Hello, here’s an update on what Overhear has been up to.
Mainly waiting...
Waiting for the Arts Council “decision letter” which I’ve now learnt means “didn’t get it this time” letter since otherwise you get an acceptance letter.
So this is me sharing my fail, a healthy process I learned from Impact Hub's F-Up Nights. It’s not a monumental one mind, I need to pick up on the weaker parts of the bid and resubmit. But it’s important to show set backs do happen, my very first bid was rejected too before being successful so insert inspirational don’t give up quote here:
Now I need to decide if I scale it back to another under 15k one for Birmingham Literature Festival (which has a shorter 6 week waiting time rather than 12) as it was for Verve or have another crack at the over 15k for the year long project... BLF is in October so I think it’s probably worth focussing on that and then then submit the larger one after.
I was asked to join a panel for the National Writers Conference on the 22nd of June by Writing West Midlands which was a first for me. The day was held at The University of Birmingham Campus and consisted of a couple of key note speeches and break out panel sessions.
I was on the panel for "Getting your Work Heard" with Leena Normington and William Gallaghar. Since I have made a platform that I am trying to get people to hear about I learnt loads and went home and downloaded HootSuite immediately... (there's a free version for folks with 3 social media accounts!)
I was able to offer a few pieces of advice though, one of them was to use "Social Fixer" a Google Chrome extension that limits your facebook feed to 20 posts so you don't scroll for eternity! Which means you hit the bottom and do what you were supposed to do on the internet...great advice.
My fellow panelists were able to field the questions really well. Leena being the expert you should check out both of their twitter pages @leenanorms and @WGallagher.
As a final aside the other great thing to come out of the day was talking with Cynthia Miller over lunch about iterative, open source novel writing and how that could possibly work...like a Github for authors taking the best bits from iterating software and applying it to writing...
I did a bit of a google and found a few interesting start points:
This is sort of the idea but could it be digital?
This person is doing something interesting...but its behind a patreon paywall.
Imagining something where all the characters, plot and settings are iterated and developed with a group but then individual authors went away and wrote their story from one perspective or style...
Anyway something to mull on, up the Creative Commons!