Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Reading Excuses => Topic started by: Silk on November 17, 2008, 10:56:19 AM
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I just threw this together from what seemed to be the general consensus on the other thread, so tell me if there's anything I'm missing (or that you passionately disagree with) and I'll edit.
Deadlines: Sorry, you can't just submit whenever you feel like it. Instead, we'll hand you a submission deadline. If you don't make the submission deadline, we'll laugh at you. If you're late, we may not be able to read and critique it in a timely fashion.
Currently RE is experimenting with a new way of doing submissions. Instead of monthly submissions, we will have submission "applications". Submission dates will be Monday of any week. If you want to submit, you will apply by posting in the e-mail linked thread below by Saturday of the previous week. Chaos and I will choose who gets to submit based on who hasn't had critiques recently. There are few enough of us right now that all of those who want to will probably be able to submit, but pay attention to the Email/Submissions thread just in case.
Formatting: Do NOT post your submission to this forum. Instead, send your submission to everybody (just once, please!) on the Reading Excuses email list (available here (http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=6229.0)). Attachments should be .doc, .rtf, or .pdf files (not .docx, not everyone can read those!); please use 1.5 or double spacing and a legible font. Courier and Times New Roman are manuscript standard.
After emailing, start a thread here on the Reading Excuses forum. Title the thread "date of submission - piece title - chapter number (if applicable)". You don't need to say much, it just gives us a place to go at it, and eliminates the possibility of three people starting the same thread at once. You'll start a new thread per each story or chapter so that threads don't get too huuuuuuge.
Length: We have come to a very democratic, very arbitrary decision that around 3500 words is a reasonable maximum per submission. This is a ballpark - if you want to submit a complete story or chapter that runs above this, go for it. But If you give us 50 pages to read all at once, we will whine. And throw stuff. And we might not read it all.
Genre: We're not putting any restrictions on genre (for now). We'll still read literary fiction. You should bear in mind, though, that most of us are speculative fiction writers, getting together to critique mostly speculative fiction-y stuff. That doesn't mean we're not discerning readers, but if you're doing something wildly different you should probably take some of our comments with a grain of salt. (Well, an extra grain of salt.)
Content: We don't want to restrict content either. We do ask that when you email us a submission, you label it for Language, Drug Use, Violence, or Sexual Content if necessary.
Ettiquette: Be fair (not nice). Don't be nasty, but do say what you think. And don't apologize every time you offer a criticism.
Say what's working exceptionally well as well as what isn't working at all. If something isn't working, tell us why. Sometimes it's best to let the author figure out what to do. Sometimes specific suggestions help, but don't try to write someone's story for them.
Don't spend too much time critiquing grammar, punctuation, etcetera (unless the author asks for it for some reason). Focus on the big things.
You get what you give. If you skimp on critiquing our stuff, we'll skimp on yours. (We we realize that not everyone will be able to critique everybody's submission every time. That's fine. We do think it's reasonable for everyone to critique at least one manuscript for everyone they submit. Beyond that, do your level best to give as many critiques as you can without killing yourself over it.)
Defending your work against people's criticisms is generally not useful. Asking pointed questions is perfectly fine.
Finally, do NOT share someone else's story with anyone outside the group, unless you have their express permission to do so.
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Bravo. Mod worthy post, that was. Someone should talk to Sprig about getting you promoted.
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You should rename the topic to "The Rules of Reading Excuses" to pay homage to a certain bonus episode of a certain podcast... :P
Someone should really talk to Sprig about getting a separate moderator for this forum--someone who will check on it almost every day. Mostly, he or she should just pin topics, I think, since once submissions get going, we don't want this Rule topic and the Email List topic to vanish.
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Haha. Nah, I just threw together a bunch of the things we'd been saying in the other thread anyway...
Chaos - you've one heckuva memory, man. I think it took me about five minutes to figure out what you were talking about. That episode was posted months ago, and there are days when I'm incapable of remembering my own name.
