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Writing Practice

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22:31 / 05.05.03

Wow! This is great - 17 people! But I think we should probably limit it to twenty, for logistics and that...

Nick, your suggestion is fantastic. Does anyone have any suggestions on how such a curriculum would be laid out? (I would love to write a novel, and have made a few attempts in the past, but always either ran out of steam or got bogged down in research).

Here's my entirely improvised suggestion: Say the first two weeks are entirely finger exercises, then a finger exercise a week *plus* encreasingly bigger/more involved "tasks" - playing around with ideas and concepts, making a skeleton of a plot, fleshing out chapters, fleshing out characters, etc, etc. Of course that's more the mechanics of writing than just plain writing; I'm not sure how we'd make those things into assignments (especially with all the various different writing methods) but I'd like it if we could.

Of course, aiming for a novel, play or film script pretty much lengthens the duration. Anyone have any suggestions about that?

Mr Messy - this was pretty much my first post on Barbelith, if that answers your questions. These people could all be dancing monkeys for all I know (Hey! How's that for a name - A Collection of Dancing Monkeys Who Also Enjoy Writing

)

23:02 / 05.05.03

and next on the late show, The Typewriter Monkey Dancers! they can t writ e a shakespearean sonnet to save their lives, but boy can they rhumba!

12:55 / 06.05.03

Oh please, please lets be the Typewriting Monkey Dancers.

So... why not lay out a curriculum which goes in a few weeks from finger exercises to concerto? Then you've got a serious mountain to climb, but also at the end of it you have something which is worth the effort, rather than a lot of short pieces which are "great but... ...?

Nick, I agree. Fidrich your improvised suggestions seem cool to me.

Okay, so we're go for lift off then? When? (I ask because I'm off to Thailand on Saturday and I don't come back till the 25th.) Can we start after that?

*makes everyone wait whilst she swans off on holiday.*

14:40 / 06.05.03

Can I diffidently throw my hat in the ring? All the usual reasons apply: keen to start writing again; spectacular lack of discipline; appreciative of feedback; just brought a house so seeking low-cost entertainment etc.

15:31 / 06.05.03

Typewriting Monkey Dancers it is then.

Olulabelle, that's actually pretty weird (and lucky!) that you're going on holiday on Saturday till the 25th - so am I. Nowhere as exciting as Thailand though.

16:37 / 06.05.03

i realise i may be pre-horsing the cart here, but would anyone like to think about a collaborative short story book idea?

i mean, we have the skill between us and i'm sure we have the connections...

i would suggest the money from sales could cover the costs and then get donated to barbelith. well, at least a bit of it. if we coud fund barbelith by creating things collectively it would free tom's capital up and make us all feel like a happy family to boot.

does anyone else think this could be an idea, or am i a raving lunatic for suggesting such communism?

19:57 / 06.05.03

Pre-horse the cart by all means Toksik, I think it's a wicked idea. A barbelith book of short stories...we could enlist Kegboy or someone to design a cover and...and...everything!

And I think we should have a Rhumba party to celebrate when we've finished it.

Maybe this could be our first writing circle 'goal' then, as a group one and once we've successfully achieved that we can go on and possibly do the novel thing as individual goals.

21:41 / 06.05.03

Typewriting Monkey Dancers.

Okay then! In the interest of saving our wrists, I've set up the mailing list as "tmd". I will post relevant sign up details as soon as the dns propagates.

Do we have a good solid number of folks now? I am terrible with the counting and the numbers and the math (actually, that's not true, I'm just being lazy)...

Oh, and also, I'm going to Japan on Saturday and I won't be back until the 26th (ala olulabelle & fidrich)... yay for vacation! So after the 26th works better for me. Besides, I'd venture to say it will take that long to decide on everything.

22:02 / 06.05.03

Rock and roll for coinciding holidays, and don'tcha just love it when a plan comes together...

I count 18 people so that leaves space for 2 late entries by the 20 rule.

Maybe we should start on June 1st?

Someone's going to have to explain the mailing list thing to me, sorry for being dim. What gets mailed to us, the actual pieces people write or a link to where they are, or what? And how do we comment?

