New Content
- 08/29/2008 - 19:58
- 08/27/2008 - 16:57
- 08/27/2008 - 16:48
- 08/25/2008 - 16:41
- 08/23/2008 - 15:35
Random Image
New Forum Topics
Latest Interviews
Christa Faust
by Rob Hart
Ed Brubaker
by Garrett Faber
Brian K. Vaughan
by Garrett Faber
John Waters
by Becky Fritter
Search For Books
Our Social Networks
The empire shall not crumble!
Hey guys,
Okay, it's a lame, dramatic, over-the-top title to this thread. But I think we've sort of overused the 'Let's save the workshop' titles. So I figured we needed something new. I've spent the past hour reading through the latest threads, and I'm very inspired by the passion I see in all of you to reinject some much needed life into this thing. So let me start by saying that I'm here for you. Ironically, I moved to Los Angeles to buckle down and get a serious day job in film/marketing, yet even though I'm making headway on that job hunt, I've found that I've been getting a ton of work done on The Cult. I credit most of this up to Clayton, our new coder (member: [b][i]polumna[/i][/b]. Clayton is one of the few people I've met who can match my work mentality on the site... pound for pound. When I'm stretching my eyes at the keyboard at 1am, he's still with me.... yet he's in Michigan! (do the math)
Point is, the time is ripe to realize all of your ideas and visions for what the Workshop can be. Not just because of the upcoming Master's Courses Vig and I have planned for you. And not just because Chuck has a new book coming, a new tour, and our site stats are about to double. But that, because of Clayton, we have someone hear who can apply these ideas [i]technically[/i].
[b]So just based on what I read in the last few threads, here's some immediate ideas I've come up with, compiled with ideas [i]you've[/i] had that I'll list:[/b]
1. Dedicated workshoppers not only begin blowing the dust off the books by reviewing and submitting more stories, but we begin to host and promote monthly Craft Essays from you all as well.
2. This monthly essays will be only be available to Premium Members, BUT!!!! we'll make one of them available for free, and link it from the Workshop box on the front page, as a sort of incentive.
3. To relive some of the stress off Vig, Clayton can probably create some sort of 'randomizer' script for the Speed Writing Assignments. So at the start of every month, Vig, you can bang them out then submit them to Clayton. He can then put them into his database, and whenever someone logs into to take one, a different assignment will be 'pulled out of the hat'.
4. The archives for the past 5 Master's Courses should be treated like gold, and made available for paying Premium Members. But they need a 'link' presence on the actual Workshops. This means the focus and attention of the Workshop page needs to better include links, descriptions and promotions about this new arm of the shop: The Master's Course. Put it this way, if I was ever able to convince Chuck to let us have the original 24 essays again, made available on the site (in archives) for all paying members, you'd see immediate life back in the shops. (and this is something that could happen one day, you know). But for now, the next best thing we have is those forum threads, essays, interviews, and assignments from the Masters Courses. So if those were at least made easily available, it may be a starting point. Obviously, there's a lot of red tape here with privacy of the members, and many of them probably not wanting to make their stories publically (sp) available. So we'll have to delve into this matter more.
5. If you look at the front page of our site right now, you'll see a box on the right side of the page called 'Cult Forum Community'. You'll notice that it highlights links to key threads inour forums history. This is there to entice people into joining and participating in our forum. Well, we need something like this (that updates monthly) for the Workshop forum threads. All those great threads you guys refer to, someone needs to reorganize them all, into lumps of 5. Then, I'll just create a new sidebar box that can rotate with that Forum one to help promote all the great member tutorials and essays that go in here.
Thoughts? What's the first move? What do you guys think should be the next step?
.jpg "vigorous puppy's picture")
Well, some good thoughts there, Dennis. But point 4 goes a bit left field. I LOVE the idea of doing anything possible to get Chuck's full essays, all 24, back up for the Premium members. That part is gold. But we can't promise access to the master's class "archives" to people who don't actually participate in those classes.
[U]Number one[/U]: there's just too many problems with permissions. Both former students and former instructors could have issues with people they haven't even e-met digging into their stuff, months or years later. I know for a fact that at least one of our previous instructors has an issue with it.
[U]Number two[/U]: Besides the loss of privacy, there's probably a loss of [U]value[/U] for the students who pay the larger price to participate. People on the borderline of doing an upcoming master's class would sometimes opt not to, just on the thought of being able to scoop all the content later, for free (if they're already premiums). When the class was done, with all that content served up to them, they wouldn't make any use of it. Because it would come too easy to them and look static and unpromising after the class has gone cold. They'd skim it and wonder what all the fuss is about a master's class, because doing one of those is a [U][B]lived experience [/B][/U]that can't even really be grasped by skimming the content after the fact.
I treated this issue explictly a long time ago, [URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showpost.php?p=830728&postcount=3]right here[/URL].
Otherwise, you've got some good ideas going on. Many of which I support wholeheartedly. But we've got to tunnel down much deeper than this approach of vacuuming all member suggests up into a grab bag. There's guts and workings to workshop business that members don't grasp.
VP - Workshop Dog
I still think the idea of an annual downloadable pdf would be great instead of the anthology idea. Vig, you've said yourself that the agent interested in publishing the anthology bailed and left the cult high and dry. This way the very best of the cult is showcased, writers are getting credits for publishing here, (Let's go ahead and assume no-one's going to whinge about being paid.), and new people interested in the workshop wanting to see what the current level is at will have a host of stories to read for themselves, instead of the three randomly linked to each month. This wouldn't require much rescripting at all, as the graduated stories would be graduated towards this PDF. You could even get some budding artists to submit some illustrations for the "cover" of the thing. Though that's moot.
