Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Reading Excuses => Topic started by: Silk on December 03, 2008, 11:09:33 PM
-
I thought I'd start a seperate thread since I'm not sure everybody is stil following the discussion on the email list thread, and I want to make sure everybody sees this one.
People are already talking about how a month is a long time to wait between submissions, especially if you're submitting a novel. With an approximate 4000 words a week maximum, it could take a VERY long time for someone to get their whole novel reviewed through RE. Which, I agree, is a problem.
Some people are proposing that instead of having a submission deadline every other week, the 1st and the 15th, we have weekly submissions. I'll throw out a quick pros-and-cons:
Pros - you'd have less time to wait between getting submissions for your own critiques, particularly beneficial if you're submitting a novel.
- it would (presumably) get all of us writing more often to meet those deadlines, which is the point. Right? ;)
Cons - We have a lot of people working or going to school full time in this group, I'd imagine, and those people may have trouble keeping up with bi-weekly submissions.
- It would mean a lot less time to critique more submissions, which might negatively effect the chance of everybody getting at least one or two decent critiques every time.
Edit: It might also mean that people who were ready for the 15th might not be ready for the eighth. We could juggle around submissons between ready and not ready if we had to, but as things are, we have a fairly even split for each submission date and I think we should maintain that if we can.
That being said, we're in trial runs right now anyway, so it really is a good time to try. And I would recommend trying it sooner than later, if enough people agree, because a month is a long time to wait to figure out that we don't like it one way or the other after all.
So - opinions? What do you guys think?
-
I'm up for it
Perhaps it would be wise to leave the option of submitting either monthly or bi-weekly.
-
Hm. Might be an idea... That might be harder to organize, though, and I'm still more concerned about people getting decent crits every time...
Other thoughts?
-
Possible thing to do:
Select 4 dates (1, 8, 15, 22-23)
Separate into 3 groups:
-those who want to submit monthly
-those who want to submit bi-weekly
-those who want to submit bi-weekly, but will be skipping a few here and there for when life gets crazy...like in the middle of a semester
Take the results we get there and divvy up the people so it should be about even every week....that'll mean splitting up the people in category 3, so we don't have the possibility of 3 submitters saying "yeah, I'm not submitting this week, it's midterms/finals" or whatever....
This is just an idea....
-
Yes I feel like we have just starting this whole writing group thing and now is the time to experiment and figure out what works best for everyone.
I personally think that bi-weekly submissions will work fairly well for everyone. School and work keeps everyone very busy; I can well understand that as a student myself. But I don't think that writing about 3000 words in two weeks is by any means too much. And of course if you really just can't make the deadline, we won't kill you :P
Remember, most writing groups in real life meet every week.
Also during those two weeks you should in theory have plenty of time to read everyone's work. Even if its just a chapter a day or every couple days and you scribble down your thoughts and impressions, that is perfectly fine.
Also don't feel like you need to give an in-depth critique for everyone's work. If you can, by all means do, I think Raethe has managed to give several fairly lengthy critiques already. Don't make it into a chore.
Basically I think that speeding up our submission process to a bi-weekly deadline will be fairly beneficial to all involved. We'll be able to review more of your work in less time.
-
I'm in favour of little_wilson's idea, or something similar at least. I mean you can always change your submission rate if you want to...
-
Wow wilson I actually really like that idea too. I guess you wrote that before I finished typing because i completely missed your post!
-
I'm..... a little concerned about bi-weekly...
As you said above, there are full-timers who may struggle. I'm at uni full time, and have a part time job... so makes things a little... busy?
Although I like the idea of splitting into 3 groups... is that going to be even more difficult to organise and figure out who's meant to be submitting when?
Like you say, there is the benefit of writing more often to meet deadlines, but is it oing to be too much... I don't want to say pressure.... but... erm, I don't know how to word it really.
If I can re-write this a little more co-herantly in the morning, I will do. But hoping you get the gist?
