Encouraging Writing!

[entrenous88]

Wow. Four live chats/discussions yesterday, and man -- invigorating, overwhelming, exhausting, inspiring. Thanks so much to everyone who participated with great comments and good humor. Special thanks go out to our lovely mods: nashmaveric, spuzz, bettina256, and velvetandlace. e.t.a. -- links to discussions to arrive soon.Today's schedule and issues

Comments

[nashmaveric]

Glad to have been of service sweetie ::grin::

-- can you recommend anything for writers considering changing their approach to writing or just for new writers who are unsure where to begin?

I pretty much think everyone has a whole different way of tackling writing. Personally I try to put everything down on paper no matter how it comes out and then I go back and fix things. I find that leaving it alone for a few hours or a day and then coming back to it helps make it better and discover inconsistensies I wouldn't have picked up otherwise, though I don't always have the patience to wait that long!

Writing for the first time is a hell of a lot easier if you have a clear grasp on the core of what you want to say. If the story's clear in your head, it's easier to put your thoughts down on paper. And a good beta is a even more of a must I think. Someone who knows it's your first story and is encouraging and prepared to have more than one look at it and offer words of advice.

That's all I guess. ::smile::

[darkhavens]

My Spander community bloodclaim has dozens of links to resources for readers and writers alike. Screencap sites, episode guides/scripts sites, slang, UK-US & US-UK 'translation' sites, reference sites, and many more (with yet more still to come). I'm trying to create an atmosphere where people aren't afraid to post their first fic, where they will receive fb, concrit if they want it, and encouragement to write more. We even have resident betas, though not many... yet. ;o)

The resources are there to be used by anyone who wants them, though the community only accepts S/X posts.

I hope this doesn't look like a shameless pimp. It wasn't meant to be, honestly.

[dessert_first]

Sorry LJ is kicking my ass here. I'll try this post one more time:

How can we encourage writing in our fandom in general?

Hmm, interesting question. Fandom writing seems to be a uniquely social process, so I'd guess a lot of encouragement would stem from direct contact with individual writers. If you really wanted too get serious about it, I suppose some sort of buddy/mentoring system would be a possibility. I think estepheia has held writing workshops online? Could be wrong about that. And feedback, of course. I never got how important feedback is until I started writing, myself. It's big-time.

Resources for writers:
con_critique is a good one for fics in progress.

Related question:
Is there any sort of beta/friendly reader community, where people can give a holler if they need one? Betas are gold, baby. Gold. And having a friendly reader willing to check out scenes as you hammer them out can be extremely helpful for combating blockages.

writing and the reading community: How do we build audiences?Personally, I got started with a ficathon. People