Love your thoughts on this. KK

Shit has this site been live for almost a year now? One thing that I think this site is good for, but hasn't quite come to fruition is the facilitation of real world events. What you have here is a group of people spread throughout the world that have varying levels of engagement within their own region's lit scene/community--an amazing asset if you can get them to step out and fly the Red Lemonade flag in their own hometown.

These are the Punk rock days of this site (I'm ripping that off from somebody). That means you got to play out wherever and however you can to who ever will show, sometimes it's six people, twelve including the writers and their spouses. You got to be scrappy. If we had people putting together events in their own towns and building awareness of Red Lemonade across regions, what we would have created would be a tour circuit.

But a book tour isn't really the point (my understanding is that they are a fiscal negative). It's the good will and networking connections you can build by doing real world events that is important. The online element of Red Lemonade allows you to get to know someone's work and the interaction on comments allows you to feel them out, but it's face time that I think can build stronger connections, a sense of espirit de corps and create bigger returns for the readers and writers here on the site.

I've been to a couple of eight Red Lemonade events here in Brooklyn and in the city, as a reader, organizer and fan. I've seen almost no one show up and I've seen packed houses at Red Lemonade events, but each time I went I talked to someone, had a drink with a stranger and came away a little more engaged with the idea and potential behind this interesting experiment.

http://www.meetup.com/The-Red-Lemonade-Meetup-Group/

The online postings and commenting by a variety of members is constantly changing and exciting.The Hybrid Beast submissions have revealed a great deal of interaction among writers, giving feedback, editorial comments and suggestions for character development or plot points. The interactivity fostered by community members interacting and exploring each other's written works is unique and exciting. There have been several Red Threads about various topics from reading material, publishing and lifestyle choices that have also shown how the online features foster connections between folks. The social media sites, like twitter, facebook, and even goodreads have broadened the ways in which readers and writers can connect around similar books, ideas, authors and themes and ideas.

Thanks, guys. RL has always felt like an innovation to me. One of the first things I started doing on the site was writing in it, rather than posting in it. In other words, if I had a story I wanted to write, I would just use the space like a workbook. Doing this fundamentally changed my writing approach -- b/c in a way it was also becoming a kind of (moderate) spectacle. There was an excitement and a dare to it that I think (I hope) gave those stories a certain energy. So aside from superficially 'meeting' other writers, it actually altered the way I look at my work and the way I think about writing process. Have any of you had similar experiences?

oops, double post...

Hi, my name is Bill, and I'm anal-retentive. I still have difficulty posting anything until it's almost finished, but that doesn't mean I don't want feedback and criticism. My tendency, even when writing a casual reply on someone's blog, is to practice it on Word before anyone sees it. I keep thinking someone will read my work when it's still in development, and if it's not very good, that's the memory that will stick with them. I realize that a relatively small % of people actually see what I write here, but I think of them as serious writers whose opinions matter to me. It took me fifteen minutes to compose this comment. Oh, and thank God for the Edit button on Red Lemonade, which I used to add this sentence.

Hi Kathryn,

One thing I really appreciate RL for is the ability to enter into literary discussions with people who I never would have interacted with otherwise. It's also a good place to test out a piece of writing. I've been impressed with the feedback I've received and generally how respectful most people are with each other's work.

I have a collection of poems that will be published in the fall by a Canadian publisher--some of which I posted on the site.

Before RL, I didn't consider myself one for online discussion forums, but something about the quality of the writers and the level of interaction piqued my curiosity and made me stay involved. For me it's been a very good experience.

The only time I used RL as a workbook as you describe Kathryn, was when I tried doing a fiction writing exercise. I only completed the first part of the exercise where you write forty sentences (and still plan to finish it). There was something fun about putting out those very raw ideas.