This is my first attempt at anything close to this. I'm just a regular guy with a H.S. Ed., no formal training, have always enjoyed reading and telling stories. About 18 months ago, I started a "fun" Blog to try my hand at putting my stories to print, sharing primarily through Facebook. Never realized how painstaking this could be. I'm beginning to understand the "suffering" bit. However, the reward of completion and a "Like" or two is cool. In addition, I've received a few thousand hits, I'm sure most are just random acts of Google, nonetheless, thrilling when I see fifteen hits from Sweden in a given day. My stuff is observational and memoirish. I'm starting to dabble in poetry/song lyrics and, I've recently begun a fiction piece (novel/short story?). The problem with my current outlet, understandably, I receive little constructive feedback or criticism. Yes, the ego gets stroked a little, but this doesn't help me grow. OK, I'll quit babbling and get to the point. What is the best way to utilize this forum? I'm good with, crawl - walk - run. I don't want to be a nuisance, yet I want to maximize the experience. Feel free to throw your thoughts (steps - 1.2.3.etc) my way. Thanks so much! jMac
Welcome to Writing Forums, jMac! I hope you find what you're looking for here, whatever your interests in writing. This forum aims to provide the best workshopping resources on the internet, and to that end we have a few rules which you should familiarise yourself with before you get stuck in. The main section of the site is the Writing Workshop, where members can post their writing in order to receive critique of their work. However, before we allow members to post their work, they must have met some basic requirements. Firstly, you must have been a member for fourteen days, and have made twenty posts on the forum overall (please note, posts in Word Games do not count towards this). This is so that members, when they post their work, have familiarised themselves with the forums and contributed to them (as well as hopefully learned something for themselves). Secondly, members must provide two constructive reviews of other people's work for each piece of their own that they wish to post. This is because we believe that the focus of workshopping should be equally upon giving reviews as receiving them, as they allow a writer to practice and improve their editing skills, which they can then apply to their own writing. Beyond the Writing Workshop, you will find that we have extensive forums for discussion of aspects of writing, as well as a community area for general discussion. We also run periodic short story and poetry contests, which are good for challenging yourself and expanding your skills. If you have any questions or problems, then the moderators (myself, Cogito, Lemex and Dante Dases) should be your first port of call. Any technical problems with the site itself should be directed to Daniel, the site administrator and owner. I would recommend you have a look over the rules so that you know what to expect, and what is expected. But aside from that, I hope you enjoy your time here. Banzai
