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Once I've done the complete ACW trail battlefield tour and spoken to your mom.

I'd shy from the writing but I'd love to do the research.

I've found it on Netflix! All episodes. Thanks for that, it'll make for a splendid slack Sunday evening.

Okay, let's have it right.

It is also a fact that an awful lot of writers (not just those you judge to be good, but writers of all perceived ability) from the old site, have left the new-site since it was re-invented… for 'whatever' reason.

Opinions, agendas, individual experiences, delusions and fake news prevails... but there are still many here from the old site, who know.

Yes, on the old site there was the odd nasty idiot and some odd victims.

The way I remember it the odd nasty idiots were soon rooted-out by the community and SolN who banned anyone toxic immediately. I don’t remember it as the bully-riddled hate fuelled society that you recall. It was policed by tNBW site admin fairly and efficiently.

I joined the site in 2006 as psychologically fragile writer without much education and no formal training within the craft or writing whatsoever. A foreign Johnny to boot.

I wrote, and the product was not technically correct, I hadn’t mastered basic grammar let alone advanced language rules. I didn’t know about tense, POV, redundancy and all those other tools essentially required in order to produce creative writing of even the lowest quality.

The reviewers on the old site put me right. They gave me advice, example and encouragement in abundance. They extended the hand of genuine friendship and I have many friendships today, on and (mostly off) the current site that were established upon the old tNBW site. I’m sure this is the same experience that many of the old tNBW veterans here share.

I collected my share of inappropriate reviews from the odd nasty idiot. These reviews were occasional and ignored. The vast majority of reviews were appropriate, even several cutting ones. The hardest lessons to learn were the most valuable.

I, like the majority of writers on old tNBW simply ignored vindictive inappropriate reviews. As I’ve already mentioned, those reviewers were rounded upon by the community and banished by SolN.

On receipt of a harsh over critical or unfair review, I remember once or twice the regular senior writers and reviewers rushing to my defence and chastising the editor in question. There was a real warmth and comradeship to be gained from tNBW family.

Just about every member (including this thread originator) who has recounted or cited an example of an inappropriate review here, has implied that the negative review actually strengthened their resolve; It bolstered their determination to write well; negative turned to positive, bad review be dammed.

So an inappropriate review is an invalid review. It is irrelevant. Idiots are a fact of life. Simply ignore the stupid review and move on.

It wasn’t all one-side critique bullies driving good writers from the site. I mentioned the ‘odd victims’.

Some of these odd victims loved to play the victim card. Rather than simply ignore a review they considered inappropriate they would react. More than react, they conducted an episode. They psychotically demanded sympathy, apology, revenge, retribution, atonement and blood-feud in equal measure and immediately.

Spats over nothing.

Some writers could never accept the slightest criticism, even if the points of contention were valid (technically correct)… let alone invalid. Some of these poor victims could never separate critique of their story or their prose from a personal attack upon them as an individual.  Some were so proud and protective of their precious prose, feeling it their God-given right never to be criticised or questioned upon anything lest they create hell, and anyone who criticised their work was labelled a nasty antagonist. Anyone else who, out of truth and reason, happened to agree with the reviewer was accused of creating or operating a clique. A gang imagined to persecute and beat the poor defenceless victim.

A vast minority, the idiot reviewers and the precious pariah victims; but they made the noise of many.

Some hated the old tNBW and the members therein (because they were the site) with a vengeance. Some loved the place. I will remember it with reverence and affection because it transformed me as a writer and a person and provided me with lifelong friends. We all remember it differently and I doubt that we will ever see it's like again.

The world has changed. People’s values have changed. At my junior school sports day all of the heats were fiercely contested. Each race had a winner, runners-up and losers. The winners were championed and they were (as I remember) a memorable event, glorious, highly emotional days.

By the time my children had their sports days, competitiveness, striving for triumph was considered nasty and inappropriate. It was completely banned. No losers allowed, non-competitive games, every kid an equal winner. Anyone who voiced an alternate opinion was rounded upon quite ferociously for being a fascist, sexist, uber-macho knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. The sports days became boring, mundane, dull and avoidable fluffy pointless days that die quickly in terms of memory.

