Thank you to everyone that entered!! It's time to cast your vote for the May Writers Forum Challenge!! Please stop by and vote for your favorite! :) Diana Writers Mod.

Just a question, why are there so little people voting on these poems/submissions? I seem to see only 6 votes on all the poems, or am I incorrect? If this is so, would you have any objection to me doing a bit of marketing for the writers forum?

I would like to add a "pimp us up" to SusiQ's marketing query. I've thought of doing it, but it smacks of cheesiness on the part of the author. Don't misunderstand. I would gladly bathe a leper with my tongue for a vote, but I would never actively ask for said vote. I have boundaries.

Hey SusiQ! I suppose it depends on what you mean by marketing. Positive word of mouth about the writer's forum, gallery, and the challenge is certainly a good thing! Obviously, as garblesnix suggested, the author of a submission probably shouldn't actually try and drum up support strictly for their own submission in a contest or something of that nature. Actually, the moderators are meeting soon on this very topic. They'll be discussing ways to increase interest and activity in the forums. So keep in mind that they may be implementing some things too. What exactly do you mean by market though? David L. Writer's Coord.

Perhaps if we include the other forums in the process, as illustrators. I for one would love to see someone's rendering (pun very much intended) of a scene from one of my stories. Or a book cover. Or a NVIATWAS reading one of my stories (I hang around the Poser Forum a lot). Any medium/program would be welcome. As someone once said: "If writers could draw, libraries would be empty." Norman "garblesnix" Rock-not-so-well

If you ever have any ideas on how to cross over and do things like that please let me know. :) I can always take it before the others and we can talk about it. I'll try to remember this example so I can bring this one up. :) Diana Writers Mod.

As I read my previous posting I did say "For the writers forum" and not "for the writer's poem"! Maybe I worded my query wrong because I was only trying to get new blood onto the forum/renderosity website on the whole and not only to vote for my own poem. I really don't think I am that conceited.... I am a member of other writers' forums so I do not need to be here or win any competition for the sake of winning. I just thought this is a good site and would have liked to share it with others.

There is nothing wrong with posting the contest/voting in other appropriate forums (like the Challenge Forum, the Community Forum). I have often done so myself in the past, and never received criticism for it. What I wish is that the smaller forums, like the Writers' Forum and the Challenge Forum, would get more advertisement in the newsletter and elsewhere. The Challenge Forum doesn't even show up on the front page of Renderosity. It's no wonder it is poorly visited and supported. Many people never make it beyond their single forum of interest, whether it be Poser or some other, and don't realize there are many more places to explore. I do think it is, to some degree, up to the moderators and coordinators to take a leadership role in this. I think they set the tone for their forums, and have more ability to advertise their existence than any single member has. Still, there is no reason an interested member can't promote the challenge and the voting elsewhere. It seems like a good thing to me.

SusiQ:
Re: message #3: I think I may have given you the wrong impression. I am in total agreement with you going to the other forums with news of our challenges. What I meant was that I, as an author, felt uneasy doing it because it smacks of self-promotion.
I truly apologize if you thought I was demeaning your efforts. I do, and will, support any ideas that will expand our reader base. As much as I love reading my writing, I love it even more when others love reading my writing, and write to me telling me how much they loved reading my writing. I relish reading their writing about my writing...
...yeah, that's what I meant to say.........yeah......

dido6:
re: message #5: Each forum issues challenges within their particular medium. If we, with the help and blessing of ALL the mods and coords, go directly to the forums with the challenge, it may spark an interest in someone. Someone who wants to create images that go beyond V3 in chainmail panties.

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society " ~ Mark Twain Still smiling at the vision of V3 in chainmail panties.

"Naked people have little or no influence on society " Sammy C. never ate at Carl's Jr. Nor had he ever seen Paris.

After seeing Paris, I may never eat at Carl's again. She is the only one who could make me lose my appetite. It may be good for my figure, but it is bad for my morale.

As a man....... I don't find her all that attractive, but a female, covered in soap, next to a car, touting a greasy meat product? No amount of enlightenment, education, or shrewish harping can overcome genetics. I think every man who watches it hears a small voice saying "Must mate with meat maiden". It is a great marketing ploy. Second only to the one they did with the blonde on the mechanical bull slithering to "Slow Ride". That one made me miss a Weight Watchers meeting. Okay... No more talk of food... Writing, that's why we're here... Yeah, the writing.

I'm obviously not their target market. I just find her annoying and boring. This is, however, related to writing, in that it does a writer well to pay attention to gender differences in reactions when it comes to writing for characters who are not your own sex. Men, in general (and, yes, this is a generalization) are known to react more visually than women. That is why in the "Beauties and Geeks" kind of show...the beauty is always a woman and the geek is always a man. A woman will (in general, if she isn't Paris) watch an unattractive man with a brain, and a man will (in general) watch a brainless female with beauty; but the reverse is less common. It explains, perhaps, why most sitcoms feature a gorgeous wife paired with an unattractive mate. Tiresome and cliched but I guess the ratings depend on such predictability. If you look at a show like "Seinfeld," the men were hardly classically handsome, but the women all were gorgeous (except the women that the men made fun of...those were allowed to be simply beautiful). If you try to break out of the stereotypes (and I so wish someone would have that kind of courage), be aware of the battle you will have to find a market. Now I understand that Brittany and friend/spouse/boy toy is not doing so well with their television show, which may speak to the idea that there is hope for this generation yet. (Watch the ratings start to sky rocket, just to prove me wrong.) So the answer to advertising the writer's forum is to hire Paris or one of her endless clones and have her suck on a computer mouse while washing a computer? Yeccch.

Sorry about the flair (pun?) up.. I just have a little sore toe on that point. I do tend to overreact. How about if we created a corresponding competition and get all artists to define by way of 3d/2d/Bryce/Poser, etc, their impression of what the submissions of any of the writers challenge look like? I hope that made sense. I'm a little confuzzled right now. (For those who don't understand, that means confused and puzzled ;o)

Or visa versa, write around artists' renderings. I'm usually in a state of confusion, so it is familiar territory to me.

Attached Link: Pedestal

My poem is:
Only a glimpse of the ancient capturer
Of fairy's souls is seen,
With skin so old and petrified
And eyes that shone of green.

Her lacy wings of delicate web
Flutter fast as they go
But only in the dim eve light
Does the true deep aged one show.

Message edited on: 06/03/2005 07:56

Very nice. Maybe we should start a challenge on another thread so it doesn't get lost on this one. :)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12436&Form.ShowMessage=2286428