Ficly is a new collaborative writing community based on the idea that writing doesn’t have to be something you do alone. As a member, you have the option to build on others’ story stubs, compose sequels and prequels to existing stories, or work on story challenges—and all in less than 1,024 characters. To put this number in perspective: that’s just over 7 Tweets. If Ficly sounds familiar to AOL’s short-lived writing community Ficlets, that’s because it is. Ficly was built by alums of the Ficlets developer team, who have dedicated a “memorial” section to their alma mater.
Normally I’d be a little hesitant about distributing my writing freely on the web. But Ficly is less about the writer than it is really about the story. And thanks to the 1,024 character limit, more than one writer is needed to put together a well-developed story. In a profession so focused on the individual, where some of the best work is done when no one is around, it’s refreshing to see a community that does just that: build community.
A tinge of The Crazy may aid creativity, according to Roger Dobson’s recent article in The Independent. Well…um, no shit. I coulda told you that, Roger. Some of the most brilliant and creative people I have encountered in my life have had at least one screw loose, sometimes more. Hell, most days I feel like I am merely hovering over the Crazy/Sane divide myself, precariously vacillating between the two. I try to coincide my Crazy with moments of artistic creation and my Sane with moments of bill-paying-related activities and interactions with other human beings…but wouldn’t you know it that those damn bitches don’t listen to a word I say and just show up whenever they feel like it? But I actually cherish this internal instability, even though it sometimes causes me pain and isolation and depression. And it appears as if I’m not the only one (The Icarus Project seeks to navigate “the space between brilliance and madness”). And apparently, “there is no clear dividing line between the healthy and the mentally ill.” Read more »
Write a Better Novel‘s Bill Henderson recently wrote about the dilemma of teaching to supplement your writing income. He received a slew of comments about struggling to write a novel during the off-hours of your day job, which he summarized in a new post that you should definitely take a look at. Real novelists sound off on the issue, and it really struck a chord with me. Writing in itself is hard enough, but having to do it when you get home from a long day of work (when you could be, say, watching TV and spending time with friends) can sometimes make writing insufferable. Some of my favorite quotes after the jump: Read more »
If drinking is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Yet I do want to write. And I don’t want to end up like so many famous writers throughout history who drank…clutching to their vice like a crutch, bitter and depressed and disillusioned with the world, firmly believing that they needed that glass full of liquid beside them in order to access their talent.
But what if they did? What if alcohol and creativity were linked? O frabjous day! Philip Hunter gives me new hope in his recent Prospect Magazine article, “I drink, therefore I can.” Apparently the benevolent gods of modern science are entertaining the possibility that there is such a thing as a “creative cocktail gene”….a gene variant (known as the G-variant) found in approximately 15% of Caucasians. And if they’re right, I may have a brand new impetus to write. Read more »
I was going to post this in our Lit Drift Twitter account, but it’s just too good not to share on the main site. McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, arguably the Internet’s most whimsical quarterly journal, has a syllabus up for a fake new course for Internet-Age Writing, called ENG371WR: Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era. Planned lectures include such topics as “Reading is stoopid,” “The Kindle Question,” “140 Characters or Less,” and “I Can Haz Writin Skillz?” Also note that attendance is “unnecessary, but students should be signed onto IM and/or have their phones turned on.” Delicious.
Coincidentally enough, I was recently messing around in my Scrivener, experimenting with structure and new styles of writing, and found myself trying to write a scene purely in text/IM speak. Uh, it shouldn’t come off as a surprise that it really sucked. Won’t be trying that again…until, of course, some more accomplished writer does it and somehow makes it work, in which case nose will be back to (digital) grindstone.
As an aside: I actually had to put this post title through an LOLspeak Translator because I just don’t know any better. Fail?
Ficly is a new collaborative writing community based on the idea that writing doesn’t have to be something you do alone. As a member, you have the option to build on others’ story stubs, compose sequels and prequels to existing stories, or work on story challenges—and all in less than 1,024 characters. To put this number in perspective: that’s just over 7 Tweets. If Ficly sounds familiar to AOL’s short-lived writing community Ficlets, that’s because it is. Ficly was built by alums of the Ficlets developer team, who have dedicated a “memorial” section to their alma mater.
Write a Better Novel
If drinking is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Yet I do want to write. And I don’t want to end up like so many famous writers throughout history who drank…clutching to their vice like a crutch, bitter and depressed and disillusioned with the world, firmly believing that they needed that glass full of liquid beside them in order to access their talent. 
I was going to post this in 
