July 2022 News, Announcements and New Contest from The Ink Well

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Hello Beautiful Community!

First, a word of appreciation for all in the community who have been posting stories, providing feedback on one another's posts, and helping our community to grow and thrive! Thank you!

Okay, onto the news. Here are the topics in this newsletter:

• The Ink Well Updates
• Winner from the June Contest!
• July 2022 Contest — with double rewards!
• Find Us on Discord
• Delegate to The Ink Well / Follow Our Curation Trail
• Rules, Guidelines, Posting Frequency, etc.
• Creative Inspiration

The Ink Well Updates

You may have noticed that things run at a bit of a slower pace in The Ink Well these days. It's no accident.

We have taken two important measures to ensure the integrity of our community, resulting in fewer stories, but better content!

Step one was to request that those who post in The Ink Well do so only about once per week. We are not super strict about this. For example, if you wait only at least five days between posts, that is okay. We took this step because we emphasize quality, not quantity. Some writers were spinning out stories two or three times a week without taking the time to edit their work for grammar and readability, or to develop their characters and incorporate the important elements of quality fiction. As a result, we on the admin team had our hands full with low-quality content. Needless to say, this also had a net negative effect on the reward pool and resulted in unfairness to other authors. We are very pleased with the results and the improvement in quality.

Step two was to increase our watchful eyes on spam, content farming and plagiarism. We do not tolerate people gaming the system and doing shady dealings behind the scenes to create content from existing sources or unfairly reap rewards. Sadly, this means that when we discover these activities, we must take action, up to and including banning members from the community. On a positive note, however, these efforts have succeeded in reducing the incidents of plagiarism in The Ink Well. Also, the quality of the work we see, and that visitors find if they come to our community, is much improved! These efforts are ongoing.

Please publish only your own content in The Ink Well, and act with integrity in all dealings with our community.

Winner from the June Contest!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our June contest, with stories and comments. You guys did great!

The contest rules involved writing one story in The Ink Well during the month of June inspired by travel.

Thank you to all participants:

@katleya, @popurri, @gabmr, @marbrym and @bettyhandayani

Winner!

We have selected @gabmr's story, Pangaea as the prize winner!

Congratulations to @gabmr! You will receive 5 Hive.

July Contest!

We'd like to encourage more people to participate in our monthly contests. So — great news! Going forward we will be rewarding 10 Hive for the best story of the month. You have a whole month to write and polish a stellar story!

For the month of July, the prompt is explore. Bring us stories of going to strange places, meeting people from different lands (or planets), looking behind closed doors, or taking a leap of faith and trying something frightening and new.

Ideas to inspire you (feel free to pick one, or come up with your own):

• Two children discover a magical world beyond a garden gate.
• A woman finds a hidden chest in her grandmother's attic that reveals secrets of the past.
• A boy runs away from home after being unfairly punished and explores life without his home and family.
• A man learns from his doctor that his stressful job is killing him, so he quits to become an artist.

Here's how to participate:

• Write one story this month in The Ink Well inspired by exploring new things.

• Post a link to your story in a comment on this post.

At the end of the month, the author who produces the best story will receive 10 Hive!

Hint: We are looking for a high-quality story. Don't rush. Use the skills we have been emphasizing in our weekly prompts — great settings, good character building, strong dialog, and a good story arc that resolves well in the end.

Good luck!

Find Us on Discord

Our Discord server is a great place to chat with other community members about the craft of writing.

Please pop into our Welcome channel, read our guidelines for conduct, and then feel free to interact with other community members or ask The Ink Well Team a question in the #ask-theinkwell channel.

Discord invitation link: https://discord.gg/Bng7mMsaQj

Delegate to The Ink Well / Follow Our Curation Trail

Want to support our community, our contests, and our rewards for great quality content? See the table below. We have made it super easy. Thank you, thank you, thank you! We have a goal to continue increasing the support we give to our wonderful, hardworking and dedicated authors!

You can also follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.

Rules, Guidelines, Posting Frequency, etc.

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Our Once-a-Week Posting Guideline

A few months ago we announced a new guideline of posting in The Ink Well no more than once-per-week.

We found this necessary as we work to eliminate spam, content farming and low-quality content from our community, and ensure that we have the resources to curate all the wonderful work that our wonderful community members publish.

What this means for you: Please use the once-a-week rule as a rough guideline. In other words, you do not need to wait a full 7 days to post again. If it's 5, 6, or 7 days, that's fine.

Refresher on The Ink Well Community Rules

We add this refresher to all of our monthly newsletters as a reminder.

If you're new, or you're not aware of our rules, please take the time to read them. If you are on a desktop or laptop computer, you can find them at the top of our community home page. You will also see them at the top of your post in The Ink Well if you hover over the blue "Rules" button. Can't see them? You can find the rules here.