I agree about the masterclasses though with Puppy. It would be awesome to see what's gone on, but it'd detract from the experience of those who paid money to take part. Maybe if one author doesn't mind it, then have a sample of a masterclass for show. Or even if some of the newer names want some more recognition in the world of novel's they've just broken into, (Hint hint Monica Drake & Others), they could drop some essays on their writing to the cult.
If there's more stuff we don't grasp, feel free to tell us.
[B]Other thoughts[/B]: For what it's worth, I think expanding the genre's in the workshop would be handy. Let's get nit-picky and pretentious, whatever. If someone can only adequately express their story by calling it "industrial fiction" then let them. Also, the links to publishing websites on the net for short stories could do with some people submitting more e-zines to it. Let people know if they're welcome to send you links to sites you might like to link the cult to or something like that.
[QUOTE=corellion;950550]
I agree about the masterclasses though with Puppy. It would be awesome to see what's gone on, but it'd detract from the experience of those who paid money to take part. Maybe if one author doesn't mind it, then have a sample of a masterclass for show. Or even if some of the newer names want some more recognition in the world of novel's they've just broken into, (Hint hint Monica Drake & Others), they could drop some essays on their writing to the cult.
If there's more stuff we don't grasp, feel free to tell us.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, there's plenty. And I'd be glad to.
While I've got some things to say about retooling the Anthology idea and making it an actual project again, first let me take on this bit and just point out, for those who may have missed it, that really smart, capable authors [I]already[/I] drop craft essays with us. And yes, more would be welcome.
Stephen Graham Jones's second craft essay for the cult, [URL=http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/workshops/resource/sgjessay2.php]'Unrevised,'[/URL] was provided as [I][b]launch material [/b][/I]for the intensive he led last year. It was made available within his private forum for all the students, before any links could be found on any other part of the site. Now, it's linked from our front page and freely available to all.
And it's first rate.
Everything else that happened in that class: his specific assignments, the way students responded to them and reviewed each others work, Stephen's microfine critiques of each student's work, all of that is cult history and it's still available to the people who actually took part in it. That essay operated inside a living, breathing context for the length of that class. Now, it's the one piece of the class that's anybody else's business. And for a writer who's ready for it, there's a megaton of insight to be gained just from studying that one essay, alone.
But now that it's posted to the front of the site, for free, it's very easy to ignore or undervalue something like that.
So don't.
VP - Workshop Dog
You're right. Damn, re-reading that essay, it covers everything.
Also, I wish there was some sort of update system for when other members post new stories into the workshop. Maybe an option for alerting premium members when new stories are submitted to the workshop.
Hey guys, I just want to set the record straight. I don't like people formulating a general opion that the Agent who was helping us on the Chuck Anthology 'bailed on us' or 'left us high and dry'. None of that is true. She was very willing to work with us, only we didn't have enough new material pouring in to warrant her time and attention. From the best of the best, we polished what I showed her down to a handful of really good stories. But we needed at least 4 times that amount to really become 'contenders' for her that she could then begin pitching us to actual publishers. So again, at the core of this problem was the Workshop's slow deflation. I really think the best way to ever have a chance of reinventing the Anthology is to involve Chuck in it more.... more than just having write a forward for it. But with his schedule, I just think the chances of having that happening are slim. Plus, he's already given so much to the site. But we shall see.
.jpg "Dr.Jekyll8Mr.Hyde's picture")
Number five is good. If people can see the top writing threads it will spark interest. I don’t know what you mean by lumping them in groups of five. Wouldn’t it work like the regular forums, showing the top five workshop threads/discussions?
You could also carry that over to workshop stories. There was a time when the front page was sporting graduated stories. This is a mini-publication in itself. If you could give the incentive of having a story “graduate” to the front page, I think that would restore some of the edge in the workshops. It would rotate the same way as threads, the newer stories on top. All I’m saying is there was a lot of healthy competition when people were pushing to graduate their stories, so seeing it featured and linked on the front page is still something.
I agree that making the intensives public shortchanges the people that paid. But I also feel it’s a shame leaving all that information locked up and dormant. I guess there’s no real way around it for the reasons already highlighted.
I understand that it would be weird for participants to have their stuff from master's classes up on the site for everyone to read. I also agree that it would be unfair to post everything when students in those classes had to pay to take them.
But is it possible to post portions of the classes? Maybe just an essay or an assignment? As a newer person, I can say that the master's classes look interesting, but I think I would be more enticed if I could see exactly what went down in the past, even if it's just a little bit, like the SGJ essay.
I think what VP was saying is that SGJ's essay is the little bit we're shown for the kind of things that go on in the masterclasses. Maybe a discussion forum would work well though to explore literary stuff for those of us wanting to talk about the craft of writing, sharing ideas and asking questions. Similar to the velvets interrogation room, only where the aim isn't to ask the trinity about their ideas and techniques, but to ask anyone on the forum.
Also, I know I said I drop it, but look how many people look at Chuck's Birthday Book, I know when I joined up reading that was brillinat. A PDF would be brilliant too.
[QUOTE=Dennis;950391]
5. If you look at the front page of our site right now, you'll see a box on the right side of the page called 'Cult Forum Community'. You'll notice that it highlights links to key threads inour forums history. This is there to entice people into joining and participating in our forum. Well, we need something like this (that updates monthly) for the Workshop forum threads. All those great threads you guys refer to, someone needs to reorganize them all, into lumps of 5. Then, I'll just create a new sidebar box that can rotate with that Forum one to help promote all the great member tutorials and essays that go in here.
