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Which day of the week would work best for you?

  • Monday

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • Tuesday

    Votes: 4 26.7%
  • Wednesday

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Thursday

    Votes: 1 6.7%
  • Friday

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Saturday

    Votes: 9 60.0%

  • Total voters
    15

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AgentPete

Capo Famiglia
Guardian
Full Member
May 19, 2014
London UK
Hello everyone :) Sorry to say, but the bad news is that summer appears to be over. Here in London, we’ve recently had a few really gorgeous late-summer days – blue skies, (fairly) fresh air, and a certain calm crispness that is really quite beguiling. But today, it’s back to the grey skies and general dankness that heralds a long and fairly unspectacular British autumn. Back to work, then.

Traditionally, summer has been a fairly quiet time in publishing. Soho empties out and Tuscany flourishes. For me though, and I think increasingly for others, it’s been business as usual. The publishing year is not as seasonal as it was – these days, it’s mostly full-on, all the time.

If there’s been any spare time recently (and there hasn’t been much) it’s come in handy for general maintenance, keeping systems up to date, and having lunches that are still an important part of the social fabric that binds our strange industry together.

Anyway, I do hope that your summer (if you’re in the northern hemisphere!) has been both pleasant and re-creational.

This seems a good moment to float an idea I’ve been developing ever since Submissions Surgery was discontinued.

I’d like to propose a group “meet-up” once a month.

As with Submissions Surgery, this would be exclusively for Litopians. Unlike SS, though, the agenda would not be purely focused on one person’s manuscript submission. It would actually be… well, anything you’d care to bring along.

So we might discuss one member’s submission, another’s issue with plot structure, another’s with self pub vs trad pub, and so on.

I know this sounds quite unstructured, but I think by broadening it out a bit we can make the process more valuable to more Litopians.

The practicalities…

I use a system call GoToMeeting to have regular client conference calls. Its’ very easy to use – if you can figure out Skype, you can use GoToMeeting. It will easily work on your desktop, your laptop, your mobile phone or your tablet. And there’s a phone number, too, if you just want to take part by phone.

One of the nice things about it is that it easily allows us to share documents if we want to, without any prior preparation. I have a 12-person license, which means we could handle up to 11 participants.

Let me know if this interests you. If it does, please give me a name or two (I’m calling it, for the moment, the Huddle… but you may well come up with a better name… after all, you’re writers :) )

There’s a poll at the top of this post for you to choose the best day of the week for you. I’m assuming we’d do it some time in the 5pm – 7pm range, UK. Sundays not possible due to Pop-Ups.

 
I’ve only been here five minutes but it sounds great to me. Monday evenings are good, some Thursdays and the odd Saturday afternoon / early evening when Brighton aren’t playing at home ;)
 
This sounds like a brilliant idea and I'd love to participate but sadly I speak "stroke" and my carer is the only one who has the most natural ear for it. Anyone can pick up one or two words, but not a sentence. I'd love to watch though if you privately put up on YouTube :)
 
Superb idea, esp that we can bring along anything to discuss. If it's vid con, I might (accidently) bring my cat. I think he's desperate to discuss the wording of the feeding instructions on the tin.

Saturdays would be best for me. I could probably manage Tuesdays and Fridays if I rearrange my work hours at home. Mons, Weds, Thurs totally out. Away-work hours completely inflexible and rather long, usually till 8PM-ish.
 
Sounds like a great idea! I work Monday through Friday (and could not participate while at my job), and I'm 6 hours behind the UK, so during the week would, unfortunately, never work for me.
 
This sounds like a brilliant idea and I'd love to participate but sadly I speak "stroke" and my carer is the only one who has the most natural ear for it. Anyone can pick up one or two words, but not a sentence. I'd love to watch though if you privately put up on YouTube :)
You can watch live. A recording will also be available, but only on Litopia. And finally, there's quite a good chat function, too - which might be useful...? p.
 
there's quite a good chat function, too - which might be useful

Yes, that works :) I'll see what day/time you settle on (lots of options offered above). Being in the Southern hemisphere with daylight saving, I could still find it hard, but that's life! Can't change the globe :) I may be able to swing a visit before daylight savings kicks in, yay!
 
Sounds great! I'm flexible and will work around whatever I can, but Friday nights might prove difficult.
 
Sounds like an absolutely stonking idea! (Been dying to use that word:))
I am 6 hours ahead of the UK soon to be 7 but understand you have to base things around your time.
I will just have to delay my nightcap by a few hours.
With a 12 person limit, it may become overcrowded? Will limiting it to patrons help? Initially, at least I think that maybe the way to go.
 
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With a 12 person limit, it may become overcrowded? Will limiting it to patrons help? Initially, at least I think that maybe the way to go.

Well, I'd like to keep it open to all initially, then see how it goes. The next "tier" in GoToMeeting will actually allow up to 150 participants, more than enough. But it costs more, so maybe at that stage it would be appropriate to ask members to contribute.
 
As it seems most prefer a Saturday, I can miss a monthly Saturday meeting here to join the Litopian conference. Looking at the next tier, I think 150 is over the top- it looks as if it is going to be a handful handling a mere dozen! It means 5 mins each per hour. Won't you need to put a limit on how much a participant can speak, like in TV shows?
 
I’d like to start out deliberately loose, and then see what sort of structure makes sense. Some people will get more attention than others, but after a few events, it will even out. And the intention is that it’s not a series of one-on-ones - as in the Colony itself, you’ll find that the group will be able to assist members quite effectively. At some point, when a structure is emerging, it might make sense to ask someone to volunteer as Agenda Manager.
 
I like the idea of unstructured as the concept itself is novel so needs to evolve and grow into something rather than be invented.
See what works and ditch what doesn't. However, the big draw will, I feel, be Agent Pete himself. The chance to get his comments to some writing will be what excites most of us.
 
Sorry I'm a bit late to this... I love this idea, especially something that's loose and grows as we go. I'm fairly flexible re times and days, so would aim to go with whichever time suited most of the group. Thanks, @AgentPete – another great idea
 
I'm not keen on Saturdays because I get up at the crack of sparrow fart to work on the street market. However, I will go with the majority decision. Just keep the discussions lively otherwise I might nod off :D
 
Late posting here as well, but... fantastic idea. Love it. My little ones make the time slot difficult on any day of the week, but I'd do my best to participate. It's good to hear there'll be a recording available. :)
 
Great idea. I'm in! Voted for my day, Tues but could do Monday easily.. Sounds useful but fun
 
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