The Ink Well Newsletter: Creative Coin, Optimizing Rewards, Mentoring and More

[theinkwell]

_{Image source: Tumisu on Pixabay}

Hello Beautiful Community!

First, a word of appreciation for all in the community who have been posting stories and providing feedback on one another's posts, joining contests, and helping our community to grow and thrive!

Okay, onto the news. Here are the topics in this newsletter:

• Creative Coin News
• A Refresher on Our Community Rules
• Community and Creativity
• How to Optimize the Rewards on Your Posts in The Ink Well
• A Possible Mentor Program - Let us know what you think!

Creative Coin News: Use the #creativecoin Tag

Great news! Our community has caught the attention of Creative Coin Fund, and has invited our community to use the #creativecoin tag. This means you can earn both Hive and CreativeCoin with your posts. Also, they have delegated a very nice amount of Creative Coin to our community, and have offered to sponsor a future contest. We will certainly be in community with them and opportunities for collaboration!

A Refresher on Our Community Rules

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Those of you who have been around for a while know that we have just a few rules. (Well, rather a significant number of rules, actually.) But we assure you that it's not to be controlling or to limit anyone's creativity. It's to keep our community on track.

If you're new, or you're not aware of our rules, please take the time to read them. If you are on a desktop or laptop computer, you can find them at the top of our community home page. You will also see them at the top of your post in The Ink Well if you hover over the blue "Rules" button. If you are on a phone, or you can find the rules here.

Here are a few examples of our rules that we most often have to reiterate and explain to unaware members:

• We ask members to avoid certain themes like sex, excessive violence, gore, and brutality of women, children or animals, because these topics and images are unpalatable or even traumatizing for some people. We also have no way of preventing children from viewing our community content.
• We ask that people only post short stories in The Ink Well, because that is the focus of our community. There are other communities for poetry, essays, freewriting, etc. We have a tiny admin team of three very busy people, and this is partly to help manage our time.
• We also ask that our members do not post chapter stories or serial ("to be continued") stories. The reason for this rule is so that readers do not need to have read all of the preceding pieces to read and enjoy posted work. Each piece must stand on its own.
• We require images to be non-copyrighted (e.g. from sites like Pixabay, Pexels or Unsplash) and for your story to have a linked source.
• Plagiarism and re-posting are not allowed. We only accept 100% unique, original content in The Ink Well. This is to ensure that The Ink Well community follows the highest standards for content, and that rewards go to those who have developed and shared their own creative work in the community.

Rules Support and Protect Our Community

The goals of The Ink Well are to foster creativity and growth, and to help writers develop their writing skills and earn an income for their work. We want The Ink Well to be a safe and welcoming place for writers and readers. As community admins, we are staunch defenders of truth, honesty, and creative integrity.

Be sure to check out The Ink Well Manifesto, if you have never done so. It provides the mission of The Ink Well, information about rewards and income, and more information on our policies.

Community and Creativity

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Here are a few odds and ends about community and creativity.

1. Community involvement
   No community is a true community without involvement and engagement! The good news is that it doesn't take much to be a part of it. We only ask that you read and comment on at least two other writers' work each week, or two for each story you publish in The Ink Well. And remember that the rewards for Hive posts are split between the writer and the curators! You are paid to read and support other writers, just as you are paid to publish. Your support of others also builds your following.
2. Skill building opportunities
   We have a great catalog of fiction writing tips that can help any writer learn and grow. You can learn about characters, conflict, scene building, dialog and more - even how to find and fix your errors. We hope you take advantage of it.
3. Creative inspiration
   We encourage and support ideas and creativity by publishing a weekly fiction prompt. Watch for them in The Ink Well on Monday nights.

Additionally, we have a nearly inexhaustible list of ideas to spur your writing. And these resources are included in every weekly prompt for reference:

• 50 Loglines
• 50 Story Ideas
• 50 Imagination Ticklers

And there will likely be more to come!

How to Optimize the Rewards on Your Posts in The Ink Well

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As you can see from the previous sections in this newsletter, we are all about creating a great community and supporting creativity! And with our curie proxy, we have the ability to regularly support and reward those who are working to develop the craft of writing.

With every story you publish in The Ink Well, you have the opportunity to make it a really nice piece that others will enjoy reading. And when you write with care and polish your content, you will see higher rewards, both from The Ink Well and from the community.

Here are some tips for earning great rewards:

1. Make sure your story has the key elements of a story, including character development, scene setting, dialog, a conflict and a resolution. Write an enticing first line and a great ending.
2. Take the time to carefully read through your story one more time before you post it. You will most likely find a missing word, a grammatical error, or a sentence that does not start with a capital letter.
3. Either draft your content in Google docs, or use Google docs for spell checking and syntax checking. It is very easy to do and it is explained in the post Help for the Grammatically Challenged.

Taking these steps can make a big difference!

Possible Mentor Program

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We are always looking for ways to support and inspire our community of writers. We have considered setting up a program to provide hands-on help to one or two eager writers each month who are actively trying to improve their skills in fiction writing.

This is just a fledgling idea at this point, but we are putting it out there to gauge interest. If this is something you would be interested in, please comment to let us know.

Thank you for reading our newsletter. And thank you for being a part of our community. We are here to encourage you and help you on your writing journey.

