For the last few evenings I have been working on a new website - a public workshop for writers of all abilities to put their writing out there, and to give and receive comment on each other’s work.
The site is provisionally being called “PluggedOut Writers” - mainly because I already have the domain name, so it’s not costing anything to do (apart from my time). Here’s the URL…
http://www.pluggedout.com/writers
Anybody who has known me for long enough will know that I once did something very similar a long time ago - I ran a site called “ThoughtCafe”. If you look on the “Way Back Machine” on the internet, you will find ghostly images from the past of the ThoughtCafe site.
I’m not even sure why the thought came into my head to start another writing site. Perhaps there is a nagging feeling in my head that I have the ability to provide a wonderful website for the masses, and haven’t done so - that somehow I am letting my skills go to waste. Who knows. In a way creating a writing site is the “easy option” too - I’ve built it before, so I know exactly how to do it again. I’ve also run a hugely popular site before, so have all that experience too.
Anyway - if you have some spare time, do head on over to the new site and have a play. It’s not complete yet, but there is enough there for people to start publishing their writing and to give and receive comments.