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Foil & Phaser Workshops
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Only one week left to sign up for the next workshop. Don't wait or you'll miss out.
Just a reminder: There are only two days left to sign up for our next workshop. See the first post for contact details.
Do you have enough people or are there spaces to fill?
@DustinWe have the minimum to go ahead, but we always have room for more.
For anyone who doesn’t know yet, we run workshops to critique science fiction and fantasy writing. These workshops consist of peer evaluations of short fiction or chapters from longer works. Workshops are open to everyone as long as they are willing to offer their opinions of other’s work in return. All skill levels are welcome. Comments and submissions are kept confidential within the group.We would like you to help choose the format for our next workshop. Just select your preference in the poll here or add your own suggestion.
Foil & Phaser will be doing a new critique workshop soon. For more information, please see the first post.Those wishing to participate can fill out the contact form by May 18th, 2014.
The primary goal of the workshops is to develop writing skills, so original work is preferred. However, I don't have a problem with anyone submitting fanfic as long as you cite the original source and what you took from it (characters, setting, etc.). The work will not be published by us, so there are no copyright issues.
Kaleb wrote: "Okay, thank you! And I do have original work, so it won't be a problem."Kaleb: We are unable to verify your email. Google says it does not exist.
In the interest of getting more people to participate, I will be making my selection for this workshop public. I invite you to view the Google doc and see what we are about. You can even take part by leaving your own comment. I hope that demonstrating how the workshop operates will encourage new writers to sign up. We will be taking names for this workshop until May 18, 2014. You can find a sample of the workshop main page here with a link to my story.
Hey everybody, I just wanted to chime in. Since I have participated in the last two workshops I thought I could give you some insight, at least from my perception, regarding how these things work.Some of you may feel a little nervous about sharing your work with us, and I can understand why that anxiety may hold you back from signing up for these workshops. The thing is, sometimes you need someone else's point of view in order to strengthen your projects, but it's hard to find a group of people that share your love for the genre you are immersed in.
Essentially, we are just a community of writers, all with different aspirations, that want to improve. There is no malice behind our comments, nothing sinister motivating us to squash your dreams, we just want to help one another in anyways we can, and we all have different methods of doing so.
I could just ramble all day about how this could potentially help you, and how you could help someone else, but I'll just wrap this up by stating that I sincerely do not think you will regret joining us this month.
I wrote this pretty fast, so I apologize for any errors.
We’ve had some great successes with our workshops, and now it’s time to think about expanding them to longer works. What we’re proposing is to start a club for writers and beta readers where novels and novellas would receive the same kind of critical appraisal and peer review as we’ve done for short stories. Also, we realize that this is a lot of work, and not everyone is a writer, so we’ll be opening up this workshop (and all future workshops) to those who just want to read and comment. Because of the investment of time and energy that this would require, however, we’d like to get your feedback before going ahead. If this is something you might be interested in, please check out this post.
If short stories are more your thing, there are still a couple of days to sign up for our current workshop. The link is two posts up on this thread.
@Dustin We have enough, but we can always use one more. You would have until May 28th at the latest to get something in, or you can help out by reading and commenting this time. Just leave a note in the comment box of the sign-up form that you're only reviewing, not submitting. The next short story workshop likely won't be until late June/ early July.
Foil & Phaser will be starting a new short story / novel chapter critique workshop soon. Those wishing to participate can fill out the contact form by August 13th, 2014.
Sounds like fun. My month looks like it'll continue being a crunch so I think I'll have to sit this one out but it's ^_^ inducing to see something like this.
Tesla wrote: "Sounds like fun. My month looks like it'll continue being a crunch so I think I'll have to sit this one out but it's ^_^ inducing to see something like this."We'll try to have another one next month, and we'll be repeating our version of NaNoWriMo again this November.
I can't wait for Divide and Conquer again! I loved doing it last year!
Sophie wrote: "I can't wait for Divide and Conquer again! I loved doing it last year!"We've given away over 400 copies of that ebook. I might have to do a sequel to my fantasy parody.
:) I really liked that story. I think I'll do something entirely new myself.
