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+--- Thread: Anonymous Interviews (/showthread.php?tid=277)
Anonymous Interviews - heavyhorse - 06-28-2019
Quote:
1 hour ago, caikgoch said:
Second, if you want direct personal interaction, start by giving a little. What else have you published?
This is a perfectly valid point, and one that in my opinion requires a great deal more verification. Some of the "doctoral thesis" threads of the past have turned out to have much darker intent. "Trust but verify" as has been said before. You ask for Good Faith. I think it's fair to ask for substantiated proof.
Anonymous Interviews - Anarchon - 06-28-2019
I don't know how to convey this to you in way that you'll interface with, but I don't want binary answers or "I like dogs" or anything of this nature. I'm not looking for pure data. And I have no use for hundreds of simplistic forum/imageboard style posts. I'm looking for something of literary value, exhaustive personal accounts that convey emotion and feel authentic. I don't even need large amounts of people, sample size of six or ten is fine. To be honest, I'd be happy with even just four. I just need stuff that matches the style of my writing and has certain weight to it.
If it's just data, I might as well be making it up. It's empty stats without any evidence or study to back them up. That's worthless on all levels for a book. Exactly the same as random posting in random threads on the internet. I need detailed anonymous individual accounts, which clearly exhibit a writing style different from my own and come across as raw and real, because they are. And yes, this takes efforts - it means the person in question has to sit down and spend maybe an hour or two writing something down and thinking it over, reminiscing, pondering. I don't expect most people to want to put the effort in and I don't expect plenty of them to be able to do it at all in a way, which is graceful enough to be worthwhile.
It's just that you all seem to be missing the point, perhaps because you assume malice in me. But let's be honest about this, there is literally nothing I can do to make you trust me, because there is no objective way, in which I can prove that my intent is benign. If i delay my work and spend a year on this forum posting every day, there will no doubt still be someone, who'll call me a fed looking to bust people once I start asking people for information. The paranoia in these circles in strong, I'm aware of it and I can't do anything about it.
Everything else that is being mentioned is in my introductory thread, I've nothing else to give you because I literally have nothing else. I'm sorry, but you can't expect me to post my manuscript here. If I post one chapter of it, you'll call it a fake bait. If I post all of it, I'm setting myself up. But if I do end up publishing - or rather when - I'll be sure to post a link here. That's all I can promise.
Anonymous Interviews - caikgoch - 06-28-2019
Most writers (like me) don't start with a full length book. So I am asking for articles and essays, if any. You say style is important and I agree. So I want to see what kind of style I am lending my knowledge and skills to.
As far as the rest goes, your youth is showing. That's not bad but you will be much happier if you listen to those that have already traveled the path you are on. Doing a few simple searches on the forum would let you refine your questions a great deal. As they are, you are asking for nine full essays. I could do that for you but it will take months. Do you want to wait that long?
Anonymous Interviews - Anarchon - 06-28-2019
No, I'm not asking for nine full essays.
I quote myself:
"Also bear in mind that each overarching "question" has numerous sub-questions in it not because you have to individually answer all of them, but because they are meant to inspire you and give you a general feel for what I'm getting at and what I'd like you to talk about. Feel free to go beyond what I'm asking or focus on specific parts of it. Thank you."
What I expect to receive in total from one participant is one or two standard pages tops, all of the sections combined. So essentially one short essay. Again, like I've said earlier today - about an hour or two of time for most people, I assume.
I'm not beginning with a full-length book either. I have over a decade of on and off practice behind me. Thousands of pages of stuff I have deleted by now, because it wasn't good enough to be worth preserving in my eyes. My early works were all in my native language and they are gone. Most of the stuff in English that came after it is also gone, I think, but I could be seriously surprised when sifting through the contents of one of my external drives. Mostly it was just fiction, too. All the piles of "essays" I've written were for specific online debates. Subreddits, forums, Discord servers or even private conversations, that sort of thing - and guess what, most of them no longer exist. I've only ever backed up a handful of those and I might still have one or two somewhere. I guess I could try to dig something up. I should also still have a few short stories that have survived the purges, all of them a few years old at this point and thus not entirely representative. Again, I'm not a native speaker, so it's as much about my grasp of the language as it is about my writing skills. The former is still in the process of improving as I'm largely self-taught.
The best I can do is unearth one of the few old pieces I have lying somewhere on an external drive and give it a quick make-over to bring it more up to date. Alternatively, I am willing to take a request. You'll give me a topic for an essay, I'll produce something and post it. That way it will be as fresh and representative as it gets.