[/QUOTE]
should we just start rounding up the top 20-30 threads for this? or submit them in batches of 5? sounds like it would be easier if there was a whole load of em all at once to draw from
as for the annual PDF thing, how much of a draw is that? personally, I don't consider someone writing something online as being "published" but then again I'm kind of out of date on a lot of other things so it might be something popular now
something that might be cool, is if we can go back and nominate like the top 5-10 stories from previous years. maybe elect 2-3 people to work on each years submissions and whittle them down to a handful and put each years stories on a featured page in the workshop?
as for the Master's Classes, are the forums for them locked or are they still active for the students? If they're locked maybe set something up so a year after each class someone can buy in for like 50 bucks or something just to be able to read through the assignments? If its set as a strict one-year wait till any one can "buy in" that might cut back on someone deciding to just wait it out to see the courses and charging some sort of reduced fee like that would still mark the person as a student of that class
I agree that each of the Master's Classes are something that you experience live but there might be enough of a demand now that a year of em are rolling around to draw some people in. It just seems kind of a waste to let those things sit there now not being used. How much this would cut into current or up-coming Classes I got no idea but just throwing some stuff out there
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;950928]should we just start rounding up the top 20-30 threads for this? or submit them in batches of 5? sounds like it would be easier if there was a whole load of em all at once to draw from
as for the annual PDF thing, how much of a draw is that? personally, I don't consider someone writing something online as being "published" but then again I'm kind of out of date on a lot of other things so it might be something popular now
something that might be cool, is if we can go back and nominate like the top 5-10 stories from previous years. maybe elect 2-3 people to work on each years submissions and whittle them down to a handful and put each years stories on a featured page in the workshop?
as for the Master's Classes, are the forums for them locked or are they still active for the students? If they're locked maybe set something up so a year after each class someone can buy in for like 50 bucks or something just to be able to read through the assignments? If its set as a strict one-year wait till any one can "buy in" that might cut back on someone deciding to just wait it out to see the courses and charging some sort of reduced fee like that would still mark the person as a student of that class
I agree that each of the Master's Classes are something that you experience live but there might be enough of a demand now that a year of em are rolling around to draw some people in. It just seems kind of a waste to let those things sit there now not being used. How much this would cut into current or up-coming Classes I got no idea but just throwing some stuff out there[/QUOTE]
You know, I think the best thing to do is to just go ahead and do it. Make the thread and start collecting links inside of it.
I think online writing, what with e-books now and Amazon selling author’s short stories for 50 pence, I think it’s just the next logical step in story telling. Though of course, there are plenty wanting to bring story telling back to it’s verbal ways, and those then again wanting to animate the words and spice things up. Jase’s coloredchalk website being a prime example. Having something published online is a pretty respectable position nowadays, whether it’s an article for a news website or not, it’s the kind of stuff that can go in your CV and garner respect.
As far as I see it, if someone accepts a piece of work you’ve done and puts in on their website, their e-zine, their magazine or even hands out your story on pieces of paper for free at their bookreading so the crowd doesn’t get bored waiting for the author to show up because of crappy traffic, then you count as being published.
The PDF I think would showcase the level of talent at the cult, which from some of the stories I’ve read is professionally high. It would be a point of consultation for anyone wondering about the level of the cult’s workshops and most of all, the cult is a well respected site in the online writing community. I’ve been on countless reviewing sites and all of them link to the cult. It’d definitely provide a respected credit for any author submitting a novel to a publishing company.
You know, I have to say, I think I'm starting to like the idea of a PDF. Corellion just made some great points about it. It's something I always had at the back of my head. And I think I may have even discussed it over the phone way back when with both Mirka and Mark. I think the best two reasons to consider it would be:
1. As Corellion said, it is something that sets a standard of the type of writing that goes on in our Workshops.
2. It could serve as a 'manuscript in the making', for if we ever attract Agent attention again to be considered for actual publication. Meaning, I'd already have something nicely put together to show said Agent.
As far as the PDF goes, let's be realistic. This is a far more appropriate standard for what can be accomplished ...
[QUOTE=Dennis;950979]
2. It could serve as a 'manuscript in the making', for if we ever attract Agent attention again to be considered for actual publication. Meaning, I'd already have something nicely put together to show said Agent.[/QUOTE]
... than this is.
[QUOTE=corellion;950933]
As far as I see it, if someone accepts a piece of work you’ve done and puts in on their website, their e-zine, their magazine or even hands out your story on pieces of paper for free at their bookreading so the crowd doesn’t get bored waiting for the author to show up because of crappy traffic, then you count as being published.
[/QUOTE]
The opportunities out there are a hell of a lot bigger than that. And a lot of people have goals much higher than that.
I mean, did Dennis move to Hollywood to make films that only he and his friends and family ever see? I doubt it.
Yes, there is a lot of talent and a lot of potential at the Cult. But have I put the time and energy into studying creative writing so that only people with memberships at the Cult would ever see my work? Absolutely not.
[QUOTE=corellion;950933]
The PDF I think would showcase the level of talent at the cult, which from some of the stories I’ve read is professionally high. It would be a point of consultation for anyone wondering about the level of the cult’s workshops and most of all, the cult is a well respected site in the online writing community. I’ve been on countless reviewing sites and all of them link to the cult. It’d definitely provide a respected credit for any author submitting a novel to a publishing company.[/QUOTE]
The key term here is "professional." A professional novelist gets more than respect from the publishing houses. They also get book tours, contracts, and published work. Published, as in Anchor and Doubleday, not broadsides to hand out for free on the sidewalk or their very own page on their mother-in-law's web site.
