Online Writers' & Illustrators' eCollective

Drupal it is, I guess.

markpenny — Sun, 14 May 2006 07:20:27 +0000

Yeah, I think I'm gonna go with Drupal for now. It appears to have everything I need. Blog entries can be the start of threaded (indented) forums. Users can display icons. Blogs and forums can be set up. There appears to be great flexibility in layout. I can hardly wait to get started.

However, if the guys at Elgg got around to adding some of the same features, I'd be tempted to switch.

I wonder if internal spoding could be arranged?

OWIe Home Update 20060512

markpenny — Fri, 12 May 2006 17:01:18 +0000

Spent a good part of the morning checking out forum software. Free forum software. Free forum software that allows nesting or threading. I never could figure out why anybody would want flat forums. You have to look too hard to figure out who's saying what to whom in response to what.

I've found two that I like, but I'll keep looking.

What I'd really like is nesting in blogs. That way, a blog entry could become the start of a forum. Check out my Elgg community SPODE if you really want to know what I want when it comes to blogging and forums and all.

I also took a quick look at Drupal, which, unlike Elgg, includes forums, but uses flat forums and is not as intuitive to my mind as Elgg. Besides, Elgg has some incredible social aspects that will serve OWIe's purposes well. Now if I could only get those guys to make it more spode-like.

I'm open to suggestions, by the way. There's a lot I'm learning and even more I don't know.

Fore example, I just looked a little deeper into Drupal's forums and discovered that although the examples I'd looked at previously (and have looked at to date) are flat, threading and a few other cool features like collapsing are possible (that's non-Geek for supported). I don't know. I'm going to have to give Drupal another gander. Sorry, Ben and Dave.

The Six Habits of Highly Effective Writers

markpenny — Wed, 10 May 2006 02:18:35 +0000

Krashen (2006) identifies six habits of good writers:

Plan before writing.
Revise after writing.
Delay editing while writing.
Reread while writing.
Write daily.
Incubate.

So how do my habits compare?

Well, let's see. I generally do plan before writing. If it's a story, I don't even start before I have a premise. If it's an essay, I don't even start before I have a topic and theme. If it's a story, I think about how it will likely develop, how the action will progress from beginning to end. I also give some thought to the characters. If it's an essay, I consider the points I wish to touch on and how they interact.

I haven't been in the habit of revising stories. What revisions I've undertaken generally consist of little tweaks, often where tweaks were needed while writing. A good revision requires distance, anyway, so most of what I've written in the last year or two is waiting for the day I can read it critically. My essays are usually so well planned that little revision is required, but many an essay has felt the axe in places as I've adjusted for length.

Although I do tweak a bit while rereading, I don't get bogged down in editing before the piece is done.

When I get to the end of a section, or run out of ideas, or just get tired, I go back and reread what I've read. I look for inconsistencies and discontinuities, and hone in on the style and tone.

I keep daily journals for myself and three sons, write almost daily blog entries, and keep several logs related to work and study, so I most definitely write daily. I don't write stories daily, however. There isn't always time.

I work on a piece until I run out of exciting ideas for it or until a fresh piece suggests itself. After a break to look after the fresh piece, I return to the old piece, especially if I've come up with new ideas for it. For a lengthy piece, this process could be repeated numerous times.

I guess that puts me in contention for the label of good writer.

Krashen, S. D. 2006. English Fever. Crane Publishing Co., Ltd. Taipei, Taiwan. 35-36.

Match Author and Publisher Profile

markpenny — Sun, 07 May 2006 07:38:41 +0000

Because of events detailed in my blog Bli-fi, I plan to put together an electronic tool which will allow authors and their helpers to save time and money as they attempt to market pieces of writing. I call it MAPP (Match Author and Publisher Profile).

MAPP works on the principle that any journal, magazine or publishing house can be profiled on the basis of identifiable (though not necessarily quantifiable) criteria such as the lengths, themes and genres they publish, and that authors and their works can be profiled for the same criteria. A MAPP user will be able to profile an author or one of his or her pieces of writing and, using a database, match the author or a piece with a list of publishers. Acceptance is not guaranteed, of course, at any given time or ever, but the chances of acceptance should rise substantially based on MAPP comparisons.

OWIe Now Launched. Climb Aboard.

markpenny — Fri, 05 May 2006 02:10:31 +0000

I've circumvented the rather strange impediment of a non-existent but existing blog with the same domain name by adding "home" to the domain for this one. Go figure.

This is the temporary home of the Online Writers' and Illustrators' eCollective. You'll find a few entries about OWIe on my blog Bli-fi.

OWIe is intended to serve as a sort of webring, blogring, forumring and wikiring for online writers and illustrators. See "The Online Writers' and Illustrators' eCollective (OWIe)" and "The Shaping Up of OWIe" for details to date.

We will eventually move to my new server and switch to Elgg, which has some desirable social features not so easily accessed in WordPress and will not require that I handle membership requests.

Meanwhile, if you want to get in on the game, leave a comment to that effect here and I'll add you as a user. Please note that to add users, I need email addresses. If you're uncomfortable making your address public, email me.