My kids? The passive generation of victims who live in absolute terror of the tough immigrant kids from Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa who strip them of their cash, iPhones, bicycles and designer training shoes at will. These soft wibbling liberalised UK kids who are chastised for being racist if they dare describe the ethnic origin of their attackers.   

Well, I've gone a little off piste at the end, but those who know what I'm saying will understand. Those who don't, never will. Such is the way of the world.

Attracted by the jacket, I picked up...

The Sultana Tragedy: America's Greatest Maritime Disaster
by Jerry Potter

Which has led to;

Sinking the Sultana: (A Civil War Story of Imprisonment, Greed, and a Doomed Journey Home) by Sally M Walker

...on pre-order.

The Sultana tragedy, the events and evidence surrounding it are highly intriguing and stranger than fiction.

The Sultana, my historical event of interest, of the month. ACW related again. There are so many highly engaging true stories surrounding that era.

An open message to ISIS/Daesh Islamic fundamentalists and the USA. Learn to love history, to understand and cherish it rather than destroy, eradicate and delete the parts that are inconvenient or embarrassing within your current agenda.

It must be a wrench, going between Gone with the Wind and the autobiography of someone else's biography.

To Kill a Mockingbird has that iconic quote-line running through its sentiment; 'Things are never as bad as they seem'

Gone with the Wind, tells me the opposite... Things may actually be much worse than they appear.

I love Scarlett, she is vibrant; flesh and blood. Finch is a cardboard cutout.

Shall we argue this into old age?   Me first, of course; by a long chalk.

It was a completely different site back then; almost unrecognisable. The entire dynamic has changed and the front page had a different function compared to nowadays.

Novels, Short Stories and Poems were ranked by review in a kind of league table. This led to an extremely competitive environment (for those who were in the race). 'Highest ranked novel' on the site was a hotly contested position. The most successful novels would win expert or professional reviews on a monthly or periodical basis.

Not just the writers were judged, reviewers were ranked and graded too. Those reviewers who chalked-up the most reviews were recognised in the same league-table fashion but also the reviewers who were deemed to be the most helpful and effective and expert were recognised and awarded accredited status.   

The competitive nature of the site back then inevitably led to a lot of passion and emotion. It was an extremely vibrant and exciting community and inevitably the emotions boiled over, flared-up and caught fire regularly.

There were two ends of the scale; the highly charged assertive kind with the rhino-hide who felt they could not suffer fools and would trample the un-trained writer underfoot, and the whinging ultra-fragile adult baby people who would burst into histrionic fits at the first honest critique of their precious prose or rude word or expletive they found in another's work.

Then of course, there was everybody else (the vast majority) in between. Everybody in the middle suffered a little from those at each extremity.

The site was very centric. Condensed into a single spine, both for works submitted and for the forum. This concentrated everything into one large boiling pot.

The new tNBW site dissolved the centralised 'large hall' aspect into separated groups (or rooms) of interest; each its own separate publishing area and dedicated forum.

The competitive aspect of the site was revoked. Novels, Short Stories and Poems are no longer ranked competitively, they are published, distributed about the site in a decentralised manner. Reviewers are no longer recognised, ranked, appraised and accredited.

The site in effect has leveled-out. It is a passive and uncompetitive place. A safe and stable environment. It has gone from the excitement of a fiery bull-pit of a free-for-all rodeo to the sedated day room of a retirement home.

Some writers loved the blood, spit and sawdust community of the old site and moved on to that 'other place'  Others prefer the quiet, calm and unchallenging safety and detachment of the submerged new tNBW. Some of us straddle them both. 

One thing is for sure, you cannot compare the old tNBW with the current tNBW, they are as different a Saturday night Las Vegas and Tuesday morning Volgograd.

I saw on the news that Marilyn Johnson has issued her entire menagerie (including Lil' Sebastian) with sun-block and dark glasses.

...whilst I nailed all of my neighborhood pets to a plank and pointed them directly at the sun, by way of experiment.

The word 'Psycho' hacked into the word 'Cyco'?

The perpetrator is going to be North American and very possibly a member of this site who will defend their use of the bastardised word with vociferous indignance.

(Cites: Crème Brûlée  VS Cream Brule debacle).

Creative accountancy

historical

RINGERS!!

Google "middle earth festival" and view images to see what you are missing