Image source: Pixabay
First, a word of appreciation for all in the community who have been posting stories, providing feedback on one another's posts, and helping our community to grow and thrive! Thank you!
Okay, onto the news. Here are the topics in this newsletter:
- Reflecting on 2022 — The Ink Well Hits Its Stride!
- Housekeeping Notes and Reminders
- Winners from the December Contest!
- January 2023 Contest — 10-Hive Prize + 2nd and 3rd Place Prizes
- Find Us on Discord
- Creative Inspiration
- Delegate to The Ink Well / Follow Our Curation Trail
Reflecting on 2022 — The Ink Well Hits Its Stride!
The end of a year is always a special time. As we slide into the new one, we reflect on what we learned in the past year, how we grew, and what we would like for the year ahead.
We felt it, and perhaps you did too. The Ink Well was ready for some updates, and we therefore made some important adjustments in 2022 to freshen things up. In summary:
- We added Creative Nonfiction to the content we accept in our community, and it has been lovely. We are all opening our hearts and minds and sharing our quirky lives, our memories, and the events that have shaped who we are. It's wonderful getting to know our community members through the lens of personal storytelling, and to see how many of you have stretched your skills by trying out this interesting genre.
- We lightened up on our restrictions around violence. We still request that our community members continue to avoid any graphic violence, as well as rape, incest, brutality, and truly disturbing content, keeping in mind that our community members are of all ages and walks of life. This includes children and those who have experienced violence and trauma, and can be profoundly affected by disturbing images and content. Thank you for honoring our wishes!
- We ran a survey, and one of the consistent requests from respondents was more feedback on stories. So we are providing tips where it seems helpful to assist writers in building and fine-tuning their writing skills. Thank you for your feedback, and for your willingness to learn. You guys are awesome!
- We opened up our Discord server with channels for chatting about writing and whatever you like, as well as a channel for asking questions of The Ink Well team, and a channel for post promotion.
- We launched a program to reward the truly exceptional work of the most gifted and dedicated writers in our community with a "Golden Quill" to celebrate their achievements.
Our community hit its stride in 2022. Today, we are a solid Hive community, and we feel the commitment and energy of our members as we continue building our creative presence. Thank you to everyone who contributed to building our community, through posting and engagement!
Housekeeping Notes and Reminders
There are a few things that we'd like to provide as reminders, as these are common issues.
Please be sure to use the appropriate tags:
- #fiction for fictional stories
- #creativenonfiction for non-fiction stories
- #inkwellprompt for all stories written for prompts in The Ink Well
This is important because a) it's not always easy to tell the difference between fiction and nonfiction (and readers consider its merit accordingly), and b) it makes it possible to search for those tags when we review stories for winning entries.
Remember to add your story link to a comment on the prompt post
If you are entering a story into one of our fiction or nonfiction contests, you must add a link to your story in the comments.
We try to catch all entries as we list the participants and winners, but it is extra work for us to find those who have not added their link to a comment on the prompt post and we do not always find them. If you miss this step, you may miss out on being considered for contest prizes.
Winners from the December Contest!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our December fiction contest, with stories and comments. As always, we received some great stories!
The contest rules involved writing one story in The Ink Well during the month of December inspired by the prompt Celebrate.
Thank you to all participants!
Winners!
Here are our three winners for the December, 2023 contest. All three of these stories are nothing short of spectacular!
We have selected @seki1's story, The Last Day as the prize winner! Congratulations to @seki1! You will receive 10 Hive.
In second place, we have selected @kemmyb's story, Deceptive Appearances. Congratulations to @kemmyb! You will receive 6 HBI.
In third place, we have selected @popurri's story: The Unexpected End of Year. Congratulations to @popurri! You will receive 4 HBI.
Honorable mentions:
Thank you, all!
January Contest!
Get ready to put your creativity to work! For January we will award a first place price of 10 Hive, second place of 5 Hive, and third place of 4 HBI for the monthly contest.
