The Wide World of Writing

This week I would like to talk about the world of writing.  There are a lot of communities for writers and readers and candlestick makers. Tons of writing resources are available for free on the internet. Lots of people are on twitter trying to sell you writing advice and promotion. 

First I want to write about my week in writing.  I finished editing chapter 9 for my current work in progress, and am almost finished with chapter 10. I just signed up for two writing contests that I am excited about.  I will talk about them in a bit. I recently updated the cover for my serial story called The Ghost.  You should notice the change on Monday when I post the latest update to the story. I also noticed for the first time that the story was ranked in the top 500. If you enjoy the story then please vote for it.  It helps to make it more visible on the website, and increases the ranking.  I really don't care about the ranking, but I do want to share the story with the world.  I want feedback, so I can work on improving my writing.  That's my main reason for writing this serial story.

It's incredible how many people are working on writing some sort of story or another. For every person that tells me they could never do any kind of creative writing, there are several others who are trying to.  Some of them have already, and are spamming me on twitter constantly.  I'm not here to talk about promotion though. I want to talk about two websites that I have been participating in.  Goodreads and Wattpad are the websites. Please feel free to share any other writing communities that you know of or participate in.

Goodreads

This is a great community for readers to talk about books. You can see what others are reading and what they think about it. Here are a few things I like about the site.

The Mobile App

The app doesn't have all the functionality of the website, but it is still useful.  You can quickly update your status on the books you are currently reading.  You can also check into the groups you are currently a part of.  Some parts of the website aren't as easy to get into.  Quick access to the basics of the site makes it much more enjoyable.

Discussion Groups

This is the part of the website that I enjoy the most. I belong to two of these currently.  One is for writers, and the other is for readers.  The site is mostly skewed towards readers talking about what they like or don't like.  The writing discussion group has been very interesting.  I try to check up on it a few times a day. Much of the discussion in that group is geared towards how you feel about your writing and talking about interesting things about your writing. 

Wattpad

This is a community for writers to share and try to improve on their work.  There are a lot of people on there reading the free stories as well. I would recommend this site to any aspiring author. Here are a few things I like about the site. 

The Mobile App

The app is hard to use to navigate the site. It is best used as an e-reader for the stories available on wattpad. Some of the features are easy to access like being able to comment on chapters of the works. The clubs are one of the most important features of the site, but it's not included in the app.

Resources

There are tons of resources that are available on the website. They have people that will help with just about anything.  Most want a payment, but the payments involve helping them with something.  Reading their story, writing a critique, or commenting on a chapter are typical payments.  It's mostly about authors helping other authors.  People will help with advice, critiques, editing, cover design, and anything else you might think of.

Contests

There are several contests going on at once on this site. Some are better than

others. A few of them are very interesting.  The winners get prizes similar to the payments you would usually give out for resources.

The Clubs

These are basically messageboards. This is also where you can find the resources and contests I wrote about above. There are also writing discussions, writing games, book clubs, etc.