Writer's Workshop

[Renie]

I have another idea: the "Writer's Workshop"

This will exist as both a page and set of categories. We'll have a registration of a group who wants to attend the workshop. The workshop will be intended for all skill levels, experience, and most ages. Then we'll have a bi-weekly assignment designed to teach some concept in rhetoric/style/genre/technique. All registrants will be required to submit their assignments by the due date (or else they're out of the class). We'll choose two or three of the submissions to publish in the formal categories (like Fiction, Poetry, Essays, etc).

We could have a:

Poetry Workshop
Short Fiction Workshop
Character Workshop
Argument/Rhetoric Workshop

What do you think?

[RJDiogenes]

I like the idea a lot. I just fear that we won't have enough registrants. Maybe it's something we could do a little later once we're confident that we have the "circulation."

[Renie]

Good idea. Plus the fact that it would take a while to simply develop the amount of material and interface we'd need just to get started. We could develop the material but make it visible only to writers and editors until it's ready to go.

[australis]

It will take a while to gather enough readers to get into this. But if we say it's coming, and in the meantime there's a page where they can work on their ideas and have them critiqued, that might fly. That way, you hone the writers (which means I'll have to take part if I'm writing short stories), and end up with a storehouse of material to utilise at a point when things are a bit low from the regular team (that's us).

Or something like that. Bit tired.

[RJDiogenes]

Yes, they could be directed to our Writer's Forum with the guarantee that at least one of us, and probably more, will constructively comment on their work.

Also, we could start out with a more general workshop and spin off more specific workshops as we got more writers.

[australis]

Yeah, that's a good idea.

[Renie]

Sounds good. I have a Writer's Workshop category going, which when clicked would display *all* posts that have been tagged under that category (hence, all articles in one place). We could re-direct users to the Writer's Forum for a while, via the Submissions/Write For NM page. I.e., if readers want to submit work, they might consider first having it critiqued in the Writer's Forum before they submit, and so forth.

[RJDiogenes]

That would be great.

[australis]

Speaking of Writers' Workshop...


while I struggle with the piece I was originally writing for NM, I came across this one, which is shorter but in a similar vein, and could pinch hit for now, I think. It's a few years old, so I may need to update some references.

I'd like y'all to read it, tell me if you think it's okay, if it should be expanded in certain ways, and so forth. And so on.

And if you don't think it suitable for NM, jsut say so. I'm cool.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Best of Times, Worst of Times

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way -- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
-- Charles Dickens, 'A Tale of Two Cities', 1859

Written one hundred and fifty years ago, and still the same today. Some things really don’t change.

We seem to be going through, to paraphrase the above, the trickiest of times, where you can make a choice one time and it’s right, and then make the same choice another time and it’s wrong.

We have incredible communications that can bring the world to within centimetres of us, but often what it brings is mayhem, terrorism, racism and death. Or cartoons about Mohammed that set anger blazing. And before anyone says Christians wouldn’t do that, well, they have. Even as I write, churches are burning in the southern states of the USA, thanks to intolerance. In a time of instant access to anywhere in the world, there seems to be more ignorance than ever.

We live in a time when we have all sorts of medical and technological marvels, yet access is restricted to the wealthy and influential. Take Sydney for example: there are a lot of problems with hospitals in places like Liverpool and St Marys, but you never hear of, say, hospitals in the wealthier Northern or Eastern suburbs suffering the same cutbacks, understaffing and limited supplies.

And we’re finding cures for diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, yet still smoke and drink ourselves to death, still falling for the big business line that it’s cool or sophisticated, or, if you stand around with a cigarette in your mouth long enough, fast cars, beautiful women, exotic beaches and wild horses will cluster around you, though more likely it’ll be mouth cancer that arrives first. Or that we can drink and drink and we’ll have fun forever, when what’s really over the horizon is cirrhosis, brain damage and heart failure.

It seems to matter little what stripe of politics you believe in: Tweedledum and Tweedledee, really, with the same bureaucracy informing whichever party is in government, giving the same advice, the overall decisions, the little things that really shape our society, turning out the same.

You have to ask yourself: what kind of world do I want to live in? What kind of world do I want my children to live in? That question gets harder to answer as we’re surrounded with more and more disinformation and entertainment designed to distract us from the real world as well as dropping cash in the pockets of the money men..

The shout goes up: “Conspiracy!” No, it’s not as complicated as that, it’s just a plan to funnel us down certain paths, and separate us from our wages as painlessly as possible. How many of us are being distracted by ‘The da Vinci Code’? A great weaving of secret societies and plans for world control… that don’t exist beyond the worlds of fiction.

There is a world all around us, the world of the here and now, pulled slightly beyond our reach by the things that distract us. We need to make the effort to reach out and touch that world. According to doctors, we are now at risk of not living as long as our parents, thanks to our lifestyle. That’s a terrible indictment of the way we live, in this age of miracles.

It’s still the best of times, the worst of times. Let’s try and make it a little better each day, for ourselves, family, the community, the country, the world. We’re all in this together. To quote Benjamin Franklin: “we must all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately”.

Speaking of quotes, when Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilisation, he replied “I think it would be an excellent idea”. That’s funny, but a little glib. The West prides itself on being a civilising influence on the rest of the world, but we have to remember that some of those lessons have been learnt in blood over hundreds and hundreds of years, and even today we don’t always get it right. Think about Abu Ghraib: if the war on terror is to be won, it will be done not just on the battlefield but on the moral ground as well.

The world really is a great place. But everyone needs to work on it, to take it to a place where the human race can finally reach its full potential, and beyond.

[RJDiogenes]

Nice work, australis. I like the positive message. Personally, I think it would be great to have it in the magazine.

Is this generation really in danger of living a shorter life than its parents? That's pretty amazing....

[australis]

^ Yep, health issues are indictating that, and because you asked the question I'd better find a few links to back it up.

[RJDiogenes]

That's amazing, and sad....