The real thing is there, and the first step to finding it is having the balls to look.
"You should be able to have your chicken and blowjob too."
-- Cindy Weston
[LEFT] [CENTER]bona fide [/CENTER] [img]http://205.196.209.178/images/banners/chuckshoplogo.gif[/img] . . . [img]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/fan/cw/allstars/inkwellGold.gif[/img]
[/LEFT]
Regardless if it's "professional" or seen as a manuscript in process, the idea of putting graduated stories into a "Cult Library" has promise. PDF format would be a good way to archive them and it takes it up a notch above or standard format. Plus I thought that access wouldn't be restricted to premium members, going "live" or public would be an incentive for people to join the workshops, once a story graduates it's open to public through a link on the front page, which could take them to a kind of PDF library.
Hi Ink.
[QUOTE=Dr.Jekyll&Mr.Hyde;954719]
Hi Ink.[/QUOTE]
Hey Doc.
"You should be able to have your chicken and blowjob too."
-- Cindy Weston
[LEFT] [CENTER]bona fide [/CENTER] [img]http://205.196.209.178/images/banners/chuckshoplogo.gif[/img] . . . [img]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/fan/cw/allstars/inkwellGold.gif[/img]
[/LEFT]
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;950928]
as for the Master's Classes, are the forums for them locked or are they still active for the students?
[/Quote]
Those forums are locked. When a new class goes live, the previous one stays accessible, but it's made read-only.
[Quote]
If they're locked maybe set something up so a year after each class someone can buy in for like 50 bucks or something just to be able to read through the assignments? If its set as a strict one-year wait till any one can "buy in" that might cut back on someone deciding to just wait it out to see the courses and charging some sort of reduced fee like that would still mark the person as a student of that class
[/Quote]
I'm not sure anyone would buy-in to a class gone cold. I mean, there's tons of good information in there, yes. But I don't see making it it's own special category of premium information, bought in segments. Between the two options, I think I'd much rather just make it available to all Premium members, after a year. That seems more fair. But, it still has possibly insurmountable problems. What you've proposed would remedy my concerns of de-incentivizing some of the initial sign-ups for the classes, but it doesn't address certain permissions problems that go a bit beyond me. Declaring people official members of a done class a year later seems ... I don't know, sneaky somehow? It's smart-thinking, yes. But there's an x factor involved that's probably better left un-public.
[Quote]
I agree that each of the Master's Classes are something that you experience live but there might be enough of a demand now that a year of em are rolling around to draw some people in. [b]It just seems kind of a waste to let those things sit there now not being used.[/b] How much this would cut into current or up-coming Classes I got no idea but just throwing some stuff out there[/QUOTE]
This, I agree with. Although, more happens there than you might realize. The original students sometimes revisit those forums, to refresh their memory of lessons learned and maybe glean some new insights. Also, sometimes I arrange permission for an upcoming instructor to go in and get the lay of the land. The info is so dense after the fact, they come out pale, of course, but that's another story. Ultimately though, more could be done with the great information in those forums, in ways that satisfy necessary discretion.
One thing I have in mind is the possiblity of some of our best instructors providing a repeat performance. With an encore, remodeled, or altogether new course offering on the horizon from the same instructor, I'd look at the possibility of lifting some of that instrutor's best content - sans the student writing - into a new forum, to sort of prestock the new class with highlights from the previous. This might include, say, excerpts from a particularly great interview, either in text or audio, that I conducted with that instructor a year before, interwoven with or followed up by new material and new questions.
"How have your views on craft changed since you said that?"
"Do you still insist on writing in the nude?"
"So, been arrested lately?"
"Now that your third novel is out and doing well, are you still writing on an IBM selectric with a missing key, or have you crawled out of the cave and bought a computer?"
I'm much more interested in dynamic ways of remodeling and re-presenting some of the best of that material, with the explicit permission and participation of immediate parties. That would feel better to me, I think. And the slate would be clean regarding student assignments and various other things, allowing new students to start fresh and get the best offering of a now more seasoned professor.
Don' t get me wrong though, I'm very glad to have your input on this stuff. And I'll be giving it all quite a bit more thought.
VP - Workshop Dog
5. If you look at the front page of our site right now, you'll see a box on the right side of the page called 'Cult Forum Community'. You'll notice that it highlights links to key threads inour forums history. This is there to entice people into joining and participating in our forum. Well, we need something like this (that updates monthly) for the Workshop forum threads. All those great threads you guys refer to, someone needs to reorganize them all, into lumps of 5. Then, I'll just create a new sidebar box that can rotate with that Forum one to help promote all the great member tutorials and essays that go in here.
just a little update on this particular aspect; I've gone through every single thread in both the chuckshop and self assignment forums and got all the "good" ones bookmarked. it's about 400 of them so far. I'm going to break them down into groups (Characterization, Plot, Writing Challenges, Influences) so they'll be more easy to navigate. I'll also keep a group of just Generally Helpful threads so we can have one of those boxes on the front page.
It'll probably take me a couplethree more days to sort through all these. A lot of them are repetitive and if they're initially based from a link I want to make sure the links still active (or at least that the thread can stand on it's own aside from it.)
Anyways, do you want these separated even farther as to which ones came from Self Assignment and which ones came from the ChuckShop? Might make em even easier to sort through that way but then again some of the topics could be doubled up that way.
There's enough good stuff there to where we could probably even start a Writer's Resource type page with just threads from our own forums.