-
Well, I think if we did the 3 group thing, we'd be splitting up the groups, once we know where everyone's at.
For example, let's say we've got 4 monthly submitters (Jim, Andy, Dwight, and Michael), 4 bi-weekly submitters (Angela, Pam, Phyllis, and Kelly), and 4 bi-weekly skipping submitters (Ryan, Stanley, Creed, and Toby). The submissions would go something like so:
1--Jim, Pam, Angela, Ryan, Stanley
8--Andy, Phyllis, Kelly, Creed, Toby
15--Dwight, Angela, Pam, Ryan, Stanley
23--Michael, Phyllis, Kelly, Creed, Toby
Or something like that....
Bonus points: The names are from....?
-
Thhheeeeee Ooooooofffffffiiiiiiiceeeeeee!!!!! Yaaaaay!!
-
I like the idea of having the slightly more productive people being able to push content at a higher rate. Those of us writing novels are churning out WAY more than 3500 words every month, and people who want to sit back and relax through tricky stuff can.
What about this:
We have submit days on Saturdays, but to sign up for Saturday submission, you have to have your name on the list (which opens one week before the submission date) by Thursday (to keep people from trying to last-minute sign up for submissions). Moderators choose when we have enough people signed up (10 people max?), and people who haven't submitted as much get preference (if I've been turning in chapters weekly, and Raethe decides to turn in a short story after 3 weeks of nothing, she should get preference); people with relatively similar # of submissions would by FCFS.
Edit:
I included a handy diagram ^^
(http://www.freewebs.com/fateshapers/2009-JANUARY-print.jpg)
if you want to submit on a Saturday of a particular color, you have to put your name on the list during a day with that colored line on it.
-
I would like to try and submit bi-weekly for the next couple months as I am trying to get things ready for the writing contest. After that, I will probably switch to once a month.
-
Good job, Reaves. The names ARE from The Office. Great show, by the way. Quite entertaining.
Oh, and I like Avalon's idea too...his sounds easier than my idea....Darn. And after all the work I put into that example...
-
By bi-weekly, I assume people mean bi-monthly? Twice a month instead of twice a week?
-
*facepalm*
Yes, that's what I meant, thanks jjb. Sorry.
(Clearly my brain is already on vacation...)
I think Avalon's idea is the best in terms of having people submit more often. Slightly less intuitive than the more automatic system we've got going on right now, but nothing's perfect I guess.
Sorry Wilson - I do think that this'd be a LOT easier than trying to organize three seperate cycles. And will keep us from getting overwhelmed with the amounts of stuff to critique, too.
Your example was prettier than Avalon's, though.
-
Sweet. I get the prize for the *prettiest* example. Score one for the good guys!
And I love the term 'facepalm.' It brings with it a beautiful visual image that makes me crack up EVERY time I see the word....Classic. Simply classic.
-
Mine had a colorful calendar though! With dots and lines and a wavy stylized '2009' in the background! It was even the relevant month!
Office fangirls...
-
Do we need to have guide-lines or dead-lines for getting reviews in by a certain date?
-
Avalon, you hadn't posted your diagram when I said that, so you snooze, you lose. Besides, we seem to be adopting your idea. :P
I still think we should forget about deadlines for actual reviews at the moment. I say we stick with the "as much as you can, as soon as you can" and see what happens. If we find there's a problem we'll work something out as we go.
Because if we have people submitting as often as they might be under this idea, we might be doing a LOT more reading.
-
I am twenty chapters into my story, I can submit any time. ;D
-
As Avalon said, we'll have to do some juggling to make sure everyone who hasn't submitted in a while gets priority, so you guys may not get to submit every time. I'm sure you'll be able to get stuff out faster though.
I hope everyone writing novels doesn't inadvertently end up getting the shaft. My concern with this plan is that people won't be able to keep up reading for people who CAN submit a novel chapter every week, and that you guys might get fewer critiques because of it.
Ah, well - no plan is perfect. I guess we'll just have to burn that bridge when we get there.
