Posted March 16, 2012
Hello, GOGers! I'm here to introduce Tweets What I Wrote, a charitable writing project - effectively the idea is to create an anthology of short stories by a collaboration of anonymous writers, with the ultimate aim of selling it for charity.
However, there's a twist. The stories themselves will not be ideas the writers come up with - we're leaving the ideas up to the members of the public. As the name entails, this will mostly be done by twitter with people tweeting us story ideas (though we will also accept submissions by email and facebook, but tweeting is favoured). Any ideas that pass our Submission Guidelines get chucked into a hat and drawn out for the writers to get stuck into. The writing will be a gradual process - the idea is to have a team of ten writers, each concentrating on one story at a time, so ten stories on the go at once. Two of those stories will appear on the website (as a sort of 'sampler' and also to show progress), the remaining eight will be collated towards the book. Each writer will eventually produce six stories, 60 in total - 48 for the book, 12 for the website, though this is subject to change - we may want more for the website and less for the book, or vice-versa. The book, after being formatted and edited, will be put up for sale digitally (on Amazon, Lulu, Nook and potentially directly via the website) and if interest is high enough, produced physically, with all proceeds (minus costs for physical prints) going to charity. At this stage I cannot gauge what level of interest we may get. We may get a few hundred ideas, we may get a few thousand, we may not even get over sixty. This all depends on you.
Yes, you, the people I'm talking to. This is a call to arms, an encouragement to send in your story ideas, to spread the word, to tell your friends, neighbours, family, co-workers, bank managers, enemies, whoever. Get the word out and see where this can go. The idea lives and dies on the strength of its exposure - the more people know about it, the more ideas we'll get, the better the book will be, the more it will sell. Every single visit to the website is potentially a charitable purchase waiting to happen.
So I humbly, respectfully, pleadingly, ask you to spread the word as much as you can. We're also looking for volunteers for proof-reading, editing, helping redesign, tidy up and maintain the website (it's barebones at the moment and could really do with a more experienced touch!), cover design ideas, and more. The actual project is feature-complete and ready to launch, but all sorts of things need tweaking, tidying, improving and changing as we go, and it's only through feedback, suggestion and volunteering that they'll improve. There's more information on the website, under Get Involved, and just spreading the word around will help no end.
Whilst we haven't fully selected a charity to benefit from the work (the entire process is a democratic thing, and this is one thing we have yet to fully decide upon), it will be one more than worthy of donations - some of the suggestions so far have been for Cancer Research, British/American Heart Foundation etc. If you have further ideas for charities that you think should go in the suggestion pile, please feel free to mention them!
I'm happy to answer any questions or criticisms anyone may have in this thread, and feel free to pitch your story ideas here too!
However, there's a twist. The stories themselves will not be ideas the writers come up with - we're leaving the ideas up to the members of the public. As the name entails, this will mostly be done by twitter with people tweeting us story ideas (though we will also accept submissions by email and facebook, but tweeting is favoured). Any ideas that pass our Submission Guidelines get chucked into a hat and drawn out for the writers to get stuck into. The writing will be a gradual process - the idea is to have a team of ten writers, each concentrating on one story at a time, so ten stories on the go at once. Two of those stories will appear on the website (as a sort of 'sampler' and also to show progress), the remaining eight will be collated towards the book. Each writer will eventually produce six stories, 60 in total - 48 for the book, 12 for the website, though this is subject to change - we may want more for the website and less for the book, or vice-versa. The book, after being formatted and edited, will be put up for sale digitally (on Amazon, Lulu, Nook and potentially directly via the website) and if interest is high enough, produced physically, with all proceeds (minus costs for physical prints) going to charity. At this stage I cannot gauge what level of interest we may get. We may get a few hundred ideas, we may get a few thousand, we may not even get over sixty. This all depends on you.
Yes, you, the people I'm talking to. This is a call to arms, an encouragement to send in your story ideas, to spread the word, to tell your friends, neighbours, family, co-workers, bank managers, enemies, whoever. Get the word out and see where this can go. The idea lives and dies on the strength of its exposure - the more people know about it, the more ideas we'll get, the better the book will be, the more it will sell. Every single visit to the website is potentially a charitable purchase waiting to happen.
So I humbly, respectfully, pleadingly, ask you to spread the word as much as you can. We're also looking for volunteers for proof-reading, editing, helping redesign, tidy up and maintain the website (it's barebones at the moment and could really do with a more experienced touch!), cover design ideas, and more. The actual project is feature-complete and ready to launch, but all sorts of things need tweaking, tidying, improving and changing as we go, and it's only through feedback, suggestion and volunteering that they'll improve. There's more information on the website, under Get Involved, and just spreading the word around will help no end.
Whilst we haven't fully selected a charity to benefit from the work (the entire process is a democratic thing, and this is one thing we have yet to fully decide upon), it will be one more than worthy of donations - some of the suggestions so far have been for Cancer Research, British/American Heart Foundation etc. If you have further ideas for charities that you think should go in the suggestion pile, please feel free to mention them!
I'm happy to answer any questions or criticisms anyone may have in this thread, and feel free to pitch your story ideas here too!
