I have been so busy painting and sewing that I have not made the time to write lately. Soon the renovations will be over, but the holiday season will have me submerged before I can revel in that. I shall try to complete my most recent story suggestion by the end of the month. I say month not week because I shall be devoting the rest of the week to offering my input on other people's artistry. Yesterday morning, I printed out the aforementioned writings and made some observations about following the guidelines offered by whoever is running/ mediating/ hosting the group.
Usually, someone who takes on such an onerous task has some experience with these types of meetings. Anyone who decides to participate should respect this person enough to take their advice. As I grumbled at printed pages yesterday morning, I was reminded how important it is to follow the guidelines for font, header formatting, and line spacing. Why?
1. Having the same font, spacing, and and formatting assures that everyone submits approximately the same amount of material. If you don't have the time to read fifteen extra pages from one submitter, they probably don't have time to read an extra fifteen pages of your creative efforts, regardless of how good they are.
2. Page numbers help keep the pages in order. As I printed out multiple submissions with no page numbers, I found that I needed to make sure they remained in order since I like to print on both sides of a sheet of paper. Keep in mind that sometimes accidents happen, such as piles of paper falling on the floor. A lack of page numbers wastes a lot of time in this instance.
3. Please include your name on the actual submission. When people prepare to critique Lewis Carroll's submission, they may not know it is Alice in Wonderland if you didn't include your name on the piece. This becomes more critical when you submit more than one short piece and another participant does the same.
4. Under no circumstances should you use fancy formatting. I actually printed that one out as it was to show the person how ridiculous it looked. Even if you are both using the same text editor, it doesn't always come across the way you intended.
In the high-tech age in which we live, every writer should be aware that they have to play by the rules of potential publishers. Shouldn't we practice following directions whenever we can?
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