Hello everyone,

General:
So here we are at the start of season five! Welcome back to all the ‘old hands’ and it’s good to see the newcomers among us – I hope both ‘old’ and ‘new’ will enjoy the season.

As Olaf says in his ‘final’ mail (yeah! believe that!), we’ve had a few enquiries but, apart from Teresa, I’m waiting until things settle before approaching any of the others in the waiting list.

I must admit to being a bit concerned that I haven’t heard from one or two of you and hope that all is well among the team/mob/clan… I have heard from Betty, though, who is now out and about again and looking forward to joining in the fun. Welcome back, Betty! I’ve also heard that Chris hasn’t had a good summer, so our best wishes – we hope you’re in there abusing us all as ever! The challenges wouldn’t be the same without your alternative view on life. And while I’m at it, our good wishes to anyone else not their usual self, or suffering from the weather that’s afflicted most of northern Europe, or been caught out by the ‘credit crunch’…

I’m hoping that the circulation list at the head of this mail is correct. Anyone spotting an error (in someone else’s address obviously!) should let me know asap so I can correct and resend this, and any other mails I’ve distributed in the last few weeks. To be helpful I’ve appended a list of names and mail addresses (as I have them) with this mailing.

Challenges:
My tea-cosy has decreed that the schedule for being challenge organiser is as follows:

1 = Zena; 2 = Rosemary; 3 = Tara; 4 = Margie; 5 = John; 6 = Clare; 7 = Sue; 8 = Maya; 9 = Patrick; 10 = Geoff.

And I’d appreciate it if those who haven’t yet done so, let me know what they have in mind for their challenge and discuss, if necessary, any criteria. The dates are as per the pre-season circular. Zena will be sending you info about Challenge One today, I hope.

The challenge organisers I’ve spoken to so far have come up with some good ideas for this season – and thanks to them for doing so. It almost made me want to extend the season so we could have more challenges! I’m sure that the challenges will provide us all with enjoyment; stretch our range of skills; stimulate thought and discussion; and give us inspiration for other writing…

Log:
Today also, Christine will circulate the first Log of the season. I hope you’ve all been working hard (although some mails suggest the opposite!) and I look forward to reading about your literary efforts. And thanks Christine for gathering all the info together.

Phone story:
The Phonestory is in its final hours! It took longer to get this finished than the Bird’s Nest Stadium took to build (but there’s been no miming!) and it will be circulated to all, once the writers have got a glimpse of how their work fitted into the story.

Website:
As I’ve mentioned before, I hope that there will be info about most of us on the site soon – including bringing some of the details up to date. Sally will be keeping things up to date for season five. And, in case you’ve forgotten, all of this is at alphawriters.net.

An extra challenge?
As some of you know, I try to do the nanowrimo challenge each year. Fifty thousand words to be written during November. Hey – it’s up to you but if you want to take part, find the website (nanowrimo.org) and see what it’s all about.

Woops!
I’ve had comments about my paragraph in the pre-season circular relating to people mailing out things not directly associated with challenges. I apologise. It wasn’t meant as ‘Sir’ telling the troops not to send things round. We’ve had many interesting debates about topics with little relevance to the challenges. The phone story wouldn’t have started without such a debate! So I’ll have another go at trying to explain the dilemma.

There are those who tell us (Olaf has had similar mails) that they get fed up (my words) with things being mass-mailed that they don’t want to read or respond to. Okay. But some people would like to mass-mail things they’ve written, for us to comment about; topics that they think need to be discussed; oddments that others might like to know about… As Christine said in a mail to me over the summer, ‘what happened to XTC?’

This concept was a way of using the subject strip in a mail to say to other Alphafolks that the mail being sent round was not to do with challenges but something people might find interesting. Like: XTC advice please, implying that who-ever is after some guidance. You can read and respond, or ignore – or maybe you have nothing to say…

The point being, Alphafolks, that I’d hate to stifle chat; I’d hate to stifle the sharing of writing; I’d hate to stifle us using each other to improve our writing; I’d hate to stifle the friendships that exist within the group – BUT, I feel an obligation to suggest to people that they don’t wizz things about without some thought and consideration. Maybe the revival of ‘XTC’ is the answer. And before anyone asks, I haven’t the faintest idea what XTC meant/means/could mean!

Could it be you?
I’ve also had a mail about increasing the anonymity of entrants in each challenge. I like the style I use (Tahoma, 11pt, justified) but the suggestion has been made that we use a standard format for our entries to challenges: line spacing, font, justified, all that stuff. I’d be loathe to change my format (it took me ages to set up the templates!) but I wonder how others feel about this issue. Maybe this is a topic needing discussion.

There are, perhaps, three options: change nothing, follow a standard format when submitting entries, ask the challenge organiser (when pasting entries together for circulation) to put them into a standard format. There may be other options and I’d hate to suggest a way of working that doesn’t suit you Alphafolks. So maybe you could circulate thoughts (subject “challenge format”) before I make further comment.

Finally...
I have to say thanks to Olaf for his mailings over the years. A wonderful mix of fact and chat. I hope my mailings keep you equally interested – and I expect to have lots of abuse too! It started during the summer, for goodness sake.

But the important thing is to get writing; to improve as Olaf suggests we have; so let the challenges begin!

Best wishes all

- David