Right. Just a short shoutout here - Novelr’s forums, aptly titled NovLounge (yeah it was a hot afternoon and I wasn’t very feeling creative, so don’t clobber me) is up and running. There’s a handy button on the sidebar that I put together on the run - it’s made out of various image scraps I’m got lying about the computer and you can use that to visit the forum too. I know I should give a long and inspiring speech about how I hope everyone will get together and build community and write well but I’ve been doing that for some time now and I think I shouldn’t push it too hard. Well, not in this post, at least. But I started NovLounge to gather a small team of people for a site launch we’re going to do next year, and since I’m going to be offline soon the team and I have decided to open it up to Novelr’s community.
Now I’d like to admit here that I’ve no particular vision for NovLounge - I’d like you all to do whatever you want with it, so if you want to compare notes on the best ice cream flavour, go ahead; if you’d like to talk writing, do that as well. We’ve got plenty of places doing intellectual, so it’ll be nice if NovLounge is a little different: a kind of a laid-back bar for Internet writers. Whatever it is, though, it’s up to you. No, really.
That being said, here’s a brief introduction to the forum: there are four categories: Voxpop (for random stuff), Commentary (for discussion of the medium and the craft), Off Tangent (for forum games) and Lounge News (covers forum news and issues). Interaction guidelines can be found here, and the administrators are, in alphabetical order:
[Update]: I have upgraded the hosting package and Novelr is above the waters once again. I am humbled by the support and goodwill you guys have shown. Thank you, all of you.
I don’t think there’s anyway I can approach this other than by talking straight: Novelr ran out of bandwidth yesterday. As of writing there are 55 active visitors on the site, with 162 visitors within the past hour. Most of them are from stumbleupon and they’re nice folk, for the most part. They are, however, bringing this site to its knees.
Why am I writing this post? Simply put: I might have to upgrade the hosting plan Novelr runs on. I’m aiming for a $5 a month package, which provides the site with 10 gigs of bandwidth. At the moment I have 3 gigs per month, not much certainly, but I wasn’t expecting 3k spikes of traffic back when I first started. Novelr does not make enough with advertising to cover the bandwidth it uses up at the moment. At midnight last night I rushed online to purchase extra from my host, and at 10 this morning I was told that the extra 2 gigs I had bought were running out as well.
Helping Novelr Out
Now, before I get into the nitty-gritty of how you can help I’d like to explain to you where I’m coming from. Some of you may ask why I’m asking for donations, instead of paying for this with my own credit card. The truth is that I don’t have one - I’m still studying, and I’m not ‘earning’ anything other than knowledge. Novelr is passion, a hobby, or perhaps a part-time job if you’d like to call it as such, and I can’t pay more from my own pocket than what I did at the start of the year. Most of my time is spent studying, writing, and reading; a significant portion of my week is used to sharpen the ideas that I post here.
There are two things you can do to keep Novelr running. The first is to donate to Novelr by clicking the shiny donate button below. The minimum for a donation is $3, and if you have a little time, plus if you enjoy the stuff I’m writing here then please consider helping Novelr out. The donate button uses Paypal, so I hope it won’t be too much of a hassle.
The second thing you can do is to purchase advertising on Novelr. Novelr offers both Text Link Ads and image ads, and both cost $15 a month. There’s a prime spot in the sidebar for both.
I believe people reading this would be divided into three groups - the first wouldn’t mind tipping the site, the second would move on to other articles, and the third (which I believe is the majority) will think about it. And I’ve no problem with that, really. I thank all of you for reading what I’ve got to say, regardless of whether you comment, you donate, or you lurk around reading.
I’ve put a lot of energy into Novelr and I hope you enjoy it. Please help me keep it running.
The scene below is taken from Jasper Fforde’s 2004 novel The Fourth Bear. Main character Jack Spratt and his wife Madeleine are attending a literary awards ceremony when one of Madeleine’s writer friends approaches them.
“Hello Marcus!”
“Madeleine, dahling!”
“Jack, this is Marcus Sphincter. He’s one of the writers short-listed for the prize this year.”
“Congratulations,” said Jack, extending a hand.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you - most kind.”
“So what’s the title of this book you’ve written?”
“The terms ‘title’, ‘book’ and ‘written’ are so passe and 2004,” announced Marcus airily, using his fingers in that annoying way that people do to signify quotation marks.
“It is 2004,” pointed out Jack.
“So early 2004,” said Marcus, hastily correcting himself. “Anyone can ‘write’ a ‘book.’ To raise my chosen art form to a higher plane, I prefer to use the terms ‘designation,’ ‘codex’ and ‘composed.’”
“Okay,” said Jack, “what’s the appellative of the tome you’ve created?”
“The what?”
“Hadn’t you heard?” asked Jack, hiding a smile and using that annoying finger-quotes thing back at Marcus, “‘Codex,’ ‘composed’ and ‘designation’ are out already; they were just too, too early evening.”
“They were?” asked Marcus, genuinely concerned.
“Your book, Marcus,” interrupted Madeleine as she playfully pinched Jack on the bum. “What’s it called?”
