Finding the middle ground...

[wife2hotblk]

I received several somewhat justified (the comments were right on...but anything but constructive criticism) that in my desire to finish Survivor last year I posted some real garbage. I had already set my writing goals for this year very differently anyway...developing characters and themes more, slowing things down.

But I fear I may have gone too far the other direction. For instance, my Valentine's story is still not posted. Every morning I open it and edit it even more. Last year, basically, I just wrote...to develop skill and discipline. Some of it was good and some was garbage. This year, I seem frozen with the perfectionism that kept me from putting anything out there for thirty years. I think a happy medium would be to use the website as a rough draft and utilize the comments and feedback I receive to finish stories and prepare them for submission. But defining 'rough' draft is presenting me with problems. When is rough too rough?

My question is how do others use this medium?

 

[OnlyByMoonlight]

I started posting here cause I'm a perfectionist. I have a novel that I wrote 6 years ago and keep working on up to present day. I still can't seem to finish it though. I never know when something is finished. So when I post something that I'm unsure with here, and I get positive comments then I know I'm getting too critical with myself. I can seem to write a lot, just not finish anything enough to do anything with it.

I still don't really know when something is done. I just post it when I'm sick of reading it and don't ever want to look at it again.

I think as long as a draft has a starting point and full story arc and it has no or very little punctuation or grammar errors then one might think of it as 'finished'

(Ps sorry for the weird wording in the post. One key just won't work so I can't type it. Its that letter after A and in front of C)

 

[scouries]

fuck the middle ground... instead just do your best...

QUOTE wifetoohot I received several somewhat justified…that in my desire to finish Survivor last year I posted some real garbage. I had already set my writing goals for this year very differently anyway...developing characters and themes more, slowing things down.

... Last year, basically, I just wrote...to develop skill and discipline. Some of it was good and some was garbage. This year, I seem frozen with the perfectionism that kept me from putting anything out there for thirty years. I think a happy medium would be to use the website as a rough draft and utilize the comments and feedback I receive to finish stories and prepare them for submission. But defining 'rough' draft is presenting me with problems. When is rough too rough?

QUOTE charlie The thing of it is… there are rules in a contest. You don't seem to get that concept. The concept of rules. You seem to think that rules should be bent to favour you. Rules evolve and change over time (like laws). If the contest rules don't mesh with how you like to write, then don't participate in the contest. It's really that simple.

It’s not quite that simple! Especially when there seems one set of rules for my pal [size=+2]freddie [/size] and one set for certain other people.

Before I give you my 5 cents worth let me say I’ve never read a story by wifetoohot or by bakeboss. I don’t know them or have anything against them.

I also believe that [size=+2]freddie [/size] is something of a masochist when it cums to the SURVIVOR contest. They fucked him once, they fucked him twice, they fucked him a third time. And they’ll fuck him again…

However Charlie there are other issues here. wifetoohot raises them in her post.

She admits to doing in last years contest what people have been doing in the SURVIVOR contest since I first discovered there was such a contest five years ago.

And that is to dump garbage (her term) on our readers. Not because she couldn’t do better but because she wanted to win the contest.

Quite frankly I couldn’t care less about who wins the contest. In fact I’d love to see it scrapped.

I’d hoped that the rule changes last year would reduce the number of SURVIVOR stories and was happy to see it did to some extent. But then the end of the year approached and the deluge began again.

I couldn’t care less if a story is 750 words or 5000.

What I’d like wifetoohot and all other SURVIVALISTS to remember is the following:

1) If you purposely put out ‘garbage’ on the site you are first and foremost hurting yourself. It just takes one really bad story to lose you hundreds (even thousands) of readers forever. Write five great ones and then put up a terrible one and all the goodwill you’ve worked for will be gone. They simply won’t come back. Is it worth it? To trade your reputation for this?

2) Your work, both good and bad, reflects on all the authors on the site. We share the same publisher so to some extent we’re tarred by your rush to win the contest. Unfortunately, due to the requirement of quantity, the works of the SURVIVALISTS can almost overpower the site. 5 or 10 half assed works every day is good for no one. It pisses off our readers. Which hurts the thousands of other authors who are doing their best (however good that is). Think of us.

3) These stories can also hurt the site itself. How many readers will say to themselves, ‘fuck it, it is just too much work to find a good story on the NEW STORY page anymore’. They either click away to some other site, a loss for us all, or they revisit old favorites, leaving all our new stories alone.

“Middle Ground” miss wifetoohot? A rough draft isn’t the middle ground. I don’t want any rough drafts. Or stories you yourself label garbage. Nor do our readers.

[size=+2]Instead give us your best shot. And that goes for each and every SURVIVALIST.

Think of your fellow authors.

Think of our readers.

Think of MANU and the QUEEN .​

[/size]

think of james r scouries

 

[sr71plt]

What I’d like wifetoohot and all other SURVIVALISTS to remember is the following:

1) If you purposely put out ‘garbage’ on the site you are first and foremost hurting yourself. It just takes one really bad story to lose you hundreds (even thousands) of readers forever. Write five great ones and then put up a terrible one and all the goodwill you’ve worked for will be gone. They simply won’t come back. Is it worth it? To trade your reputation for this?

2) Your work, both good and bad, reflects on all the authors on the site. We share the same publisher so to some extent we’re tarred by your rush to win the contest. Unfortunately, due to the requirement of quantity, the works of the SURVIVALISTS can almost overpower the site. 5 or 10 half assed works every day is good for no one. It pisses off our readers. Which hurts the thousands of other authors who are doing their best (however good that is). Think of us.

3) These stories can also hurt the site itself. How many readers will say to themselves, ‘fuck it, it is just too much work to find a good story on the NEW STORY page anymore’. They either click away to some other site, a loss for us all, or they revisit old favorites, leaving all our new stories alone.

I'm afraid this mostly sums it up, in my opinion. I'd add to the first one, though, that if you are writing just for volume and a "most stories" posted so you can earn a few bucks, you're not doing your writing development any good whatsoever.

Somone should drive a stake through the heart of this convoluted (and changing in mid course by reinterpretation)-rule survivor's contest. It's a blight on the Literotica file.

 

[PoppingTom]

I received several somewhat justified (the comments were right on...but anything but constructive criticism) that in my desire to finish Survivor last year I posted some real garbage. I had already set my writing goals for this year very differently anyway...developing characters and themes more, slowing things down.

But I fear I may have gone too far the other direction. ... This year, I seem frozen with the perfectionism that kept me from putting anything out there for thirty years. ...

I think your biggest mistake is to set too much on other people's opinion.

I can only talk from my point of view: my story is my story. I only care about people loving them. I can try to get closer to other people, a wider audience, but not for the price of self-destruction. Don't go anywhere if you don't know who you are, for yourself. People realize too fast, if you fake your own demands. That's worse than make your garbage public.

My question is how do others use this medium?

Well, this site is similar to a stage.

"Don't be afraid to suck !" (Lisa Coleman from Wendy & Lisa)