Generational Rangingness of Taste

Sorry, that was me. Brighteyes was using my computer, and I forgot to log her out before posting. ~ This be where I keeps me treasures: www.tyrants.co.uk This be where I goes to get me fix: www.fuselit.co.uk Yarr.

I'm a massive fan of DeviantArt, but not for the writing. I'll read through the links you've posted, J, but I'm skeptical - mainly due to the quality of comments on other's work, if i'm honest (a lot of rofl, smileys etc) I ADORE the drawing, photography, flash animation etc on there though. Some of the work is stunningly good. I think the site provides a model to all sites of it's kind for how to manage a creative site in the slickest possible way. But thanks for flagging those pieces up. Like I say, I haven't looked yet, but I will. Enzo.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

Whilst not wanting to engage in retarded, totally unconstructive criticism, I expected the first two poems to be crapola, and both delivered gutsy toe punts to my scrotal sack. Makes me want to experiment with a totally different style of writing poems. The poet's knack of nailing le mot juste, especially when it comes to improvised verbs, is absolutely spot on. Cheers for the post, strange chameleon-like Jon.

That second one, especially, has moments of total sex. I learnt a new word, too - 'skirl': to make a screeching sound, like bagpipes. It makes me a bit sick, to be honest, because they both take mundane scenes and transform them into something incredible. Makes me think my own prose style is a bit insipid. Though I'd never stoop so low as to plagarise the content, I'm definitely going to attempt to steal the souls of these poems.

Ace. Try the prose next, Tim. Enzo - dA's populous is huge, and the poetry you inevitably come across via random browsing is the equivalent of some of the stuff that gets uploaded here in bulk when a new user joins. Also, there's a lot of teenagers on there, and thus a lot of angst poetry. *But* there's also a core community of more serious writers, among whom any lady or gentleman of discerning taste can find a Byron or two. I've got loads of talented writers on my watchlist over there. ~ This be where I keeps me treasures: www.tyrants.co.uk This be where I goes to get me fix: www.fuselit.co.uk Yarr.

jack you make us sound like old biddies for being over 30. I think the age you perceive most users to be depends on that age that you are. When i first used Abc I thought mostly people were my age or older, now it seems that the majority are younger. The poems etc on the site you linked are really good, I think anyone of any age would agree, however, I wouldn't be inclined to use it very much because the comments at the side remind me too much of a teenyboppers chatroom...this one was class, (complete with emoticons) 'actually I class myself as bi-sexual am crushing on a girl at the moment'

Actually have just realised that I am an old biddie. * Bah...plods back to essay writing*

I thought everyone on here as my age, then it turns out I'm quite young compared to most on ABC, at the tender age of 26. Although I do look at least 10 years older. Enzo.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

I am 44 this year. It's things like realizing the Sex Pistols first album was released 29 years ago that make you feel old...er

My mum still says, 'well that's middle-age for you,' on a regular basis (referring to herself). She is 75 - and evidently, an optimist.

Anyone else read any of these? I got a load of feedback on ABC writers from dA, but not so much the other way round. ~ This be where I keeps me treasures: www.tyrants.co.uk This be where I goes to get me fix: www.fuselit.co.uk Yarr.

Jack, take a look at the discuss writing from abc forum, the majority of users on here don't have an opinion on the writing from this site let alone any others.

It's quite active these days, isn't it? Anyway, I know there are *some* people out there who like reading, and they're more likely to stray into general discussion than the 'Discuss Other Writing...' forums. I dunno. I thought some inter-site commentary would be good. Also, the only commentary from ABC at the moment is positive, whereas some of the dA guys are tearing into us. I need Liana, or Tom Saunders, or anyone with high standards who isn't afraid to lay down their opinions, to get in there and say what they see. ~ This be where I keeps me treasures: www.tyrants.co.uk This be where I goes to get me fix: www.fuselit.co.uk Yarr.

