NiIL: What is a Forum?

To kick off NaNoWriMo in Internet Land, I wanted to cover a very basic topic. What is a forum? What affordances of the Internet does it use? What makes it different from a chat room? This will set up the context for the rest of my analysis on the NaNoWriMo forums.

What is a Forum?

Once upon a time, a forum was a gathering of people, or the place they gathered in, to discuss certain topics. Greece was famous for its forums, especially in Athens, discussing politics and philosophy. A quick Google search defines it as this: "a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged" or "an internet message board". 

A forum is a space on the internet in which users can interact via nested text boxes, in a manner somewhat similar to Ancient Greek forums. There a separate spaces for different conversation topics. A (non-NaNo) example would be the Gaia Online forums. There are topic headings like "Hot Topics" or the "Artist's Corner". Within those are the actual forums: "US Presidential Election", "Adventure Time" or "Lolita Fashion", in "Hot Topics". These forums all contain hundreds of "threads" dedicated to different topics within that forum "header".

Usually one user can create a thread within which others can reply to the topic.  Threads tend to be long-lived, lasting days, to months, even to years, in the case of certain websites I frequent. They utilize the ability of the internet to store information by allowing users to post replies that can then be seen at any time. In less frequented forums, a reply to your post may not come for days. Often, in the more popular ones, you will wait a few minutes to a few hours.

Some forums may be private, meaning only specific people, like members of the site, can read what has been posted. Many more are public, which means anyone can read, or even reply to, the ongoing conversation.


How is a forum different from a chat room?

The two major ways to communicate via the internet are forums and chat rooms.  Chat rooms can be hosted on a specific website, to allow members to communicate, or may be a service in and of themselves (One may look at AIM or Omegle as an example of a chat room platform that is its own specific entity.)

Chat rooms occur in real time. Members enter the chat room at the same time to talk. Often, they have no specific topics or guidelines. They rely on the speed of the internet, but not its long-term storage of the conversations. Chat rooms provide an instant connection.

Often times, a forum will have a "chat space". Either a forum specifically dedicated to this "instant" kind of conversation (while still maintaining the forum structure of long-term, nested replies) or a separate chat "feature" that functions more similarly to a true chat room (generally a widget that is imbedded into the site).

Both have uses to the website in question. A chat space or feature allows members of the site to bond simply by talking to each other. They talk about anything and everything, with whoever is around at the moment. this strengthens to relationship between members and increases their happiness with the site. A forum, or as it usually occurs, many forums, allow the members to discuss specific topics of interest to them. It builds a repertoire of information that users can go back and look at, instead of bringing up the same questions over and over.


HONRS 201: Forums VS Chat Rooms

To put this in the context of academia, the first part of my project, I will use a classroom analogy. A forum is a class discussion, lead by the professor, to understand a specific portion of the syllabus. This would be structured and allow one student to respond to another, or multiple students, one at a time. A chat room is what happens before class starts or after it ends. It is a cacophony. It is everyone talking to their friends about whatever it is they want. Both are important to the students, but one is more useful to the overall understanding of the class.

Review: Limyaael/Arin i Asolde

Holy carp. This woman is absolutely, mind-bendingly fantastic. Every writer, fantasy or not, needs to read Limyaael's rants. They are glorious. They are perfect. They are quiite a many. But a lot of what she says is important for writers to understand- things like "how not to write a cliche even if your idea IS a cliche". Limyaael has, for all intents and purposes, put an entire creative writing class up on the internet, for free. (This link is to a mirror which houses all of her rants. This is convenient, because they were written on Livejournal, Insanejournal, and other similar sites and only later conglomerated into a giant list.)

 Usefulness: 5 out of 5

These are so useful. Yes, technically they are geared towards fantasy writers. Yes, sometimes they are personal opinions of Limyaael. HOWEVER, this woman is so well-written, so well-versed in literature that you can't help but take her seriously. She quotes Swinburne.

Besides that, she often points out things that make writing flat, boring and uninteresting; these are points that any writer can value, whether scifi, YA or fantasy. Limyaael wants you to succeed and is simply explaining what parts of writing can be bolstered and what can be torn down.

It's actually hard to write with the amount of sincere admiration and awe for her that is currently spewing from my every pore.