“I call it … The Realms of The Leviathan.”
“Ah,” murmured Jack, “what’s it about, a herd of elephants?”
Marcus laughed loudly, Jack joined him, and so did Madeleine, who wasn’t going to be a bad sport.
“Elephants? Good Lord, no!” replied Marcus, adjusting his glasses. “The leviathan in my novel is the colossal and destructive force of human ambition and its ability to destroy those it loves in its futile quest for fulfillment. Seen through the eyes of a woman in London in the mid-eighties as her husband loses control of himself to own and want more, it asks the fundamental question ‘to be or to want’ - something I consider to be the ‘materialistic’ Hamlet’s soliloquy. Ha-ha-ha.”
“Ha-ha-ha” said Jack, but thinking, Clot. “Is it selling?”
“Good Lord, no!” replied Marcus in a shocked tone. “Selling more than even a few copies would render it … popular. And that would by a death knell for any serious auteur, n’est-ce pas? Ha-ha-ha.”
“Ha-ha-ha,” said Jack, but thinking, Even bigger clot.
2007 has ended, and we’re off to a start in Two Oh Oh Eight. To welcome the new year this post will be full of nonsensical fun, as an aside, perhaps, to all the serious thought that goes on around Novelr every other day of the year.
The Kindle
When the Kindle first came out the entire blogosphere dedicated huge chunks of their time to talk about Amazon’s brave move into the ebook market. I admit they’ve got a lot going for them, but I was also wary of talking about it - wasn’t everyone else already doing so? Now that the hype has died down somewhat I can wade through the aftermath and find the good stuff. Here’s Phillipe Stark saying some honest-to-goodness things about the Kindle.
The lolcat Bible
‘Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem.’ Need I say more? Priceless.
Up Yours, Keen
We’ve seen Keen angering just about everyone with his Web 2.0 polemic The Cult Of The Amateur. Bill Hilton’s written a great piece about ‘Amateur vs Amateurish‘, Tinstaafl pointed us to another great response to Keen’s book, and now I’ll help out with this Youtube vid of extravagant predictions. Not really sure why - it might be the accent, it might be the cool animation, but I’d like to think it’s the unrestrained gleefulness in the narrator’s voice that gets me going. Watch it. Vairy funny.
Hangovers notwithstanding, Novelr wishes everyone a very happy new year.
Novelr started 100 posts ago with a simple Introduction. It seemed like a good idea ( at the time) to cover what writing fiction on the web would mean, and how to go about it. I apologize for slowing down the pace of posts and ideas these two months - real life has literally swept me off my feet and carried me far away from the blogosphere.
Here are some posts that I’m particularly proud of:
‘i’ is a Cardinal Sin. This was early on in Novelr’s history, when I realized that typing uncapped ‘i’s in sentences made my writing seem juvenile. This was my first taste of Internet impressions, where the written word is everything.
Shut Up and Write. I did this for Problogger’s group writing project, and it promptly gathered 81 comments. I was particularly proud of the post - it was whimsical, light, and I attempted to belittle that horror called Writer’s Block we all get from time to time. I think I succeeded.
Crossfire: All Blooker Prize Winners Are Amateurs. This is perhaps the one of the hardest posts I’ve ever done. Took me two days of thinking and discarding replies. Ed-infinitum’s got a great mind screwed on his shoulders - I do hope he directs that formidable intellect of his towards blooking again.
There has also been a number of guest posts on Novelr, by writers whom I am particularly grateful for. Their ideas have helped shaped the discussions in and around this blog, as well as on blooking overall:
Beginning, Middle and End. Scott Mackenzie outlines why we should all finish a story before blogging it. And if it is a work in progress, tell your readers!
I’ll Look At Your If You’ll Look At Mine. Here Gloria Hindelbrandt talks about the selfish tendencies us writers have: we tend to read our own work, and overlook the efforts of others. It is provoking, and all the more better for it.
On Editing. Blooking because you won’t get edited. Lee tells us why that’s a good thing.
And there’s of course the Ultimate Blooking Guide, which was an absolute chore to do. It did prove helpful - I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve thanked me for compiling the resource, especially when they’ve just started out blooking.
Little things like that makes the work on Novelr all the more worthwhile. Thank you all, and here’s to more stuff to think about in the next hundred posts!
I know I should give a long and inspiring speech about how I hope everyone will get together and build community and write well but I’ve been doing that for some time now and I think I shouldn’t push it too hard. Well, not in this post, at least. But I started NovLounge to gather a small team of people for a site launch we’re going to do next year, and since I’m going to be offline soon the team and I have decided to open it up to Novelr’s community.
[Update]: I have upgraded the hosting package and Novelr is above the waters once again. I am humbled by the support and goodwill you guys have shown. Thank you, all of you.
The scene below is taken from Jasper Fforde’s 2004 novel The Fourth Bear. Main character Jack Spratt and his wife Madeleine are attending a literary awards ceremony when one of Madeleine’s writer friends approaches them.
Novelr started 100 posts ago with a simple 
