Hello Contributors, Subscribers and Supporters,
It's been an exciting month for The Ink well with the launch of the Summer Poetry and Fiction Challenges and the first showcase Posts. This newsletter reviews what's happening, looks at some ideas for the future and talks about how you can help.
The Ink Well has also had a visit from @raj808, founder of the community. He's given an update on his activities in his latest post. Other things have priority at present, but we look forward to seeing him now and then. He was inspired to join in this week's Challenge - here's his entry.
Summer Writing Challenges and Building The Ink Well
We've had a fantastic response to the weekly Challenges, one for fiction and one for poetry. We've had high quality writing for both and poetry is especially popular. Contributors are enjoying the opportunity to write regularly and many new accounts are getting the chance to earn rewards for creative writing.
The Ink Well has the potential to become a go-to destination on the Internet for stunning poetry and story-telling, attracting people who come to read and enjoy good writing. The new facility to tip a post forever brings an opportunity for writers to keep on earning way beyond the seven day payout period.
One of the most interesting planned developments for PeakD is guest accounts that can comment and vote right away. Combined with tipping, this is perfect for The Ink Well! People will be able to come and read your story or poem, enjoy it and reward you without ever having to become involved in Hive - unless they want to. PeakD already has some fabulous features that we can use to build the community and showcase its work. Please vote to support the PeakD proposal, if you haven't already.
Because there is such a huge opportunity to build The Ink Well as a place to come for reading and enjoying poetry and story-telling, we are asking that contributors post exclusive content to The Ink Well. The community rules state no re-posting and the curation policies request that content is not published anywhere else, including other Hive communities. The Ink Well doesn't curate cross-posts. This way The Ink Well has unique content that cannot be found anywhere else - a huge attraction.
Writing Tips, Writing School and November Writing Prize
The Ink Well has a steadily growing storehouse of writing tips, already covering many aspects of story-telling including plot-writing and narrative structure - one of the challenges that story-tellers often struggle with. The writing tips are available, free of charge, to everyone. If there's an area that you'd like help with, leave a comment here or on one of the writing tips and we'll try and feature it in a future post.
One of the developments we are looking at for the Autumn is a writing school with webinars and assignments leading to a giant writing prize in November for fiction up to 2,000 words. We've chosen November to tie in with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which is when writers commit to completing 30,000 words, or a thousand words a day, towards a novel.
There is a lot of preparation to get to the stage of writing a novel or a prize-winning short story and the writing school will focus on that - coming up with story ideas, plotting, creating characters and getting a writing routine are some of the topics. You might want to write a novel, or you might want to complete some short stories to publishing standard as part of the competition. We'll have more news about this in the July newsletter.
The Ink Well Community
The Ink Well is a niche, specialist community. It is growing nicely with 500 subscribers at the end of May. That puts The Ink Well not far outside the top 30 communities on Hive. About 20% of subscribers were active in the community, with roughly five interactions each, and about three pending rewards per active contributor. Each of the Challenges has had between fifteen and twenty-five entries each week.
The Ink Well account (@theinkwell) was pretty busy during the month, publishing twenty-two posts with 208 replies and making 216 comments. We publish three regular posts each week, plus the monthly newsletter and occasional posts about external writing competions and other things of interest to subscribers.
Look at this busy month with 22 posts and 208 replies!
We would love to see more multi-media posts with videos or sound recordings of contributors reading their story or poem, as well as the written version. Some of the posts are already beautifully presented with carefully chosen images (some created especially for the post) and the minimum of anything that might distract from the writing. A recording of a reading by the writer will add richness and another dimension to The Ink Well.
In the future, we shall be looking at ways that writers can collaborate - building on the Torundel experience - and how story-telling can be used in many different ways including comics, film-making and games, bringing together story-tellers, artists, film-makers and developers. This is a long-term plan that we will start looking at later in the year, but even now there is an opportunity in The Ink Well to WIN 250 Hive for a short thriller/horror story!