The following are some of the rules that we commonly re-explain to unaware members:

• Do not post violent content. No stabbings, rapes, shootings, murders, brutality of women or children, etc. etc. And do not post anything NSFW (not safe for work). Why? Because we are a community that is open to anyone and everyone. And these topics and images are unpalatable or even traumatizing for some people. We also have no way of preventing children from viewing our community content. Please read our article on violence and brutality where we spell this out in very clear language.
• Please only post short stories in The Ink Well. That is the sole focus of our community. There are other communities for poetry, essays, freewriting, etc.
• Please do not post chapter stories or "multi-part" stories. The reason for this rule is so that readers do not need to have read a preceding or future piece in order to read and enjoy the current piece they are reading. Each piece must stand on its own, with a beginning, middle and end.
• We require images to be non-copyrighted (e.g. from sites like Pixabay, Pexels or Unsplash) and for your story to include a linked source for every image. If the images are your own, please be sure to make a note of it.
• Plagiarism and re-posting are not allowed. We only accept 100% unique, original content in The Ink Well that has not appeared elsewhere in any form. (The only exception is the story appearing simultaneously in multiple Hive front ends, like ecency, peakd, etc., which is of course fine.) This is to ensure that The Ink Well community follows the highest standards for content, and that rewards go to those who have developed and shared their own creative work in the community.

Rules Support and Protect Our Community

The goals of The Ink Well are to foster creativity and growth, and to help writers develop their writing skills and earn an income for their work. We want The Ink Well to be a safe and welcoming place for writers and readers. As community admins, we are staunch defenders of truth, honesty, and creative integrity.

Be sure to check out The Ink Well Manifesto, if you have never done so. It provides the mission of The Ink Well, information about rewards and income, and more information on our policies.

Community Involvement

No community is a true community without involvement and engagement! We ask that you read and comment on at least two other writers' work each week, or two for each story you publish in The Ink Well.

And remember that the rewards for Hive posts are split between the writer and the curators! You are paid to read and support other writers, just as you are paid to publish. Your support of others also builds your following.

Creative Inspiration and Skill Building

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In The Ink Well, we're not just about posting content and getting rewards. We are about building skills that help you earn the best possible rewards because your readers love to read your stuff!

We are here to nudge you to strive for greatness. You know how it feels when someone says, "Wow, just wow! I loved your story!" That's what it's all about. And the good news is that the rewards follow. If people love your work, they give you great upvotes. They seek you out. They want more of your creative content. And curation accounts like Curie, which we utilize and support, will give you the best possible upvotes too.

So what are you waiting for? Use our resources to build your skills and improve your writing. Here are some of the resources we provide:

1. Creative inspiration
   We encourage and support ideas and creativity by publishing a weekly fiction prompt. Watch for them in The Ink Well on Monday nights. Additionally, we have a nearly inexhaustible list of ideas to spur your writing. And these resources are included in every weekly prompt for reference: 50 Loglines, 50 Story Ideas, and 50 Imagination Ticklers
2. Skill building opportunities
   We have a great catalog of fiction writing tips that can help any writer learn and grow. You can learn about characters, conflict, scene building, dialog and more. We hope you take advantage of it. And here are some important tips that can help you improve your writing craft:
   -- Draft your content in Google docs, or use Google docs for spell checking and syntax checking. It is very easy to do and it is explained in the post Help for the Grammatically Challenged.
   -- Make sure your story has the key elements of a story, including character development, scene setting, dialog, action, a conflict, and a resolution. We provide resources to help you with all of these important fiction elements in our catalog of fiction writing tips.
   -- Review your work before posting. You will most likely find a missing word, a grammatical error, a misspelling or a sentence that does not start with a capital letter, etc.

Thank you for reading our newsletter! We are here to encourage you and help you on your writing journey.

We invite lovers of creative writing to visit The Ink Well, a Hive community started by @raj808 and @stormlight24 and run by @jayna, @agmoore, @gracielaacevedo and @yaziris.

How to Follow Our Curation Trail

You can follow our curation trail by going to our hive.vote curation trail page and clicking the follow button.

How to Delegate to The Ink Well

We welcome delegations! These support our community in many ways, including helping us to provide support to quality content creators through curation and contests.

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A big thank you to all of our delegators:
@zeurich, @jayna, @felt.buzz, @marcybetancourt, @marlyncabrera, @stormcharmer, @generikat, @agmoore, @iamraincrystal, @preparedwombat, @gracielaacevedo, @chocolatescorpi, @kirlos, @josemalavem, @morey-lezama, @sayury, @evagavilan2 and @deraaa.

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