Sure, Nyssa. ^_^

How to link to a post

1. In a separate browser window, open 600seconds and find your post.


2. Click on the timestamp link, to show the direct link to the post in your address bar. It will be something like http://600seconds.blogspot.com/2004_07_25_600seconds_archive.html#109115383816923570.


3. Select and copy the link from your address bar.


4. In the text of the post you're creating in the 600+ editing window, use the html for creating a link, and paste in the address you captured. Something like:

   <a href="paste link here">Here's my post for yesterday</a>



5. If you want to be cute, you can include a "title" attribute in the A tag, to make a little pop-up quip when someone hovers over the link.
   

   <a href="paste link here" title="I'm so pithy.">Here's my post for yesterday</a>



6. So here's an example of the result: my Ghost post
   

Sharon, could you please post the instructions for linking to a post?  I'm not sure if I'll be writing for the topic I missed (okay, couldn't think of anything for) yesterday, but I'd like the instructions for future reference.  Thanks!

Just to prove I haven't forgotten 600 seconds in the confusion of my move, here's part twenty-five of my continuing I'm-sure-it-wasn't-a-novel-when-I-started-officer.

I really either need to move out and get a cable modem of my own or hurry along plans to wifi my parents' house. I haven't actually been able to read any of the posts here for the last week.

Yep. Ben got it. That's what I would have said.

Also, on specific questions:
If you travel back in time to address an old topic, post a link over here on 600+ so we know it's there and can go read it. (Lemme know, anyone, if you need technical instructions.)

If you miss a bunch of days, you can either catch up or just start when you get back. No homework here.

I edit my stuff. I can't stand not polishing it. Just, as Ben says, don't get hung up about it. It's allowed to be rough; you have a time limit, after all.

I go over time all the time. Shh, don't tell.

Regarding "Lawgiver," I see myself as a shepherd over a democratic flock. Everybody gets an equal voice; I implement and guide. My goal is to sustain a nurturing space.

My vote has always been that too many questions are better than too few, 'cause if you know that you're doing the right thing, you're more likely to write.
And that's really the point, I think: ten minutes is a guideline. Sometimes you can articulate a thought beautifully in six minutes. This is fine. Sometimes, it takes you fully half-an-hour to sculpt a paragraph to the way it has to be. It's the price you pay for satisfaction sometimes.
This is really just an exercise. If you take a daily seed and accidentally produce a novel (as Fred seems doomed to do with his excellent series), that's wonderful. Everything here is supposed to be rough, but that doesn't mean you can't go back and edit and fix it. The writing is yours, and you can polish it after the fact. The point is to get it up. If you read something you wrote here and honestly feel that you could do better today than you did yesterday, then go ahead. This is about growing as a writer, and more than that, it's about just simply being a writer.
If you keep firmly in mind that a writer writes, and you remember that many of us (I cast an eye askance at my own bad self) won't write without a cattle prod, you will pretty firmly understand the rules here.
At least, that's my vote.

I should add that I thought both the airport stories were really enjoyable! Having been in the Dallas-Ft. Worth horseshoe complex more than once, I totally understood what Mary Ann was writing about... and having been THAT drunk, I could easily identify with Mister Nihil's too-sloppy, too-real description.

C'monbuddy, lesh go get a muddy blary fer th'road! C'MON!! Air'sa pal...

Post-publishing editing is okay, isn't it? Because I confess to going back and making my latest post (drinking baijiu in China) a little more palatable. It just seemed like it needed some judicious cutting and adding and switching around in a few places. Just a little. Maybe I spent 700 or 800 seconds on it, total. Or more. Sorry.

Am I asking too many questions? I tend to do that.

OK now, that was not planned. I didn't read yours before I started on mine. Goodness. We doesn't like airports, we two, I suppose.

Back-dating posts isn't a problem, if you happen to miss a day's topic the first time around but want to go back and write something for it anyway. Plenty of us do it all the time. (I did it just this week with my continuing whatever-it-is.)