I noticed a lot of these threads are embarrassingly short some times, hopefully something like this will give these forgotten gems of threads some more attention and participation they deserve.
And the most over-used thread title - without a doubt - is "Does Size matter?"
Ha!
I think I made a good thread on [I]How Do I Write?[/I] :amish:
Lots of long, yet concise posts there and good advice for anyone wanting to go over the basics. I instigated it, and thus it is my child. It shall suckle from my teet whilst I dance through the marsh, and the woodspeople shall applaud my preformance. :35:
[QUOTE=vigorous puppy;954998]Those forums are locked. When a new class goes live, the previous one stays accessible, but it's made read-only.
I'm not sure anyone would buy-in to a class gone cold. I mean, there's tons of good information in there, yes. But I don't see making it it's own special category of premium information, bought in segments. Between the two options, I think I'd much rather just make it available to all Premium members, after a year. That seems more fair. But, it still has possibly insurmountable problems. What you've proposed would remedy my concerns of de-incentivizing some of the initial sign-ups for the classes, but it doesn't address certain permissions problems that go a bit beyond me. Declaring people official members of a done class a year later seems ... I don't know, sneaky somehow? It's smart-thinking, yes. But there's an x factor involved that's probably better left un-public.
[/QUOTE]
I’m a little late to the game here, but I just stumbled upon this forum and felt compelled to offer my two cents.
I have participated in all 6 workshops so far, so I hope my opinion has some merit. I’ve spent over a thousand dollars to participate in these intensives (and worth every penny). So, if these classes all of a sudden opened up for anyone to access, yeah, it would bother me. I found a way to attend each intensive, even with a demanding job and family concerns always in trying to get in the way. But they were worth it, so I made the time.
That being said, what I feel strongest about is each and every participant’s writing being available for anyone to see. Any published writer out there has at one point in time participated in a writing workshop or class, and that is a safe environment where they can experiment with their writing style, develop characters from the ground up, or offer up chapters of an upcoming novel for feedback. These are usually pieces that will never see the light of day in their current state, without much revision. It’s the incubator for their finished, publishable pieces, after much work. There is a respect in writing classes that the work done there stays there. There should be no exception here.
Vig has some great posts on this subject, and I strongly agree with him. For new members, second intensives by Baer or Clevenger would more than likely fill up again. Also, I am pretty sure these are the only two classes that filled up quickly. There were plenty of available spots in the other four intensives, so there was opportunity for everyone to participate. I know we are all here to learn, and I want to help promote the site. Just remember that these are still private workshops that each participant pays for and makes time to participate in. There has to be some reward for that.
I trust Dennis and Vig will do what is best for all of us, but I just wanted to throw out my opinion. Thanks for the hard work guys. This site wouldn't be what it is today without your commitment.
Uncle Trash doesn't remember July, but when we tell him about it, he says it sounds like July was probably a good idea at the time.
-[I]Strays[/I], Mark Richard
I feel guilty when people have said everyone's paid for their chance at being involved with one of these intensives. All I can say is to trust VP's judgement in teachers, and trust the teachers themselves. I got to walk into this knowing not what to expect, and already I feel my writing improving. The assignments are tough, mind. You've got a short time and you're on the spot and despite what anyone says, we're all trying to impress our classmates and teachers. Trying to spit out 2000 of our best in an eigth of the time usual.
But the advice is priceless, and the feedback is brilliant, and I wish there was a similar system available in the workshop itself. It feels the peer review system there loses out in so many more places than this one does. I realise it would take more programming, more time and more server space, but it would lead to better reviews, happier writers, and more people helping support the site by joining up for the workshop itself.
Hello,
I’m a new premium member, but I’ve been lurkin’ around for a while. Here is my two cents:
The heart, the core, the soul of [B]the Cult [/B]- to me - is Chuck Palahniuk’s style. That means his books, his film(s), his performance but most importantly - that which makes the Cult unique - his writing technique(s).
All of us love his writing and many of us love to write. And we are inspired by him. And we want to learn from him. The Essays are (or they [I]seem[/I] to be since I havn’t read them myself) a heaven sent tool for aspiring Chuck fans.
I understand the members that have paid fee’s; that they find it unfair to make workshops available to every premium member. Well, perhaps you could make the workshop Essays available for the same fee again? Give the Essays limited time once again, if Chuck doesn’t wan’t them to be available for a longer period. Give us who missed the workshop a fighting chance. Do you sense the desperation perhaps? =/
I’m not talking about all the workshops, not to belittle the other workshops or the other writers. However, this is foremost a Chuck site and - I presume - contains foremost Chuck fans. I was surprised when I skimmed through the forums that I didn’t find more outcry’s after Chucks Essay’s. Maybe most of you jumped on the wagon during 2005? Well I didn’t.
I’m asking for another chance; like a 2007 workshop containing the Essay's with temporary availability. Perhaps it could be something that reocurred every year as a recruiting camp for the Cult fans?
If not, if Chuck himself is against it, then perhaps Vigorous puppy can continue to finish up writing the summary’s? They are great, but (very) incomplete. Unless Chuck is against the summary’s too?
And my third inquiry (if the first two fail): is aimed at any one who attended Chuck’s workshop; if they would be kind enough to contact me and tell me about the techniques, what they remember, and so forth. Retelling what you’ve learned, by phone/mail/chat, can’t be something Chuck's against, can it?
I hope my post doesn’t seem to aggressive. But Chuck changed everything for me, he enforced my love for writing [I]like no other[/I].
Anyways, I hope something will happen in the direction of: [I]the knowledge becoming attainable[/I] for the [B]die hard fans[/B] who missed it the first time around. With or without fee’s. For a short or a longer period of time.
