Dreams of the Quill

Responses to responses to my recent ramblings.

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This morning I received an e-mail from Chris Poirier of the Web Fiction Guide, informing me that he had posted a review of Night Switch and that I should check it out.

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Stuff’s happening.

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There are some new things stirring on the forum side, and I’ve got a few announcements regarding the main site.

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(cross-posted to the forums because this is serious business)

EDIT: The revampings are done, finally. Have a look at the new pages linked at the top of the sidebar—text on what this site is, who runs it, how those who run it handle your information, and how to contribute content to DotQ. There are also easy links to registering and posting on the main site—hopefully this will encourage people to do so. I’m too tired to talk about the changes extensively… I’ll post something tomorrow (Sunday Update!) about what’s changed and what of that actually matters to you.

OP: About this time three years ago, I had just created my “first website,” a hacked Proboards installation dubbed “Hunter Story” and presenting the latest and greatest of my writing. That was when I entered high school; I was still a moderator at the war3forums, I had not yet started For the Pen, I was not yet wind-obsessed, I had yet to see AIR, etc. Basically, I was a different person.

Since that Proboards installation (which lasted maybe two months at most), I’ve had many different sites. Freshmen and sophomore years were testing grounds for what worked, what didn’t work, which services to use, etc. Last year was pretty much consistently stable—we’re with godaddy, the site doesn’t randomly break that often, etc. Basically, DotQ is a different site.

For a long time, the “About DotQ” page has been kind of whacky. It’s a “place for me to upload my art and writing for others to view, creating a space in which it can all be discussed to some extent.” This needs to change, to be updated to the modern age of DotQ and Flak. “To some extent?!” It should be discussed to every extent. The “some” implies that there are aspects of my work I don’t want to talk about, or hear anything about. On the contrary, every bit of feedback is welcome.

But that’s not the only thing wrong with that big of text.

“me” … who is me? DotQ isn’t one person. Yes, I made the site. Yes, most of the content is mine. Yes, I pay out of my pocket to keep DotQ online and functioning, and yes, I spend innumerable hours insuring that it doesn’t start to suck, but no, it’s not my site. It’s our site.

I’ve had this thought for a long time now, but only now am I getting around to putting it clearly:

DotQ is a place for creativity.

Do you make art, or text, or sites, or worlds, or RPGs, or game maps/scenarios, or anything? Do you make anything? You do. That’s our community; we’re mainly war3forums RPG people with a smattering of random internet people and some school friends.

For the most part, if you load up the writings or forums pages, and look at the Random Story, it’ll be something by me. Generally, if you load the front page of DotQ, you’ll see a news post (like this one) by me. If you look at the art pages—everything is mine. This “me me me” on my part is kind of what DotQ was years ago.

I want to see art on the art pages that’s not mine, I want to see writings in the Random Story box that aren’t mine (thank you, KingCrazyGenius), I want to see news posts or announcements or bloggings on the main site that aren’t mine (thank you, Alar). DotQ’s taking a huge step forward with its “everyone welcome to contribute” project Drawing My Heart (I’m very pleased that MSOB and KCG are doing a spinoff), but there’s more that can be done.

Allow me to remind each of you that there is an admin panel, and that all of you can access it.

http://dotq.org/wp-admin
If you don’t have an account, you can make one easily here:
http://dotq.org/wp-register
If you’ve forgotten your password, just let me know via the comments and I can give you a new one.

I’m going to rework the submission guidelines again, update the info pages in the sidebar of the main site, and update this post’s timestamp and contents when I have. DotQ should be a place for anyone and everyone to submit things and to have them critiqued. It should be a place for us to build off of each other, and to improve our techniques/creative talents. Ultimately, to make it past the forums and onto the main site, I (as acting admin) would be the final judge of whether or not something is appropriate, etc., but as you should be able to tell from what works of mine are on the site, I don’t have high standards for quality. :P

Anyway, your thoughts please.
And more importantly, your creations.