*cough* Just kidding on that last part. Really.
But yeah, I was thinking the same thing, if someone could pin those two threads that'd be helpful.
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I probably should have just said "to pay homage to Writing Excuses Bonus Episode 1", which would have been more unambiguous, but much less fanciful! Alas! What am I to do? :P
Also, I bought the Writing Excuses CD and have listened to them all again, so I may be in a slightly more advantageous position to remember which one is which.
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As I said, Raethe would be the best one I could think of for a moderator for the board, but Chaos has been around longer, I think. From what I can tell, they tend to go with mods that are higher post-count. Hopefully we'll get someone, though, 'cause I'm sure Fell is a bit too busy to moderate this board.
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Yeah, they probably don't really wanna make someone with under 20 posts a mod...
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You could start a thread called "My posts" and just post the crap out of it... Though I think that's cheating.
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Actually, that's called spamming :P It's not highly smiled upon, though.
I'm going to PM Sprigg or Fell after my Japanese class and see what he (or they) think about getting another moderator in this forum. If they don't... well, at the very least they can pin this topic and the Email List topic. That should do for now, at least.
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PM'd Fell a bit ago, actually.
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Oh, right on. That's better, actually, because I need to do some revisions on an essay I have due in five hours.
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Haha. If I went around spamming threads they REALLY wouldn't promote me.
(Heck, if I caught someone doing that on the forums I mod, I'd block their sorry posterior. Politely, of course.)
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I'm not against making someone a mod of just this forum, I'll have to talk with the other admins to get it approved but I'm sure no one will object. It's not like Fell or I will ever check this forum.
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Yes, that was the general rationale behind the desire for a mod. Thanks, Spriggan.
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ROFL. It wasn't long before Sprig posted that, that I PM'd Fell on the subject, lol.
What do you guys say, poll thread to elect the mod democratically? Nominations could be posted here.
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Well, that's only if the administrators don't already have someone in mind. I would think they don't, but I don't exactly know how much their lurk around every new post (I would put my money not "certainly not all of them", though).
Logically, it would follow that democracy would be the fairest way to go about it. (Once again, if the administrators have a problem with that idea, just shout it out)
One stipulation: It's not a matter of life or death who gets chosen. No fighting. Of course, this is a writing group, so some manner of cohesion is vital. I'm pretty sure everyone here already knew this, but it never hurts to make sure.
Nominations, then?
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I nominate Raethe.
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Honestly, I nominate Chaos. Nothing aginst you Raethe, but he's been around twg a bit longer. Plus, he was one of the major people in helping to create the basic set up of how everything is going to work. And he has no life, so he wouldn't be distracted. (J/k)
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Honestly, I nominate Choas. Nothing aginst you Raethe, but he's been around twg a bit longer. Plus, he was one of the major people in helping to create the basic set up of how everything is going to work. And he has no life, so he wouldn't be distracted. (J/k)
It's spelled "Chaos" :P
Just a little fyi, lol.
EDIT: No, editing it doesn't count. You made me cry... *sniff*
And okay, I might have no life. That, or I just check for new posts on TWG with zealous efficiency (my computer chair is comfortable enough to study AND waste time!)
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I respectfully agree that Chaos has no life, and would like to point out that I would rather we didn't have 8600 word announcements... *pokes fun at Chaos*
J/k, man.
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I respectfully agree that Chaos has no life, and would like to point out that I would rather we didn't have 8600 word announcements... *pokes fun at Chaos*
J/k, man.
If some people don't get that joke, that is because I wrote this massive theory topic for Hero of Ages before it came out. You know, a thing to get your theories set in stone before the book came out. Mine came out to 8600 words.
You can find it here, if you really want a long read: http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=6132.0
(It's the one which makes the scrollbar more akin to a timeline.)