Are you asking me to judge the site? Or are you asking me to judge the tiny, weeny selection of poetry you presented me with? I don't get this. If I could be arsed I'd read the selection of poetry and judge it subjectively. If you asked me to judge the site then I'm afraid, apart from lay-out and market appeal, I couldn't really answer your question. What is the question? What hat do you want me to wear? To the horror of what? Any rift? I don't get this. There's a general rule: if it's an american site then you'll never progress because everyone's too god damned polite. If it's a british site then you'll suffer a good few kicks in the nuts - and if you're not too arsed about being too polite - you'll progress!

I meant the majority of users on abc in general not just on the gen diss forum, and yes, there have been quite a few flags on writing forum lately and I agree they are sometimes overly polite...I think that one of the reasons for this is that there has been an awful lot of tit for tat flagging and commenting lately, 'oh she said something nice about my piece so I will be nice in return'. I personally would love to crit some of the pieces in a 'more constructive way' but unfortunately I think it is taken to heart in some cases, ( I know several people gave criticism on a particular piece and the author took offence), it puts me off being critical if I think I am going to upset anyone so I keep quiet, only posting when I really like something.

Well, now's your chance to lay in, camus! My aim is to write up a short report at the end, but taking out all specific references to the authors and stories, just to give a general impression of the views on the writing from each site. Maybe I'm being overambitious. ~ This be where I keeps me treasures: www.tyrants.co.uk This be where I goes to get me fix: www.fuselit.co.uk Yarr.

I looked, but I don't feel remotely qualified to comment on poetry, and of the prose, all but one came up with a mature content ban that I couldn't be bothered to work my way around. That one was a script, and a longish one at that, and to my shame I couldn't be bothered to read it. (doubly to my shame because I write scripts and expect people to read them) I feel awkward commenting in any constructive (read: negative) way to anyone who hasn't requested it. It is A. quite a lot like work, and B. liable to be taken the wrong way.

I would feed it back to as anonymous, general comments - not specific to the pieces (critique isn't really the intention here - more a gathering of reactions to see what common traits there might be.) But I can guarantee all these writers would take critique the right way anyway - they're all pretty serious. The swear-filter is more irritating though. I hadn't considered that. You need to have a dA account to read it. Damn. ~ This be where I keeps me treasures: www.tyrants.co.uk This be where I goes to get me fix: www.fuselit.co.uk Yarr.

Do the writers of these pieces know that you have posted them on here asking for crit, and if you have posted pieces from here onto deviantart do the writers from here know?

oh and, I joined the site but for the life of me can't fathom it out...must be my bloody age!

Camus I would love some constructive crit, you know what works, what doesn't, I'd prefer it to overly polite feedback, jus as long as it was constructive. not just 'I didn't like that' why? 'not my thing'. nobody

"Do the writers of these pieces know that you have posted them on here asking for crit, and if you have posted pieces from here onto deviantart do the writers from here know?" Nope. So I'm open to criticism, but my view is that if the piece is public, then there is nothing duplicitous in posting links to it. It's not like I'm going to forcefeed the writers whatever crit they get. 'Crit' is an irritating word - people seem to take it differently. All I'm really looking for is people's reactions, with some kind of brief explanation, because I'm more interested in what different communities - generations perhaps - expect from writing. "oh and, I joined the site but for the life of me can't fathom it out...must be my bloody age!" It's a bit hard to work out at first. If you've joined though, you should be able to go through the links without hitting the bad language wall. ~ This be where I keeps me treasures: www.tyrants.co.uk This be where I goes to get me fix: www.fuselit.co.uk Yarr.

Well, you've got me onto the site Mr Cade, which is a good thing, have yet to read the flagged pieces though - finding it hard to read on-screen cos me eyesight's failing, what with being so old an' all. Did have a quick trawl through some of yer own stuff though. There's more to this Cade chappie than meets the eye you know,

Here's the link to the DA discussion thread that Jack Cade started. http://forum.deviantart.com/galleries/writers/602505/ You may be presented with a 'join us' page. There is a link at the top right of the screen to bypass it if you do not wish to join. Enzo.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

I wish you hadn't done that, Jon.

Got a page error on your website, Enzo. btw.

