ellie

An inbox delete would be enough as far as the user is concerned, it wouldn't need to be deleted on the server side. But e.g. some people send literal gore. Moderation is useful but understandably may often take a while, so until then there should be a way to get it out of sight.

So most of my actual writing is on throwaway snippets or microfiction.

That's super fascinating to me, since I don't really do throwaway writing. Either it's for one of the big projects, or I don't write at all.

For drafting I need the word count to motivate me sometimes, weeks on weeks off, it's always been like that. For editing I don't. I think it's a brain chemistry thing. I use the word count motivation when I have issues making progress without it, otherwise I ignore it.

The research can be daunting for progressive topics since people can be slightly unforgiving. It feels like sometimes you get more anger for a not-fully-perfect representation than not attempting one at all. Test readers help but you can't always find the "perfect" test reader to find all parts somebody might find problematic.

I usually write series of a 2-3 books worth of length. I have found that a single book usually barely allows me to set up the setting and characters and a minor villain, and usually the 2nd one is where things really get started. The middle book(s) are the most fun to write for me, everything is established and I can toy around with things for fun chaos, while I don't need to think super hard about a perfectly conclusive satisfying ending yet.

Are you working on a mixture of short stories, like your post last month indicated? Or on something like a novel? What's your long term project goal, a short story collection, a novel, or are you still figuring that out? Sorry if that's all secret for now, I'm just curious. :-)

I'm continuing work on my dystopian/contemporary setting cozy fantasy series. I started it in 2022 and it's a trilogy, so it's keeping me quite busy. There are contemporary elements in it that require quite some research, and I try to have representation that's somewhat progressive so I want to get those things right. But most of the work simply is due to the fact that I currently do most editing myself based on a bunch of test readers, letting it sit for a few weeks, working through it back to front once more, and repeat.

Recently, I decided to format a specific kind of non-verbal communication that occurs in the books differently. Such changes require my own sort of style guide decisions, and then I have to go through every single paragraph to adjust things. It's both meditative and a bit tiring, but at the end of the day I love that sort of busywork and it's always a good learning opportunity.

The third book draft still lacks an ending, but I'm not in a huge hurry to finish it. This year has been busy with some side job things, and I usually prefer to take my time and get it right rather than rush. Since I have multiple books to work on, I also like to jump to whatever motivates me the most, so no time is really lost even if I don't work on the final ending at any given point in time.

I used to track word count to motivate me, but it's always an on- and off thing. Currently I simply work based on enjoying sitting down and getting lost in the pages. But perhaps to push for the final ending I might start tracking words again for a short while. It can help me with drafting, the editing part I usually manage without much of a competitive pressure but for drafting I need it sometimes to keep going.

(If anybody's curious, I also switch between editing and drafting on often a weekly or even daily basis. It can be both risky and rewarding, kind of depends on whether that causes you to never get anything done or whether it keeps work fresh and interesting for you. I've been busy with this for years so I usually welcome any change from the usual boring flow, so I have found that it helps me more than it hurts.)

There's the "Fetch Community" button that's meant to work around this I think. But it seems to be broken.

So there have been rumors of a premium one that are more substantiated? Is there any known timeline?

It seems like the SSD slot was cut for cost reasons. That means if there will ever a Pi 500 version with SSD support it would naturally cost more. I'm okay with paying that extra cost, I'm simply curious if there has been any news.

That worked, thank you!!

For what it's worth, I mainly thought of putting that rule since it seems more relevant for larger writing communities, and might be slightly harder to enforce later if it hasn't been really been a thing earlier. But perhaps I was thinking too far ahead. I imagine at this community size it's really not an issue.

Sounds like a great idea! There could be a monthly or quarterly post to encourage people to link (or quote, if not too long) the various things they want feedback on in the response comments.

I did in a previous writing community run into the issue that people would, when somebody discussed general writing approaches, point back to their own previous feedback posts and find flaws in the posts to try to "prove" to them their more general thoughts on writing approaches was wrong. Which in my opinion scares people away from daring to post their work, when it later comes back at them in a more general discussion.

Therefore, I would only request people stick with "3. What happens in feedback or critique requests posts stays in these posts" which I suggested as a rule for that reason.

I'm sadly still stuck in an edit run right now, but it sounds like a fun premise maybe even for a new novel 😮 thanks for posting it!