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I couldn't really care less who actually ends up as mod to be honest. I don't mind doing it - I won't be on here all day every day but I can certainly be by every couple of days - but if Chaos wants to do it... or whoever... Yeah, my ambivalence is complete.
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Actually, Raethe, I'm equally ambivalent. Whoever gets modded will do a good job. I'm not opposed to anyone here.
That being said, I refresh the TWG page quite frequently. At the minimum, daily. At the maximum, several times per hour. I do have a pretty good handle on what's going happening. I'm quite single-minded once I get attached to a forum.
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So we won't get into huge massive flame wars over who gets to mod the forums. Instead, our discussions will look something more like...
"No, you go ahead. I don't mind."
"No really! It's okay! Go for it!"
"I assure you, it's perfectly fine if..."
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I say we solve it in one of two ways:
poll where everyone choses, or (the more likely way to have it solved) just let the offical mods decide.
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So we won't get into huge massive flame wars over who gets to mod the forums. Instead, our discussions will look something more like...
"No, you go ahead. I don't mind."
"No really! It's okay! Go for it!"
"I assure you, it's perfectly fine if..."
It would be a very pleasant change of pace :D. Yeah, I would hate if there were flame wars. That's why I said:
One stipulation: It's not a matter of life or death who gets chosen. No fighting. Of course, this is a writing group, so some manner of cohesion is vital. I'm pretty sure everyone here already knew this, but it never hurts to make sure.
...Which is basically another way of saying "I really don't mind who gets it. No need to fight over it."
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Haha. Yeah, I'd say let the official mods do it. That's what they're there for, isn't it? ;)
Polls work too I guess but I'm notorious on one of the forums I co-admin for not voting on polls...
The day I get into flame wars over who gets a mod a forum is the day I ASK the men in white coats to come take me away.
(Um... You can stay away for the moment, guys, really - it's okay...)
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I'll gladly accept either of you, and whichever of you does make it, I'm here to give a hand where needed.
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The same. I might not be as available now then I was before since I start a second job tomorrow, however whenever I get the chance I'll definatly help out!
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Ok so seeing how I just read the rules I had a question or two. Now I haven't followed this board at all and frankly I didn't know it existed. For the record everyone knows Chaos has no life.
Anyway what does one have to do to become a member of your group?
Does a person have to submit writings to be able to read others writings and critique them?
If I want to lets say join and don't finish a writing in time for the deadline would I then be out of the group?
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This board didn't exist until ... what, about three days ago?
We won't throw you out if you miss a submission deadline (though we may, as per the rules, laugh at you). It just means you miss out on your opportunity to get critiqued.
We have a couple of people right now who have opted to pass up the first submission deadlines and just be on the critique list for now. They're going to start actually submitting later when they feel they're ready.
What do you guys think about making this open to people who JUST want to read/critique and don't want to submit at all?
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Woah your quick. I'm not saying I wouldn't submit, I am just saying that I might not be able to submit every time and I wouldn't want to be kicked out due to this. I'm not going to lie I haven't read all the pages here yet. For a board that has existed for three days you guys really work fast. Anyway I am not afraid to be laughed at so that's cool with me.
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Yes, but are you adverse to whippings with spaghetti? For that is the unspoken penalty for not submitting.
Personally I'm all for a second list for readers. I saw it at first and thought about how it'd suck to have it distributed that far, but really, it's just like having a giant common pool of Alpha Readers.
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A second group for readers would be great.
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Hey Chaos if your critiquing skills in anyway resemble your reviewing skills that you displayed with whatever that Eragon book three title was I think it was Brisinger, then this should be a lot of fun. That was brutal and quite clear. Well written you definitely got your point across and I thought it was great.
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Hey Chaos if your critiquing skills in anyway resemble your reviewing skills that you displayed with whatever that Eragon book three title was I think it was Brisinger, then this should be a lot of fun. That was brutal and quite clear. Well written you definitely got your point across and I thought it was great.
And that was actually after Nessa cut some of the fluff on it. I could've gone on.