So ashamed of my mailing list virginity.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

08:07 / 09.05.03

All right, you rotten lot. I know you're out there. Are you going to come and play in the hat thread or not? Don't take more than twenty minutes on it - it's an exercise, not a Great Work.

Noses to the grindtone.

11:21 / 09.05.03

Okay I spent more than twenty minutes on The Hat.
I just can't think that fast!

We're The Great Old Ones Now

15:59 / 09.05.03

You're forgiven. I just said that to emphasise that it wasn't something you needed a lot of time for.

17:46 / 10.05.03

fuck me, i am a lazy cunt.

i will endeavour to catch up, but for noew i am moving house, and sorting a whole pile of shite i necver realised needed sorted.

digit extraction in t-minus three, two, one...

19:52 / 26.05.03

Bump.

Right then. This be the time I believe...

All those still in favour say 'Aye.'

We're The Great Old Ones Now

20:34 / 26.05.03

What are we aying to?

12:19 / 02.06.03

Lets start. Lets start. I want to start now. Where are you all? It is now June 2nd.

Paranoia begins to creep in. Have you all started without me?

I know we are all going to make some sort of effort to pitch in with this group, but I'm not sure how to start it all. I don't want to start it all. Fidrich, anyone, helllloooooo.

14:23 / 02.06.03

Helllooooo. I'm still here, and I don't think we've started. Fidrich, have we started?

Nick, we are Aye'ing to starting the actual writing rather than continuing to write about the writing which we plan to do.

Someone needs to set the first topic and we need to know what to do with our pieces when we've written them.

So, I suggest Fidrich gets to set the first topic and length of piece as she started the thread.
Adject needs to gives us the details of the mailing list.
We need to set a start date, and end date for the first project.
Then we're go, go, go.

*Flexes fingers*. God, I'm so organised.

23:15 / 02.06.03

I'm back as well. (Tokyo is the best place on Earth. I think next time I go, I will be going indefinitely).

I said I would set up a mailing list for the TMD folks and I think I did that before I left, but I will have to check. We can use the mailing list (which is essentially email... when you send mail to the list, you effectively send mail to everyone on the list) to post the first assignment, or post our pieces or whatever.

But I have to set it up first (or reorient my brain to see if I already set it up).

I will get on that within a day or so. And then I will post the sign up instructions here.

-amy

07:44 / 03.06.03

Phew. A response. Adject, your efforts are much appreciated. Ta very much.

08:13 / 03.06.03

yeah, nice one.

08:55 / 03.06.03

I'm here, I'm a big "Aye!" and I apologize for being (as toksik so delicatley put it) a lazy cunt. I promise I'll either post up my Random Writing Excercises or write new ones today.

I get the first assignment? *Bows* What an honour! Hmm... okay. Write a nice-sized (it was my idea to put in word-counts, wasn't it? That means I should do it... argh, but I'm not gonna) piece about "The Darkness". What "The Darkness" is is entirely up to you. It could be *actual* darkness, like a dark cupboard or night-time. It could be emotional darkness... hell, it could be about an evil, Death-Eater type group who sacrifice babies and call up demons to do their ghastly will who call themselves The Darkness. Whatever pops into your pretty little brains.

Admittedly I've already done an assignment like this (off my own back, amazingly) but I cross my heart I'll write something new and not just post the old one.

So, uh... go Typewriting Monkey Dancers! And go Adject! Wooo!
-fid

10:34 / 03.06.03

Someone please define a 'nice sized'. Nick? Anyone?

And when does this have to be in by, Miss?

11:11 / 03.06.03

Gah, did I forget that? *Slaps forehead* Thursday the 12 - that's just over a week, and maybe by that time we'll have our shiny new TMD mailing list to post them on

As for nicely-sized - the reason I put that as the length is because if I said "X amount of words/paragraphs/whatever" it would be completely off the top of my head. I guess I mean write it till it seems complete, until you're happy with it; as long as it's over three paragraphs and less than 10 A4 pages it'll be fine.

02:00 / 04.06.03

Okay, I *did* in fact set it up before I left... I wanted to make the page look a little more user-friendly, but it doesn't look like I'm going to have the time, what with all this Darkness I have to ponder now (yay! I love the darkness). So here goes...

