funded blogging service or mailing list just to network locally, so I'm going to make an independent website for this new organization. (Also, it's less professional, even embarrassing at times, to give people our LJ username instead of a real web address.)
A few times, writers have shown interest in the bham_crit meetings until they found that nearly everyone writes SF&F, and then they wandered away. Several of these lost writers were interested in poetry or screenplays. I'm hoping we can make a miniature Bellinghamcentric Absolute Write, in which people can have subforums for other Whatcom towns (like Lynden or Blaine), and for different kinds of writing. That way we can welcome writers of poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, commercial and literary.
So, Bellingham writers, what should we call ourselves? - We don't want something people won't remember ([edit:]
"Is it the University of Washington or Washington University?" as kaerfel put it the way she said it below), so it can't be too generic - It should be memorable. The eatpoo forum for graphic artists is a great example, though I think we'd like something a little less yucky haha. But that's a professional site and no one forgets the name!
- It should be a descriptive name, so it comes up easily in Internet searches
- Even though we want to include the whole county, people are less likely to Google "Whatcom" than they are "Bellingham," so it might be best to use the county seat's name
- 'Hamster is a common local word for "someone hailing from Bellingham," and a few of us like the idea of using it somehow
- I can make it Googleable even if the name ends up being something more fun and less descriptive--I personally think memorable is more important
I'm leaning toward literary references or clever language in some way, but my brain won't come up with anything. As soon as we have a name, I'll start work on the site. Start brainstorming! |
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| Keffy's Party |
[Jun. 11th, 2008|01:56 pm] |
kehrli's graduation party starts at 6:00 p.m. on Friday. (It's Rock Band and Guitar Hero themed, and there will be pizza that you should chip in for, and it's BYOB.)
Keffy isn't going to the crit group--is anyone else? I'll go if it starts earlier, like 4:00 p.m. maybe, but I don't want to go for just one hour. Leave a comment here so I know if you're planning on going straight to the party or doing some scribbling at the crit group first!
ALSO, it's Story Ninjas night tonight, but if you bring something you want others to redpen, I for one am perfectly happy to do that after we write our exercises. So we can have mini-crit group today if it helps. |
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[Jun. 6th, 2008|07:51 am] |
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Has anyone told Spencer about the meeting change? Or is he gone this week? |
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| Just a reminder |
[May. 30th, 2008|07:47 am] |
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The meeting will be at the Black Drop tonight, not at Spencer's |
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[May. 21st, 2008|02:12 pm] |
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Well, someone is a spazz and forgot to tell us that he's halfway across Washington State right now. So our Wednesday night meeting is cancelled until next week. |
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| le Black Spot |
[Apr. 25th, 2008|05:09 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | our library | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  PAAANTS | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Beat My Guest - Superchunk | ] |
WEAR PANTS, YOU GUYS
And actually show up, 'cause we have new members. :) |
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| Another new person! |
[Apr. 21st, 2008|08:45 pm] |
Black Drop Teri dropped me this line:
"I just let a new person know about it, hope you don't mind. Her name is Chana and I think you kids will get on like a house on fire. ;)" |
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| Sick. :-( |
[Apr. 4th, 2008|03:15 pm] |
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It is probable that I won't make it tonight, instead going home and napping my sickness away. I'm at the point where I just feel weak and voiceless, so hopefully a sleep will make a difference. See you afterwards? |
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discontent
excited