However, critiquing is quite different from reviewing. Still, I will be as even-handed as I can, praise what should be praised, and describe why something didn't work. What I can promise is that I will try to be as logical as I can in my critiques.
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Fair enough, I'll add you to the list. Did you want to pick a submission date (Dec 1st or 15th) right away, or do what Flo and Rose are doing and just read first, join in on submissions later?
I don't know, a group of readers would be a cool idea in theory, but considering how large Reading Excuses has gotten in like, three days, with just writers, it seems like if we opened up to people who just wanted to read and critique we could potentially end up sending our work out to massive numbers of people. Which seems a little iffy to me. I'm not entirely certain why...
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So, I've seen that the suggested guideline is 3500 words in length, but at another place somewhere on this forum, there was talk of having it be a chapter at a time. Does that chapter thing still stand, or would it be okay to submit two chapters if they are, together, fitting the 3500 word guideline (I just felt that the one was too short to submit alone)?
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For the most part, it's by chapter. If you have a chapter shorter than that, and if you couple it with the next chapter, it still doesn't go over the 3500 word mark, it's fine. That's what I'll be doing--for the first submission at least. My prologue is barely 500 words and Chapter 1 is currenty a little over 2100 (I'me editting it and adding another scene to make it flow a bit better).
I think as long as with both chapters it doesn't go OVER 3500 (or at least not by much), you should be okay.
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And conversely, if your chapter goes OVER 3500, it's cool, too. 3500 is just a guideline. If a single chapter goes beyond that, then that's totally fine to submit that.
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So if Pologue+Chapter 1 are 3700 words, is that cool?
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Yeah. It's really no big deal. The idea with the word "limit" is to prevent someone from submitting their entire NaNoWriMo novel in one sitting (which would be WAY too much to critique). Just use common sense. In your case, a 500 word Prologue isn't enough to critique, in my opinion, so it makes perfect sense to group it together with the first chapter.
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And conversely, if your chapter goes OVER 3500, it's cool, too. 3500 is just a guideline. If a single chapter goes beyond that, then that's totally fine to submit that.
Haha. I was going to put that in my post, and then I decided what was the point?....
And yeah, 3700 isn't bad at all. It's only 200 words over, and if it's 2 chapters that's fine (it's fine if it's one chapter as well).....
....Random comment here, but the term "guideline" makes me think of Pirates of the Caribbean, the first one, with all the stuff about the Pirate's Code being more like guidelines.....This 3500 words deal could be the "Writer's Code" and it's like the Pirate's in that it doesn't really matter if you follow it or not....Maybe. Of course, we could be like rogue pirates (is there such a thing, I wonder?) and string you up by your toes (or worse....) if you break it TOO much (*hint*what Chaos said about the NaNo novel...or any novel *hint*), but I won't guarantee anything....I'd hate to scare away potential victims.
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Good, you picked up on that. I used "guideline" in exactly that sense--to pay homage to Pirates of the Caribbean.
Instead of stringing up your toes, we just start all laughing maniacally. In unison. Sort of like a full choir of evil laughs. Your brain explodes under that kind of pressure. :D
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well, hey, anything with exploding brains is good
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Good, you picked up on that. I used "guideline" in exactly that sense--to pay homage to Pirates of the Caribbean.
Instead of stringing up your toes, we just start all laughing maniacally. In unison. Sort of like a full choir of evil laughs. Your brain explodes under that kind of pressure. :D
Sweet (I say this long and drawn out, like Saweeeeet...or something to that effect). I will gladly join the chorus of evil laughers. It shall be fun.
...Seriously, though. I was just thinking. What would it be like to come across a group of people who spontaneously start to laugh evilly in unison?...I honestly have no idea how I would react. Would I run? Or just stand there in shock, thinking "what the heck?"
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So do we set up a conference call in Skype for these purposes or how's that supposed to work? I guess we could mail each other recordings of our laughter in case we couldn't make the call...
