Image source: Explore_More_UK on 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:
- The Ink Well Updates
- Winner from the July Contest!
- August 2022 Contest — 10-Hive Prize
- Find Us on Discord
- Delegate to The Ink Well / Follow Our Curation Trail
- Rules, Guidelines, Posting Frequency, etc.
- Creative Inspiration
The Ink Well Updates
We have some very exciting news! @itsostylish has joined our admin team! We are thrilled to have her, as she has a keen eye for fiction and a love of engagement and community building on Hive. You may have noticed her activity in the community. Please reach out to welcome her!
Winner from the July Contest!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our July contest, with stories and comments. You guys did great!
The contest rules involved writing one story in The Ink Well during the month of July inspired by the prompt explore.
Thank you to all participants:
@radenkusumo666, @fantom22, @popurri, and @gabmr.
Winner!
We have selected @popurri's story, A Dream of Carnations as the prize winner!
Congratulations to @popurri! You will receive 10 Hive.
August Contest!
As we announced in last month's contest, we are now awarding 10 Hive as the prize for the monthly contest. Ready to sharpen your pencil and get to work?
For the month of August, the prompt is wild!
You can do anything with this prompt that you wish. Whether you want to write about wild things, wild animals, wild places, or wild experiences, you are welcome to do so!
Ideas to inspire you (feel free to pick one, or come up with your own):
- Two people separately get lost in the wilderness at the same time, and help each other to find their way back.
- Two neighbors have a conflict. One likes a tidy garden with neatly trimmed hedges and the other has a garden that grows completely wild, encroaching on the tidy garden.
- A child secretly adopts a wild animal and cares for it without the parents knowing.
- A woman decides to conquer her fear of heights by taking a trip to a place that is only accessible by hot air balloon.
Here's how to participate:
Write one story this month in The Ink Well inspired by something wild.
Post a link to your story in a comment on this post.
At the end of the month, the author who produces the best story will receive 10 Hive!
Hint: We are looking for a high-quality story. Don't rush. Use the skills we have been emphasizing in our weekly prompts — great settings, good character building, strong dialog, and a good story arc that resolves well in the end.
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
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 also follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.
Rules, Guidelines, Posting Frequency, etc.
Source: geralt on Pixabay
Our Once-a-Week Posting Guideline
A few months ago we announced a new guideline of posting in The Ink Well no more than once-per-week.
We found this necessary as we work to eliminate spam, content farming and low-quality content from our community, and ensure that we have the resources to curate all the wonderful work that our wonderful community members publish.
What this means for you: Please use the once-a-week rule as a rough guideline. In other words, you do not need to wait a full 7 days to post again. If it's 5, 6, or 7 days, that's fine.
Refresher on The Ink Well Community Rules
We add this refresher to all of our monthly newsletters as a reminder.
If you're new, or you're not aware of our rules, please take the time to read them. If you are on a desktop or laptop computer, you can find them at the top of our community home page. You will also see them at the top of your post in The Ink Well if you hover over the blue "Rules" button. Can't see them? You can find the rules here.
The following are some of the rules that we commonly re-explain to unaware members:
- Do not post violent content. No stabbings, rapes, shootings, murders, brutality of women or children, etc. etc. And do not post anything NSFW (not safe for work). Why? Because we are a community that is open to anyone and everyone. And these topics and images are unpalatable or even traumatizing for some people. We also have no way of preventing children from viewing our community content. Please read our article on violence and brutality where we spell this out in very clear language.
- Please only post short stories in The Ink Well. That is the sole focus of our community. There are other communities for poetry, essays, freewriting, etc.
- Please do not post chapter stories or "multi-part" stories. The reason for this rule is so that readers do not need to have read a preceding or future piece in order to read and enjoy the current piece they are reading. Each piece must stand on its own, with a beginning, middle and end.
- We require images to be non-copyrighted (e.g. from sites like Pixabay, Pexels or Unsplash) and for your story to include a linked source for every image. If the images are your own, please be sure to make a note of it.
- Plagiarism and re-posting are not allowed. We only accept 100% unique, original content in The Ink Well that has not appeared elsewhere in any form. (The only exception is the story appearing simultaneously in multiple Hive front ends, like ecency, peakd, etc., which is of course fine.) This is to ensure that The Ink Well community follows the highest standards for content, and that rewards go to those who have developed and shared their own creative work in the community.
Rules Support and Protect Our Community
The goals of The Ink Well are to foster creativity and growth, and to help writers develop their writing skills and earn an income for their work. We want The Ink Well to be a safe and welcoming place for writers and readers. As community admins, we are staunch defenders of truth, honesty, and creative integrity.
Be sure to check out The Ink Well Manifesto, if you have never done so. It provides the mission of The Ink Well, information about rewards and income, and more information on our policies.
Community Involvement
No community is a true community without involvement and engagement! We ask that you read and comment on at least two other writers' work each week, or two for each story you publish in The Ink Well.
And remember that the rewards for Hive posts are split between the writer and the curators! You are paid to read and support other writers, just as you are paid to publish. Your support of others also builds your following.
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 prompt. Watch for them in The Ink Well on Monday nights. 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. 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.
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.
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.
@zeurich, @jayna, @felt.buzz, @marcybetancourt, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @agmoore, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @kirlos, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @deraaa.
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