Website Feedback › Using Shortbread

Dear Fiona, I would be honored for you to use my last post.  It was most sincerely submitted.

Patsy

Oh Patsy you always say the nicest of things! We’re all sitting here blushing away, feeling very proud of ourselves. Also we’re compilling a little document of lovely things members have said about Shortbread to use for promotion, would it be okay if we used your post below? It would be attributed to you, and would just really be for use on the site and the blog. Let me know if that’s okay and thanks again! Fiona

We might be thousands of miles apart geographically speaking, Patsy, but I think we are on the same (literary) page - pun intended - I echo all that you say - all the best (ATB) Adam

Well I stumbled into this just now.  I love Shortbread as it is.  When time allows me, I enjoy going into every place I can and reading and listening and sharing.  I have felt so welcome, made friends with many fine people who write stories with the same hopes and I have.  You have created a wondrous website for us and to say only Thank You is totally inadequate.  So someday I will create a new word to replace Thanks and send it to you.  I enjoy submitting, do not get impatient for publication because I understand editing and the volume of submissions you must view.  I believe the competitions challenge you to the limit of editing and can think of no better way to do this.  Perhaps more help for you and a membership fee to help with expenses would be in order.  I recall we were looking at that sometime ago?

You have my gratitude and praise, well wishes, always.  Patsy R Liles

Fiona, the story I was referring to is called A Girl named Carol - this is the one in which a word is duplicated. If you free it for editing I’ll amend it. Thanks Des

Freeing Fiona -

I think that we are all agreed that lovely Fiona not only deserves a medal for her patience and good humour but also probably a large box of shortbread!!! I am totally behind the idea of shrinking her workload and that we should all excercise as much care as possible before submitting pieces.  This is after all a short story site not an editing service.

However, now that quite a number of Shortbread contributors are submitting work to the site and chosing to have it published un-edited I wonder if there should be an option for correction - Sorry Gary I expect that you taking out a contract on me even as we speak. 

I think that it is accepted that the site is not simply a writers site but, possibly even more importantly, it is a site for readers.  If the work that is published is unedited then many of us will have typos, spelllign (sic) errors etc in our submissions.  These will then be picked up and commented on.  I wonder if it would be possible to then have the option to easily take back the work and correct it and re-post.  Otherwise I worry that stories will languish on the site with the errors leaping out at the author and readers every time they are accessed.

I am not referring here to matters of opinion of the stories per se but rather to grammatical errors etc.

What does anyone else think and would it be possible anyway without causing total mayhem.

Hi Desmond, If you tell me the name of the story I’ll return it to your writing desk and you can correct the mistake. Just message me to say it’s back in the queue and I’ll get it up on site. We have a team of volunteer editors who edit our stories, and as these people are working for us for free and after they’ve been at work all day the occasional mistake can be missed. The idea of archiving older stories is a really interesting one. To be honest we’ve not really given the volume of stories on here much thought! Just always looking to populate the site with more blogs, more competitions and of course more stories - we’re a bit greedy I guess! Thanks for getting in touch and letting us know your thoughts on the site. Feedback is always welcome.

Hi Fiona. Just discovered this place. Tells you how much I navigate around the site. In general I tend to read a few of the latest stories as posted & try to leave positive feedback. It has been apparant how big the site has grown since I joined in 2009. I still have one story ‘languishing’ in the editing queue and wonder what process you folks go through before you let it live on the site. I say this because I had a story published with a word repeated twice in it and it wasn’t picked up despite my sending an e mail to ask for it to be corrected. I’ve seen recently that you’re prepared to allow new submissions to be put up on the site if the writer is happy with the content. Great, this will undoubtedly save you all some work. I just wonder what is the point of holding onto so many stories from past years - shouldn’t they drop out after a period of time? I know I may offend some people’s vanity by saying this, but it might allow new material the space it needs. If not, why not an archive by author? I’ve written enough for now. Cheers Des

Thanks for your response Fiona. You’ve confirmed what I suspected - you’re swamped with new submissions. It’s probably my paranoia but I can’t help feeling guilty when I think I’m imposing on folk’s valuable time.

I’ll keep taking the pills.

Hi James, Your story may be languishing but I can ensure you the team certainly is not. ShortbreadStories is run by a very small, and dedicated team. Over the last few months we have been inundated with a very high level of submissions, and are currently striving to get on top of the volume of work which needs to be processed, not to mention the daily up keep of the site, and the constant paperwork needed for future developments. I ensure you we will prevail over the editing queue soon though, so please don’t lose faith, your story will have an audience soon, I promise! Fiona

I like the site and I like the weekly stories…just getting a bit concerned about my submitted story languishing in the editing queue for the last two weeks. You guys must be pretty busy there.

Honestly Judith it couldn’t be easier.  You can cut and paste from Word of write directly into the site and the team are brilliant at helping if you get stuck.  Give it a go - it’s great fun.

Still a beginner, I always read the weekly story, but am still finding my way around the website. A computer ‘numpty’ I’m not sure I’d know how to put a story on to the website. For anything to do with computers I need very clear instructions from a very patient person, i.e. not my husband.

Fair enough :-)

If it all the same [pauses to wish his fellow scribe(s), a Happy New Year] with you Diane, I’d rather not (think of Cilla!)