I'm not sure that we've ever established any kind of policy about multiple posts on the same topic. I'm not sure it's ever been an issue. We set basic guidelines at the start, but most of this has been made up as we've gone along. (Although if Sharon really wants the title of lawgiver...)

On the one hand, I think if you've got multiple ideas you should run with them. Anything that gets us writing, right? But on the other hand...well, I don't know. It's not that it isn't kosher, it's just not something that's been done. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but...well, heck, I'm most definitely not the lawgiver around here, so I don't know what to tell you.

I'm curious about the rules here as far as posting protocol. As some of you may have noticed, I've been absent from posting for most of the past week. (What's that? No one noticed? Oh.) This was due mainly to a heavier than usual work schedule combined with my playing host to an out of town visitor, resulting in very little time to spend at the keyboard. No big deal, I'm sure there will come other times when the meat world interferes with my virtual reality, and I know that's probably true for everyone here. But I certainly haven't abandoned this enterprise, and I still am happy to be a part of it.

My questions, then, are as follows: Are we limited to posting on the current day's topic only, or can we travel back in time (via the time & date boxes at the bottom of the create box) and address a topic from, say two or three days ago that we might have missed otherwise? Also, what about making more than one post on the same subject? I have had a couple of different ideas for posts that used very different approaches to one suggested subject, but I didn't know if it's considered kosher to post more than once a day.

Are there rules in place for any of this, or are we all making it up as we go along? Is this a democracy, where we put ideas like this to a vote, or is the creator of this blog (I assume that would be Sharon) the lawgiver? I mean, I'm not trying to step on any toes here, and I think I'm comfortable with whatever the answer to these questions will be, but I would like to know for future reference.

Elliot References kickass! Woot!

We need your business, we're going out of business We'll give you the business Get on the business end of our going-out-of-business sale... You got it buddy: the large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

Whoops!  I meant to say earlier, Ben, I liked *your* entry on the "skin" topic.  I realized it seemed a little self-serving-sounding when I wrote the earlier post!

And thanks, Sharon, for having me.  I really like the idea of having to set aside just a little time each day to write something in between chasing the baby away from the CD collection and trying to keep her from foraging for crumbs and dirt on the carpet.

I thought it was hot, too, actually.

Hey, by the way, Nyssa, John, Erik, Glen, thanks so much for joining in with such gusto. Fred was often whinging about how it's hard to write when no one else is, and I was all like, "yeah, yeah, whatever," but he's right. Just knowing that there are lots of folks who have written or are going to write, and that you're reading, makes me want to write. I think you can see the effects on MisterNihil and Fred, too. (We won't talk about my errant husband, whom I have, apparantly, no influence over.) Thank you for contributing (and thanks always to my Old Faithfuls). Hooray and welcome.

Thanks for the kind compliment, Ben!  For my part, I thought the "skin" entry was terrific.

And John, the "under the wire" entry was awesome--funny and poignant.  The "skin" entry, however--yow!  I thought it was totally hot.  You can stare at the small of my back any time.

Oy, John, you describe the part of me that is unbearably ticklish. Most anything else, I can ignore, but that band across my lower back is too ticklish to sit still for. Now I'm all squirmy. Erg.

You know, that one was pretty challenging. I couldn't choose a direction. Anyway, the date says close to midnight last night but don't be fooled, it was written closer to nine this morning.

Okay, so it took me slightly longer than ten minutes...

It's an irrational societal thing that is alarmingly common, eloquently, beautifully articulated. By which I mean congrats on a neat piece.

Hee hee! Change of Gettysburg Address. That's up there with "The dance-dance-revolution will not be televised." Kewlness from Glen.

I haven't forgotten the story, Sharon. It was just harder to find time to work on it last week. Of course, keep in mind that I don't have any real idea what happens next either. But I haven't forgotten about it. I'm just glad somebody's enjoying it.

