Friends, writers, countrymen - lend me your ears.
I come to unbury Open Salon -- and to praise it!
As a relatively new member of this intelligent community of thinkers and ponderers and musers and speakers and artists and poets and dreamers and wonks, I am proposing to post, each week, a compendium of neglected works you wish people had read but, because we're so damn prolific here at OS, they didn't.
You know the feeling.... You've written a kick-ass piece! You keep refreshing your in-box or blog page, hoping to see someone commented. But they don't. And it isn't because it wasn't good.... It's most likely because it fell off the list of Recent Posts, and has been relegated to the far recesses of Nearly Recent Posts (a virtual no man's land here). With hundreds of new writers arriving (daily, weekly? I'd be interested in the metrics), seems to me some great work is quickly getting left behind. And, too, some great writers frustrated by that.
Rather than outline a specific timeframe and goals (it's far too early without coffee for me to comtemplate beyond the concept), let's begin by asking you to either e-mail me or post here a blog of yours best loved and sadly neglected.... We'll take the project from there.
If anyone responds, that is!
Update: Please only submit one piece per writer. Going forward, if this is a successful venture, we'll set parameters (such as your best recent neglected piece of the week). For now, I envision many of you have a number of beloved lost pieces.... Let's shoot for the moon. Submit any, but submit one by copying and pasting a link in the comments below or in an e-mail to me. I'll put them all together and post for easy reading by your new fans. Thanks! And tell your friends!
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Left Is Right
C Berg
Ian Curtis
David Sirota
Patrick McEvoy-Halston
Kathy Riordan
Salon.com
Comments
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=13080
Maybe they will see the link here and come back and let me know what happened to Shelly Zinka, Pinky Tornado, The Texan and the monkey's paw. It is a small hole in my life, but it is a hole.
LT, I prefer to think of you as Swashbuckling!
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O'steph - That's what compelled me. At some point, the writers here were bound to identify even more ways to share their thoughts and communicate with each other. This is a micro-society. Compendiums and "best ofs" and even contests are bound to emerge. And I think that's welcome in a place like this.
As for when to post the compendium.... What say you? Saturday mornings? Sunday mornings? Friday nights?
I've been totally gratified by the attention my posts have received, but when I first joined OS a couple of weeks ago, two of my posts seemed to disappear (both were published on a day when OS was having a lot of technical issues.) My preferred of the two was "caring, schmaring": a commentary/true story about what it really means to "care" for students and for people in general:
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=36602
I'd suggest Friday morning would be a good time for such a compendium. Plenty of readers will still be at the computer, but will still have the weekend ahead of them to get caught up on reading...(and a "work" day ahead of them when they'll be looking for distractions...)
Lisa,
This is a great idea.I am new to this site as well (mid-October) and I've been slowly building readership. I am beyond grateful every time someone stumbles onto my page and reads and comments on a piece.
This is a community of truly great writers. It is the first I've ever posted my work anywhere--and it often feels like attempting to get published for the first time by submitting to "The New Yorker."
Add that to the fact that I haven't written a word in eight years (I believe, if your gonna get writer's block--do it right) it is a bit hard for me to judge what is "good coverage" of a piece.
I am including a link to something I posted last week. It has been read by 9 people, and really, I'm over the moon by that number--but it was a busy week, so maybe it would have done better during a more "down time" (if that exists on OS??)
Two other things:
(1) With this piece, I e-mailed it to a few people whom I had been corresponding with on their posts and/or whose work I admired (or both). It was the first time I tried that ploy, and I didn't know if it was an acceptable thing to do. (I have since found out that it is done regularly--but it still feels a little pushy to me.) Your method seems a step-removed, therefore, more comfortable.
(2) Titles are critical to garnering readership (duh). I wrote a throw away piece on Tuesday night( in my gleeful revelry) and I have been gratefully blown away by the response. It's title was "Obama not really a Democrat." So I learned a lesson about titles.
I thought this was pretty good. Only one reader that I know about.
I've got that low self-esteem thing though so my inclination is to figure that the piece just sucked. Therefore, I send this with great trepedation.
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Inchkachka's lovely piece about Armenian culture
And, in case that didn't work, here's the actual address:
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=27101
I applaud your effort to help get OS back on track! Thanks!!
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=39996
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=39291
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BTW, I would also appreciate any technical tips people feel like sharing. Out here where I live, we are on satellite internet, and I can't send photos through Outlook, which seems to be the only way to get them onto the site. I think writers without visuals (or, in my case, technical skills) are at a definite disadvantage in terms of readership. I hate being an anonymous blue head.
Rated.
I thought I did really well! But, of course, I finished it while awaiting election returns and posted right in the midst of all the fun.
The Last Boat In
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=38764
Thank you.
Dean
This one of mine fell into the Bermuda triangle. It is really personal and up to now unnoticed:
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=14773
It didn't get much love - then again, it was about hate and nacho cheese.
Goofing is essential to maintain a modicum of sanity. Goof on, please.
Sorry for the shouting but it felt good.
Look for an update very soon - here and by e-mail.
A Boomer Coming Full Circle
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=40279
As for me, it was really hard to choose because I think I have two (they happen to be the most recent two). However I think this one here - http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=40269 which is about a recent Wall Street Journal article which refers to Americans "treatment" of president Bush a "disgrace" deserves an extra look. The other one got at least a couple of thumbs - I'm not sure that anyone read this one.
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=28167
And the second one is a personal favorite. The Sarah Palin Chronicles...Episode One The Beginning. It tells of my theory of how Sarah Palin came to be...and frankly the most likely scenario based on what we've witnessed. I originally planed on doing four episodes, but since this didn't get much of a reaction first time out,I never wrote the other ones. Hey...if it gets life again, and people really want to read the other ones...I'll do it. So OSers it's up to you. btw...I had a really fun time doing the graphic for this one.
http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=28560
Thanks Lisa for giving us this forum.
Look for it then! Thanks for all the contributions!
Lisa R.