I'm very surprised that you have not asked Tom, Fish, Spack and Byrne if they minded you doing this Jack, I would have considered that it was only good manners to have done so before posting their work onto another site. I'm not sure that your argument of the pieces being public already holds water, if they had wanted them on DA surely they would have put them there themselves. You also state that the pieces you chose were among the favourites on abc, as much as I admire some of the writers that you chose I don't actually remember any of those particular poems/stories being named repeatedly in any of the favourites threads. I would suggest that your motive for posting these pieces (with the exception of your uea friends) is the very thing that you deny in your last post on Deviantart......(what is this strange obsession with people older than yourself?) *Also, I won't name names, but a couple of writers on that list I posted here - if they knew I'd put links to their work on dA, they would almost undoubtedly think that I was doing it to degrade them - that I was trying to get my similarly-aged 'gang' over here to post harsh comments on their work so I could feel superior to them. One guy in particular has real issues with me, because he perceives me as a 'young hooligan' type writer who enjoys mocking others. This is because I am occasionally very critical of writers who are older than me.*

Jon, this was not your most inspired plan. You should have asked us first. And you should have discussed with us what pieces you were going to put up. Of my work, neither the Abecedary (which is pretty much a joke poem) or the Jellyfish villanelle (which is a failed experiment) were especially popular. Rokkitnite slated that villanelle, for example and the abecedary was only popular as a piece of fluff. I have lots of pieces which I think are better and which were more popular when they were posted. I don't think you went about this in the right way at all. Byrne has only just started posting again after a long hiatus. She did not need you splashing her stories around dA with the express aim of getting dA users to put the knife in. I don't tend to give that much criticism for a couple of reasons. Firstly, reading and commenting on people's work is now my day job so I can't always be bothered to do extensive critiques in my spare time. Secondly, I am actually hyper-critical, both of my own and other's work. I don't think I've written a single genuinely good-all-the-way-through poem; this is not false modesty. I can't think of a single poem on ABC that I've read and thought was perfect. Some have come fairly close. So, if I thought it was worthwhile I could slate almost any piece of writing. But I just don't think it's productive or helpful, so I don't. I liked the pieces you posted from dA. Riverwail is, in places, excellent. I loved 'lungs drink' and 'water-whip'. I wasn't so convinced by this stanza: It charges the city strand, battering ears, its body boiling, its song soaring: Apart from the word "strand", which is nice, it felt melodramatic. I loved the ending though; it was orginal and ambitious. The Wolf Year felt self-conciously poetic to me. Words like majesty and symphony set alarm bells ringing, for me. The final stanza reads awkwardly and, although I appreciate the ambition, it doesn't quite manage to make the grand statement it sets out to. We are all still learning to be better writers. Surely you are not going to be surprised to learn that a piece of writing that is commonly liked on ABC would not get too far in the nobel prize for literature. Equally, none of those dA poems changed my life but I can see merit in them. I don't think it's to do with age; I think it's to do with community. When you have met someone face to face (or got to know them well online...), you tend not to be so willing to type: "This was a crock of total shit" about their treasured poetry collection. You are getting at something interesting here. You've just handled it very badly.