...
What?
-
As Avalon said, we'll have to do some juggling to make sure everyone who hasn't submitted in a while gets priority, so you guys may not get to submit every time. I'm sure you'll be able to get stuff out faster though.
I hope everyone writing novels doesn't inadvertently end up getting the shaft. My concern with this plan is that people won't be able to keep up reading for people who CAN submit a novel chapter every week, and that you guys might get fewer critiques because of it.
Ah, well - no plan is perfect. I guess we'll just have to burn that bridge when we get there.
...
What?
I think you mean cross. :-X
-
Don't criticize her word-fumbling, she's a bit grumpy tonight :P
-
Okay, first of all, let me apologize for my complete lack of activity these past few days. I've been very, very busy. After finals roll around, I will finally get to doing some critiques. It is on my list of priorities, don't worry :P
Reading this thread, though, I came up with a potential solution, one that would simplify the matter of more people submit, and balancing out things so people who don't submit as much will still get critiques.
In fact, the system would do away with official submission dates. I'm not sure if I like that, because I really do like submission dates for their structure. On the other hand, it's not quite organic.
So, here is my idea: for each month, you get three Submission Points. Each time you submit something, you lose a point. Therefore, people who want to submit more can submit more: they can submit three times a month. For people who don't submit as much, these Points will roll over into the next month, so if they have the ability to get more writing done in the future, they can submit more things, because they have more points.
The real difficulty with the implementation is keeping track of the points. However, I think someone suggested that we keep track of how many things people have submitted and critiqued, as a sort of ranking measure. If we started keeping track of those two things, then it isn't extraordinarily difficult to keep track of the submission points.
It's an idea.
-
"Stand back folks! He's an actuarial! He's got statistics and he knows how to use them!!!"
Though I don't have a solution to this quandary, it seems that each system proposed so far is rather complicated.
Who will tend the rotating charts? Who will track the monthly submission points? Who is mapping the dungeon and logging the treasure?!?
Keep it simple folks. Please.
-
I'll be cartographer, but I don't think I have enough ranks in dungeoneering to get down some of the more complicated features.
-
Grumpy? Avalon's saying stuff about me behind my back now!
Besides, wouldn't you need ranks in cartography to be a cartographer? Or is there something I don't know about the dungeoneering skill? ::)
Chaos, if I recall, people actually requested deadlines because they felt a specific deadline would help them actually get motivated to write. I seem to recall suggesting a somewhat more nebulous system and getting shot down :P
For the record, burning bridges is way more fun than crossing them. You get a pretty light show!
-
Tsk, tsk. How could you do that, Avalon? Haven't you ever heard that gossip is bad? And that it ALWAYS gets back to the person?.....You really shouldn't do it on a forum :P
And Raethe, I believe that IS why we decided on specific deadlines....hmm. And Chaos's idea had so much merit...kind of....Actually I just kind of hoped we'd go for that, so then Avalon wouldn't get ANY prize, since he already lost the *prettiest example* prize... :D Methinks I'm kind of mean. And yet he called me a fangirl...If there was a shaking head emoticon I'd use it.
-
Well, I think if we did the 3 group thing, we'd be splitting up the groups, once we know where everyone's at.
For example, let's say we've got 4 monthly submitters (Jim, Andy, Dwight, and Michael), 4 bi-weekly submitters (Angela, Pam, Phyllis, and Kelly), and 4 bi-weekly skipping submitters (Ryan, Stanley, Creed, and Toby). The submissions would go something like so:
1--Jim, Pam, Angela, Ryan, Stanley
8--Andy, Phyllis, Kelly, Creed, Toby
15--Dwight, Angela, Pam, Ryan, Stanley
23--Michael, Phyllis, Kelly, Creed, Toby
Or something like that....
Bonus points: The names are from....?
So, this Office reference pretty much earned you 10 cool points, in my book.
-
Word fumbling usually means tired in Raethe-land...... Oh, and she likes burning things.
