The Clerk's Collection - an unofficial weekly newsletter
Far below your feet, deep in the dank and mildewy subterranean bowels of the
Writer's Study... something is stirring. Old cogs and levers creak into action,
cracked and dusty parchments are unrolled. The scritch-scratching of quills echo
along the sewer pipes, mingling with the scurrying of passing rats. Printing presses
long misused to mangle damp laundry grind into action, manned by fresh-faced
scribes. Mad First Clerk Smitherly gibbers to himself in the darkness, loathing the
new intruders. After many long hours, a fist bursts forth from your U-bend. Proudly,
it holds aloft the fruits of its labour...
Welcome to the Clerk's Collection, an unofficial weekly newsletter brought to you by the denizens of the Writer's Study! We strive to ensure that every author here gets his or her moment in the limelight, with notifications of their fantastic updates being sent directly to the inboxes of all of our subscribers.
Each Sunday, we'll let you know who's battering the bots in the AARs, who's establishing an epic with their creative writing - and most importantly... who's the most handsome clerk on staff (Maximinus disagrees with my professional assessment). Okay, that last bit wasn't true - it's actually Tigellinus that disagrees.
In any case, join us and your fellow subscribers in celebrating all that is good about the Writer's Study. All of you authors who give up your time to contribute creative works for everyone else to enjoy help make this forum great. If that's not something to be happy about, I don't know what is.
Here's an example of what to expect from your subscription:
Edition: zero
Good day to you all, ladies and gentlemen! I am Clerk Retreat, and these are my colleagues, Clerks Tigellinus and Maximinus. We've been sent down to these dank and mildewy caverns far below the Writer's Study to assist First Clerk Smitherly with the publication of his newsletter. Why us? That would best remain unspoken. It transpires that the First Clerk had replaced his previous (suspiciously missing) interns with feral rats, which worked about as well as you'd expect. In any case, now that the disruption to service has been... resolved... we shall be ensuring a regular, weekly publication becomes the norm. So then, let us proceed and enlighten you as to the comings and goings of the Writer's Study at large, with this very first experimental edition. Do please mind the occasional smudge in the margin - but as First Clerk Smitherly says, 'what's a little rat poo among friends?'
Well, that's all for this week's newsletter! If you've got any comments or critiques, or you feel there's any refining or alterations that could be made to the form, style or content, do please let us know. It's no bother at all to make changes - we simply have to arm Clerk Maximinus with a crossbow and have him fight through the rats to the print room. Your opinions are of course appreciated, and great thanks go out to the authors who contacted us to provide summaries for their creative works. Should you wish to send us a message, drop it down a nearby well - they all lead to the Newsletter caverns eventually. As for the split into two parts... unfortunately the rats got to all of our long scrolls of parchment - we're appealing to Lord GED for new stocks, but that may take some time. Please join us again next week for what will officially be the 'first' edition - and be sure to tell your friends!
Initiations
If this looks like the sort of thing that might interest you, leave us a message here in this thread and we'll add you to the mailing list. Us Clerks also appreciate feedback, so if you've got anything you'd like to tell us, or suggestions on how to improve: by all means, we're all ears.
Last edited by General Retreat; June 16, 2014 at 03:38 PM.
Swords of the Sea: 1066 has come and gone, the Danelaw torn down and a new kingdom built in the image of its Norman rulers. But with time, wounds heal and what is broken can be reforged. The Danes have returned with steel, and seek to reclaim what is theirs. The Great Expedition: Pax Anglia, one of Earth's great empires, sprawling across the stars. On their newly colonised planet of Nova Sydney, adventure awaits on the savage frontier - Henry Boyce steps forward to lead an expedition to pierce the Bushlands' wild heart. Winter War: Finland, 1939. The Soviet war machine has begun its indomitable advance from the east. Of all its neighbours, only Finland stands alone in defiance. Conscript Anton Bezrukov prepares for a quick victory, but the reality is far bloodier...
Re: The Clerk's Collection - an unofficial weekly newsletter
Yeah, we were happy about the announcement too.
Did you want to subscribe as well? If so, I'll add you straight away.
Updated the subscription list to include you, hellcat.
Swords of the Sea: 1066 has come and gone, the Danelaw torn down and a new kingdom built in the image of its Norman rulers. But with time, wounds heal and what is broken can be reforged. The Danes have returned with steel, and seek to reclaim what is theirs. The Great Expedition: Pax Anglia, one of Earth's great empires, sprawling across the stars. On their newly colonised planet of Nova Sydney, adventure awaits on the savage frontier - Henry Boyce steps forward to lead an expedition to pierce the Bushlands' wild heart. Winter War: Finland, 1939. The Soviet war machine has begun its indomitable advance from the east. Of all its neighbours, only Finland stands alone in defiance. Conscript Anton Bezrukov prepares for a quick victory, but the reality is far bloodier...
Re: The Clerk's Collection - an unofficial weekly newsletter
Edition one has been dispatched to all subscribers.
Swords of the Sea: 1066 has come and gone, the Danelaw torn down and a new kingdom built in the image of its Norman rulers. But with time, wounds heal and what is broken can be reforged. The Danes have returned with steel, and seek to reclaim what is theirs. The Great Expedition: Pax Anglia, one of Earth's great empires, sprawling across the stars. On their newly colonised planet of Nova Sydney, adventure awaits on the savage frontier - Henry Boyce steps forward to lead an expedition to pierce the Bushlands' wild heart. Winter War: Finland, 1939. The Soviet war machine has begun its indomitable advance from the east. Of all its neighbours, only Finland stands alone in defiance. Conscript Anton Bezrukov prepares for a quick victory, but the reality is far bloodier...
