Monday, October 26, 2009

Things Fall Apart...

...the Center cannot hold.

I may have that backwards.  It's a wonderful poem, though.

Alright, INKERs, what's the deal?  No goals updated, no meetings planned... is this because I came back from Iraq and you no longer have the safety of keeping me at Skype distance?  I don't bite.  Much. Only Kami. Unless I can't create space any other way.  Or I want to see the looks on their faces when they realized the mistake in thinking they were fighting a civilized human being....

But I digress. Ahem. Nano is upon us. Who is in?  I'm not particularly interested, but I'll do 50000 words in 30 days if anyone cares to throw down the gauntlet.  To sweeten the deal, I'll even do fiction.

I think, IMHO, INK is and should be more than a critique group.  Critique groups are cheap (and easy and rarely more help than aggravation/drama).  INK should  be what writers need: part networking, part a good kick in the ass when people get lazy, and part professional advice.

Time to stand and deliver, me hearties.  The center canna' hold.

3 comments:

C.S. said...

Here, here!

I completely agree with your critique group statement (for personal reasons albeit for as of September, I'm officially out of the critique business).

As I saw it, INK was created right after NaNoWriMo by writers who wanted to be published for writers who want to be published. Critiques go along in that writing business but it would seem that, IMO, INK morphed into 95% critique group, becoming a smaller, friendlier version of a well known, award-winning Portland crit group. I don't think that was INK's original purpose.

Again, in my opinion, INK needs motivation, instruction (not through heavy critique rotation), networking and craft/business information (yes, trade gossip fits in there too), and not so darn much of the "this is good but you need to rewrite this, this, and that too" parts.

NaNo is mere days away. None of us are NaNo freshmen. In the spirit of NaNoWriMo, let's dare to be brave and create something new. Or rewrite what we feel we must. Again I say, let's dare to be brave.

Writing 50K words is nothing to this group, but this group has done nothing for a long while now. What better time to restart INK than now.

(btw, my October goals have been updated since the 14th.)

Kami said...

Goals? Oh yeah, goals ...

I'm all for more networking, learning, and motivation. I could certainly use more of that! Here's to November, and lots and lots of writing ...

Mark Jones said...

I'm writing a novel for November. Albeit with much fear and trepidation, and dithering and resistance. But I'm damn well gonna write one.

And if it sucks (as I must confess I think it will), well, it's my first one. It's allowed to suck. The next one, not so much, and the next one less than that...