I like the as much as you can as soon as you can.... and I think I read someone say you have a week in a month, and write against that date when you want to submit? So long as it's at least once a month? That's a good idea too o.o
-
Ok, my two cents... what "if" we thin things down a little. What if we made two separate groups. This would require two forums I imagine so we don't get confused. We already have a lot of people (which is great!) and making things smaller will help I think.
Here are the groups:
1. Those that can and WILL submit and review WEEKLY. These the the writers that Raethe is talking about (forgive me Raethe if I am thinking of someone else). That way, it's like a real writing group where you submit each week and get critiqued. Since not everyone falls into this category, there will be less work to read and therefore less stress on everyone.
2. The other group would be the "submit when you can" group. This group can submit on deadlines if they want to keep motivated but don't have to unless they want to. I don't think this group would suffer lack of critique, if anything they would probably get faster critiques.
That's my two cents. Make is simple with as little confusion as possible.
-
I would never be able to keep up with bi-monthly submissions with my schedule and I think my ability to give decent critiques with my inbox overflowing from that many submissions would suffer as well. If we go to that we probably need a RE group A and group B forum. Either way, I would only make about half the deadlines. Once a month is as good as I can get until May. After that, I could handle twice a month.
What about once every three weeks?
-
Splitting the group is a fundamentally bad idea, both in terms of reprecussions, and the administrative issues that would come along with it. What if for a month I got busy, and decided I couldn't or didn't want to submit, but then for the next two weeks, I felt like turning stuff in?
Would I switch back and forth between groups?
Then we also loose the advantage of diversity, with two different groups. If I'm in one group, and Chaos is in another, and I like his story and want to keep up the critiques on it, I can't; which means he just lost a potential reader and someone who WANTS to keep critiquing his work.
Working on semi-spontaneous weekly submissions gives everyone a fair chance to get reviewed, and anyone who has the time to submit, should have the time to review - so the sumbit/review ratio remains at a rough 1:1 (AT LEAST). It more easily fosters the "I want to be a reader" people as well; technically they're members of the group, just ones that don't submit (and when they do, they'll be first up!).
Points are nice, and everyone trying to adjust the cycle frequency to their schedules is to be anticipated, but they can't work: the first takes faaaaar too much administrative back-end, and the second... blegh. The weekly opt-in requires very little: enough to maintain the current list, as well as deciding how many people can submit weekly, and picking out people who should get priority based on submissions.
VOTE THE AVALON METHOD!
-
What if for a month I got busy, and decided I couldn't or didn't want to submit, but then for the next two weeks, I felt like turning stuff in?
Wou
Do we really need to cater to people who can't commit? Sorry Avalon, but we shouldn't have to wait on people who waffle. I understand people are busy and have lives (trust me I have my own problems to take care of), but hopefully we are all doing this to become professionals, so lets start acting like them.
Then we also loose the advantage of diversity, with two different groups. If I'm in one group, and Chaos is in another, and I like his story and want to keep up the critiques on it, I can't; which means he just lost a potential reader and someone who WANTS to keep critiquing his work.
Soooo...nothing is stopping you from sending him a critique of your work if you like his stuff. Have him send it to you and critique it. When you join a real writing group, you have to take what you get. I agree diversity is great, but if we pick and choose what we want to read, then...well...those critiques "can" be soft. I don't much care for fantasy, but I have liked reading some of the work here.
For those of us who want to get critiqued regularly, we just can't wait for those who aren't committed (or better said, don't have the time) to step up and be in a real writing group.
Sorry Avalon, nothing personal. Just my thoughts. I do like your ideas, don't get me wrong.
-
It's not a matter of a lack of commitment, or people who waffle - most people here are students in college with at least one job, some with two, or they're adults with children and husbands/wives along side their careers. If any of us had the ability to massively commit, we'd join up with live writing groups in our area.
I do want to do this professionally, when I'm good enough to make a life at it. Until then, my writing schedule is subject to the whims of my living schedule - classes, work shifts, grocery shopping, family stuff, etc.