Fun: 5 out of 5

This is a biased answer. It has to be. Because, honestly, site design wise, Limyaael is using Livejournal. It's boring. It's ugly. It's bugly. Buuut, I love reading everything she writes, be it her stories or poetry on Fictionpress (Limyaael) or her hilarious and well-written rants. I find them incredibly enjoyable and therefore 5 out of 5.

Hipster: 2 out of 5

Limyaael has a lot of sway on the internet.  There are a bunch of mirrors of her work out there and, undoubtedly, someone on a forum will bring her up. She is, in my personal opinion, the Plato of the online writing community. Her works are probably the most well-known of any online writer. She may be the only person to have analyzed and written essays about the overall quality of online work.

Intro: NaNoWriMo in Internet Land

Part of my thesis project was to understand NaNoWriMo as a community of practice. The first part of looking at that was determining what makes NaNo different from regular creative writing classes. The way students interact in a class is completely different than the way WriMos interact on the forums. What was different? Why did it develop this way?

Well, it came down to the emphasis. Creative writing courses are trying to teach you fundamentals. NaNo? Not so much. By focusing solely on getting words on the page (and turning off one's evil Inner Editor), NaNoWriMo brought together a community of people defined by their love of writing, no matter how good, bad, or indifferent the quality of that work.

But there is more to this question than that. You see, NaNoWriMo provides a perfect intersection between the Internet and Academia. NaNoWriMo is very different from Academia, but it is also very different from the Internet. This series, lovingly shortened to NiIL, will look into that difference. How are the NaNo forums different? Why don't we see stereotypical "regs" vs "newbs"? Why are the forums structured the way they are? What amount of control do the users have on the actual infrastructure of the site? These questions and more, coming up in...

ADVENTURES IN INTERNET LAND

Mini-NaNo: A Bit of a Failure

This is one of those moments that reminds me what I'm not being graded on my ability to complete NaNoWriMo. Not only is it really hard to write during college, but it is almost impossible to get back on track once you've fallen off.

Mini-NaNo got to be about ten thousand words. This was less than half of my total word count. Which, overall, isn't the worst showing I've ever done. (I once got 3k into NaNo and just stopped for the rest of the month. Depressing, no?) The story itself still interests me, and I will definitely continue writing it once I'm done with all this (or maybe, I'll cheat and finish it for November NaNo).

Right now, I have three time to write up an outline for NaNo. I will still be asking for input from my possibly existent readers and definitely existent friends. Actually, I'm going to ask for it right now.

Should I continue my mini-NaNo, therein flouting all the "rules" of NaNoWriMo? Or should I start outlining furiously so I can attempt to maybe for once actually win this dastardly contest with myself? How lazy should I be, ladies and gentlefolk?

Intro: Articles

The name of this section is a little inaccurate. Not all of the things I post will be articles. Sometimes they will be big conglomerations of articles (and other...stuff.) I like to consider this my "Online Creative Writing Textbook".

These posts are probably the least related to NaNoWriMo. Or, more specifically, the most versatile. These posts are for reading with a cup of hot cocoa, thinking quietly to yourself about the implications of these in the context of your work. These are the things you take notes on into your little writer's notebook that you keep on you at all times always. This "Online Creative Writing Textbook" is the kind of thing you read because you love writing and want to make yourself better. You read these for fun.
 
I probably could've started with these, but I wanted to give you something you wouldn't feel bad not reading in November. Because we all know you have more important things to do. Like, I don't know, writing a crazy number of words in a teeny-tiny number of days.

Good luck my fellow crazy-people! Enjoy the ride :)

Personal: Mini-NaNo Update

Whelp, we all knew it was going to happen. A bunch of tests and homeworks come my way and I crumble like a paper crane in a biker's fist. I missed, as of today, an entire week of mini-NaNo. This cute little app I got for my phone (which will be an upcoming TIL), says that I'll need to write almost 1000 words a day to get back on track. That isn't actually worrisome, because I've been averaging bout 900-and-change on 750words, but it's never fun to be behind.

I do plan on completing my word count goal this month (23,250 words in 31 days.) However, I will warn everyone: This is just a test run. It is a lot more important to me to complete the real and actual National Novel Writing Month than it is for me to finish a practice mini-Nano. Especially since I also need to keep posting about online writing tools and keeping this blog worth reading.

