Terrie

Entirely agree with Knicks and Jane. If critique is wanted it should be specifically asked for; where someone believes it would be helpful, a pm is the best place to start. For myself, comp entries are often little more than the flexing of writing muscles.

What would be ideal is an option to indent and insert replies following an entry so that they were clustered after the entry to which they refer. I haven’t seen enough of WordPress or BBpress etc. to be certain, but I think that reply threading only introduces indentation to nest replies, in the same way that replies are handled for “updates”. All…[Read more]

I think you have to activate reply threading, but I don’t know for sure.

Unfortunately, AFAIK (which may be completely wrong) WordPress and its plug-ins only allow a single chain of posts, the idea being that you have a Topic followed by Replies to it. So the thread might go something like ENTRY1 – Comment on ENTRY1 – Comment on ENTRY1 – ENTRY2 – Comment on ENTRY1 – ENTRY3 – Comment on ENTRY2 etc. which is likely to be…[Read more]

Yes, I like all of those. I never really understood the Cloud thing of ‘comment on the person’s wall but not on the thread’. This thing is pretty informal anyway. So Perhaps we can allow, indeed encourage, comments, with the slight caveat that people don’t go heavy on crit or be negative.

I think it feels sometimes as though it’s trying too hard… The kinds of words used, particularly. I know there’s a place for fabulous language – certain Denizens often take my breath away when I read what they’ve written, for eg! – but sometimes it feels laboured. As if the author thought ‘I must describe this thing beautifully to get across how…[Read more]

Guidelines suggest not posting on the thread with the entries, until after judging is complete, but you can make a general discussion comment tagging the appropriate person. I think I have that correct.

Glad you asked that Jane, I was also wondering.

Yes, Squidge – soon as I pressed ‘go’ I thought that myself!

I think some ARE young, Sandra, but what I’ve seen of the Masters, it tends towards a fairly older crowd, often folks who’ve been doing other things in life first.

Sorry I was MIA recently – thanks to all for contributing and it looks as though you’ve all sorted things. Well done, going to look at new comp stuff now

At the risk of sounding ageist, is it not the case that a high(ish) percentage of those doing degrees/Masters are quite young, and are unlikely to yet have the confidence/experience to ignore publishers et al?

I think there is a different approach to writing if you do a degree/Masters in it. It’s almost as though, at the point of graduation, most folk have a perceived idea of what writing should be. Qualifying this because I know a creative writing lecturer, and am in a facebook group for one of the CW courses at a local uni. Some of the stuff I see…[Read more]

To some extent (not that I’ve done any really full-on writing courses, just SE, some reading and building on experience) I do notice that my very early writing has a freshness of approach that more recent, more self-conscious writing does not.

And I do cheer when I come across writers such as Eimear McBride and Eley Williams (both James Tait…[Read more]

On the subject of having the courage of one’s own convictions I see that Imtiaz Dharker has turned down the role of Poet Laureate so she can concentrate on her own work.

The glib answer is “that’s just his opinion”. I think UWS probably does exist and I don’t understand why he is slating it. My impression is that an agent faced with a synopsis they like and an MS written in UWS will say “yippee”. I don’t think real originality is as prized as it should be, at least not when it comes to trad publishing. S…[Read more]

Drink with a dead man – and apologies, 410 words

Innocuous in colour as a Rich Tea biscuit, the envelope was angled so as to fit into the grey metal cell of the Post Restante box. Illuminated by the single bare bulb in the narrow passage between front and rear of the shop, the vertical/horizontal of the letter’s shadow made of it a hitman, w…[Read more]