Sign Up Instructions.

1. Go here:
http://lists.hypostatic.net/listinfo.cgi/tmd-hypostatic.net

2. Enter your email address & a password (can be whatever, but nothing too important) and hit "subscribe."

3. Reply to the confirmation email that is automatically sent to you. (you don't have to write anything, just hit "reply" on your mail software and hit "send")

4. Send all mailing list posts to tmd@hypostatic.net or tmd@lists.hypostatic.net (whatever makes you feel good)

5. Bug me if you have questions. But don't crit my writing too hard...

04:36 / 12.06.03

Gah, did I forget that? *Slaps forehead* Thursday the 12 - that's just over a week

can I have an extension please? My dog's been sick and then my bus was late - the computer room was full and to top it off, I'm a lazy cunt.

07:49 / 12.06.03

Oh crap... sorry can I have one too as I had forgotten about this thread...?

10:32 / 12.06.03

also adject, please explain this:

4 Non-digested Members of Tmd: 3 Digested Members of Tmd:

what's the diff?

17:07 / 12.06.03

4 Non-digested Members of Tmd: 3 Digested Members of Tmd:
...

Hey,

That just means that there are 7 people on the list, 4 of them will get emails as they are sent to the list, 3 of them will get a digest of all mails sent in a day at the end of the day (usually around 5pm San Francisco time, I have no idea what that is across the pond).

Um, I also forgot the assignment too. That's bad isn't it? I mean, I didn't forget ultimately, I just kept remembering when I was aimlessly wandering around in the streets... and as soon as I got home, I promptly forgot.

05:27 / 13.06.03

Hello
I've just posted off the first assignment, and I want to know if everyone got it ok. What happens now. How will we supply feedback etc?
Most importantly, did you all get it?

Thats all for now. Byeeee.

23:58 / 13.06.03

Hi, I'm interested and would like to join. This just my second post here - if you want to know about me, I'm on livejournal as 'nickyludd'

13:48 / 14.06.03

sorry , I really would like to have completed the assignment but I'm working so much that I didn't even get a chance to check this thread much less write the story in time for the deadline. Plus I seem to be having trouble with that Tmd list or whatever it is, in fact due to my luddite-like knowledge of computers I have absolutely no idea where we are supposed to post these assignments. Can somebody please explain this to me in simple language? You can pm me or tell me on the board if you want which has the advantage of making a mockery of my anti-knowledge.

09:49 / 16.06.03

Right then.

Either I'm missing something or no-one else has done anything yet.
I did get a little surprise when looking back over this thread and I noticed that the page count for this assignment was up to 10 pages! I'd read this as 3 for some unknown reason, so therefore my piece is fairly short.
I'm also thinking that I got it off fairly slapdash - I wasn't trying to create a masterpiece, merely write something to get into a kind of routine of writing regularly.

So I advise all of you to hurry and post anything, and we can get into some sort of rythmn.
Fidrich started the thread but I don't think she holds responsibility for keeping it all together. From this point on this is only going to work if we all make some kind of commitment to ourselves and each other. This is a group effort so who exactly are you asking when you say you want an extension?

Wow - now look, I seem to be getting all high and mighty. Come on someone and knock me off my perch.

I suggest that everyone tries to get their piece in ASAP, i.e. in the next 48 hours. We can then mail feedback to whomever we want (ideally as many people as possible, the group does seem to have diminshed). The next assignment should be set in the next couple of days. If no-one else wants to have a stab, then I'll go next.

Chop chop.

12:10 / 16.06.03

So we're basically all lazy bastards because I haven't done it either. Indeed, I thought I would be the Weakest Link, but clearly we all appear to be.

However, I am now going to try very hard to do it quickly, in order for us all not to look so appallingly rubbish, and like people who blather on about wanting to do something but never actually do it.

'Mine will be in by Thursday Miss'.

12:39 / 16.06.03

Jolly good (I'm really rather leniant you know).

22:15 / 16.06.03

OH kackities. I'd totally forgotten about this.

That is a great idea; and i too will try by thursday. Bear in mind, my last piece of creative writing was over a year ago. So i apologies in advance.

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