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What, everytime someone misses a deadline, we set up a Skype conference and laugh at them? Evilly and in unison?
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Sounds cool to me
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Actually, we were thinking if anyone goes drastically over the 3500 word guideline...I say drastically over is "4000" words. Or when they break any major "guideline," but I guess missing a deadline works, too. This gives us more chances to practice our unison-evil-laugh.....You know the phrase "the more, the merrier"? In our case, it's "the more, the eviller"....or something like that.
Reading over that last part, it sounds lame....I'm tempted to delete it, but I'll keep it up in case someone gets a kick out of it....
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Haha. I dunno, I'd be okay with 4000 words, though we probably shouldn't slam everybody with too much more than that...
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Oh, I'd be okay with 4000 words too, but that's what I get for having no life, and not caring about slacking off from school....I just want to use my evil laugh...and see how well we can unify our laughs. It could be a lot fun.
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Actually, "drastically" over is 6000 :P
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Well, yeah, but if we waited for someone to do 6000, we'd NEVER get to laugh evilly in unison. That would be sad. See--- :'( That's a tear.... I'm just looking out for the group's interest. ;) I'm nice like that....
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Out of common courtesy, lets try and keep it to around 3500-4000. I wont refuse to review a peice if it's larger, but I won't be happy about it, and frankly, unhappy readers are not what we want.
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What if I wanted to submit one that was 6000 just to see the outcome of the skype powered evil laughing chorus?
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I'd say be my guest. I'm curious what the outcome will be as well....
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Once again... Don't piss off your readers and peers. This community is a thing of courtesy, and if we don't maintain the courtesy, keep up that civility, the core of the community will rot.
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I take it Avalon won't be in the chorus, then, eh? Darn. We could use all the evil laughers we can get (not saying he's evil, but pretty much everyone has SOME version of an evil laugh, and we'll need lots of variety in this chorus...).
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I wouldn't even be that averse to a 6000 word submission (considering there's no deadline to deliver critiques) as long as it doesn't happen often. Sometimes things just happen to take that long.
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Avalon I understand the idea behind the group. I don't want you to think I would intentionally anger the members of the group. I was only joking. Although I would like to see the evil laugh chorus, I wouldn't want to see it under those circumstances.
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You could always send out 6000 words of dummy text - although that would technically warrant the double amount of laughter, I think.
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Well, if he's gonna send out dummy text, he might as well only send out 3000 words. He'd get the laughter either way. The only question is how much time he wants to spend on creating something with no point other than to hear the Evil Laughing Chorus.
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Would a quarter of a minute on google suffice (http://www.blindtextgenerator.com/)? ;D
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Just copy/paste that list of Utopia's yahoo! answers questions into a text file... Dummy text if I ever saw it.
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Oh, that things pretty sweet. I like the one that starts with "Far far away." I just figured out what it keeps repeating. It's 316 words that fit into a story, and yet the story's pure nonsense. I mean, seriously. Read this excerpt:
"It is a paradisematic country, in which roasted parts of sentences fly into your mouth. Even the all-powerful Pointing has no control about the blind texts it is an almost unorthographic life One day however a small line of blind text by the name of Lorem Ipsum decided to leave for the far World of Grammar."
It makes sense, yet at the same time, it doesn't....It's weird.
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That is way awesome.
If we wanted to see the evil laughter chorus, the easier way to go then skyping them would be to simply have one set up as an mp3. Everyone records their evil laugh and e-mails it to someone who then would compile them into one file. (Actually, this makes me want to actually do it so I can hear it as well. And I have a program that could totally handle such a thing. Anyone for e-mailing me files of their e.l.s? I can take .mp3, .wav, and (I think) .wma)
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Rules question here...
It says that, although it is not following good etiquette to defend our work, we can make pointed questions. What would be the right way to do that? Should we post the question publicly, or just PM the person we want to ask the question to?
