WiFs 6 Template (PDF)

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Writing Forums info sheet Number 6

Contents
Editorial .................................................................................................................................................... 2
Staff News ................................................................................................................................................ 3
Interviews ................................................................................................................................................. 3
Catfish Soup ............................................................................................................................................. 3
Author Interview – Austin Dewart ........................................................................................................... 4
Author Interview - Hugh Howey .............................................................................................................. 4
Challenges ................................................................................................................................................ 5
Literary Manoeuvres Fiction – Champions’ Challenge ............................................................................ 5
The Beta Readers’ Collective ................................................................................................................... 6
Essay: The History of the English Language (Bazz Cargo) ..................................................................... 7
Featured Artist – Dave Rider (ClosetWriter) .......................................................................................... 10

Cover Image - No. 6 from the Red series by Featured Artist Dave Rider (ClosetWriter)
Below – Michigan Holly by Dave Rider

Editorial
Even though I’m certain it has only been a few weeks since kissing July goodbye, we
once again find ourselves at that time of year for reflection, giving, jollity, and a
myriad of other cliché things.
After presents are open and the drunk relatives
have all gone home the year will be done and
dusted.
Cliché or not, another year in the Real Life
means another year for the Green Lady also,
and looking back it has turned out to be one for
the record books.
Changes, big and small, happened apace and
without rest this last year.
It is always interesting to see how the forum
changes over the course of time. Old ideas are
updated and shuffled around to make room for
the new ideas that always leave us with
something slightly different, and slightly better,
than before.
At the start of the year we saw Da Rules
receive a huge update that changed the site’s
stance on the use of strong language outside of
creative works – a decision that has turned out
to be both smart and liberating.

That shift seemed to set the tone, with the site
rules receiving several large updates in the
months that followed to help refine exactly
what WF is and what it hopes to be and
provide for its members.
There have also been several large changes to
the boards themselves.
New additions stand shiny alongside old
favourites, all sharing space with a new
monthly challenge that is shaping up nicely,
and attended to by a growing team of staff who
have also seen their roles evolve and cement
themselves over the course of the year.
So, in light of everything that the past twelve
months have had in store, I would, on behalf of
all the staff here at WF, like to thank the
members who have played a part in making the
forum as great as it is.
You guys make this place the best writing
forum out there and I look forward to being
here for what comes next.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Staff News
For her outstanding contributions to the moderator and the media teams in such a
short time on staff, the Star Staffer award for November goes to Chief Media
Manager TKent. Keep up that good work!

Updates from the Media Team
With big things on the horizon from the Media Team, the time has come to expand
their staff roles to better meet the demands on their time, both present and future.
This need now sees the creation of the Content
Manager position to go along with the Media
Managers and Chief Media Managers.
Where the Chief Media Managers oversee the
department, the Content Managers will be
responsible for writing or sourcing any
material that is needed for various current and
future projects.
In effect, they will be WF’s own journalists
and will play an instrumental role in ensuring
the success of internal and external projects.

This internal expansion goes hand-in-hand
with efforts taking place off-site, with the
continued growth of our Facebook page, our
Twitter account passing 1300 followers, and
the creation of a Pinterest page.
Feel free to follow WF in any of these places
to keep up to date with forum news, pictures of
cute cats, Pins about chocolate, and some
special social media only content.

Interviews
Catfish Soup
Up for some nicely blackened grill
marks this month is Gargh –
A WF Veteran and pillar of the forum
community, with possibly the best answer to
the question 'Tell us about yourself' ever
recorded on a writing forum:

“Above all things, I’m a writer. It’s not how I
make money, but it’s what I am, the strongest
and deepest part of my identity.”
To find out more about Gargh, check out the
full transcript here.

QUOTE ME! – As a writer, you must be prepared to write at all times...
Morkonan

Author Interview – Austin Dewart
PiP’s victim for last month’s Author Interview was our very own bookmasta, a
young author with more than a million words to his name who has also completed
more novels than most of us can even contemplate.
He’s young but has a plan and should serve as
an inspiration to anyone who needs just that
little extra kick to work a bit harder at their
craft or at least multitasking to get writing
done while watching Netflix.

was interesting. I love sports, basketball and
football in particular. Writing takes up most of
my life, but I also love Breaking Bad and
probably watch more Netflix than any normal
person should.”

“I’m a sophomore in college as of right now
and also ran for our cross country team, which

The full interview is here.

Detail from Red series No.4 by Dave Rider

Author Interview - Hugh Howey
Our third interview for the month was with a self-publishing god and man of towering
talent –
Hugh Howey sat down with TKent in our
second external Author Interview.

general writing advice to pen a book on the
subject.

Hugh gave freely of his time to answer a long
list of questions in certain detail.

Anyone who has read his best-selling WOOL
series can attest to his talent and the validity of
his opinions.

For those among you who have ever thought
about the possibility of self-publishing your
work, this is a man and an interview that you
cannot afford to overlook.

You can read the full interview here.