So I'll do my best to work on it some more this week. I have no idea how sporadic my writing here will become once I give up State College and the luxury of a cable modem, but I won't be disappearing any time just yet.

I'd like to find out what happens to Alan, the dead man, and vampire-girl, too.

Oh, and for those of you who have no idea what we're talking about, um...here:

Part the First | Part the Second | Part the Third | Part the Fourth | Part the Fifth | Part the Sixth | Part the Seventh | Part the Eighth | Part the Ninth | Part the Tenth | Part the Eleventh | Part the Twelfth | Part the Thirteenth | Part the Fourteenth | Part the Fifteenth | Part the Sixteenth | Part the Seventeenth | Part the Eighteeneth | Part the Nineteenth | Part the Twentieth | Part the Twenty-first

Fred, I would just like to point out that we are riding in the backseat of a car driven by a one-eyed dead man, with his vampire girlfriend who may well have turned us to the dark side, and a corpse. Come on, man, some of us are suffering here.

Erik, since I was 4, I've known only one other k-Erik. I wonder how he is...

Couldn't tell you, though I'm doing about as well as can be expected, I suppose. Sort of on that subject, I've only been Erik (with or without a k) since I was 10, myself. But I guess that's fodder for another story.

And just in case anyone's wondering why the long delay between my subject post and actual piece today (uh... yesterday), it's because right after I made the subject post my Internet connection started going all St. Vitus on me, and I couldn't get there from here. Can't believe a whole day was wasted for me by keeping me off the computer.

Changes, for your review:

• topic rotation (Don't blame John for "missing" his day. It just became his day now, at noon.), adding our new members and removing inactive posters who agreed to be removed
  
• names and links added to Contributors lists on 600s and 600+
• names added (alphabetically, except for me) to the Rights lists on 600s and 600+

And Blogger has instituted WYSIWYG editing, which I find unsettling and unnatural. Real developers write HTML, damn it. But I wanted to mention, so it didn't catch you off-guard, if you're used to including tags in your writing.

To post a topic, use the following HTML, which is also shown at the bottom of 600s:

<blockquote class="topic">my pithy, inspiring topic</blockquote>

Erik, since I was 4, I've known only one other k-Erik. I wonder how he is...

well, thank'y kindly. I've been enjoying your stories as well. Your description of the heat and humidity was a little close to home, but in that good way, the one that makes me appreciate that I don't live in east Texas anymore in a house with no air and no shade to speak of.

By the way, Mr. N, that locked desk drawer story was the absolute shit. I've never seen Schrodinger's theories worked so well into a fictional story!

Hah! I *do* send notices like that at work! Hah!
It's the perk you get for making
no
money.
awwwww.

Bigger names, it is! Good enough, or more?

Lemme contact a few people, get my ducks in a row, and then I will revise the topic rotation script. I plan to make those changes on Saturday, which means the "whose topic is it?" list will radically change. Do not be stressed. Be taoist about it, my friends. Be the uncarved block.

(Dang, I wish I could send app downtime notices like that at work. "This app will be unavailable from 6pm to 6am. It's all good, G. Dig it.")

I tried very hard to stay within time this time, for discipline. I did pretty well--13 minutes.

Author's names: makes no difference to me where they are. However, could they be in a little bigger font? Sometimes it's a little tough to read, especially on this crappy monitor.

Name: Mary Ann Borer
URL: http://nyssa23.diaryland.com

Thanks for inviting me! Hopefully, my post will agree to appear on the page soon after a few of those marathon "Publishing...There were errors" windows.

Howdy again. Weighing in on the where to put the author's name controversy, I'm cool with it either way, top or bottom. Makes me no never mind.

Thanks for sending my first post back in time so that it appears on the proper day. Wouldn't want to be a temporal criminal. I hope it didn't accidentally step on a butterfly or do something else seemingly inconsequential that might affect the future in some horrendous and unexpected way, like making George Bush president or something ridiculous like that.