That aside, some people don't grind out their writing as fast, while some people pop out an artistic chapter every day; others prefer to write novellas, standalones and short stories, thus they are prone to longer gaps between submissions while they plot and outline their next work, while novelists and epic writers have something new out every week, almost without fail.
We've considered 2 groups just because of the size, but we rejected that on the grounds that any split we tried to force would just be ignored. People would cross-distribute and cross-critique anyway, and all of that work would end up being moot.
-
I am totally up for this.
-
Before I go stick my foot in my mouth any further, it just dawned on me that we should probably at least do a poll and see how many people want to even join a weekly writing group? I shouldn't make assumptions based on only a few people (besides myself) wanting this. There might not be enough to do my Group A - Group B idea.
-
I agree with Avalon. Of course, I've been against splitting the group for the very start.
For one thing, splitting the forum into two actual forums would be problematic because we can't do it ourselves. Fell and Sprig have already taken the time to set this one up for us/put up with us and I really would hate to impose on them any more.
Splitting the group that way would also mean we'd have people who would never get to read each other's stuff, and people who would never get critiques by some people. One of the strongest points of a group like this one is that you learn so much from reading, critiquing, and getting critiqued by a wide variety of people. I think we should do whatever we can to deserve that.
As much as I like the idea of everybody just submitting on a specific date - takes very little to maintain it that way - I really do think Avalon's idea is the best compromise. I think that keeping a balance between getting people to write and making sure everyone gets decent crits is the most important thing here, and I think a weekly group would overwhelm a lot of people on both counts very quickly.
Because of the creative writing classes I'm enrolled in I've been basically submitting and critting every week for my classmates, and believe me, it's hard to keep up with. And my classes probably had half the people we do here at RE.
-
If you can't beat them, join them. I'm in. Avalon's idea is a good one. I still wish we could split the groups, but I see the logic behind not doing it. Good points everyone. Soooo....how do we reach consensus on this? It seems most (those who have posted) seem to favor Avalon's approach. For now, my vote is cast there (unless someone else has any other ideas?).
-
Okay, let me see if I can do a brief recap of everything that's been thrown out. I think we've already bashed out the pros and cons so I'm just going to mention each idea that's been said. Will probably make it easier to get a consensus if we have it all in one play to look at.
There's our current "official" situation (not for much longer, I'm guessing) where we each submit once monthly, half the group on the 1st of a month, and half the group on the 15th.
There's Wilson's idea wherein we have different submission cycles for each "group" that feels they can only submit weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, whatever.
Avalon's idea is that we have people "apply" to submit by Thursday of a given week, to send out on that Saturday. (I think I'll add something to this if we choose this one, everybody HAS to submit at least once a month, as per our original plan.) Chaos and I will pick who gets to submit each week if too many apply, priveleging those who haven't had critiques in a while.
Chaos suggested we have "submission points"; we each get three a month and can use as many as one or all three each month. If we don't use our points, they carry over into the next month.
M suggested we split the group into two: people who feel they can submit and critique weekly and people who feel they can only do so monthly (or whenever).
I think that's covered everything we've talked about. If I've missed anything, I'm sorry, I'm going from memory. General consensus is towards Avalon's idea so far it seems, and that would be my vote too. So, what does everyone think? And remember, whatever we do will be trial runs. If it doesn't work we don't have to stick to it. There are a lot of us and we're just starting and we're inevitably going to hit some snags.
Awww, Reading Excuses is experiencing its first growing pains!
(Um... yeah... ignore that last remark. I'mma go write essays now...)
-
I vote for Avalons....Raethe...you're cute, glad you are a mod. ;D
-
Haha. Thank you? ^^
(I think I can count on one hand the times I've ever been called "cute". I find it very entertaining. ^^)
For everyone still following: Ben, who is much more forward-thinking than I am, has started a poll, so make sure you have your say (http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=6283.0).