I really hoped this thread would disappear after Enzo posted the link. It's obvious no one was going to play by my rules, and while I've got to accept most of the blame, I think if Enzo read the dA thread, that it was a bad idea to go and post the link here, *precisely* because of what Joe says. I can't say I wasn't aware that some of the comments would be harsh, and, ideally, I really didn't want the writers from each site to seek out the thread on the other. People *are* going to be far more aggressive when they don't know the writer in question. Added to that, they react especially badly when they're told something else is *supposed* to be good. They tend to go in looking for problems, without realising they're doing it. This is just a human thing. On the other hand, I did hope people would be surprised and impressed by at least some of the pieces, because I, personally, think everything I posted is strong writing, even if others didn't. I did pick them quite quickly, and without consulation, however, because I felt a search for 'the very best' would be endless, and would make too much of a meal out of what I hoped would be something quite simple. It wasn't supposed to be a competition - the most absolutely popular and lauded of each site in a stand-off. It was just supposed to be some examples of the rough 'kind' of thing that goes down well. If people were interested in what the other site had to say, I was planning to compile something where references to individual pieces were taken out, because again, I was more interested in the way different communities, with different agegroups, react - if indeed it did make any difference, which it may not. True, much of it would come down to not having direct contact with the writers in question, but I was also hoping for evidence of differences in approach. All I can say, at this stage, is I'm sorry to anyone who feels their work has been misused. "Surely you are not going to be surprised to learn that a piece of writing that is commonly liked on ABC would not get too far in the nobel prize for literature." That's not really where I'm coming from. In fact, more like the opposite. If anything, I dislike the pursuit of a supposed perfection. I'm having real trouble articulating myself here, but I was *never* trying to prove that anything was not good enough. I don't like 'wheat from the chaff' critcism, where anything is either wonderful or mediocre. "I would suggest that your motive for posting these pieces (with the exception of your uea friends) is the very thing that you deny in your last post on Deviantart......" Funny how I *knew* someone over here would suggest that... Look, I dunno. I didn't think it through at all because it wasn't supposed to be something massive and conclusive and clever. It was just something I was always interested in since I started reading the better poetry over there. For selfish reasons, sure. It really nagged me that I felt there were such different expectations - of literature in general - on two different sites. I wanted to try pushing them together a bit more to see what happened, but I was far too lazy to try and organise anything that might be useful to other people. Obviously it's completely blown up in my face now, and it's probably best if we leave it there.

"It's obvious no one was going to play by my rules, and while I've got to accept most of the blame, I think if Enzo read the dA thread, that it was a bad idea to go and post the link here, *precisely* because of what Joe says." Don't want to argue at all about this, but as I've been mentioned, I'll say the following: I can't speak for others, so I'll speak for myself. My work is on here for crit, yes. It is public and open, yes. I post it on here because I want the crit here. I have a (barely working!) website with no facility for feedback because I want the crit here. I no longer post elsewhere because I want the crit here. Crit that I don't see is of no benefit to me. If my work was being commented on elsewhere, I would want to know about it. If I wanted crit over on DA, I'd post on DA. However, if links were (without my permission) posted over there, I'd want to know about it, and what was said, for my reason above. I simply facilitated people here to see both sides of what you were saying, which I think was fair. I did that, you'll notice, without comment or judgement. As for "I really hoped this thread would disappear after Enzo posted the link", I don't see the difference between the links you posted and the link I posted. Finally, I hope the blame left over after you've accepted "most of it" isn't meant for me, because I accept none of it. I wasn't the one who started making up "the rules" of what should or shouldn't be done with other's work. I simply posted a link - for all I know they could've been overjoyed about what you'd done. Enzo.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

JON!!!! Instead of formulating vast, elaborate posts across a plethora of writing sites, FINISH A BLOODY NOVEL and send it out to agents! Cease this transparent procrasturbation at once!

"I simply posted a link - for all I know they could've been overjoyed about what you'd done." Sorry - I said 'if Enzo has read the dA thread', which was a lame way of trying to say, 'As soon as I started getting responses there, I was kinda gritting my teeth hoping ABC peeps wouldn't see them, because many are, I think, unfairly harsh, and I cannot for the life of me see how anyone could be grateful to me for posting them over there - ergo, if you had also read through, I would have hoped you'd also conclude that providing a link to the thread could only be troublesome.' Yes, alright. I accept all the blame. I still wish you hadn't posted the link though. All the authors in question have the *right* to see what is said about them - I just don't think it would be helpful to them. TIM!!! I can't! The multifarious demands and expectations of the reading public haunt me continiously to the point where I have no idea whether anything is any good anymore, except for brief respites where I can crack out a poem or very short story while the idea still seems exciting.

"I simply posted a link - for all I know they could've been overjoyed about what you'd done." I shouldn't have said that, it was a playground way of saying I tried to stay neutral. All I know is, if I were one of those discussed, I'd rather see what was said. Regardless, I don't want an argument- there's enough of those around here. You did what you did, i did what i did. What's done is done. You seem like a nice guy and I like your writing a lot - you should be off doing that not answering to me, when it's not even my business anyway. Apologies to those discussed if they would rather I hadn't posted that link. Enzo.. www.thedevilbetweenus.com

Good writers borrow great writers steal: Rokky.