Hi all. Just a brief first post to introduce myself. My name's Barry, I'm a software engineer by day and budding writer by night. I've been writing short pieces on and off for a while, posting them on a blog and generally enjoying myself, but without ever feeling like I was taking it seriously or improving my work. I've recently been working to correct this. I've started taking more time over my writing, thinking more about the art, language and craft of storytelling, and generally dedicating more constructive effort to my work. I hope that becoming involved in this forum will provide sound advice and direction, and also expose my work to more people with the knowledge and ability to provide useful feedback. I also look forward to reading work by people in a similar position to me, and meeting like-minded writers. Any short pieces I write tend to end up on my blog at http://vanitypublisher.wordpress.com and you can catch me on Twitter if you're so inclined at http://twitter.com/BarrySkellern Thanks, Barry
Hi, Barry. Welcome to the Writing Forums. Don't forget to read the rules, a link to which is on the main forum page. I am a message on the internet that you're reading by day right now, or a message that you're reading by night in a few hours. I thoroughly enjoy you. Please stay. You seem like you're put together well.
Welcome to Writing Forums, Barry! 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 requirments. 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