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Rules question here...
It says that, although it is not following good etiquette to defend our work, we can make pointed questions. What would be the right way to do that? Should we post the question publicly, or just PM the person we want to ask the question to?
I would probably PM them. I would ask something like: "How did my uses of present tense bother you?" and the like. You probably shouldn't phrase a question leadingly, rather ask an honest question that might help you better understand why the poster said what they did. I wouldn't ask a question to try and change their minds, though. That's when you get into the unappreciated critiques problem.
However, if you do start PMing back and forth, you could ask them how they would've written something just to balance some ideas off of one another. Remember, you don't have to change everything that someone says they have a problem with. If you do want to change something, then make sure it's something that you feel comfortable changing and that you're not just changing it so that people can get what they want--it's YOUR story.
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Thank you, that helps.
You know, I love how quickly you get responses on this forum.
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Actually, I beg to differ. I think replies should be done on the public forums so that we can all see the response and learn from it. For example:
Why should I say "How dare you" rather then "Doest thou mock me?"
reply: Because it makes your character sound less sincere. Here's some other things to avoid.
From that everyone could learn how to make their charcters more realistic.
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Maybe it can be up to the one being critiqued?
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Actually, I beg to differ. I think replies should be done on the public forums so that we can all see the response and learn from it. For example:
Why should I say "How dare you" rather then "Doest thou mock me?"
reply: Because it makes your character sound less sincere. Here's some other things to avoid.
From that everyone could learn how to make their charcters more realistic.
I would tend to think PMing would be better so that the questionee wouldn't feel like they were being called out. I personally wouldn't have a problem with someone asking me questions on one of my critiques on the forums, but I wouldn't want someone getting defensive if I posted on a forum. Also there's the question of how many replies do you want on the question if it is open for all to see.
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Well, I think anything beyond one question/answer on the topic would then become trying to defend your work.
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IMO
There are two situations.
:Critisism:
Author can ask a question if they don't understand something or want more advice on a particular topic or another reader can give an alternative.
There should be no responses to these. Neither the author nor any of the other readers should defend their suggestion over others. The choice is up to the author so there is no need for argumentation.
:Reader Question To Author About A Certain Section:
The author answers the question then the read can give a suggestion on how to make this more clear.
Other readers can provide alternatives to how to make it easy to understand.
The only responses here should be the author asking the reader to clarify or expand on their suggestion.
This way it is easy for an author to find something that they were looking for in the thread, it allows everyone to give their two cents, and it keeps the boards from being cluttered with useless arguing.
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((First post! Yay)) Me = TWG newbie.
I'm interested in being involved in this. But first... I saw some discussion about this, but never saw a solid answer. Can I be a reader only for right now, and then submit in a few weeks/months/years/decades when I'm actually ready?
Looking forward to this
J
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Welcome!
What we're asking everyone to do as far as critiques go is one critique for at least every submission you yourself put in, at a minimum. And we encourage everybody to do as many as they can each time, to ensure that everybody at least gets a couple of solid critiques, but we're not going to expect everybody to critique everybody every time. In a perfect world, we would, but it's not really reasonable...
And yes, as long as you're planning on submitting eventually we're happy to sign you up as a reader (we've got a couple people doing that already). I think the only thing we didn't come to a conclusion on was people who are JUST readers, but if you're planning on submitting to us sometime in the forseeable (not necessarily near, but forseeable :P) future that's fine.
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Cool. Sign me up as a reader for now. But I'll submit eventually. Maybe in early '09.
[email protected]
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Cool. Sign me up as a reader for now. But I'll submit eventually. Maybe in early '09.
Do you want to have the submissions that have already been sent out to be sent to you now? I've got no problem with sending it again, the more the merrier! ;D
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Sure! Go ahead. Thanks.
Is there a preferred deadline to give feedback by?
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I don't think one has been set, but I think before the next submission. It seems that submission dates are being moved around/tinkered with at the moment so that may change as well.