Hello everyone. As we pass the second anniversary of Foil & Phaser, I thought I would give everyone a heads up on what was happening.When I first envisioned a blog for Sword & Laser writers, it was with the support and contributions of the community. It was to be a place to share short genre fiction and writers resources, as well as opinions and expertise. Stories, feedback, advice, support.
As time wore on, however, the few people who had signed on drifted away leaving only me to administer the blog. At the same time, authors were very reluctant to post on the site out of embarrassment or due to a desire to publish elsewhere. Recently, Sword & Laser began running their own feature reviews, further cutting into our pool of potential posts.
The most successful part of Foil & Phaser would have to be the workshops, but even they have had severe problems as of late. Enrollment has stagnated, and the latest NaNoWriMo project failed to attract more than a handful of people, most of whom disappeared without even submitting any work, causing me to abandon the project entirely.
Taking all these factors into consideration I’ve found it difficult to justify the time and effort needed to keep running the site. It cannot continue as is, so that leaves me with the choice of either letting it die, or redoubling my efforts and investing more resources, including my own money, into promoting and managing the site. To be honest, that may be more than I am able to do given my current circumstances.
So before I make a final decision, I am going to ask the people of this community whether there is even any desire to continue operating Foil & Phaser as a place for workshopping short fiction and as a writers resource. Please let me know in the comments below, and thank you for your patience and understanding.
That's too bad. I checked the site about a month ago hoping to submit something just for fun and noticed there hadn't been a post in months. I'd thought it was defunct or on its way to being defunct. Personally, I'd like to see it continue. If you'd like me to submit, I'd be delighted to contribute.
I like what the site wants to do. I like that the site exists. I like the idea of being able to match writers with people who can read for them (whether they're other writers or not). But I can understand that the upkeep is high.
Dwayne wrote: "That's too bad. I checked the site about a month ago hoping to submit something just for fun and noticed there hadn't been a post in months. I'd thought it was defunct or on its way to being defu..."I should be making a final decision within the next few weeks, but the site will remain up indefinitely as an archive for the past stories, regardless of the outcome. You can submit if you'd like. We still have a couple of hundred subscribers via various channels.
terpkristin wrote: "I like what the site wants to do. I like that the site exists. I like the idea of being able to match writers with people who can read for them (whether they're other writers or not). But I can und..."Thanks. I thought it was a great idea too, but I don't think that there is enough interest within the S&L community alone to sustain it. If it is to continue, it has to grow, and that means getting new people involved.
If there was less interest, I would simply end it, call it a learning experience, and move on to something else. However, it sits right in that awkward space between failure and success where it could go either way. I would like it to continue. It's fun, productive, and a good learning experience.
If people are shy about publishing in a place that Google can find you can password protect the site and allow people to create accounts. If it's a Wordpress account and you want a hand with that PM me.
Rick wrote: "If people are shy about publishing in a place that Google can find you can password protect the site and allow people to create accounts. If it's a Wordpress account and you want a hand with that P..."Thank you for the offer, but it's not necessary. The workshops are already run on shared Google Docs with the links hidden behind a password wall. It's a system that allows for a minimum amount effort from the participants and preserves their privacy.
My concerns were about the waning participation in the workshops and the public face of the blog. I had originally envisioned several posts per week with a mix of writing advice, reviews, and short stories, but that failed to materialize. For the moment, I'm just trying to gauge whether there is enough interest to continue with the workshops.
Foil & Phaser will be doing a new critique workshop for February. The submissions will not be published, so this is the perfect opportunity to get feedback on a piece that has been giving you trouble, to tame your NaNoWriMo beast, or for new writers to get involved. All writers will send in either a short story, novel chapter, or the equivalent (under 7500 words) by the due date (to be determined). Two or three of the stories will be posted each week and all the members of the group will have an opportunity to comment. All skill levels from beginner to professional are invited to join. If you wish to remain anonymous, just use a pen name and make a free gmail/hotmail/yahoo/etc. email account. Priority will be given to those who are previous workshop participants or are members of The Sword & Laser group on Goodreads. A minimum of six people must sign up or the workshop will be cancelled.
Those wishing to participate can fill out the contact form by February 5th.