Is Writing Dead?

I'm in. I started reading chuck's work about a month ago. It got me pretty excited. He's not your normal author. I'm new to this whole reading and writing thing but I'll send you my stuff and you can send me yours. I just started on what I hope to be the frist chapter of a novel.

I'm interested.  I don't know anybody here at "The Cult" but I would like to exercise, sharpen, and maybe even expand my writing horizons... 

rant's a lot like that (and with a sci fi twist)..  takes a lingering amount of buildup, then it just starts being fantastic.  but really, i guess half of his novels are like that:

survivor was fun right away.  choke too, because you get advanced plot in the very beginning of the first chapter.  but invisible monsters you had to work for.  you just had to keep trucking.  toward the end is where the road gets fun.  same with haunted rant and snuff

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as for this sharing of workshoppable material and how to go about it: 

I cant even get much attention from the powers that be:  den and mirk seem preoccupied and i know vig's got the clevenger intensive eating his time like wildfire.  so i have a proposal and this is the proposal:   it's better to ask forgiveness than permission sometimes and i think this is one of those times:

i think we should work in the actual self assignment workshop forum, right from the forum proper.  we have the ability to attach files now--as of approx two weeks ago.  lets use that ability.  we cant work in the general discussion, but there is no way we'll get wrist slapped for workshopping pieces in the workshop forums....

this is what i think:

you have a piece, you start a thread there.  and "attach" your story there, after your brief introduction and words about the piece.  anybody who reads it has the option to comment on it.  and if they want to write a full review via notes on a word document, they can upload the file again in their own "review" or reply post.  this is how it's done in the intensives.  now i understand that vig doesnt like us using the discussion forums for our writing and feedback, and i understand why, but i speculate that with the workshop down for the count, this could be forgiven as a viable and acceptable means of working our pieces.

here's the thing, though..  i think, at this time in the cult's history, the workshop forums are viewable to all.  hands down, prying eyes will come around.  for the most part, people will respect your art and not be assholes.  most of the assholes got laughed off the cult long ago, but new ones come every now and again.  so have thick skin if youre going to up any work.

also, format your attached work.  name (even if it's just your cult identity), date and title.  that's a form of publication.  you can still sell a work as "first rights" to paper mags, but you have to acknowledge that perhaps some zines or other online lit journals/mags may view that anything upped here would be first rights and they dont buy or publish second rights.  in other words, your story is not stored behind the sceure and anonymous walls of the workshop proper.  so be mindful of what you want outta the piece:

if you just want to work out a scene, that's probably best.  if you want to hammer out a chapter, that's probably equally okay.  but if youre currently shopping a story, which i am, it's probably best that you dont workshop that piece in an open online community, in a setting such as this current one.  you never know who's watching reading et cetera; editors do come around here looking at some of the new talent in the world wondering what names they may possibly see a few years from now.  editors read the southern review and search through online workshops when they can find them and have a few minutes of downtime, and everything here is google-search stored.  who knows what combination of words you use will bring whom here..  so be mindful  of what youre working.

recommendation on submitting a document for critique:

format your submission (i'll offer an EXAMPLE below as i "attach" to show a doc "attached")

have thick skin, or grow some.  (you may not appreciate all the feedback you'll get, but take it with grains and sport.)

be honest.  dont say "I hated it because it sucked".  point out particulars.

if you can't finish a read, youre probably not the best person to review that piece so just skip to the next one.

the main tried-and-fast rule of workshopping is:  review how you'd like to be reviewed.

SPELLCHECK.  PROPER GRAMMAR !  make your submission neat, easy to read.  dont make things unnecessarily difficult.

that's a bit of thinking.  whatta yaw think ?  whatta you think, billyo ?

if yaw are game, i am..  i think this could be useful until we get the workshop back.

-kabol

ps see attached

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buffalo

hey, thanks, man!  but the rocquel document is not a story; the document is only meant as an example, an example of how to upload, or "attach", a story into a thread.  rocquel is part of a much larger story on the back burner somewhere for some other time.   my motivation for crafting a doc in that way was strictly to show a formatted document.

and dont worry about stepping on any toes.  if youre a member of the workshop, you can discuss work in the workshop threads.  being a new workshop member, i'll let you know the rundown:

the workshop has a virus or sickness or something..  =)  when the new site was launched, it was pretty much the worst launch in history.  dennis (webmaster, a friend of chuck's) and the other admin are still ripping hair outta their heads trying to nail down everything and get the workshop back to full function by May 20th, the release date for snuff.  in the meantime, we cant utilize the workshop the way the workshop is intended, so i just suggest that we improvise:

this is not the forum to discuss works or up stories or chapters or scenes.

but if you go here:

http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000034

you can start a new thread--for your story--and upload your pages and we can work on it

say if the pages are about a chuck essay, put it here:

http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000044

say you want to write a story focusing on the hidden "gun", or "authority" in writing

dont be surprised when story threads get deleted after the workshop becomes full bloom again, but in the meantime it allows us to work together.  in the meantime--unless i'm told by den mirk or the homie vig--i dont see what it'll hurt and i wish we'd started doing this sooner.

-kabol

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