And no I’m not a paid endorser (though I wish I were!) 😉

Scribophile is a website dedicated to writing where the work effort put into it is by writers … of ALL types. Professional, Amateur, hobbyists, interested parties, “I-just-write-to-get-the-stories-out-of-my-head” people … everyone.

As it’s on the web, there are people from around the world on it.

When writing for print or publication, it’s really important that you let your work be seen/read by others and while Mom and Dad are great for the ego, they aren’t great for the editing it takes to make a piece successful.

Not all of us enjoy group activities where we have to take more of our precious time away from family or friends to meet with people who might, or might not, like us. The Internet gives us the ability to find “like-minded” people (or not) and to group together such that we benefit from each others’ work.

On Scribophile, you can only post work once you’d earned enough “Karma” — a points system geared toward getting you active. That requires that you critique others’ work — which is in and of itself hard too!

1100 posts later, and I’m amazed at the feedback I’ve gotten on my writing. I’ve improved beyond compare. Yeah, my Mom reads my work, as does my sister, but more for enjoyment than detailed critique. My friends on Scribophile … they look at my work with that fine toothed comb and run it through the wringer (which means they’d pick out both those cliche’s and tell me just how bad it was that I wrote them into my piece). 😉

If you are a budding writing, working on a piece, want to get involved with a community that will build you up (and tear you down when need be) then I highly recommend checking them out. No one is out to get you on the site … but it can feel that way … which only makes you stronger because 95% of the time? What they’d said is right … even if you have to read between the lines to see it.

We are emotionally tied to our work and the only way we’ll see it’s faults, holes, areas for improvement is by having dedicated peers look at it.

It’s the place “to be” to improve … in my opinion…

Come find me … I’m Aimee Laine there … just like here. 🙂