The Daily Scribble FAQs

What is The Daily Scribble?
The Daily Scribble is a new blogging adventure aimed at fellow writers with an interest in publishing, either as a career or because they finally want to put their baby out into the wider world. Check us out: http://scribblereview.blogspot.com/

What do you do?
The Daily Scribble has five main components.
1. The Daily Prompt – this is a creative writing prompt every day. Think of it as a challenge inspired by what we’ve either read or experienced during the hours between postings.

2. Literary Criticism and Review – this will often be attached to the prompt of the day, particularly if we read something that fits with the prompt. If the prompt is ‘travel’ related we might talk about Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ as an example of writing about travel. We’ll also try to show how writers achieve the effects that they do.

3. Constructive Criticism and Review – this is your chance to have your creative work feature on The Daily Scribble. If you are a short story writer or a poet, we would love to be allowed to read, display and review your work, complete with constructive criticism that you can then take with you into the editing process.

4. Writing Support – every writer is undergoing a constant process of development, especially those of us who have yet to publish anything. We will be investigating other writing blogs and websites and novels to try and compile a coherent set of writing resources so that you know the best places to go for tips, advice or

5. Creative Expression – we’ll also be posting up examples of our own work for you to consider, enjoy, deconstruct, criticise, ignore, judge or revile. These will usually be poems that stand as examples of what we’ve been talking about, our own response to the Daily Prompt or a teaser from a new project. You can expect

That’s an awful lot of stuff, how is this going to work?
We know that we’re being incredibly ambitious. Starting off with so many tasks is going to be challenge. However, we hope to make it accessible, readable and structured. We’re going to be adopting a schedule as of 06/02/2012 where by the following happens:
• Every Monday a new main ‘theme’ will be introduced – inspiring all the Daily Prompts for the week.
• Every Friday we will release an article based on the literary or publishing world (you can expect details on issues such as Amazon publishing, the influence of Kindle, the word on new releases etc).
• Daily Prompts will be done alphabetically, from A to Z (ie. Of Barbours & Books to Of Zara and Zealots). When we get to Z we will then take the remaining days of the month off so that we can plan what to do next. However, you can expect videos, images, quotes and random thoughts to still be posted during those days.
• We will create pages dedicated to Writing Support as we discover and learn about more resources that will be helpful for you.
• Only three writers will be selected each month for our Constructive Criticism and Review programme. We want to be able to fully dedicate ourselves to giving strong, useful suggestions, so for the time being we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew.
• One novelist will feature as the final recipient of our CCR-Programme, with a chapter being posted once every two weeks and a constructive review offered on each. The edited version will then appear when the writer has had time to go through and consider our suggestions. This way you can see how the editing process happens and the effect it has on the writing itself.

Why is this any different to all those other writing blogs out there?
In many ways, this may seem like yet another blog set up by amateurs and offering what you can find anywhere else. The difference comes primarily through our focus on the editing process and the development of your writing through traditional means. Writing is an art and every art needs practice even if you’re the most talented and creative person you’ve ever met. Our dedication and understanding that whatever is written today will be part of a new era of literature, further sets us apart. It is people like us that will go on to effect the publishing industry and the way that books are appreciated in the future.

How can I be involved?
Everyone is welcome to follow, comment and review on this blog. We’d love it if other people contributed or instigated discussions on what we’ve said, or even posted up a response to any of our creative prompts. At the moment, unless you’re one of our selected aspiring novelists or a selected Scribbler of writing.com, we will not be offering the chance to have your short stories or poems reviewed on The Daily Scribble until we are more comfortably set up.

Are you only offering reviews of Short Stories and Poems?
Yes. Although first chapters are also permitted as we rather like those. The only exceptions will be our selected novelist, which is a different process.

I want to be involved, to what email address should I submit my work?
Right now, all submissions will have to go through The Daily Scribble Forum hosted on writing.com. All submissions will be gone through by me.
You can find it here: http://www.writing.com/main/forums/item_id/1845997-The-Daily-Scribble

How does the Forum work?
Currently we would like writers to put forward a maximum of three pieces each month that they would like us to consider reviewing. We will then select one of these pieces depending on the theme of the week, how much work we think it needs and whether we believe it has the potential to really improve with our help. If we can, we will also offer reasons for why we chose that poem over the others you have submitted.
We will try to read all submissions and will respond to as many as possible stating why your work was not chosen. You may repeatedly post the same items although this is not recommended if we have given a short response stating why your work was not chosen unless you have made dramatic improvement or you can offer a reason why it should be included.

But what about this novel review stuff?
At the moment this is a closed question as we already have a novelist, Chesnaye Long, who has agreed to let us work with her novel ‘Eve of the Gods’, her NaNoWriMo Novel. After this, we hope to experiment by turning award-winning campfire Renegade Earth into a coherent novel format. With these completed the position will be open and we will likely create a system in order to decide how this process will work.

I want to be involved, are there any costs involved?
Absolutely not! In fact, if you’re a member of writing.com and you let us display and publically review your work, we’ll be giving you a signature image as a thank you for being brilliant, wonderful, fellow Scribblers!

How will I know if I’m selected?
All reviews will be posted here and on writing.com – all reviews will be first submitted to the author before publication on The Daily Scribble.

How will my work be displayed?
If you’re a poet then your poem will be featured as part of the post and a link attached at the end of the post to your original work on writing.com. Short Stories will be given a temporary page (will remain up until the next month) and a link will be posted up within the review itself. A short exposé on the author will also be included, at the author’s behest, which will then go onto a page dedicated to ‘Our Authors’. All names and all works reviewed will be mentioned, with a link attached on that page permanently.

What if I change my mind and don’t want my work displayed?
We’d really appreciate it if you only submitted work to the forum if you’re absolutely sure that you’re alright with a public review. Of course, if you do change your mind then we will respect your wishes and either not publish or remove your work.

If I’m not a writer on Writing.Com, can I submit my work?
At the moment we have chosen Writing.com members as the sole recipients of our Constructive Criticism and Review Programme. If you become a member of WDC we would then look over your portfolio of work and see if we think that your writing is up to the standard that we're looking for on The Daily Scribble. This is partly because the writers involved are already at a high standard and are se riously interested in following their work through to publication. The rest of it is simply because at the moment we want to stay small and really dedicate ourselves to offering the best advice that we can. This may well change in the future as we gain in confidence or size.

Why Writing.Com?
It felt like it was time to really start giving back. It was on writing.com that our work was first criticised and burned, the first place that it was awarded for its brilliance and the first chance it ever had to be read by those outside of immediate family. It helped us come to the realisation that writing is as much about reading other peoples work as it is about losing yourself in your own.The people we invite or who are recommended/accepted on The Daily Scribble are chosen because of their dedication to their craft, interest in the literary community, their high valuation of review and the fact that all are genuinely passionate about writing. We want people who are lead us to feel that they will make the most of any opportunity afforded to them and thus we want to open up our own little corner of the literary world to them.