For the month of January, 2023, the fiction prompt is fortress!
What can you do with this prompt? Here are a few ideas:
- Tell a story about the attempt by one community to bar its doors against another. Does it pay off or result in devastation?
- Write about a character who has hardened their heart after being hurt, and what finally breaks that fortress down.
- Tell a sci-fi story about two sparring space kingdoms and how they seek to forge a bond or win complete dominion over their galaxy.
Remember to include the important elements of good fiction, including character building, conflict, a story arc, and the important storytelling skill of integrating action, dialogue and narrative.
Contest Rules
Write one story this month in The Ink Well inspired by the word "fortress."
Post a link to your story in a comment on this post.
Use the #inkwellprompt and #fiction tags on your post.
At the end of the month, we will choose three winners.
Hint: We are looking for a high-quality story. Don't rush. Be sure to use the skills we highlight in our weekly fiction prompts — great settings, good character building, strong dialog (which is often missing from stories we receive), and a good story arc that resolves well in the end.
And finally, we recommend using our tips in the article Help for the Grammatically Challenged to identify errors in your story before posting.
Good luck!
Find Us on Discord
Our Discord server is a great place to chat with other community members about the craft of writing.
Please pop into our Welcome channel, read our guidelines for conduct, and then feel free to interact with other community members or ask The Ink Well Team a question in the #ask-theinkwell channel.
Discord invitation link: https://discord.gg/Bng7mMsaQj
Creative Inspiration and Skill Building
Source: Myriams_fotos on Pixabay
In The Ink Well, we're not just about posting content and getting rewards. We are about building skills that help you earn the best possible rewards because your readers love to read your stuff!
We are here to nudge you to strive for greatness. You know how it feels when someone says, "Wow, just wow! I loved your story!" That's what it's all about. And the good news is that the rewards follow. If people love your work, they give you great upvotes. They seek you out. They want more of your creative content. And curation accounts like Curie, which we utilize and support, will give you the best possible upvotes too.
So what are you waiting for? Use our resources to build your skills and improve your writing. Here are some of the resources we provide:
- Creative inspiration
We encourage and support ideas and creativity by publishing a weekly fiction contest prompt on Monday nights, and a weekly creative nonfiction contest prompt on Saturdays. Additionally, we have a nearly inexhaustible list of ideas to spur your writing. And these resources are included in every weekly prompt for reference: 50 Loglines, 50 Story Ideas, and 50 Imagination Ticklers - Skill building opportunities
We have a great catalog of fiction writing tips that can help any writer learn and grow. You can learn about characters, conflict, scene building, dialog and more. We hope you take advantage of it. And here are some important tips that can help you improve your writing craft:
-- Draft your content in Google docs, or use Google docs for spell checking and syntax checking. It is very easy to do and it is explained in the post Help for the Grammatically Challenged.
-- Make sure your story has the key elements of a story, including character development, scene setting, dialog, action, a conflict, and a resolution. (A story arc is especially important for fiction, of course.) We provide resources to help you with all of these important fiction elements in our catalog of fiction writing tips.
-- Review your work before posting. You will most likely find a missing word, a grammatical error, a misspelling or a sentence that does not start with a capital letter, etc.
Thank you for reading our newsletter! We are here to encourage you and help you on your writing journey.
Delegate to The Ink Well / Follow Our Curation Trail
Want to support our community, our contests, and our rewards for great quality content? See the table below. We have made it super easy. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We have a goal to continue increasing the support we give to our wonderful, hardworking and dedicated authors!
You can follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.
We welcome delegations! These support our community in many ways, including helping us to provide support to quality content creators through curation and contests.
@jayna, @felt.buzz, @zeurich, @marcybetancourt, @agmoore, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @seeger, @samsmith1971, @itsostylish, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2, and @popurri.
We invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo, @yaziris and @itsostylish.
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