I'm a blot, this is a place for writers. I'm at home..
scribble news
JANUARY 1999
ONLINE 
EDITORIAL

BULLETIN BOARDS CLOSING
      It has become obvious over the past few months that things are changing in the world of Bulletin Boards. Even were there not so many Boards closing in this part of the world, we are all being forced, one way or another, to choose how we spend our leisure. The World Wide Web is filled with intensive, time consuming choices.
      There is a certain amount of grief both for those who stay within FidoNet, and for those who become immeshed in the web. There is, also, some sense of loss both of inspiration and of companionship. 

INTERNET COMPANION
      It seems to me, that in developing scribble on the net I have several aims in mind. 
      One is to provide a point of contact for those who simply don't have the line time to visit the FIDO group. To that end I propose to include my monthly review of NZ_Poetry on these pages, and with them - subject to the approval of the poet, of course, my own personal choice of the most memorable poem to be posted during that time. The criteria are strictly personal. When I sit down to write the review, something about the poem must leap to my mind and stay there. This is not a competition, merely a way to share the high points. 
 


ONLINE SERVICE
      I'm hoping that over time, Scribble on the Net can begin to provide some of the services which seem to happen naturally within the FidoNet Echo. An area in which original poems may be posted, and discussed. 
      I'ld like to see an area for relaxing with words too, modelled on the old Nexus BBS Rubber Room, where a few writers inspired each other, mostly by not trying too hard to impress or to write beautifully. Out of that experiment came several major works. 
    These things are still very much 'in the works'. Some of them depend on the reaction of the FidoNet community, since I am also hoping sometimes to cross post, if only the best, both ways. After all, we've tried, over the years, to post poems on behalf of long time Scribblers who have gone overseas, or of people who wished to remain anonymous or of friends who did not themselves have a computer or a modem. This is one step ahead of that. 

PLANS
     As time goes on, I hope also to provide some technical and historical resources. Including some definitions of the more popular styles of poetry, examples of poetry translated from ancient languages, a few essays (oh how I hope not all of them by me), and, subject to individual copyright permissions, extracts from Scribble the Anthology past, and indeed, as yet unpublished. 
 

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