The Overlook Hotel

1:05 PM

Chat day!

user116848

Yes it is!

@Mr.Shiny I'm not sure if I can keep watching Lost after the episode I watched last night. It was the one with the whole "It's a leap of faith, Jack! Push the button, Jack!" and there's all this tension, but for what? Where's the drama? Push the stupid button and then don't next time if you decide not to.

Seriously. Push the button, then spend the next 108 minutes trying to figure out what the button does. Repeat until satisfied. No faith necessary.

That's a very stylish keffiyeh you have there, @Arrow.

user116848

@KitZ.Fox Thanks! :)

@KitZ.Fox 108 minutes is not very long, so someone has to be stuck there all day and all night.

Uh huh

1:14 PM

And 108 = 4 + 8 + 15 + 16 + 23 + 42 so it does seem like it's all random bullshit, and yet, why would they go through so much trouble?

2:16 PM

hello

@C2R Hello.

@TomCody hi...did you post last week's writing exercise on here?

Stack Exchange

0

My understanding of this site is that we're hoping to provide a single "best" answer rather than a discussion or list of partial answers. With this in mind, I would assume that it would make sense to edit even the content of posts, if most of the post is good but there are parts that aren't. But...

discussion

o hey...are you the moderator?

@C2R Yes, but I was rather unsatisfied and promptly deleted it. ;-)

2:23 PM

haha

so are you the moderator around here?

@C2R Me, oh, of course not, I rarely am at Writers and wouldn't dare to call myself a writer at all. I just recently decided to check out those writing excercises after seeing them in the chat events all the time.

oh ok

your page says moderator in parenthesis

@C2R Which page? I am a moderator, but not on Writers.

movies and tv

anyway

i have my piece ready

want to post a link to it here

it was about Pompeii and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius

just not sure whether to wait a couple of hours so everybody will be here to read or just post it now

@C2R In a couple of hours there's another exercise anyway.

2:30 PM

yea...it gets discussed first though

i was new here last week

let me just post it

Pliny the Younger reminisces eruption of Mount Vesuvius

2

there

wil you read and tel me what you think of it?

@C2R Do you mind if I edit your link so it's more obvious that you've posted the writing exercise?

oh ok

@C2R Oh, not bad, well written. It seems rather well-researched with all the names and details (but I'm myself not an expert, so it could as well all be made up, but it sounds very accurate ;-)).

@KitZ.Fox i was about to post it with a relevant note

you have to teach me to do that

@C2R We star the posts so people can read them. I wanted to make sure that it was understood what the link was.

@C2R [Text](hyperlink)

2:39 PM

@TomCody well yea, though parts of one of the paragraphs almost has direct wording from Wikipedia...perhaps it is because i focused so much on accuracy

i could have worked on it better

but thanks

@KitZ.Fox ok

have you posted yours?

I liked yours. We usually do these as a ten-minute free write, so mine is posted on the star wall, but I'm not thrilled with it. It seems like you spent some time researching this one. I like the angle you chose.

Q: Technical writing -- best solutions for gathering and compiling data/information

@KitZ.Fox yea i did...wanted to give it a plot and make it like a stream of consciousness kind of thing

Stack Exchange

0

Seek best solutions for information collection, compilation, aggregation Background I'm a newer technical writer working for an industrial fabrication company. We make an awesome B2B product that sells well. I really love what I do, and I believe I've found my life's work. I also really enjoy m...

technical-writing notes

but yes, i didnt do it in 10 min

is it a strict rule?

to train?

where is the star wall?

star wall is over there -->

@C2R Not strict. @Mr.Shiny goes over all the time.

2:44 PM

ah

@C2R Yes, it's for training.

how do you post there?

hmm hmm

@C2R You don't, it's the posts that the chat users starred (by clicking that little star icon at the right of a chat message to signal that it is relevant/interesting/whatever in some kind of way).

@TomCody i dont see it on the right of my chat message

you need three characters to ping.

Are you mobile?

2:47 PM

nope

Oh. it won't be on yours.

you can't star your own messages.

If you're using the mobile chat you have to look in the menu for the stars

@KitZ.Fox why?

Because people would abuse that privilege.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 no, i m not

2:48 PM

If you roll over someone else's message, you'll see the star on the right.

Also, the reply-to arrow, which automatically ping the user you're replying to.

@KitZ.Fox oh yea...just saw it...was just rolling over

@KitZ.Fox ok, saw that too

@KitZ.Fox your piece is poetic

myth and musing together

starred yours just now

5:10 PM

So.

Yeah

It s time

@TomCody @KitZ.Fox what does it take for you guys to initiate writing?

I'm up to my eyeballs trying to get sketches done for a 2 o'clock meeting. I can't right now. You go ahead.

@C2R For me? Much more comfortability around the writers site and chat and much more confidence in writing.