-
Haha. Thank you? ^^
You question my sincerity? lol I was serious, you are cute. Look, you even use symbols like these: ^^ Kind looks like cat ears...which are also considered cute. Uh oh...are we noticing a trend? lol
-
Question your sincerity? I would never! :o
No, it's just that the adjectives people usually apply to me start at "psycho" and get less polite from there. ::)
-
haha...I've been called psycho, too! And the devil.... :D
Oh, and my idea was actually slightly different than that....it was figuring out how often people were going to submit, and then splitting everybody up between 4 submission dates that would evenly distribute the submissions per week....Or something....I explained it in the *pretty* Office example...
-
Is it just me that finds it worrying you're happy about being called those things?
-
I know what you mean Raethe, I've been called evil so many times I'm starting to believe it :-\ and I haven't even done anything wrong...
-
Most of the time it's a joke....Although I think the person who called me psycho was being serious...and the devil reference is more when I'm trying to tempt people into doing things they don't think they should do....
Oh, and I just remembered another one. Over the summer, 2 of my friends and I were inseparable, and one person said we were the good, the bad, and the ugly. And then he looked at me and said, 'you're definitely the bad'.... :D
-
It seems like we are all making this a lot more complicated than it needs to be.
Those who want to submit twice a month, do it on whatever day you're NOT submitting on: either the 1st or the 15th.
That way no one has to change schedules, we still have the benefits of an actual deadline, and there is almost no mod management necessary.
-
Hayley: I never said I was HAPPY about being called those things. I merely make an observation.
Haha. Evil is one word that's been applied to me too. Though I might have deserved it. Just once or twice. >>;
(For the record, they had it coming.)
Reaves: Then we'd be getting slammed with potentially twice as much material every week, and some people already seem to seem to think that even waiting two weeks between submissions is getting a bit long. I think what started this entire discussion was someone suggesting that the 15th deadline be moved up to the 8th.
-
lol what, I can't even change my plan??!! :o
It wouldn't really be twice as much every week, but possibly twice as much every two weeks. I don't really know it just seems like all these ideas of posting a week ahead when we want to submit something, or having submittance points is a bit... too involved.
-
I think some of the purposed solutions are getting way too technical and would only make things more confusing in the end. A better idea for now might be to adopt a "wait and see policy" for a few weeks at least. After all, there might be people who simply don't stick around (although that would be sad) lessening the submission pool, we might find that we are all capable of moving to a quicker schedule after one or two cycles, or we might decide that the original idea really is best. With the second groups first deadline not even here yet we really need to ask what the rush is?
-
Have we made a decision on this yet? Are we officially going with the "wait and see"?
-
I'd still like to do what I proposed on the first page - stick with letting whoever's ready for this time submit on the 15th, and the next week move on to Avalon's idea and see how THAT works out. Then we can pick one, or try something else, or whtaever. I don't think anybody's actually responded to that one way or another so I'll ask again for everyone's thoughts.
The problem with "wait and see for a few weeks" is that we could end up doing that for a very long time, since right now we're only set up for submissions every two weeks. If we wait for two or three submissions, that's two months before we actually figure out just whether or not there's another system that might work better for us. And what started up this discussion in the first place is that there are some people who are anxious to be able to submit more/more often.
-
I'm a Newby here I have read tons of old posts just to see how thing got to where they are -- including this entire thread.
Since this is a critiquing site, I thought I'd mention that bi-MONTHLY means every other month, not twice a month. Twice a month is semi-monthly. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a little late to the party.)
(I sneaked back here and corrected my own typo before anyone else caught it. Don't tell anyone. :-X)
-
^This man speaketh the truth. Silk was right all along! Also, welcome to the forum and group, Derby!
-
Silk was right all along!
Well, of course I was. Why'd you ever doubt me?
...uh...what was I right about, again?
Anyway, yeah. We're now submitting once weekly and that seems to be fairly comfortable for everybody, so that's where we'll stay.