Return to the Reading Room!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Responses to the poll about new group reading rather resoundingly said yes (15/15 respondents), and then fairly resoundingly also voted for a return to the Reading Room style where we chose a random Pros story for everyone to read before reviewing it. The results were:

A random read-a-long (the old Reading Room back!) - 6(42.9%)
A novel read-a-long - 3(21.4%)
A themed read-a-long (the old Reading Room back!) - 3(21.4%)
An author read-a-long - 2(14.3%)

There were also three requests to hold off until November, when the Big Bang was over, which I very much understand for those individuals, who are all involved in the Big Bang, but to be honest that would leave the rest of us tapping our fingers throughout September, and would also mean my launching and organising when I'm actually starting to get busy myself in November, with Pros Christmas comms and exchanges and so on, so... I think that if we start now we can either vote to take a break in October, or choose to read Big Bang stories in October, or just carry on throughout anyway, and then also if I need someone else to take over organising for a few weeks in November, it'll be up and running enough that it will be easier.

I'm going to suggest that we follow previous Reading Room timings, which I think worked pretty well - stories anounced on a Monday, reading discussion post made on a Friday. Hopefully that will give people enough time for reading during the week, and to join in the chat over the weekend. Let me know if this is a bad idea this time...

Next - how do we choose the stories, if they really are going to be random?! I do have suggestions... *g*
1) In the past we've asked people to suggest stories in comments, put them in a list, and done it that way. This is probably the most inclusive of old and new stories, but also depends on the tastes of whoever comments rather than being random (and also at least one person has already read the story!)
2) We could use the Circuit Archive's Random function to choose a story - but this limits stories to those on Circuit, and the archivist stopped posting new stories in 2009 (except for a friend's story in 2010).
3) We could kill two birds with one stone, and have a play with the UK Circuit Library... *g* We could simply start with Folder 1 and begin to work through the stories there, which would be absolutely random to all of us! I can say that most of them are online or ProsLib, and I could send out the ones that aren't to people who might want to join in.

[Poll #2095310]

But if anyone would like to start this week (so that I announce a story tomorrow to chat from Friday) then please suggest a story in the comments below - or let me know that you would like to play this weekend, cos if there are a few of us, then we can. *g*

Comments

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Many thanks for posting this, I appreciate all the time it must have taken out of your busy day. Just one question, I'm not sure exactly what and where the UK Circuit Library is. Are these the stories on loan from Sara Slinn when she was still with us? But when you mention Folder 1 it sounds similar to the Proslib CD so maybe I'm getting confused and that's what you're referring to?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's in the Slaughterhouse, mostly... *g* connected with this post (https://ci5hq.livejournal.com/339601.html). Basically, and via the long way around, I have the UK Circuit Library, which is the collection of paper stories that SS (Gryphon Press) loaned out to people for years and years. They're all in big lever arch files - 86 of them. So I'm going through them to find out what's online and what isn't, and having a think about how I can get them all out there...

So I thought we could start with the first story in the first folder and if it was one that was online, there'd be links, and if they weren't then I could send them out... Does that make sense?

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

Right, I do remember now, thanks for that. It seems, potentially, a lot more work for you whereas the 3 main online sites which we all have access to still have plenty of stories, but obviously it's up to you. Thanks again.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Well, just a case of looking to see which story is next in the folder and then finding a link, so not too bad. And I've got to get stories in a format to share somehow if they're not online too.

But actually it's up to all you - hence the poll! *g*

[shooting2kill.livejournal.com]

But actually it's up to all you - hence the poll! *g

I meant the suggestion in the first place, of using Sara's zines, and if the story wasn't online that might lead to extra work for you..

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

I can't decide which way to use, so I'm happy with all three versions, CA, story suggested by any people or UK Circuit Library Folder (even when I don't know which stories are in the UK Circuit Library Folders).

So whatever the result would be, I'm willing to join.

Oh, and I don't think it would be so good to use the new Big Bang stories, becausenot erveryone reads them.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

even when I don't know which stories are in the UK Circuit Library Folders
That's why I suggested it - it would be a random choice for everyone!

It's hard to read the Big Bang stories when they all come out at once, I think, even if it's every couple of days. I can't keep up now that I'm proofreading full time, because there's a limit to how long I can spend on a screen. And for me, I know there are authors who have different views of the lads than mine, and so I often don't read their stories. But including Big Bang stories would mean that I (and others) did. But then people might not want their stories discussed either, because there's as much chance of criticism as there is of praise- it depends what kind of feedback people are after.

[macklingirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, then I'm the first for the UK Paper Circuit Folders. :-)

[merentha13.livejournal.com]

Follow up toshooting2kill's questions - what is the date range of the UK archive - are they all older stories?

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

They're mostly older stories, although there are a few more recent ones in there. But only up to a few years ago, of course, whenever S became ill and stopped adding stories, I guess. The beauty of that is that they're stories that people may not have read for a very long time - if A03 is the go-to now for new stories, well most of the old ones won't be up there! But I know you've said before that you'd like to see more recent stories reviewed etc.

The only way I can think of to include more recently written stories is if people specifically suggest them - maybe we could say "this week we need suggestions from stories written in 2019", make a list and then people could vote for which one. Perhaps start with 2019 and go backwards... but then there's always the chance that the author will be watching/following, so we'd have to check that they didn't mind. Discussing stories isn't the same as having feedback given, when people (generally!) try to be polite and think of the author's feelings - in a discussion we have to be free to say what we don't like as well as what we do.

But yeah - there's advantages and disadvantages to all the ways I could think of doing it. I'm always open to other suggestions!

[akin16sk.livejournal.com]

I think that it would be awesome, if we could also add feedback to the stories we read, as reviews, so the authors also get some warm and fuzzy feelings from it, but I am not sure it is still possible, as the stories are mostly in Circuit Archive and I have my doubts about the functionality of many emails there.

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think most of the CIrcuit Archive emails are pretty old - it's not being updated at all now, sadly.

Feedback to authors would definitely be nice though - it's always a good thing! Maybe when we choose stories we could try to include a link for the author somehow, whether they have an lj or AO3 or old email or something, so that at least they might see some more feedback... Excellent thought!

[sagittas.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I missed this poll. But a wider range of stories to choose from would be nice to me. If you and others could be able to share the stories not on line it would be good to read older ones from the UK paper circuit, too, and similar not on line archives, in addiction to stories we all can find on the on line archives.