So how's this work? Someone going to give some sort of starter or something?

5:23 PM

OK. I'll get you started, but I can't participate right now.

We do ten minutes on a surprise topic. The goal is to just write.

@KitZ.Fox it was a general question :)

isn't there a character limit in the chat? How do you all post them?

If you want to share in chat, we ask that you post a link to your writing on a blog or pastebin or google doc, rather than posting directly in chat.

If you are all ready to write, I will post a topic and keep track of time.

@Matt @Mr.Shiny are you joining today?

@Arrow?

@TomCody that would be a recipe for waiting forever

Matt E. Эллен

hi

user116848

5:27 PM

@KitZ.Fox Yes.

user116848

Hi!

OK.

Let me know when you are ready.

im ready

@C2R Of course it is.

I might probably be ready.

user116848

Wow! Many mods are joining us. That's cool!

user116848

5:29 PM

@Ryan @TomCody @C2R Hi guys!

@MattE.Эллен hi

@Arrowfar Hello.

Matt E. Эллен

I will catch up in a bit, need to take some photos in this sunlight

@TomCody i am sort of in that mode myself but am also gathering skills and information so as to start writing seriously

Ten minutes to write, on the topic of

fun freebies.

Go write.

Matt E. Эллен

5:30 PM

bah, the app is taking forever to load...

Now.

@MattE.Эллен OK.

@C2R Oh, I certainly don't want to start seriously. ;-)

@Arrowfar @Ryan hello!

GO WRITE NOW!

Oh, just a second, what is a "freebie"?

5:31 PM

free stuff

Uh...Ok?

yes, things that cost nothing

my apologies for not considering that is a cultural reference.

ok then

topic is "fun things that don't cost anything and might be considered as surprise bonus items or not"

Costco Freebies (it's writing, not spam, okay it might be spam)

2

5:45 PM

Oh, right.

Time's up!

You got fifteen minutes that time.

@Ryan Can you make your link into a title?

Dude, that's bleak.

@KitZ.Fox I m having a problem getting out of my normal mode of thinking

Won the lottery
with six perfect hits,
right into the head.

my ideas arent diverging much

think i'll have to give it a try later

Urgh, don't look at me this way, couldn't really come up with anything remotely engaging for that topic. ;-(

@C2R OK, but I think it might help you practice to just barf out whatever is in your head.

@TomCody I know the feeling. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

It's easier the more you practice.

5:49 PM

@KitZ.Fox what would your off the top of head idea be like?

Alright well thanks for having me. Later all

@Ryan I hope we see you again next week.

@C2R For freebies? I don't know. Digging through the freebie box at a yard sale and finding something.

@KitZ.Fox what is in my head are leftist thoughts!

@C2R Then go with that.

@KitZ.Fox i want to be able to stretch my bandwith...go with anything, anywhere. not forcing myself

yea...i started with it

5:54 PM

@C2R Well, that's a different kind of exercise. We can do some of those if you want.

user116848

I wrote mine:

user116848

Fun freebies

user116848

Sorry if that's a bad story. I couldn't think of anything else.

@KitZ.Fox I didn't think Ryan's was too bad. But the cynicism creeps in and it is what i was trying to avoid

@C2R It's just practice. If you don't want yours to be cynical, then it is practice not being cynical.

5:58 PM

I somehow misinterpreted the topic a little anyway.

user116848

I'm glad many people joined us today.

@TomCody There's no such thing. Sometimes you get good stuff that way.

@Arrowfar Me too

@KitZ.Fox mmhmm

@TomCody just read yours...it s believable

user116848

@C2R How is my story?

user116848

I think I wrote it very short.

6:04 PM

@Arrowfar seems you wrote about a random incident

user116848

Yeah.

@Arrowfar contextual

Fun Freebies

user116848

@C2R Yes, sometimes I write like I'm describing what happened with me other times I invent a couple of characters, it is fun to write both ways.

user116848

I'm still a beginner I think.

6:14 PM

Everyone starts out as a beginner.

@Arrowfar me too :)

user116848

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah.

I've been attempting to write a novel since I was writing.

When I was a kid I started writing a multi-volume epic story, with my friend writing the first volume and myself writing the second.

The story was probably a bit dumb... okay, a lot dumb. I remember little of it, except that at one point a character gets turned into a cake.

But I loved creative writing class in school.

6:34 PM

Fun Freebies

2

oh man... I would love to read a story about a person being turned in to a cake. @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇, do you remember anything else about the story?

That reminds me of that cake erotica.

@Andrew It was a fantasy setting and the cake was the princess, who was being held hostage, during a seige. That's all.

@KitZ.Fox, cake erotica? Go on.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Love it.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇, when I wasn in the 2nd and third grade, my best friend and I would make these huge battles scenes, on graph paper, between stick-men armies of Allied vs. Nazis. We had generated these multi-foldout page epic struggles with tanks and elaborate caves.