Re: The Clerk's Collection - an unofficial weekly newsletter
Added you both to the subscription list. You'll receive your first edition on Sunday, unless you want me to send you out last week's copy now? It'll be a little out of date, but it's still good for catching up on your reading.
Swords of the Sea: 1066 has come and gone, the Danelaw torn down and a new kingdom built in the image of its Norman rulers. But with time, wounds heal and what is broken can be reforged. The Danes have returned with steel, and seek to reclaim what is theirs. The Great Expedition: Pax Anglia, one of Earth's great empires, sprawling across the stars. On their newly colonised planet of Nova Sydney, adventure awaits on the savage frontier - Henry Boyce steps forward to lead an expedition to pierce the Bushlands' wild heart. Winter War: Finland, 1939. The Soviet war machine has begun its indomitable advance from the east. Of all its neighbours, only Finland stands alone in defiance. Conscript Anton Bezrukov prepares for a quick victory, but the reality is far bloodier...
Re: The Clerk's Collection - an unofficial weekly newsletter
This episode was delayed until today, so I'll copy you in when it goes out.
Swords of the Sea: 1066 has come and gone, the Danelaw torn down and a new kingdom built in the image of its Norman rulers. But with time, wounds heal and what is broken can be reforged. The Danes have returned with steel, and seek to reclaim what is theirs. The Great Expedition: Pax Anglia, one of Earth's great empires, sprawling across the stars. On their newly colonised planet of Nova Sydney, adventure awaits on the savage frontier - Henry Boyce steps forward to lead an expedition to pierce the Bushlands' wild heart. Winter War: Finland, 1939. The Soviet war machine has begun its indomitable advance from the east. Of all its neighbours, only Finland stands alone in defiance. Conscript Anton Bezrukov prepares for a quick victory, but the reality is far bloodier...
Re: The Clerk's Collection - an unofficial weekly newsletter
Hey all - I've been a rather terrible Clerk up until now. The newsletter had been standing by idle because I hadn't made ample provision for what happens if I was unavailable to distribute each edition. For that I'd like to apologies to the subscribers and the rest of the team.
With the help of Maximinus, I'm looking to address these issues, and we're hoping to get rolling again for this weekend. Mauritis, I'll add you to the distribution list for when we go live again.
Again, sorry to those who've subscribed or hoped to have their work featured. Shouldn't happen again.
Swords of the Sea: 1066 has come and gone, the Danelaw torn down and a new kingdom built in the image of its Norman rulers. But with time, wounds heal and what is broken can be reforged. The Danes have returned with steel, and seek to reclaim what is theirs. The Great Expedition: Pax Anglia, one of Earth's great empires, sprawling across the stars. On their newly colonised planet of Nova Sydney, adventure awaits on the savage frontier - Henry Boyce steps forward to lead an expedition to pierce the Bushlands' wild heart. Winter War: Finland, 1939. The Soviet war machine has begun its indomitable advance from the east. Of all its neighbours, only Finland stands alone in defiance. Conscript Anton Bezrukov prepares for a quick victory, but the reality is far bloodier...
Re: The Clerk's Collection - an unofficial weekly newsletter
Very nice idea! Add me as a subscriber as well On how to improve ... what about having a short, weekly podcast covering all the Writer's study subforums? You could talk about the stories in ToTW, CW, AAR forums, the competitions, you could have a weekly "spotlight" where you would focus on a specific story ... and have the video be ~10min long. I'd listen to that Then for advertisement you could try and put it on the frontpage (yes, I've read the comments about that not being particularly doable, but still) for a day or so ...
Re: The Clerk's Collection - an unofficial weekly newsletter
Thanks for the feedback, and sorry for the reply being a bit late. I've just done this week's episode and thought now was a good time to be dealing with all our outstanding paperwork!
The podcast could be a good idea there, but I'm not as of yet sure how to go about recording / uploading that sort of thing, or whether people would even want my voice invading their ear-space on a weekly basis.
Something to think about, certainly.
We had a front page announcement on launch - and in all honesty that was more than we were strictly entitled to (must have been a slow news day) - so I wouldn't really want to press my luck by asking again. Still, who knows? If we do something sufficiently bold, we might warrant another 24 hour slot. We'll see.
EDIT: Oh, also, guys - please remember that if you've updated your work, it'll be featured in that week's CC. One of the features we'd like to be able to consistently run with is a small descriptive paragraph for each of the works we list. Ideally, the author should submit a small description of between 25 and 50 words which we could include in the edition. Anyone who wants to send one in can address it to myself or Maximinus Thrax.
Last edited by General Retreat; June 22, 2014 at 07:00 PM.
Swords of the Sea: 1066 has come and gone, the Danelaw torn down and a new kingdom built in the image of its Norman rulers. But with time, wounds heal and what is broken can be reforged. The Danes have returned with steel, and seek to reclaim what is theirs. The Great Expedition: Pax Anglia, one of Earth's great empires, sprawling across the stars. On their newly colonised planet of Nova Sydney, adventure awaits on the savage frontier - Henry Boyce steps forward to lead an expedition to pierce the Bushlands' wild heart. Winter War: Finland, 1939. The Soviet war machine has begun its indomitable advance from the east. Of all its neighbours, only Finland stands alone in defiance. Conscript Anton Bezrukov prepares for a quick victory, but the reality is far bloodier...
The Clerk's Collection - an unofficial weekly newsletter
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