Hugh’s Website (oh my god it's hideous)
And for those who aren't interested in selfpublishing, Hugh has more than enough

Challenges
Literary Manoeuvres Fiction – Champions’ Challenge
As was mentioned in last month’s issue of WiFs, January’s LM competition will be
replaced with a special championship round.
The Challenge will be open to all past winners and the top ten hall of fame judges, with a
significant cash prize offered up to the top three entries.
This is just a quick reminder for those of you that are eligible to enter – brush up on those
writing skills if you want to win the money!

Literary Manoeuvres
November's LM prompt was 'Saturday
Night in the City of the Dead', the top spot
taken out by Guy Faukes with his entry
'Orphans'.

Non Fiction Literary
Manoeuvres
Congratulations are due to InstituteMan
for his entry 'Ten Years' which was the
cream of the crop from November's 'Ten
Years from Now' challenge.

Colors of Fiction
Last month's Colors of Fiction prompts were
Inaction and Regret, the ultimate win taken by
Joshybo with the entry 'The Cost of
Compassion'.

Poetry Challenge
For an unbelievable third month in a row, the
poetry challenge has been won by Firemajic
with her entry 'The Rape of Innocence'.

Left - Winter 2014, Right – Red series No.1; images by Dave Rider.

The Beta Readers’ Collective
The discussion has been brought up on a number of occasions regarding exactly what
sort of creative works WF was designed to accept.
Although there have been word limits placed
on the posting of creative works from time to
time, the ultimate decision was that these
arbitrary restrictions are more likely to be
harmful than helpful to the process of seeking
feedback.
Still, the question remained as to what
constituted an acceptable amount of work that
could be posted before a member ran into
issues of selfish behaviour and expecting far
too much from a community of people who
mostly deal in short excerpts.
An answer to the solution came in the form of
the Beta Readers group, founded by WF
member Galen, a place where one could go to
find a beta reader or offer their own services.
Having proved the demand for an area of the
forum dedicated to the review of much longer
pieces of work than can be posted in the
ordinary critique sections, WF has opened a
new board – The Beta Readers’ Collective:
Galen’s Reading Room.
Common netiquette means that members are
discouraged from positing lengthy works on
the creative boards.
Critiquing is, after all, an intensive and time
consuming thing to be performing for free.

The details of Galen’s Reading Room are still
being worked out and are likely to evolve in
the future as what does and doesn’t work is
discovered.
For now, anyone who would like to volunteer
to be a beta reader, or anyone who is looking
for a beta reader, may post on the board to find
a match for what they need.
Both fiction and nonfiction works are welcome,
as are collected volumes of short stories.
Beta reading itself is a topic that could be
covered at length.
To keep it simple we would ask that our
members make sure they know what beta
reading generally entails so that their
expectations of a volunteer reader do not
exceed the reality of their request.
Beta reading is not and need not be editing,
and although having your book read by a beta
may assist you in locating problems, there is
no guarantee that your work will come out any
better or in publishable condition for having
undergone the process.
Those looking for in-depth critiques would still
be better off posting small excerpts on the
other creative boards.

Now, those with lengthier works looking for a
review have somewhere to go.

QUOTE ME! - I have learned to not expect so much from others,only expect the best from me.
That is living and it is a gift to behold. - Pandora (Sadly Missed) 2014
QUOTE ME! - He who measures himself by only the perception of others has no
understanding of self. - Bishop
QUOTE ME! - I don't see the point in criticizing a story idea; it's like criticizing bricks. Cadence

Essay: The History of the English Language (Bazz Cargo)
By Archibald Tweak (Pseudonym).
Author's Note:
Not all of the story can be told and what will be told may not be in the correct order,
or even correct.
Introduction
There is a common misconception that
English is for clear, unambiguous
communication.
This is far from true. It is far more likely
to be used for wordplay and obfuscation.
Fascination with the English language is
so prevalent that even illiterates enjoy
good wordplay, hence the popularity of the
anagram FCUK.
There are many derivatives of English
such as sign language. The Taxi Driver's
two-finger gesture that translates, roughly,
as 'I do not approve of your driving,' is not
part of this essay.
Pictograms. Word Signs. Syllabic Signs
and Alphabet.
Many modern forms of behaviour can be
traced right back to before the Human
Race started to run.
First there was the Grunt. This can still be
found in tennis players and teenage boys.

The dropping of litter can be traced
directly from modern man to primates
carelessly discarding fruit cores.
The inability of modern man to use a toilet
properly can be traced to the usefulness of
faecal matter as a weapon of annoyance by
all primates.
The root cause of many of today's bar
fights is the desiring of females from a
different tribe.
Even before the most primitive form of
writing came mathematics. The tally has
been part of trade all through history, even
until the present day.
At first a simple pictograph system
evolved to differentiate between items
counted.
The pictograph would be etched onto the
containers of whatever was recorded to
ensure traceability.
Pictographs were also the first tattoos,
used to identify which slave belonged to
which owner.

Then came the shrug, this can still be
encountered in teenage boys and the
French.