Regarding the name on the sidebar, feel free to just use my real name, known to most as Erik Wilson. As for the homepage link, I suppose you can link me to the political blogsite I contribute to, the very delicately named This Is the Shit. That would be http://www.thisistheshit.org/

Profanity. NC17. Got it. Fuckin'-A, Bubba.

Makes no big difference here either. I guess I prefer the names to be at the bottom, but I won't be bothered by them unless they're in the middle.

I dunno, sometimes I like not knowing who wrote something until the end, but maybe that's just me. Of course, the more I rely on the site feed to read the posts, the less that's an issue, since those always have the author's name up top anyway.

Since I'm going to be editing the blog templates shortly, would you folks like having the author's name at the top of a post? I like hearing the author's voice while I read, so I tend to check who wrote the post before reading it. What's the consensus?

Regarding editing, my take is that it's allowed--I know I've caught typos or clunky sentences in my own stuff and gone back to fix them--so long as you don't get so bound up in polishing that you create enough overhead to dissuade yourself from writing.

The spirit of the 10-minute rule is more important than the letter of it. The goal is to free you up to write every day, so however you bend the rules to make that happen is a-okay.

Regarding editorial policy, I don't have one, so I figure this site gets the same rating as the rest of the internet: NC17.

Finally, on the subject of time stamps... This blog is different from most, in that the posts are straight-chronological within a day, to make the topic appear at the top. Therefore, if you're posting on a later day, or in the wee hours before the next day's topic is up, if you think of it, please use the "More Post Options" to edit the time stamp. I rewound Generik's by 15 minutes for this reason. (Please 'scuse the liberties.) Don't worry about it--I fix 'em when I see 'em--but that's what's happening if your post magically steps backward in time. Gnomes. Yep.

If you write something for a much earlier day, and you choose to set the timestamp back to that day, feel free to put a link to the post over here on 600+ so we know to go read it.

I hate sending meeting invites to the whole department. I spend the next two days doing nothing but deleting replies and out-of-offices. *sigh* I'm off, to give a big presentation. Wish me luck!

Hi all, guess I'm fashionably late to this shindig, but thanks so much for inviting me. I love it that I'm joining at the same time as my good friend Nyssa, who I know is a talented and prolific writer. I hope that we can help make this space enjoyable for all y'all (one of my favorite Texanisms), and that this leads to immeasurable fame and fortune, not to mention lucrative publishing and screenwriting careers.

What?

Profanity? Well, I guess it all fucking depends, now doesn't it? We're all relatively mature adults here, so I think you'll do fine if you rely on your own discretion and better judgement. Profanity's by no means a prerequisite, but if it's appropriate to what you're writing and not too insanely over the top, then I say go with it.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I try to limit my editing to minor corrections and typos, if only because a perfect, polished piece of writing really isn't what this is all about. The way I see it, this (or any) writing exercise exists solely to get people writing. We can hardly fault someone if that writing ocassionally incoporates a few dirty words. For me, editing's something I do later, elsewhere. Here, it's just about getting words on the page.

There's a manageable middle ground between squeaky clean and filthy, just as there's a middle ground between completely raw and polished. But write and edit however feels best for you.

And again, welcome to the party!

Hiya. I have my first up. What are the rules on editing here? I ask because my draft writing, especially when doing speed writing, tends to be filled with profanity. I usually go back and clean it up later. Kosher? Required (in the case of profanity? Give me a clue for I am sorely lacking.

Hey-hey-howdy to our four new players. When you have time, let me know what name you'd like to appear on the right under "Contributors," and what url you would like linked from there.

My bad. I thought I'd changed it in time. It's now an either/or.

Welcome to the party, Nyssa!

Hey, I thought the topic was humidity?

Hi! I'm back from vacation! I don't know if I should catch up or just hit the ground running. What the hell: I'll catch up the ground running! I'm just that good. Or tired. Yeah. Maybe that's it. I'm just that tired!