It's a shame that because of deleted forums I have lost contact with multiple people I used to talk to. It's a shame some people I used to know blocked me for petty reasons. They would have been perfectly sufficient for this purpose and likely up to the task. The only reason I'm asking complete strangers is because I have nowhere else to go at this point. I join some forum, talk to people for a few months, things get quiet, I get busy with real life, come back six or twelve months later and the forum is gone. My original plan was to first ask on a local forum, where I used to post several months ago and was in touch with one moderator. Guess what, the day I came here I tried to go there first and found out it's just gone. As you can imagine, I'm also tired of always investing time into some new community, only for it to get shut down or fall apart like a year later. The same with people, I've invested a ton of time into separate individuals, only for them to throw it all away in the end as if it all meant nothing or for them to turn out to be... rather unsavory characters. I've had that happen so many times over the last few years it's not even funny anymore. Hence why I didn't even bother to first fully establish my presence here and instead went straight to business. I guess I'm getting more cynical about this whole thing and I apologize if it came across as rude and intrusive.
This place was just a back-up plan for me. My original intention was to go here later with a finished product to promote it in the English-speaking zoo circles. As it stands, I'm reconsidering this thing. This was all supposed to be a relatively smooth sailing (with the now nonexistent community) and I'm not sure anymore if this spur-of-the-moment idea is going to work out. Probably not, all things considered. Yesterday was a crushing disappointment, when I found out the old place is no more, and today isn't shaping up too well either as it seems.
Oh well. If at least a handful of willing participants comes along, I'll do the whole essay on request thing, if you want me to. Or revisit one of the old works. It will be worth it at that point. As it stands, it's probably not. I'm very sure you have your reasons, I'm sure they are good reasons, and I hold none of that against any of you. I'm not entitled to your cooperation. And I mean that in a plural sense.
Here's one last idea of mine, something I'm not even sure about. I still have a lot of work to do with sources, additional edits, and so on. I need to get a cover art as well. The idea with interviews is something I can easily tack-on at the very end, once virtually everything is done. So potentially, I could use this time to gain presence and hopefully a degree of respect here so that when the time comes, people will be more cooperative. But, again, I'm not sure whether it will produce results.
So yeah, these are my thoughts for now. My bag and a half of cents. I'm sorry if I'm being a nuisance. I haven't come here to cause upheaval even though it may seem like it at this point.
Anonymous Interviews - silverwolf1 - 06-28-2019
First, you ask permission of the Admin to conduct such a survey on the forum...
sw
Anonymous Interviews - silverwolf1 - 06-28-2019
A note to members replying by PM to the survey. We know only what we are told by the user <a contenteditable="false" data-ipshover="" data-ipshover-target="<___base_url___>/profile/4010-anarchon/?do=hovercard" data-mentionid="4010" href="<___base_url___>/profile/4010-anarchon/">@Anarchon</a> of him. Take care and stay safe.
sw
Anonymous Interviews - Anarchon - 06-28-2019
I have read the rules before making a single post. Unless I'm blind, nowhere did it say I need to ask for your permission to ask people questions - especially questions that don't involve doxxing material - so let's just say that this came out of nowhere. Just so you know, I haven't received any DMs either. Everyone is apparently either disinterested or scared that I'm a government thug looking to ruin their lives.
If you don't want me here, I understand. If you want me to do something to earn more trust, just say so. Other than that, I don't know what to say.
Anonymous Interviews - silverwolf1 - 06-29-2019
The rules apply to general posting and polls. You're conducting a scientific survey, of sorts. The above is the proper course to take in such instance.
I've read your questions. Many can be answered simply by viewing the replies in the poll threads, those that require deeper answers will take more than a day if any choose to answer. Be patient. I'd rather if user names must be attached that the answers be made in this thread though than in private, and that users then take precautions based on that.
I'll be clear. I don't trust you. I don't trust anyone, except Big Al, and that has kept me relatively safe since 1997. I'm even more un-trusting for the sake of my members. I must be. It's my duty.
You cannot change that. I will always warn my members, I will always look for the safest way, I will always have them tread lightly, even if I participate myself. I must.
sw
Anonymous Interviews - caikgoch - 06-29-2019
@sw1, I'm sorry but I have to ask. On a forum filled with writers, how many of them delete their life's work preparatory to beginning a new project?
The alarm bells are distracting me.
Anonymous Interviews - Anarchon - 06-29-2019
How is this scientific in any way? I'm not collecting data, I keep repeating over and over again that I came here for anonymous stories devoid of identifiable person information. It's journalism. Which also - again - applies to the thing about polls. At this point I feel like nobody even reads what I post. It's driving me nuts.
And it wasn't my "life's work". How did you reach that conclusion? I'm in my early twenties, it was mostly crappy, trashy stories I wrote as a learning process. I only kept a small amount and the better ones. Again, you're just being unreasonable at this point.