Hope all of you possibly-existent readers are enjoying this escapade as much as I am! See you later in the week :)

<3 Meghan

EDIT: I did a little spreadsheet to compare my Percentage of Total Words and my Percentage of Total Time Left. I'm approximately 36% done with the total number of words and about 50% of the way through the month. This is a totally doable situation. My faith has totally been restored :)

Review: Yarny

Just like all the other "write online" tools, Yarny is pretty sweet. In fact, it is probably the overall frontrunner. It's a writing platform that can work both long-term and short-term. You can use with or without an account (my favorite!) And the interface is rather pleasing, so I can't even complain about that! Hopefully I can come back in a year and say that this site is Dear to My Heart. Fingers crossed!

Usefulness: 5 out of 5

So, Yarny is really great. It is actually totally unfair for me to try to explain it, when Yarny does is so well. (The picture does enlarge, if you click it, and was in fact PrntScr'D straight from the Yarny website.)

Not only is Yarny an online text editor, but it allows you to tag your text and separate it into different "snippets", all of which are searchable. If you have an account, you can save what you've written to look at later. And, even ore delightful is that little section called "People/Places/Things". It allows you to store your research and information pertaining to your story. Genius, no? If Yarny and 750words combined to create a fantastic online word processor with motivational badges, this thing would be 6/5, maybe even a 7/5.


Fun: 3 out of 5

The aesthetic of Yarny is quite nice. It makes me happy. Most of the fun points for this site comes from how very nice it is too look at, without infuriating me during the writing process.

(Thinking about it, it's really hard for any word processor to get high marks for fun, if you look at it objectively. I think I find things fun that most people don't. Like... reading books online or arguing about the minute details of things.)


Hipster: 3 out of 5

So, this was a tough decision. I knew NOTHING about Yarny before trolling through the NaNo forums to find things to post about. However, it is also a sponsor of NaNoWriMo, so it is also plastered all over the website. I gave it a 3 based on my own personal confusion at its existence. Dislcaimer: This is a totally biased result.

TIL: USB Bracelet from the Makers of National Novel Writing Month

Welcome to the first installment of TIL- "Things I Like". This isn't a review or a not-review, nor is it introductory information, nor even my personal updates. No, it's just NaNo related things on the internet that I like, think are funny, whatever. I think they deserve to be shared.

Without further ado,  a bracelet with a 2 GB usb stick inside it. From the Office of Letters and Light themselves.
HOW DO I NOT OWN THIS?

Personal: Second Week of mini-Nano

Hello all! Just a little update on my October mini-Nano! The text is, as I promised, up on Fictionpress. There's a chapter for every single day, which is gonna end up pretty darn lengthy, but I can always edit that in December or whenever I get to editing it. I'm writing out sort of ghetto phase outlines* for each day. I've gotten as far as the 16th (which I believe is a test day for me) and have realized that this story will not be finished before November starts. Which means, I'm really sorry guys, but it will go on hiatus as soon as NaNoWriMo starts up.

Writing this has been really easy. I definitely think part of it was the platform- 750words. The badges are great motivation and signing up for the October Challenge was a great way to keep me on track.

So far I've JUST gotten to introducing the character everyone voted for. Don't worry though, he's definitely playing a major role. I've also stolen a couple of the suggestions that didn't win and am finding ways to incorporate them. I also have another question for you, my possibly existent readers!

A lot of stories like this, the ones where magic is suddenly real and has been hiding for who knows how long, involve rewriting history to accommodate the knowledge of magic. My question is two-fold. One: What historical event would you like to see re-written to involve magical creatures? Two: What is your favorite nursery rhyme? The one you remember the most from your childhood. Teeelll meee reaaddeerss. Tell me yooouurr storiieess.

*For those of you who don't know what a phase outline is, read this thread, which explains everything. It's kind of like writing the book before writing the book, without all of the fun stuff like adjectives and descriptions. There is a distinct possibility that I am going to do a review of this system, along with some other outlining systems. It probably won't happen until November or December, but I'll totally do it. These are for all you planners out there.

