Friday, February 15, 2013

Online, long distance workshop idea.



One of my goals is to set up a workshop for writing. For myself as well as my writing friends, I hope to create and build a strong support group where we can bring our stories and ideas to the table. A place where we can relax, be at ease, set aside our egos and help each other with constructive feedback, creative brainstorming, and that pesky thing called grammar. 
  
My proposal is to start small and simple. Each of us picks a short story we want to work the kinks out of or need some help with. We send it to all members of the group by a certain date and we look over each story over the course of a month or four weeks. After the four weeks/month has passed e-mail our edits back to the story owners and we agree to a date and time to join each other on a Google Hangout, one I will set up, where we can discuss each story. After the session we can add new stories to be looked at while we make edits on the discussed stories and so forth you get the idea and I am really flexible so long as we keep some structure. 

Reason for Goggle Hangout. Not all of us are in the geographical location and using this service will allow us to get together without having to shell out money to meet. Also, I've used it before to chat with family and I've seen where you can add multiple people. 

The reason for meeting once a month: We all have other things in our lives that demand our attention aside from writing. I feel a month gives us enough time, without rushing us, to really looks at each other's work without scrambling to get it done along with everything else we have to do. With this I am also flexible. If someone needs to turn in a story or submit a story, we can bring it up with each other or we can also postpone the monthly meetings to give us more time. 

If this idea is something any of you are interested in, please comment below and we'll get something set up A.S.A.P.

4 comments:

  1. This sounds like a really good idea. My only problem is that I don't do short stories or novellas. I tried the novella and it ended up a novel of almost 400 pages. But, it would be a good exercise for me to get to the bare bones in a story... Let me ponder this some more.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We could workshop a first chapter with an attached synopsis. ^^ We did something similar to that at my MFA workshop this past January. There is always a way to workshop longer pieces even if we have to do it bit by bit <3

      Delete
  2. I think this is awesome and I wanna join!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes! Let's do it. I think it's a great idea too. I think it's very doable and it will give us a chance to see other writing and get us in gear for getting something out even if it's only for a workshop group to see.

      Delete