/hleJAC<
[I]Pronounced L-Jack the h end e are silent.[/I]
[QUOTE=nathaniel parker;957602]just a little update on this particular aspect; I've gone through every single thread in both the chuckshop and self assignment forums and got all the "good" ones bookmarked. it's about 400 of them so far. I'm going to break them down into groups (Characterization, Plot, Writing Challenges, Influences) so they'll be more easy to navigate. I'll also keep a group of just Generally Helpful threads so we can have one of those boxes on the front page.[/QUOTE]
I'm still waiting on seeing these. Did you really start this Nate, or did you just say you did and intended to, but never did?
P.S. I'm up for helping you if you've "lost" them. I don't mind sifting through old threads in my very spare time.
[B]Edit[/B]: I made the mistake of just going through the back end of the Self Assignment forum. You know, mods and such should clean that place up. It must be wasting space. Shout out threads for reviews on stories that aren't in the workshop anymore with no replies. Also, there are no threads that I could see worth passing along. I really think there should be a craft forum, open for everyone, for us all to talk about writing in.
I've got all the threads I just got away from putting them in some sort of order.
short, short list:
Writing Classes - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=4751[/url]
question posed by the uninformed - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=4610[/url]
another simlpe question - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=5892[/url]
medium rare or southern fried: how do you like your dialogue - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=4652[/url]
do you listen to music while you write? - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=5526[/url]
what are your writing rituals? - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=5200[/url]
ending a story - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=6120[/url]
getting started - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=6320[/url]
killing spree - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=7013[/url]
warm up for poets #1 - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7462[/url]
warm up for poets #2 - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=7489[/url]
strong connotations - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=7126[/url]
what the workshop is all about - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=7088[/url]
not the first time someone has asked this I'm sure - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=7443[/url]
when is borrowing plagiarism - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=8058[/url]
warm up for poets #3 - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=7765[/url]
getting over your fear of sharing your writing - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=7674[/url]
DeLillo On Writing - [url]http://www.chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?t=7569[/url]
First of all, it's fan-fuckin-tastic to see Chuck's Essays back up!
I'm so blown away by the hughness of that, that I can't really add any more than: Holy crap, best how-to-write source ever! Thanks to Chuck and all the people making it happen. Again.
So to the request: Nathaniel is there any way the links in your post can funtion again? Or is it my browser/computer? I don't seem to get them to work. I'm guessing it has something to do with the forum change.
Hope it can be solved. They seem really awesome.
Best Regards,
hleJAC<
[B]Edit[/B]: I made the mistake of just going through the back end of the Self Assignment forum. You know, mods and such should clean that place up. It must be wasting space. Shout out threads for reviews on stories that aren't in the workshop anymore with no replies. Also, there are no threads that I could see worth passing along. [size=3]I really think there should be a craft forum, open for everyone, for us all to talk about writing in.[/size]
i agree and have agreed for years. once the workshop is up to the luster of promises and the forums are navagational again instead of almost harrowing, i do intend to clean the chuckshop forum up. thoroughly. and i think we are gonna do away with the all stars and top dogs forum, to make way for something new.
as for a writing theory forum, ive been campagning for one for years and have been shot down every single time
alex, you remember those articles and essays and story rewrites you were asking me about?.. well, at one point most of them were upped, here at the cult, but no one worked them, no discussion no real interests, so i took them down because i ran outta uploading memory. i look forward to the day that the forums are cleaned to the gleam they used to have, easy nav and with the added prettiness that the cult has now. and if enough people champion my cause and [i]makes[/i] dennis and vig give us a writing theory forum, that will be where most of that will be..
in the meantime, i do often think about getting that material to you, alex. there's a whole lot of it, though. ive been studying the shit for years. maybe in the next week ill find time to repair or replace my burner and finally get a jewel out to you
other than that, i'm off to go and finish reading snuff. man, that nig chuck really cracks me the fuck up hahaha like whoa
-kabol
.
.
.
.
.
They caught me because of the blood on my fingers and between my teeth. I looked up from my meal on the tile of the kitchen floor and dropped her cold limb with a thud and minor splash and told them it wasn't me.
.
.
.
and hleJAC,
i cant see an easy way of finding those threads. you just have to search through them, all of the olds. just sift through that shit because, man, there are so many gems in that forrest. it is worth the months of reading it'll take to capture it all.
and welcome to the cult
N A T E , that was a badass list
-kabol
.
.
They caught me because of the blood on my fingers and between my teeth. I looked up from my meal on the tile of the kitchen floor and dropped her cold limb with a thud and minor splash and told them it wasn't me.
alex, you remember those articles and essays and story rewrites you were asking me about?..
in the meantime, i do often think about getting that material to you, alex. there's a whole lot of it, though. ive been studying the shit for years. maybe in the next week ill find time to repair or replace my burner and finally get a jewel out to you
What's this all about? more info, yes, please?
nate, most of that filtered through the workshops a few years ago, but i think a bit of it was strictly upped on the wcb intensive forum
it goes like this:
a few years ago, a writing buddy of mine was finishing up his BA at UALR here in little rock. one of his instructors/writing teachers was none other than badass writing essayist guru David Jauss. mr jauss had an affinity for "epiphonies in literature" and writing on POVs and finding old story drafts written by old authors like Flannery Oconnor and that hemingway dude, fitzgerald as well if'n i remember correctly.. anyway, my friend jay would get photocopies of this really good shit and make me copies and we'd go over it together. i created pdfs of several of the documents after stephen graham jones cited Jauss' essay on POV (i think, or it was x-rays and long shots--i'm not a hundred percent clear on which at the moment), and other members were eating that info up because some of the essays were online and findable and so the ones i didnt see online i drafted into crude but useful pdf files and upped them. they didnt get much attention at all, and the files were pretty big so i took them down after six months or so. but i still keep them on my hard drives in odd places.