Which Accounts Benefit from The Ink Well?
We can see from the pie chart that a greater proportion of smaller accounts benefit from The Ink Well, helping to share the ownership and value of Hive.
Accounts are classified according to the amount of Hive Power (HP) they hold. Very roughly: Redfish have less than 500HP, Minnows 501-4,999HP, Dolphins 5,000-49,999HP, Orcas 50,000-499,999HP and Whales 500,000+HP.
chart and table courtesy of @abh12345
We can see from the chart that The Ink Well really is the place to be for aspiring writers, a home where you can develop and practice your storytelling skills and build your account and ownership of Hive. We would love to see every account grow to dolphin status with a 5,000HP stake.
This video by @jongolson suggests that, as well as posting regularly, the way to grow your account is to set some goals and, really importantly, to write them down - old school on a piece of paper. He suggests that a key goal is to make 5 comments each day on posts by other people, gradually building your network over time.
STOP PRESS: @jongolson has just posted a more detailed presentation of how to build to 5,000HP through setting a goal of 5 engagements a day.
The Ink Well has set up the programme of Summer prompts to provide writers with a regular opportunity to develop their writing, increase their Hive ownership while they build their skills, and grow their network by reading, voting and commenting on other writers' posts.
Let's grow the community together!
The Ink Well Subscribers
The Ink Well has now, at the time of writing, 561 subscribers, all of them with an interest in creative writing and helping The Ink Well to grow. In addition to posting, voting and commenting, here are three simple ways subscribers can support The Ink Well:
- follow the @theinkwell community account and never miss a post again.
- give a regular upvote to @theinkwell posts to help sustain the community.
- reblog the Showcase posts to your followers.
Thank you for joining The Ink Well,
@carolkean, @jayna, @shanibeer and @stormlight24
@marvic-1194, @biggypauls, @picsart, @emrysjobber, @esther-dee, @ocd-witness, @abkevwe, @powerfulwonders, @mjesusvictor, @onyechi, @michellesamson, @jsalvage, @desinyfaith, @bothanikha, @phabi, @sohailsid858, @olusolaemmanuel, @usenflourish, @fatherfaith, @vincentnijman, @mesonia, @okikithegreat, @humdingerpaul, @michellesamson, @cfrassineti, @tokepengsiribe, @feriaml123, @talktofaith, @pokerm, @memesforhive, @one-eye, @rodrook, @josie2214, @davo2020, @eve66, @jaalig, @morenaluna, @muntaharaceh, @giftedwrites, @sir.skillful1, @kayda337, @tuwore, @zeezeebeauties24, @emiliocabrera, @lebey1, @nemere, @kristyglas, @iyimoga, @mandate, @temmytopeh, @nmalove, @smh01, @johnkelvindion, @beechainz,@zhines, @kasvic, @bookoons, @botefarm, @daniel-otaniel, @dmilliz, @meakey, @stephennevets, @nigerian-yogagal, @momogrow, @mabeledwin, @bbbbtt55, @bongee, @profgabs05, @jeah, @evagavilan, @brittandjosie, @oduduokopide, @clicker, @udezee, @godlovermel25, @p2hive, @toothsome, @gracielaacevedo, @dee-y, @debbie-ese, @iamdanny, @goodguys, @anikys3reasure, @yenti. @scooby.doo, @unique7, @glass.wolf, @rokhani, @tolustx, @gaeljosser, @pejupops, @luiscardiet, @minox-minoty, @hlezama, @sterlingesthy, @antonette, @ritaaugustin, @successagozie, @berrylois, @lordnigel, @karishmasingh711, @hoffypanda, @yanga, @mehmetfix, @bigtom13, @trojan4, @triverse, @mhejoanna, @introvertcarl, @benie111, @vivogor, @kaerpediem, @aricheta, @kingjrn, @josemalavem, @jrico, @juanvegetarian, @jacksondavies, @christybliss, @diodio, @jogger, @adechina, @deyoungattorney, @seadbeady, @arrliinn, @intensely, @tobiloba1954, @zareceerine, @dadapizza, @racemlaadhar, @peacewealth, @amkn6590, @soft-touch, @nadhora, @perosky1, @royalrose, @kulzz1137, @bettanianmd, @abkevwe, @romeskie, @violet-flames, @loydjayme25, @czera, @ailindigo, @evacortez, @cleew44, @aibeluz, @thiird, @seesladen, @joh227, @tgenedavis, @miguelbaez, @unknownpsycho, @jemzem, @iamjadeline, @k-banti, @jurich60, @fafddon, @theserenity,@breezin, @jotakrevs, @hillarypowers, @wasifbhutto, @heeyahnuh, @fisteganos, @imaluv54, @memaris0812, @azhardesk, @mariandavp, @sward, @sabfuentes. @chasedreams, @yoes, @tosintosdam, @ilukzymoore, @stephany11, @michelle.gent, @edelweird, @jakim7, @jaybabs, @sammiegold, @furious-one, @ebingo, @ayashabd, @suzn.poudel, @zion-francis, @pjpavan, @pikkio10, @sirpee6, @tolukeys, @imbigdee, @donnest, @also.einstein, @sufyaan-duggan, @toskabilly, @amakanelson, @nubchai, @johnolusegun, @rebeccafl, @sheffieldabella, @juaninfante, @beckie96830, @otom, @nuella, @joeylim, @folakere, @jeanlucsr, @oredebby, @geneva.vector, @humor0404, @drollguillotine, @sheagar, @robert1704, @kolawole, @opatricinho, @sullijay1, @sebastian25, @radiv, @angusg, @mami.sheh7, @nauval, @sammy21, @parima, @himshweta, @ianperic, @rootdraws, @dimsyto, @bellapris, @hungryharish, @benjie0988, @jayce-ag, @adelepazani, @dep2001, @zkalemiss, @davosimple, @isacrist59, @kodeblaccc, @equeqtra, @youhavewings, @mariajruizb, @maxwellelisha19, @dawnndusk, @ghostfish, @tel.empathy, @jacobts, @getencored, @designieplay, @thisismylife, @pearlie, @faeryboots, @janetyvitz, @uyobong, @promzyelisha, @sharanaithal, @heri25, @martinstomisin, @danieldedosd2, @endee, @donnadavisart, @slobberchops, @hardikv, @goiinmary, @biggijay, @djennyfloro, @elfypunk, @feoluwart, @uttambarman, @greatness96, @rainite, @neyxirncn, @aguadz, @jeaniepearl, @tristancarax, @solomonsojay, @badfinger, @wrsd54, @wakkylyon, @morphosismind, @janaveda, @shanibeer, @joeconuco21, @jcrodriguez, @satari, @felix8, @gooze, @prayzz, @priyanarc, @marcisist, @lilknownfact, @penauthor, @zayedsakib, @lotusfleur, @rosanita. @kahlyfa, @arinalifestyle, @rosecane, @freedomteam2019, @vcelier, @hazem91, @llegion, @eturnerx, @praise-eu, @nicjulius, @johnkelvindion
Unsubscribe from The Ink Well
We would like to invite lovers of poetry and short stories to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and run by @shanibeer and @stormlight24 with support from moderators @carolkean and @jayna.
It is now possible to follow The Ink Well curation trail on Hive blockchain with Hive.Vote. Simply navigate to the curation trail section and search for theinkwell and our trail will pop up as an option.
If you wish to delegate to @theinkwell and support creative writing on Hive, you can do this from the wallet section in PeakD.
A big thank you for our delegations from:
@agmoore @felt.buzz @iamraincrystal @kaelci @owasco @riverflows @shanibeer @trucklife-family
Click banner to visit our community page
Find us on twitter by clicking the banner above.