Throughout history various tribes have
used tattoos as a form of bar-code,
enabling each other to identify friend from
foe.

There are many other holdovers from
prehistory displayed by modern man.
Before Homo erectus, the ancestors of
humankind lived in trees leading a
browsing life.

The main force behind further
development was graffiti. This proved so
successful a spin-off came in signs.
The earliest record we have of a public
announcement is: 'Stay away from my

wife, she has the clap.'
There was great resistance to moving on
from the Hammer and Chisel to less
permanent methods of recording
information.
Rats don't eat rock, and it is hard to leave a
cave wall lying around where it can be
stolen.
A major influence in the advance of
recording technology was Local
Government planning authorities who
became so overwhelmed by the huge
volume of plans carved into rocks, that the
gigantic filing cabinets soon out-stripped
the available storage space.
Eventually the literati were forced to move
on.
The then-modern technology of dyes and
animal skins were a spin-off from the first
great industrial revolution: flint tools.
Wherever early humans could be found
there was the sound of chipping. New
tools, new words.
Efficiencies produced by the quantum leap
in technology allowed tribes to expand and
forced early humans to start spreading out
and exploring.
This created new words and new concepts.
Such as, “Are we there yet?”
Soon tribes were borrowing words from
each other. This has been a feature of
languages throughout history and will
continue to be so far into the future.
Languages live long and prosper.
Early settlers or Cockneys set up camp in
England during the first warm period
between the Ice Age movies and started
their own variation of Lingua Franca.

Lots of things needed new names because
they didn't exist anywhere else.
Later on, they would export these things
and the names along with them, such as,
'Le Traffic Cone,' or, 'Le Chips,' or 'Le
Winkles.'
Proper English writing didn't start until a
Frenchman invented the ball point pen and
a German invented the printing press.
Until then most written work was done in
illuminated Latin, but printed Latin was
the Future today.
A backlash to Latin came during the
middle ages. Middle aged men began to
develop a taste for sports cars or
motorbikes, hairpieces, embarrassingly
young, well-endowed blondes, and spy
novels written in Early English.
Early English was more or less spelled
phonetically. Punctuation and Grammar
were luxuries that few could afford. The
lazy-fair or laissez-faire situation had to
addressed. Step forward two heroes:
Dr Johnson.
Thanks to the good doctor's pedantry we
now have a proper way to spell words.
Sadly, some of the words in his famous
dictionary are, in fact, spelled incorrectly.
So parts of the English language are
wrong.
Noah Webster.
Almost single handedly, he divided the
English language into the proper one and
the American one.
There is also William Bullokar.
His pamphlet on grammar used Latin
Grammar rules for the early English
language.

Many a 'Disgusted, from Hemel
Hempstead' has written letters to the
editors of the quality press, bemoaning the
deterioration of the English language
basing their arguments on this pamphlet.
Sadly Mr. Bullokar had no authority to
refer to, so he made it up himself.
The English language has been evolving
constantly since the first, married, cavecouple argued over whose turn it was to
walk the dinosaur.

Some high-spots in the evolution of the
English language are:
The Ellipsis... Invented by HG Wells.
(Possibly extra full stops caused by
writing while coughing).
The letter ‘U’. Invented by Wordsworth so
he no longer had to wander lonely as a
clod. It has also helped develop the
English sport of Queuing.

Even now the language is mutating so fast
that a ten year gap is all it takes to render
modern English into incomprehensible
gibberish: Txtng, LOL, sick.

U came in handy when the Vacuum was
invented. It also came in useful when the
spin-off Vacuum Cleaner was invented.
No one likes dirty vacuums.

Modern technology has been blamed for
this. That does not explain 'Apples and
Pears' or 'Friar Tuck.'

The Miffing Fphinx.

According to Dr. C. Miller's ‘Guide-ToHyphenating’, the greatest cause of
English language mutation is the invention
of the Teenager.
“There is nothing like a young man
mangling the English language to create
an apoplectic letter to the editor response
in older males.”
According to Dental Assistant S Derry's,
‘The Point-Of-Punctuation’, the sexual
revolution changed the way English
Language was used to conceal carnal
desires and so opened up a whole new
orgy of meanings.
In ‘The Master Sage’, a respectful species
is shown a whole new dimension of
vocabulary by a passing alien.
Professor A. Mitchell's seminal work on
Welding Words and Phrases has produced
some of the most exciting new concepts
that are currently challenging the status
quo.

Pre-dating the letter S, there was the letter
F. This proved problematic in certain
Biblical passages and created a schism (or
fchifm).
Modern, wealthy people still prefer the
older version as they are sure the poor
don't require succour.
The letter S is possibly the most important
leap forward in modern wordology.
Without it the Fifties and Sixties would
have been hard to separate and small
children would have been denied
Grandmothers sucking eggs.
A most spectacular development has been
produced in CERN using a Large Hadron
Collider where scientists finally managed
to split the infinitive, boldly going where
no-one had been before.
To be or not to be quoted in the quality
press.
So our little journey through history has
now finished.