As a fan of the freewrite community, and as a serious writer/workshopper/ editor, I see what you're saying here. "Publishing" our freewrites here might scare off actual publishers someday, because the blockchain is forever. Even if we self-publish, our freewrites can come back to haunt us. On the other hand, some of us are selling books. E.g., @deeanndmathews, who wrote last week about a freewrite prompt that broke open a dam (and no, not in the way of a laxative):
I remembered a detective I made up 20 years ago ... Ironwood Hamilton ...
Captain Hamilton ended up taking on all the "What do I do with this?" prompts as clues, and the world around him started to grow ... I eventually placed him in the county I made up in Virginia for some Civil-War era stories I had just finished at that time: Lofton County, but in modern-day Virginia.
Then, I started looking at the headlines coming through in the last three years -- from Virginia for real, and elsewhere ... the racial issues from the Civil War are still alive and well ... and Captain Hamilton had to start dealing with that, since he was in modern-day Virginia. When the prompts fell right, he did so.
Before publishing freewrites, * we who are serious writers * should clean up our typos, syntax errors, punctuation, spelling, and all that. Not all of us aspire to be published or make writing a career. Many of us are non-native English speakers.
I do regret posting my NaNoWriMo wip a chapter a day (with daily freewrite prompts in mind), because it was all those things you said about first drafts, and the only reason I haven't purged those posts is because I figure nobody will ever read them anyway. Here today, gone tomorrow, at Steemit... no?
I'll think on this some more.
Well said, Carol. Agreed on all points.
Thanks. I've slept on it and thought some more.
@Freewritehouse is a place for writers who are not professional writers, who may not even aspire to be published authors. Some grow and learn and do publish. We don't have "in house" editors or judges. We do have people who've been criticized, discouraged, told they couldn't write, but in freewriting community, they discover they can write--and learn to write better.
Steemhouse is a completely different community with higher ambitions. Freewritehouse is a grassroots community for support, encouragement, friendships, fun, and sharing without fear of ridicule. Anyone who comes in with snide judgments will get no traction, no attention. We are a close-knit group, growing every year. A good number of freewrites and we-writes have earned the attention of @curie because so many of us do edit, revise, and polish - knowing our stories came to life thanks to a daily freewrite prompt, and thanking @mariannewest and all the volunteers who take time to read each other's writing and offer positive feedback.
You do what you do. We do what we do. Some of us do a little of both.
We can co-exist at Steemit and acknowledge the good that each community is doing.
Write on!
Exactly the point of the post. Two different communities with two different goals in mind. We can explain why we don't freewrite at Steemhouse, and other groups can explain why the do in theirs. Writers can choose which environment works best for them.
I don't see the goals as mutually exclusive. :)
But if you don't have time to read freewrites, no surprise there. Soooo much content to sift through every day on Steemit. Only so many hours in a day.
I read only a tiny fraction of what I could/should read, and that's only at Steemit. Add in Twitter and links that show up at other social media, and I could spend 24/7 reading at the pc.
Pick and choose... we have a finite number of heartbeats and minutes in a day.
It's true that I don't have time to read freewrites, or most of what's posted on Steem these days. I have to budget my time carefully. If I read something, it has to be well-written and polished, even in the draft stage. I give a piece about 100 words to grab my attention before I stop reading. If I'm giving feedback for someone that is making repetitive bad decisions with their writing and I can tell this will be consistent throughout, I pick a point (usually within that 100-word limit,) stop reading, and explain what has to happen to the entire piece before I keep going. This saves my time, my patience, and a lot of hurt feelings.
The one sad consequence I've seen that came from freewrites being touted as a writing style on Steem is that many writers who once delivered solid, convincing prose no longer seem capable of that. Their writing has suffered, and I'm sure that's because the lack of discipline and honest feedback has resulted in the development of bad habits that would all have to be un-learned if they intend to write seriously in the future. From a personal standpoint, that is my take on the situation, although it doesn't reflect the official Steemhouse opinion, which is slightly more tolerant.