what i'll prbably do is find them all, collect them all, and get my burner working and just burn a whole lotta jewels and start a thread for those who want to send me addresses and ill just send them out. they just didnt get a lot of attention at the time and, well, with the essays back and new ones at that, there seem to be a lot more members here now who'd probably love to collect those files.
id love to have people go over the materials so that i could have someone to discuss the particulars with. my writing buddy, his woman graduated the same year he did and she got accepted to Emroy (to work on a phd in german thought, of all things brilliant and alien to me) so they live in Atlanta now and we dont get to see each other but once a year for a camping trip or whatever and phone calls suck and we are all of us in the world so damned busy anymore.. blah blah . i'd love to chat up about these points and exercises, though
im motivated to make the jewels and front the shipping and all
relatively easy to do
i'll keep you posted
-kabol
.
.
.
They caught me because of the blood on my fingers and between my teeth. I looked up from my meal on the tile of the kitchen floor and dropped her cold limb with a thud and minor splash and told them it wasn't me.
. .
this is a nothing tittle but i actaully finally have more than three k posts
a dumb lil fact, but i dont post much and didnt think the day would ever come that i would collect that many
hahahaeee
They caught me because of the blood on my fingers and between my teeth. I looked up from my meal on the tile of the kitchen floor and dropped her cold limb with a thud and minor splash and told them it wasn't me.
nate, most of that filtered through the workshops a few years ago, but i think a bit of it was strictly upped on the wcb intensive forum
it goes like this:
a few years ago, a writing buddy of mine was finishing up his BA at UALR here in little rock. one of his instructors/writing teachers was none other than badass writing essayist guru David Jauss. mr jauss had an affinity for "epiphonies in literature" and writing on POVs and finding old story drafts written by old authors like Flannery Oconnor and that hemingway dude, fitzgerald as well if'n i remember correctly.. anyway, my friend jay would get photocopies of this really good shit and make me copies and we'd go over it together. i created pdfs of several of the documents after stephen graham jones cited Jauss' essay on POV (i think, or it was x-rays and long shots--i'm not a hundred percent clear on which at the moment), and other members were eating that info up because some of the essays were online and findable and so the ones i didnt see online i drafted into crude but useful pdf files and upped them. they didnt get much attention at all, and the files were pretty big so i took them down after six months or so. but i still keep them on my hard drives in odd places.
what i'll prbably do is find them all, collect them all, and get my burner working and just burn a whole lotta jewels and start a thread for those who want to send me addresses and ill just send them out. they just didnt get a lot of attention at the time and, well, with the essays back and new ones at that, there seem to be a lot more members here now who'd probably love to collect those files.
id love to have people go over the materials so that i could have someone to discuss the particulars with. my writing buddy, his woman graduated the same year he did and she got accepted to Emroy (to work on a phd in german thought, of all things brilliant and alien to me) so they live in Atlanta now and we dont get to see each other but once a year for a camping trip or whatever and phone calls suck and we are all of us in the world so damned busy anymore.. blah blah . i'd love to chat up about these points and exercises, though
im motivated to make the jewels and front the shipping and all
relatively easy to do
i'll keep you posted
-kabol
.
.
.
ahhh ok, yeah, i remember you putting those Jauss pdf's up way back when. I had em saved but i think i lost them two computer crashes ago. If you do get a chance to burn em i'll drop you my address.
if you havent moved in the last few years, i probably still have it from when you sent me a sword and the trade paperback of dracula i wanted so badly that one christmas
ill hit your pm later in the week to be sure and start a thread at that time
kabol
.
.
.
They caught me because of the blood on my fingers and between my teeth. I looked up from my meal on the tile of the kitchen floor and dropped her cold limb with a thud and minor splash and told them it wasn't me.
Hey guys!
Thanks for the quick answers! I quess I'll just have to re-search the forum. I'm kinda of a noob when it comes to the forum however.
Is there a specific place I should look through where those post are (link please)?
And JKabol, I am interested in the material as well! It sounds really cool.
hleJAC<
Hey guys!
I quess I'll just have to re-search the forum. I'm kinda of a noob when it comes to the forum however.
Is there a specific place I should look through where those post are (link please)?
hleJAC<
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000044 this links the chuck workshop forum
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000034 this links the self side workshop forum
pretty much, if youre looking for info on writing, you can find new elements of the craft there every day. and both forums go back a few pages.
also: http://chuckpalahniuk.net/workshop/resource
is where you'll find The Writer's Resource page, which is a killer source of links and a ton of information from publishers and agents and essays on the writing and how to properly format your manuscript and places to sell your work, et cetera. there have been some glitches there lately, but we're working them out, slowly but surely.
also: http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/essays
to find author essays on the craft of writing by cult visitors
and here: http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/workshop-essay
workshop essays, which i'm not familiar with but i'm about to read both of them--i just right now found them, i think
and underrated but also very essential: http://chuckpalahniuk.net/interviews/authors
author interviews. they can be monotonous, but you can find tons of information on the application on writing career wise. i read them for the quirks.
And JKabol, I am interested in the material as well! It sounds really cool.
i'll hit your pm when i get it all started and get your address. i'll also make a thread for any other interested party about how to also get one.
-kabol
.
.
They caught me because of the blood on my fingers and between my teeth. I looked up from my meal on the tile of the kitchen floor and dropped her cold limb with a thud and minor splash and told them it wasn't me.
Thx for the links man.
It doesn't seem to be that many pages to sift through?
just sift through that shit because, man, there are so many gems in that forrest. it is worth the months of reading it'll take to capture it all.
Thinking about the "months of reading" comment. I guess there are lots of post within those few forum pages.
I'll stayed tuned for your pm... Who knows, I never post at forums either - usually - but I just might get so involved in the cult that i'll hit the 3000 post limit in time too. =)
This would be the community/forum that could break my forum lurking habits into becoming more active.
hleJAC<
Holy Shit!!! They lost a boatload of pages in there with the switch i guess. It seems like there was 40+ pages in the self assignment and 20+ pages in the chuckshop when I went through them. Now there's only 6 and 2?![interrobang]
yeah, there were a bunch of one post and useless threads they could have cut out but not 60 pages worth of em!
That might have crumbled this empire.
.
.
man. it's been a long time since i read through this thread and i can't believe that i ever missed this post:
Hello, I’m a new premium member, but I’ve been lurkin’ around for a while. Here is my two cents: The heart, the core, the soul of [B]the Cult [/B]- to me - is Chuck Palahniuk’s style. That means his books, his film(s), his performance but most importantly - that which makes the Cult unique - his writing technique(s). All of us love his writing and many of us love to write. And we are inspired by him. And we want to learn from him. The Essays are (or they [I]seem[/I] to be since I havn’t read them myself) a heaven sent tool for aspiring Chuck fans. I understand the members that have paid fee’s; that they find it unfair to make workshops available to every premium member. Well, perhaps you could make the workshop Essays available for the same fee again? Give the Essays limited time once again, if Chuck doesn’t wan’t them to be available for a longer period. Give us who missed the workshop a fighting chance. Do you sense the desperation perhaps? =/ I’m not talking about all the workshops, not to belittle the other workshops or the other writers. However, this is foremost a Chuck site and - I presume - contains foremost Chuck fans. I was surprised when I skimmed through the forums that I didn’t find more outcry’s after Chucks Essay’s. Maybe most of you jumped on the wagon during 2005? Well I didn’t. I’m asking for another chance; like a 2007 workshop containing the Essay's with temporary availability. Perhaps it could be something that reocurred every year as a recruiting camp for the Cult fans? If not, if Chuck himself is against it, then perhaps Vigorous puppy can continue to finish up writing the summary’s? They are great, but (very) incomplete. Unless Chuck is against the summary’s too? And my third inquiry (if the first two fail): is aimed at any one who attended Chuck’s workshop; if they would be kind enough to contact me and tell me about the techniques, what they remember, and so forth. Retelling what you’ve learned, by phone/mail/chat, can’t be something Chuck's against, can it? I hope my post doesn’t seem to aggressive. But Chuck changed everything for me, he enforced my love for writing [I]like no other[/I]. Anyways, I hope something will happen in the direction of: [I]the knowledge becoming attainable[/I] for the [B]die hard fans[/B] who missed it the first time around. With or without fee’s. For a short or a longer period of time. /hleJAC< [I]Pronounced L-Jack the h end e are silent.[/I]
i wouldve responded long ago, eljack, about a few things:
the essays from the get go were only planned to be made available for a specific time amount for harvesting. after that time, they were to be taken down and not long after chuck was to bring out a book on writing, for those who didnt get a chance to catch them. fast forward a couple of years and the man is busy as all hell and going on tour for [i]snuff[/i]'s release and for the [i]rant[/i] softcover release and now he has new essays monthly and bringing back the old as well for the time being, but eventually all of them will be drafted into a book on minimalist writing. chuck didnt make them available to only a few of his fans but rather he made them first available to fans on his official fan site. ive spent some heavy time with each of them and now you can too just like other fans who dont know the site will see them in book form someday--in the next few years probably..
I agree that making the intensives public shortchanges the people that paid. But I also feel it’s a shame leaving all that information locked up and dormant. I guess there’s no real way around it for the reasons already highlighted.
well put
i KNOW that i would feel uncomfortable with members going through my intensive submissions. shit that alex and i did, burner and i, the wickerman, the honest and sometimes brutal feedback from the instructors, all of that is bonded within that timeframe. i dont feel comfortable sharing that with people i'm not sharing it with. people who read that material a few years later get to read that stuff outta context, completely separated from the then experience. and baer would raise death and hell if members of the site and fans of his started listening in on his phone convos and his feedback advice and just the overall art of his instruction: in the intensive is one thing and outta context is another.
but the good doc has something there:
with each intensive, there are a few non-isolated essays on the actual craft, shit that can really go to any novice writer as good to phenominally great advice:
perhaps, Mark, since you know so intimately each and every intensive, you can go through for the or those one two or three write-ups by the visiting instructors, maybe clev's writeup on [i]postman always rings twice[/i] or baer's mini essay on [i]motivation[/i] and collect these bits much like the way youve separated the rewrite essay by SGJ, and send found writeup info to the authors and ask if we can make that really dope shit available to cult members. this is a fan site, but also this is a writer's cult, and these essays and write ups are by writers discussing writing.
i think that if we secure at least a little of that sitting knowledge and make it available to others outta charity and goodwill, that'll be worth the effort
-kabol
.
.
.
They caught me because of the blood on my fingers and between my teeth. I looked up from my meal on the tile of the kitchen floor and dropped her cold limb with a thud and minor splash and told them it wasn't me.
Joined: 2002-11-13
From: Los Angeles