I think it's really gone for good. www.writingup.com was an excellent community for the newbie blogger. I started my first blog there over a year ago, and found that I loved blogging, more for the interaction than I would have thought. We had book discussions and debates, we linked each other and had games. Writing Challenges abounded and people actually got to know one another, more than only by screen moniker.
I've been checking back there from time to time, having made the switch to blogger a while ago, when it seemed destined that the site would eventually be gone for good. In the last few months that site became like a ghost town, a few of the bloggers hung around trying to maintain what we had all built together... Yes, I know John built the site - but anyone could have done what he did, it was the rare commodity of writers with spirit, ideas, and a willingness to openly share without looking for the mythical gold that was promised and only, if made at all, deposited into the site owner's paypal accounts... Well, over the last week I've attempted to stop at some of my favorite old blogs a number of times and the site has not been up at all... not that this is news for writingup, but I tend to doubt at this point that it will ever return.
It was, as I said, a great place to learn. I met more wonderful writers there than I could believe, landed my first paying gigs through references and resources found within the blogs, and had better literary and process discussions than I was able to find since college days... If you look in my blog roll you'll see a number of blogs that are on writingup - hopefully I can replace all of those with the blogger's new sites, because they are all fantastic... If you're stopping by and I haven't got you yet, drop me a link.
For me, I'm bowing my head in a small moment of silence to that little corner of cyberspace that gave me so much to ponder, and new ways to interact in writing...
10 comments:
in memory....
it was indeed a place to learn for me. even though I am not a writer, everyone there was super encouraging about the writing I did, even if just for blogging challenges! it was a way for me to share what I knew and lived, and in return, I learned so much more about so many things, even to think outside my own perceptions, and got me to look outside these four walls I live in each day. It was a great place.
have you heard about the new place that some are going to try out?
Hi Stacey,
I miss the writing challenges :-(
Yes, Sharon sent me an invitation for the new place and I looked but haven't enrolled yet - it looks identicle to wu, but I guess the bloggers get 70% of their adsense money.. I'm thinking about enrolling there, too, but I'm kind of getting used to blogger and I'm not concerned about it staying around.
Are you going to join there?
Quite sad, a moment of silence for WritingUp. I think I got most of my blogs from there, sigh. I missed a few, but I did copy my entire blog and ensuing flame war with latinabunny8...it made me giggle.
I feel slightly adrift without WU. At least blogger won't be going anywhere anytime soon, but I'm missing the interaction (and the recent comments.) Blogger feels so random.
I've signed up at myspace, but I'm still unsure about the interface. It's great that everyone has been leaving me comments, but I don't know how to reply to them. Pbbbbthththth.
What's the other "new" place writinguppers are going to?
Hi Q-Mama
The new place is Communati It was put together by Mark, an associate of Gracepub, and there are already a few familiar writingup faces around those parts... I think I'm sticking with this blog, as I'm starting to get the hang of networking on the wider web and I don't think I want to go back to only the small community... though I did love the community feel there - the downside was that, as a writer, there were only a handful of fiction writers, though a lot of freelance writers to learn from... I'm more interested in networking with fiction writers right now... I might look at starting a blog there just to participate in discussions and maybe do some writing challenges... but then, I might start some writing challenges here... I guess we'll have to see.
HI Merry, I came to check on you with the intention of tagging you for the thinking blogger links going around. I see that you have made others think also, so I won't include you on my post.
I can hardly bear that there is no more writing up. I am sure from your comments above that you know I am at the communati site already. Even if you don't devote yourself there like we all did at writing up, you should sign up. I think there will be discussions that you will want to join and I know I want you to bring your point of view to our new village.
I'm just grateful for the people I met, and the information gleaned from WU. Seriously, I never learned so much about freelance anywhere else. Not that I'm actively pursuing it yet, as my dream is to be a working novelist. But I sort of feel that I know what to do when I'm ready. Not so much the details of the actual writing (SEO is still so foreign to me, despite all the pro advice), but I feel that I understand the business.
Now that I know where to find most of my favorite people elsewhere, my main regret is that most of my adsense revenue came from WU. I'm even starting to see a bit of a community developing on blogger- I didn't know that was possible!
I'll probably start a revenue stream blog somewhere else eventually, but for now, I'm focusing on my fiction. Do you know of any fiction based communities worth looking into?
Hi Wordvixen,
It depends what genre you're writing in. I've been dabbling at compuserve, which has a great writer's community. I'm working on ya and they have a group called kidcrit which is great - both unpublished and multipublished authors are active there. You're allowed to put up your own chapters and queries for critique as long as you work on critiquing others as well... there are other writing groups there as well that don't center on children's literature.
Societies are also a good place to network with other fiction writers, publishers, and editors... look at writer's market for a good one to fit your needs...
I knew it had to happen sooner or later, but it's still a shame. I "met" so many wonderful writers on WU. I really don't have the time for another blog, but I may have to check out communati anyway. Or may be I'll finally succumb to myspace. I like blogger, but I miss a community.
I have only heard of this site secondhand through other writers. Sadly, I seem to have missed out on an opportunity.
Hi Ralph,
I don't think I'll be signing up at communati - never say never, I might sign up just to be able to participate with all of your blogs there... But I don't think I'll post there at all - I just don't have time to try to stay on top of both blogs and while that set up is great for community it also tends to isolate you from the rest of the web, where livejournal and blogger really don't. But I'll definitely be stopping in and I'll be changing all of the links on my blogroll to reflect all of your new blogs.
jerseygirl,
I miss the community, too, just the fact that you could follow all of the comments to find posts and it was more conducive to conversation... but, like you, I can't do more than one blog right now... I've already got my hands full with freelance and my revisions and barely post enough here.
Laura,
It was a very nice community, especially for those of us who never blogged before - there were a ton of tech savvy bloggers that went out of their way to help newbies... I learned everything I know about html there, got tips on freelance, and made a lot of very great online friends. Writingup.com actually came back online yesterday, but they seem to have deleted all of our old posts (there were a lot of very prolific bloggers there, so it's more than a little disheartening) I don't know if they'll fix that or if those posts and past writers are just gone forever, but I don't think a lot of the standard users will go back to that site, it's proved too unstable. The link in comments above is to a new site, communati, that is set up the same way with a bunch of the old bloggers joining in - you might want to check that one out if you're interested in community blogging.
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