6:41 PM

@Andrew Jack's Birthday

@KitZ.Fox Thanks, I thought you might like that one

@Andrew cool!

I think we filled about 40-60 pages of these drawings over time, always trying to create a more elaborate cave system or bigger tanks, missiles and death rays. It was a blast. I lost them years ago unfortunately but damn they were fun.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 fry face Do I have a reputation for liking creepy death stuff?

@Arrowfar, I don't even think I was on topic at all until the last few sentences where I had to some how bring it all back together.

@KitZ.Fox I dunno about reputation... let me see what the Internet has to say about it... googles yup. yup indeed. googles more Whoa! should not have clicked that. Where were we?

6:44 PM

hahaha thanks for the cheer.

user116848

@Andrew I see. Your writing is good I think. So did you write the epilogue after 10 mins?

@Andrew That reminds me that the Malazan books, by Steven Erikson and Ian C Esslemont, were inspired by the authors' years of role-playing games that helped build the world they were writing in.

@Arrowfar, yeah, the epilogue was written after the 10 minutes. I like to throw in a post-mortem discussion with myself sometimes because it helps me reflect on the what I've just written.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇... looking that up now.

Holy Moly!!! 15 book series that's written by two authors. Now that's something I can dig my teeth in to.
Did you enjoy the books?

@Andrew Yes, the ones written by Erikson, enh, the ones written by Esslemont.

I think there's more than 15 books by now

There are 10 novels in the main series by Erikson. There are 6 novels in the other series by Esslemont. There is at least one book of short stories by Erikson. There is a prequel trilogy set 2-3 hundred thousand years in the past by Erikson, at least one of those volumes is published.

AAAAAAND each book is like a bazillion pages.

Not too keen on the Esslemont stories?

That series just puts GoT to shame, in terms of number of pages written.

7:03 PM

@Andrew No, I don't like them as much.

I read 3 or 4 of them before giving up.

Sadly, the last one ("Assail") is the "last" book of the Malazan story and it concludes a plot thread opened up in book 3 of the main series ("Memories of Ice"). So I sorta want to read it, but then I have to read the Blood and Bone first, which I don't want to do, so pfft.

But the main 10 books, on their own, are worth reading. Number 8 is the worst.

7:15 PM

And chronologically, the book "Return of the Crimson Guard" happens in the middle of the main series and its events are related to the events of the main series, though they're not important. But there are spoilers for that book in the later books of the main series. Really, the series are meant to be read together...

Wow... that sounds like a major time investment. :)
What're are some books you recommend to people? As an enjoyable and fun read?
I'm going through some Dashiell Hammett right now.

Thanks for the link @KitZ.Fox

I mostly read sci-fi and fantasy for fun.

hello

i just wrote a piece

@KitZ.Fox.. Yowza!!! Hot! I love it!

and forgot how to link in with title

7:28 PM

put the title in square brackets and the link in round brackets

@KitZ.Fox i have sort of modified it to suit my way of thinking! :)

ok

@C2R, put the name of your article 'fun freebies' in between two square brackets...
Nevermind, looks like @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 answered before I finished typing.

[NEEDING FREEBIES] (stringsandperspectives.wordpress.com/2015/08/04/fun-freebies)

ok...i did it wrong

don't put a space between the closing square bracket and the opening paranthesis

ok

NEEDING FREEBIES

did it!

7:32 PM

Hello everyone. New writing exercise?

I starred it

Yup... the writing exercise is "Fun Freebies"

@C2R You can edit your previous messages so that you don't fill the chat with corrections. Just use the up-arrow on your keyboard to go back through the editable messages, find the one you want, and change it. You have, I think, 2 minutes to edit.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 @ ok...wil remember that

this time just posted in a new message

@C2R Should it be "There was silence in the theater as Aeneid, the Roman mythological drama, was approaching its climax scene." or "There was silence in the theater as Aeneid, the Roman mythological drama, approached its climax scene."?

And shouldn't that be "climactic scene"?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 read yours...I don't understand what happens in the last para

@FaheemMitha Oh, I have grammar and punctuation issues

7:40 PM

@C2R Nice. “It is free size and should fit…” <- I think you have a typo here or something.

@C2R Don't take my word for it - I don't know anything about grammar.

"A loud applause from the audience interrupt his line of thought."

Should be "interrupted". I feel fairly sure you didn't write that in 10 minutes.

@FaheemMitha am currently working on it! and would love to discuss it. not a problem if you too have issues with grammar...many good writers do apparently

@C2R Have you ever been to, or seen, a convention where vendors give stuff away? Normally they give out pens or desk toys or t-shirts or product samples. This vendor was giving away sample embalming. But embalming is something that is only done for dead people and can't really be sampled. Then Em puts her hand on the stone and is magically embalmed.

climactic would be more correct and easier to read since climactic is the description of the scene. Or... it would also be appropriate to just refer to the climax, instead of the the 'climax scene,' since that phrase could be redundant since the climax of a play is necessarily a scene.

