Those days are always within our grasp, Lem. Always. We need but will them to be so, and so they will be. The materials are here. You are here. I am here. We are here. It is was we make of it. That which we don't want needs only be ignored and it will scroll down to the event horizon at the bottom of the page and on back to the oblivion of Page 2. It really, honestly, genuinely is that easy.
Well, I don't know. There are so many kids on your lawn, these days, and they don't seem to respond when you shake your fist and yell at them! No respect, that's the problem. Back in the old days, things were different...
We need to drag the old members back. The good members, like Torana. What's she even doing now? Can you remember the days when entire threads were just one long joke? That wouldn't happen now.
No idea where that little wallaroo has gotten to. Off on Life's walkabout, I reckon. I remember days when my typing skills were no match for the speed of some threads and yes, always in good fun. Facebook, man. Its rise was the downfall of that kind of thing. People are too swamped with too much alarmist shit all day long. You need only compare the Lounge to your daily Facebook feed to see the obvious parallels. It's hard enough to keep the Lounge from being just another venue for people to post holy-shit-you-won't-believe-what-ungodly-thing-is-happening posts.
Haha, yes! Like by the time you'd written and submitted a reply, two more pages were added to the thread. I loved it though
I'm not sure I know anyone here well enough to call them friends, but I respect @Lemex, @Steerpike, @BayView, @Wreybies, @minstrel, @Link the Writer, and @123456789 in his less abrasive moments.
Can't say 'friend', but @No-Name Slob is becoming one of my new favorites. I like the way she uses the language.
I've been is a situation like this before. It sucks, and sometimes it feels like a "quantity, not quality" situation. :/ (I don't mean to offend all the new members, its just the way I felt at that time in life) But anyway, Wrizzy and No-Name Slob are the first two that come to mind. I'm sure there are others, but my mind is kinda fuzzy at the moment. D:
It's a much more personal complaint for me in a way. I'll just admit it: I remember a time when there wasn't this weird undercurrent on this forum that resents the idea of literary quality. I mean, one member (I'll not name names) said that Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is high art because it doesn't start with a car chase, and so ordinary readers aren't going to get it, and so it's not fun. I don't know what is more offensive to a community of writers as a whole, the idea that most readers (and writers) are too stupid to understand even a simple novel like Nineteen Eighty-Four, or the idea that something is 'high art' if it couldn't have been written by Dan Brown or something. I didn't respond (much) to that other person. But I was keenly aware that when I first joined this place, that sort of thing just would not fly.
Ah. My community was a Minecraft one and all the good builders were being replaced my 2-3 bad ones per good one so yeah. :/ I guess the writing community can kind of relate to that example (good and bad writers) .
Other things have changed as well. For instance,I remember a time (at least I think) when this was the standard advice for struggling writers: Write short stories , read quality novels, and use the critique work shop. Now it's like , oh, you want to write that magnum opus but you've spent three years thinking about writing and have never actually completed anything?Go ahead and do it anyway! I consider these symptoms of a larger cognitive shift in modern society, one towards coddling, subjectivity, and blind acceptance. We're beginning to see a world where people get offended by their own shadow, and that means no 1984! No Heart of Darkness! And if you don't like Harry Potter, keep it to yourself!