@jayna, @agmoore, and @gracielaacevedo

We would like to invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @agmoore and @gracielaacevedo.

We also invite you to follow The Ink Well curation trail on the Hive blockchain, at https://hive.vote/. Simply navigate to the curation trail section and search for theinkwell (all one word with no @ symbol) and our trail will pop up as an option.

Similarly delegations are possible on Hive using the fantastic https://peakd.com/ Hive Blockchain front end. If you wish to delegate to @theinkwell, you can do this from the wallet section of https://peakd.com/

A big thank you to all of our delegators:
@jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo, @johneyreacko, @zeurich, @generikat, @barge, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @marcybetancourt, @lacrucita, @adncabrera, @vision-of-esca, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @rypo01, @evagavilan2 and @bertrayo.

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Comments

[kaerpediem]

Congratulations on the Creative Coin support - it's very encouraging

As for being mentored, I always appreciate @theinkwell's feedback - not only on my post but also on others - I have learnt along the way for sure. So thank you <33

[jayna]

Being open to feedback and paying attention to what works in other stories is a great way to learn, @kaerpediem! That's one reason we encourage writers to read one another's work. :-)

[juanvegetarian]

The #creativecoin tag is a much welcome addition to the rewards we already get from the posts. A mentor program will be nice to have, especially for those of us who are not native speakers. Thanks for the fantastic update. !LUV

[jayna]

Thanks for letting us know of your interest, @juanvegetarian!

[juanvegetarian]

Welcome, @jayna. :)

[luvshares]

^<><

<><

^LUV

^Connect

^Trade

@theinkwell, you've been given LUV from @juanvegetarian.

Check the LUV in your H-E wallet. _(1/3)

[atma.love]

A very nice post. It is inspiring me to learn the art if short story writing.

But

conflict and a resolution.

Dies a story really need conflict?

Namaste
Atma

[deeanndmathews]

Just a note ... conflict does not always mean "fighting." Think about it this way:

1. A character may have to make a decision (conflict is choosing between options)
2. A character may find himself or herself in an unexpected situation (conflict between courage and fear, or good and evil)
3. A character may deal with loss -- grief brings conflict of emotions -- and thus come into conflict with others dealing with their grief and emotions differently.

A useful way of thinking about conflict is, "What challenge does the character have to overcome?" That challenge is the source of conflict in the character's life, the challenge that has to be overcome for the character to return to where we find him or her, or find their way to a new state of affairs.

[atma.love]

Helpful. Thanks

[deeanndmathews]

You're welcome!

[jayna]

Thanks for visiting, @atma.love. And that is a good question. Yes, conflict is essential to a story.

I'll illustrate with an example. Which of these stories sounds more interesting?

1. Dorothy travels to a wonderful land called Oz, meets some nice friends along the way, and when she feels tired she goes back home.
2. Dorothy is a lonely farm girl who becomes swept away from her home in a tornado. A wicked witch blames her for the death of her sister, who was trapped under Dorothy's fallen house and threatens her. She takes a long journey to Oz, meeting some friends along the way who each have a burning desire to fix something in their lives. One wants a brain, one wants bravery, and one wants a heart. Dorothy wants to get back home. These wishes all seem unobtainable. The friends battle scary flying monkeys and the wicked witch, and are devastated by the lies of the Wizard of Oz. But all is resolved in the end when the good witch gives Dorothy a pair of sparkling red shoes and she clicks them together and says "there's no place like home." Then she finds herself back home in her bed.

A lack of significant conflict is the missing piece in many weak stories. For more on this, see Adding Conflict in our catalog of fiction writing tips.

[kemmyb]

Great! Thanks to Creativecoin for their support. I'll be sure to include this tag in my short stories.

The proposed mentorship program is an excellent idea and I am 100% in support of it. I am very much interested in participating should you decide to start it.

Well done and thank you! 🙂

[jayna]

Great to know, @kemmyb! We will figure out whether to move forward with it and how it would work.

[onwugbenuvictor]

I learnt something new that I have been a lacking for awhile now,

Great news! Our community has caught the attention of Creative Coin, and has invited our community to use the #creativecoin tag.

This is really a great new and big win for the community.

[jayna]

Yes, it's exciting!

[b0s]

Wow, such good news. I'll definitely add the creative coin hashtag to my stories from now on . Also, the mentor program is a great idea

[faithann]

This community is getting better and better! I'm happy to be here.

Go #creativecoin!

[ricardo993]

Congratulations that you are growing and other communities or sources of growth are coming out, I am very happy to hear this news.

That is what we are looking for, not only for us writers to grow, but also for you as a community, you three are great for the great work you do every week. Congratulations indeed.

[wrestlingdesires]

I think the mentor program would be great for SunyAg :) He really is a great writer!!!

!ALIVE and !PIZZA

[pizzabot]

@theinkwell! I sent you a slice of $PIZZA on behalf of @wrestlingdesires.

Learn more about $PIZZA Token at hive.pizza _(9/10)

[youarealive]

You need to stake more ALIVE tokens (you can send 10 tips for every 1000 ALIVE tokens that you have staked)

[jayna]

Yes, it's awesome, isn't it? More ways for our writers to earn!