Review: One Page Per Day

First of all, hello everyone. Sorry I've been gone for a little while. I had a bunch of tests and papers to get done, and I had to pick between the blog, the mini-Nano and the rest of my work. I'm on a 6 day streak on 750 words, which is awesome. I'm loving the cute little badges they give me :)

This is for a 5 day streak. 

Cute little penguin!

Second, and most importantly, my review of One Page Per Day! It's touted as an "online typewriter". You are only expected to write one page, hence the title. Supposedly "you are free from the tyranny of the infinite page".

Usefulness: 3/4 out of 5

Now, technically I could just say 3.5. But if I start using decimals, my "search by score" tag list will be way too long. Plus, the different scores are under different circumstances. 

I gave OPPD a 3 for use during NaNoWriMo. Writing only one page is not entirely useful when you need to write 1667 words a day. (Which, by the way is 6 pages long in Courier New size 12 and 5 pages in Times New Roman, size 12). Writing one out of 6 pages online doesn't seem particularly valuable. 

However, I do think this site is totally worthwhile for year-round use. Writing one page a day would be great to keep you in practice, something that practically every article about writing suggests you do.

Fun: 1 out of 5

Yeah, so, there isn't much fun about this site. In fact, it kind of makes me angry. At the bottom of the front page are the "Rave Reviews". These are lies. The quotes from Toni Morrison, Mark Twain and Norbet Platt have nothing to do with the site, but instead are about writing in general. This is cheating and I do not approve of it. If you want to include reviews, include real, actual reviews from your users, so people can have a complete understanding of how this is supposed to work. 

Hipster: 2 out of 5

Another one of those "I have no idea what this is, but someone suggested it, so I'm gonna review it!". It seems quite nice and, like I said, a 4 for anything outside of Nano. But you have to find it first.

Personal: First Day of Mini-NaNo

Well, today is October 1st. Aaaand, well, that's a little nerve-wracking. I have two tests this week, plus a group report, plus a HUGE paper I have to write by the 10th. So it's going to be a tough month. But I can handle this. I mean, it's only 750 words a day, right? (Note: I'm wearing my worried face.)

So, for this update, I'm going to tell you guys two things. One, you get to know which magical creature is making a big appearance in the novel and, two, you get to know part of the mythology behind the story. Without further ado, point one.

DRAGONS won the day, with 3 votes out of 18 comments. Some of you posted a lot of options in your comments, which was sort of cheating ( ;P ), but I counted them anyway. So, look out for a dragon character as an important part of the story. I'd like to tell you more, but you'll see as the story goes along.

Point two, is the myth of the Bear Statue. Geneseo has a fountain in the center of main street. It looks like this.

Credit: kwalt0888, flickr

The story of this statue, in relation to the college, is as follows. If a virgin graduates from Geneseo, the bear will crawl down off the fountain and come to life. First of all, take this moment to laugh at that. Secondly, let's see where it goes, no? 

This has been an incredibly vague post, so I hope no one's angry with me about that. But there will be a bunch of these posts throughout the month, plus the text up on fictionpress. So, let's watch this unfold. (I wrote about 1200 words today, none of which explain this vague post. So, yeah, sorry! <3 )

Review: Written? Kitten!

"Written? Kitten!" is sort of the ideological opposite of Write or Die. They are both word processors that incorporate motivational tools. While Write or Die is about scaring the crap out of you and threatening to ruin all your progress, Written? Kitten! is about rewarding your good work with pictures of adorable kittens. (Blogger doesn't let me put exclamation points in the tags, which I find infuriating. Just a note.)

Usefulness: 3 out of 5

This is, again, a biased post. I believe Written? Kitten! is less useful than Write or Die, because I believe the threat of destroying your work is more motivational than the gift of a cute kitten. However, for those of you who prefer positive motivation, this will be great. It plays right into the Internet's love of cats. Like Write or Die, it does not have an export button or any kind of formatting. Personally, I believe copying from Written? Kitten! is a little easier, because it doesn't take you to a new page like Write or Die does.

Fun: 5 out of 5

Kittens. Seriously, do I need to say anything else? Mrroow.

Hipster: 2 out of 5

About as well known as Write or Die. Really, these two sites are sort of tied to each other by their contrary natures.