Moved On Up

We’re now at http://owie.targeteil.org. Come on along and join up.

That’s if you’re a writer or illustrator. If you’re a reader, join http://ore.targeteil.org.

OWIe Now Launched. Climb Aboard.

I've circumvented the rather strange impediment of a non-existent but existing blog with the same domain name by adding "home" to the domain for this one. Go figure.

Click here to visit the temporary home of the Online Writers' and Illustrators' eCollective. You'll find a few entries about OWIe on this blog Bli-fi.

OWIe is intended to serve as a sort of webring, blogring, forumring and wikiring for online writers and illustrators. See "The Online Writers' and Illustrators' eCollective (OWIe)" and "The Shaping Up of OWIe" for details to date.

We will eventually move to my new server and switch to Elgg, which has some desirable social features not so easily accessed in WordPress and will not require that I handle membership requests.

Meanwhile, if you want to get in on the game, leave a comment to that effect here and I'll add you as a user. Please note that to add users, I need email addresses. If you're uncomfortable making your address public, email me.

The Shaping Up of OWIe

Well, I was going to take a whack at setting up a temporary home for OWIe on wordpress.com, but it looks like somebody else nabbed the address (owie.wordpress.com) first. Hmmm. Couldn't have done much more than create a new blog, anyway, so I'll wait to try again.

This is how I see OWIe working for now. Sorry, no diagram yet.

Everybody has his or her own website, blog and forum system (as desired). Everybody links to the OWIe website, blog and forum system. Everything but text is stored in member systems, to avoid overburdening OWIe with memory-consuming content like graphics.

The OWIe blog uses Elgg. Elgg features an easily accessible View all posts page on which are displayed a large number of recent posts with links to individual accounts  within Elgg. Meanwhile, Elgg users can create any number of communities, and both communities and posts can be restricted to any of several categories of viewers. It's simultaneously more sociable and more private than I've found WordPress to be.

The OWIe website features categorized links to member sites. Member sites all feature links to the OWIe website. Member sites feature links to other member sites at the discretion of their owners.

OWIe supports forums, hopefully nested ones.

OWIe offers a collaborative tool such as wikimedia or PBwiki which members can use to work together on textual or graphic projects. Once again, though, only text is stored on the home server. Everything else is stored by the members.

OWIe also features a wikipedia-style encyclopedia called OWIepedia which can be used for self-promotion. Members and their fans can contribute articles on writers, illustrators and elements of their work, such as the nature of various species on a distant imaginary world or the tenets of a certain school of writing or illustration.

If anybody is versed in any of the software I've mentioned (or acceptable substitutes), I'd be glad to hear from them.

Craft, Skill and Style

In an earlier post, "Art and Craft", I suggested that "craft is something like skill, the ability to make real what is in your head to make. And like skill, it is subject to style."

I was thinking about the distinction between craft and skill last night while dodging and weaving my way home from the cram school. I decided that craft and skill differ in level. Skill is the ability to apply technique to the medium, to shape pieces of the whole. Craft is the ability to combine the pieces and their shapes into a larger unit of presentation.  In woodcarving terms, it would come out something like this: It takes skill to shape the wood in any given way at any given point, but it takes craft to shape the entire piece in any given way or ways to achieve a particular effect.

Skill lies in the work. Craft lies in the effect. Style is an element of craft and skill manifesting itself as technique in the case of skill and design in the case of craft.

The Online Writers’ and Illustrators’ eCollective (OWIe)

I've got this idea. What about gathering a group of online writers and illustrators? We view and comment on each other's work. As a group, we write and illustrate all kinds of stuff. Realism. Science-fiction. Horror. Mystery. Travel. Book reviews. Landscapes. Whatever. We have a central website, blog and forum with links to all our sites, blogs and forums. When pieces get a certain number of hits and comments (of approval), they're added to a list on the central site.

People can collaborate (i.e., writers and writers, writers and illustrators, illustrators and writers, illustrators and illustrators) or contribute work based on other people's work (e.g., illustrations based on stories, stories based on illustrations, stories based on stories, illustrations based on illustrations).

The name (OWIe) reminds us that brutal honesty is key. When you put yourself out there, you're asking to get hurt.

Anybody game?