BTW, glad someone used Pliny the Younger. And both he and his uncle were actually there, so your description is not actually historically accurate. Still, good try.

7:43 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ohhhh

@C2R I certainly have grammar issues. I didn't have a proper education. As a child, I used to try to ignore my school, hoping it would go away. Unfortunately, that was an unsuccessful strategy.

In any case, I don't have any recollection of them trying to teach me English grammar.

@Andrew ok, yea, i did have some doubts regarding the phrase

it makes sense though so it isn't a large impairment to understanding

@Andrew and also transition of tense in a single para

That would classify to me as a minor edit.. the 'climax scene' thing

7:46 PM

@Andrew Agreed, one could use "climax" vs "climatic scene". They're effectively synonymous here.

@FaheemMitha I looked up Pliny the Younger and Older as per your suggestion. Think it was the easier thing to do since I found myself paying attention to accuracy. I think I m the kind of person who would do that if all else is given

@FaheemMitha from the ideas you have, i dont think 'proper' education could have made you a better thinker. I really like the fact that you can spontaneously come up with ideas

Though climax is more general than "climactic scene". But shorter is better.

@C2R Thanks.

@C2R It's a sad story.

His poor uncle.

@Andrew it should have been just 'climax'

you re right

@FaheemMitha yea, it is. I felt like I had been transported to Roman times when reading about what had happened

8:04 PM

@Andrew your piece does paint a scene. I m still not abiding by the 10 min time limit. My mind just automatically thinks things (leftist thoughts) I want to avoid during pressure. Guess I should quit trying hard.

@C2R Did you look up Google?

@Andrew this sentence, "She couldn't say way", is "She couldn't say why", I m guessing

@FaheemMitha I have to read the thread above...saw something about Google

Sorry, I meant to ask if you looked up Wikipedia. But wrote Google instead.

Which is Ok, since we all know Google is our lord and master.

@FaheemMitha haha

yes, I looked up Wikipedia

Parts of one para in my story have wordings from Wikipedia...not happy about it

could have done better

i put a lot of focus on content in that one

@C2R How long did you spend writing it?

8:14 PM

@FaheemMitha somewhere around 3 to 4 hours in total

@C2R ok. That's fairly long.

reading time not included

@FaheemMitha yea...was a little conscious cause it was going to be my first post

and also my first ever blog post

@C2R Oh. Well, congratulations.

@FaheemMitha thanks :) didn't want my first post to be too rough

but yes, i am trying for the 10 min time limit

are you going to write later?

i m sure still not sure how a new topic and time pressure trains us as better writers

except, perhaps we take initiative

i realized it isn't easy at all to make a start

8:33 PM

@C2R I don't think I've written anything on these topics yet.

@C2R practice is what trains you to be a writer. These exercises are meant to be fun, and creative. If it's not the write kind of thing, you can do some other kind of exercise.

@C2R Well, some writing is better than no writing, I suppose.

Maybe you'd like to practice writing dialogue. You can propose that as an exercise, or you can just do the exercise as dialogue.

The time limit is meant to kick people in the pants to write something right away, so that they don't just leave it and forget about it. It's totally optional. It also helps people overcome the feeling of inferiority, because usually 10 minutes of writing doesn't lead to really great writing. But ideally it makes you think about what you're writing.

We should probably do an exercise where we re-read some old exercises and re-do them or edit them or something.

@FaheemMitha yes, i think i need it anyway

@C2R Need what? The practice?

8:36 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 we could, yes. I would love to discuss what we write

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 also, I need this exercise...it s the sole reason I m here...just hadnt reasoned out the time limit like you did

it makes sense

@FaheemMitha yea...i need the practice

@C2R We are informal here, so you are free to come and go, participate or not, do the exercise or a different one, suggest different exercises, etc. One size doesn't fit all. We've been doing the 10 minute fiction for a while because it's fun and people can easily participate.

But if you have other ideas, other exercises, etc, please suggest them.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 no no...think you ve got me wrong...i was saying your reasons for the time limit make sense. Just that I haven't been able to stick to it (though I m still trying to)

I also like your idea of having an exercise to re-read old exercises and re-do or edit them cause I think participants would have doubts regarding form and content

i certainly do

@C2R Well, I routinely go over the limit. But usually not hours over. It's informal... the point is to write.

anyway, I have to get going. see ya later.

9:29 PM

@C2R "the latter received a letter from his friend Rectina asking him to come to the small port city of Stabiae to rescue her and Pomponianus."

Extremely unlikely. People didn't have time to send letters. Perhaps time to run and scream a little before being engulfed. And maybe not even that.

Maybe time to send a fast email.