[Newspoetry] online writing workshop

[gillespie william k]

Mr. Wit,

I'm not sure how
 to
  respond
   but here goes...

[is there something that could be added to/subtracted from this idea that
would make it more interesting to you or anyone listening?]

I think what I am proposing:

- would not preclude mutltiply-authored works

- is a form of collaboration

- is an attempt to rescue from a competitive academic environment a model
that meets needs (of mine, maybe nobody else's, admittedly, that's what
I'm trying to find out) and which has a real collaborative component
compared to, say, a lecture. It's the opportunity to learn what something
looks like (from diverse perspectives) from the outside which you have
only seen from within. 

- is an attempt to rescue from a non-competitive non-academic model - the
independent writing group of which there are numberous examples even in
Urbana - the utility of the group minus the real limitations created by
having to meet in person (limiting membership to a geographic region),
having to make printouts and distribute them to others beforehand, having
to find a time everyone can be in the same place, having to cook
breakfast, etc. Along with that comes the potential for discussing
electronic works without having to pass out floppy discs to everyone a
week before.

We didn't need to get pre-publication feedback on, say, the Unknown
because we promoted it heavily without really worrying about whether it
was any good. Now we're getting feedback. But we aren't concerned, or
organized enough, to rewrite it, so we accept the praise (even when
offered by someone who has clearly read only one page), we bitch about
the criticism (even when it was written by someone who only read one
page), but the feedback is not useful to us beyond the flattery, which we 
accept uncritically, being Unknown. 

Does sending email count as publishing? Does graffiti?

It is one of the premises of this workshop idea that some works of writing
are not meant for the web. (dramatic organ chord. pipe organ, that is, the
old-fashioned kind) The internet here functions as text-friendly group 
communication tool rather than as new literary production paradigm.
Although there is room for more than one paradigm.

I am not opposed to works which are not lighthearted

I am not opposed to works which are singularly authored, although I would
prefer a convention in which books or poems are followed by a long list of
credits as in the movies:

TYPING: William Faulkner
COFFEE: Mrs. Faulkner
VICIOUS CRITICISM: Uncle Jeb Faulkner
STORY STOLEN FROM LIFE OF: Sam the Blacksmith
PROOFREADING: Mrs. Faulkner
Paragraph 2, Page 413: Mrs. Faulkner
MANUSCRIPT CARRIED TO POST OFFICE BY: Dave the Mailman
PAPER CLIP: Industrial Paperclip and Metallurgy Local #154
(perhaps also a breakdown here of all the parts of the typewriter, who
built them, how much they were paid...)
IMPORTANT THEMES RIPPED OFF FROM: William Shakespeare, the Bible
MOST OF CHAPTER TEN: Mrs. Faulkner
ALL CHARACTERS AND EVENTS ARE BASED ON REAL PEOPLE. THEIR NAMES HAVE BEEN
CHANGED TO PROTECT THE AUTHOR.

As to why literary writing can't look like volumeone.com - call me
conservative and old-fashioned and in the way and all, but I still believe
that literary writing has to have, as one of its components, words.
It's a semantic issue for me, not a formal one. Writing without words
is something else. I've immersed myself in the site until my eyes hurt and
my browser crashed, but I can't find any words to read. It's a fine
website, whatever it is, but where are the words? All I can find are
moving shapes, gasmasks, and snowmobiles. It sure looks different from
Faulkner...

Oh, here we go, I found some writing: 

            "53B13S ON3" 

(on http://www.volumeone.com/97spring/index.html)

That's challenging text, to be sure.

Man I feel old all of a sudden.

Willy G