Sta.sh
Every Sunday this article will aim to promote volunteer opportunities, various resources, prompts, challenges, and workshops, as well as highlighting various contests, and spotlighting a specific group or project for two weeks. This is by no means a complete list of all the literature going-ons, merely a tool to help you get involved and stay informed.
A Smattering of Lit News
h thats really great......... Tails: Why arent you ha
Exactly what it sounds like
—okay, not really. Most of you have lovely consciences and kiss your mothers every night before bed, I'm sure!
But the rest of us are gonna have some fun in the meantime.No quotes necessary. Just debate.
My background isn't in literature at all, but being a hardheaded, opinionated bundle of joy, I get off to this kind of thing. I'm inviting all of you to chime in on an issue that surely has no right answer, regardless of whether or not you've studied it or experienced it or whatever. It's the Internet, dude.
So what the hell is free writing, anyway? Free writing, often confused with 'stream of consciousness' (think Faulkner and Salinger, among others) is the process of writing down whatever comes to your head without any sort of prior planning. While I maintain that some thought can go into the process as it's happening, some people insist it should be entirely the outpouring of one's emotions at the time.
But what's the debate? Okay, so you've got this thing that people use sometimes. Maybe when they need to vent, or when they need to get over a bout of not being able to write anything, or maybe they're just brainstorming. That free writing by itself has some utility, I don't doubt. (I've rarely done it, but it's been useful in getting out darlings I just couldn't bring myself to kill.) Anyway, the real issue comes when we question the value of the products from such an exercise.
Does free writing on its own have value, or does it have to be edited to be meaningful?
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Ad hominem arguments automatically get a 
. Look, I don't care what the fuck you were thinking. It's not cool and it's not productive. The point of me doing this in a journal, instead of the forums as usual, is to create a safer space for those of you who are intimidated by the forums, or don't generally feel comfortable supporting an argument on logic alone when everyone else is going around citing their sources (like a boss).
That said, you can be as Wikipediatastic as you like. Dude, citing sources is awesome. I'm making this very informal so it's not necessary, but if you've got books or stories or poems to reference, by all means do so! Even better if you can link to a place they're available online, for those of us who spend all day staring at a computer as our brains slowly seep out, but whatever. I'll make that library trip if I have to.
Last rule: by posting here, you are inviting anyone to challenge your views. If you have a serious problem making conversations like a grownup when someone doesn't agree with you, this is not the place for you. See above, re: ad hominem dick kicks. I can and I will. But anyway, please don't be afraid to be the minority opinion! I'm planning to Devil's Advocate everything—to the point where I refuse to reveal what side I fall on here (I'm sure I've mentioned it before elsewhere)—so you've got at least one supporter. Maybe.
I'll argue with you, too. 
)
Ranting is great: Without rants we just wouldn't be able to get all our problems out of our heads would we? We build up all this anger and infatuation and nobody likes being that angry. Nobody wants problems and society believes that if we tell our problems to other people we can get over them. So rant, tell the world your problems. Maybe better than that you can go and on about something you have a problem with, or love very much instead of having a problem. It's great for people to hear your voice and you should completely and utterly continue to go on and on and on about what you have to say because if you feel you have more to say about something and that other people should know this something as well - let them know it.
You know, after opinion #2 I think you should probably try and find a middle ground somewhere, to suit you you know (and your speaking/reading speed (you do need to breath between sentences remember)).
On the other hand, knee-jerk reactions can make one come off as a total jackass. A good example of this is the Complaints forum--badly thought out opinions will get called out there pretty fast, and the usual response is defensiveness.
My long promised poetry vs prose is up next in about 15 minutes (hopefully)
Ooooh.
Now, my first opinion: "Ranting is great".
And my second opinion: "Ranting is terrible" (be very warned, this opinion comes in the form of a rant 'just' to juxtaposition everything and, rather frankly, because I also feel like it). Wow, I'm just going to rant, I don't to need worry about what I say, how I say it or who I said it too (mostly because people lose interest rather fast). I don't need to worry about purposely words misplaced because I'm just saying it, rather writing it, as I go. I wonder how mayn typo's I cna purposely gte in one sentence because I haven't actually thought ahead and, if I go any longer, I'll surely run out of breath and look like a complete numpty in front of everybody here! Either that or you've had practice at this. iT would be so great to go back to the start of this paragraph and just look at all the problems with it and fix everything and then sit back and then it will be great. And then it won't look like part of a child's language acquisition paper supposed to be handed in a few days back. "And then, and then, and then, and then, and then".
Hey, it is perfectly possible to write a rant that isn't a totally typo'd mess! Case in point: my blogs. Now, if I'd spent more time on them, they'd be more tightly focused. But they're not that rambly. I think.
Also, everything I've posted here gets sat on for a day even when it is rantier.
I'm planning to! But I haven't solidifed what the next one should be yet.
The forum's been blocked?!