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What we're trying for is to get as many as we can done before that person has their next submission, which makes sense, I think.
I also think someone should be able to go back and critique something they didn't get to earlier, though, which is why I prefer to leave things nebulous. Well, that, and I don't want to overload everybody with too many deadlines and stuff. As large as this group is, we could easily overload someone.
I'll add you as a reader. We'll start nagging you in early '09. ;)
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Wait, I'm slightly confused about something now. I thought that you only submitted once a month (1st or 15th) and that was it for the month. But now it sounds like you submit on both?! Or is that just some people that are doing that?
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Officially, right now, we're still looking at once a month each - the 1st and the 15th for the different groups,
Some people feel that a month is two long to wait between submissions, though - it is problematic, though any solution we come up with is going to be problematic in a different way - so we've been thrasing out some different ideas as to what we could do. This thread (http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=6281.15) is where the discussion is taking place.
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Aw man.... My chapters are between 3000 and 7000 words each, first draft, but still, I'm gonna be laughed to death :'(
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I don't even have chapters yet... I'm not even sure if I need them, though.
Anyway: more readers are a good thing, they make me feel less silly. ;)
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Okay... *deep breath*
Move me from a reader to a submitter, please. I think I'm ready to send a draft by the list. It doesn't have to be this next deadline per say. Whenever you can fit me in.
I'll continue to provide feedback on everything I've received though.
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Yay, more submitters are a good thing! It makes me feel less silly when there are only two of us for a given week!! :o
-Also, put me on the list for submitting on monday.
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Yay! Welcome to the submitting shark tank Jason! Don't worry, we don't bit off heads, we just gnaw on them a lot. ;D
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Frog is so encouraging, isn't she? ::)
Reaves - got you. Jason, you're welcome to submit this Monday if you want.
Though I'mma nudge any further discussion over to the Email Lists thread, just so we have it all in one place.
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Ye Gods, I just had a gander at the folder I save all the received but not yet read submissions to, seeing as I'll want to start catching up on all that I've missed sometime this weekend, and I met a truly horrifying (exaggeration) sight: lots and lots of documents with creative yet unhelpful titles such as "Chapter 1", "Chapter Thirteen" or even "Stuff I plan to delete" (I'm reading that one first ;D ).
Now I do realise it's essentially my fault for not giving them proper names when I initially saved them, but I'm inherently lazy so I prefer having someone else do my work - which is why I'm posting this, hoping that at least some of you will show some pity and make their filenames a tad more distinguishable in future. ;)
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I'm confused - why not leave submissions in your email client until you're ready to read them? Shoot, you could even set up a filter to sort email from group members into its own folder - then your computer would do all the work for you! I know that takes some setup effort, but being lazy is hard work sometimes. ;D
Not that I'm against helpful filenames, I just figure the problem could also be solved by storing the documents in their original context, and that would be more effective than trying to get others to change their file management habits.
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Now don't you go and bring logic into this, that's just not fair. :'(
Usually it's not a problem anyway, because I read the stuff and then sort it properly, I just felt like sharing my surprise when I first opened that folder after weeks of merely copying files into it without actually opening it. ;)
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My bad Flo. I didn't really consider that someone might have downloaded it and then be trying to sort everything through weeks later :(
I'll do my best to add in the book title in future submissions.
Might I suggest a word search to help identify exactly who submitted? Probably the main character's name would be enough. I understand that would be a lot of searches for all the files you've got archived but its easier than reading them through one by one and trying to keep it all in your head :P
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Or your RE handle, so people who haven't read any of your work will still know who it is.
Or whatever.
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I've had the same difficulty as Flo with the organization of RE files. It wasn't a huge deal with me, because when I did my mass downloading of every Reading Excuses submission, I made a separate folder for each RE member and just copied the files into the correct folder. But, I'm certainly not opposed to having your RE handle in the file name of the submission. That would probably make things easier.