Anonymous Writing Group II: criticism thread

i thought the idea was mooted a little while ago but the mods weren't for it, was the decision

I very much like the sound of this.

would like this. i have been deep in expanding the piece that was here but i have a few other going concerns that i'd like to share. this thread was great reading too.

i would quite like this! i think if it were a secret board i might... actually post a thing.

do it!

It's difficult. The anonymity part of this was my way of giving a bit of privacy - which is good for getting the criticism started, but the disadvantage is that it's hard to get into a longer discussion about the piece (particularly why the author made the choices she did). A private board, so long as it got decent traffic, would be better for the latter - also providing it didn't inhibit honest criticism.

Another thing is whether the 'event' aspect of having a thread every six months would become just a couple of posters shouting into the ether. Not that I know whether this thread was an event, but it must've given some motivation I reckon - certainly I was delighted that people kept stepping up. If the board was just 'there', maybe that wouldn't happen?

would read an ilw board, but would miss these threads

Anonymity is pretty essential if anyone's going to get any useful feedback I think, though it is good to know who wrote what afterwards so there can be a conversation. TBH as it's fragments we're posting it's not such a problem having a public board, but a private one would be useful for longer/complete pieces.

Not that I have anywhere near enough stuff at the moment but, where ever it happened, I would do this monthly if everyone else could be bothered – would be a good incentive to write and improve! Six month gap kills momentum a little bit...

Unless the new board is a goer, I'm going to aim to get group III up in February. That way we can cash in on people's New Year resolutions.

Any ideas meantime for how to tweak the format? Having one piece per day seems like it might work better than posting them in batches.

I'm a bit busy right now but I'd hope that if the new board IS a goer, it'll be up before February. There's quite a bit more admin involved in private boards so Christmas is pretty much the worst time to do it, but early January should be okay?

If I set the submissions thread up in the new year, then it could also act as advance publicity/a register of interest for the new board. Then if it happens, we can kick it off with the criticism thread in February and let it fly from there?

Ya

I'd be really into the i love writing board. It could be a really great thing.

Me too.

I'd also be up for some kind of email-based thing where people send bits of writing around a group, although that might be a bit forward of me.

Anyone writing SF/F want to join a short story group? I'm part of a challenge group for 2014 where we commit to writing and submitting to market one short story every month. If you get enough stories in and you have one or more decent unsold short stories at the end of the year, they'll be considered for an anthology to be published in 2015.

There are 8 of us so far. Most people in the group are offering critiques as the stories come in, and help identifying suitable markets.

Ask for an invite to astoryamo✧✧✧@yahoogro✧✧✧.c✧.u✧ if you want to join in; say you're from ILX. I'm the list admin. You get a free pass for January, obviously.

it's auto-garbled that email address - the missing letters are nth ups o k

i was looking through my google drive and found a draft document titled "Anonymous II" that was apparently intended for this thread. i barely even remember writing it, but at least if there is an Anonymous III i'll have something to build off of

similarly i was looking through my googdrive and did not ever remember writing it ever but actually didn't hate it??? and would totally submit to this if it were to happen again if a certain amount of others would also submit

er *found something i wrote that i did not ever remember writing

who knows what happened there

karl malone alias, cunningly disguised with his real first name

NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, although interest in it seems to have fallen off the past couple of years here at ilx.