The conference call worked for Sunday's crit group meeting. Val and I had to lean in close enough that the webcam on the red laptop could pick us both up, but we got to see Stef, live and in real time, for the first time since she moved to Florida.
Skype was remarkably easy to set up, and getting connected was far easier than I'd dared hope. Also, along with the built-in webcam on my laptop is a built-in microphone, so we didn't have to jury-rig anything in order to be be heard as well as seen.
I highly recommend distance crit group meetings via Skype, if you can't all live in the same place. The only issue is that we can't just pass her a paper copy of our work to read at the meeting, so in future, we'll have to make sure she gets a copy ahead of time so she can do her crit prior to the meeting and send it to us. We'll do the same for her, and then then at the conference call/meeting, we can discuss any questions any of us has about the others' crit and impressions.
I'd still rather we were all here in person, but barring that, Skype was a relatively trouble-free way to compensate for the lack of proximity.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Skype
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2 comments:
Kathy:
Just a quick idea for you -- Google Docs is a free online office suite; you can upload your excerpts there, and specify who has access to them (using email addresses). The others can read them in advance, even edit them and make comments, which the author can review later. You can also allow whether to print or not, so someone who prefers to read hardcopy and print out their own copy to read in advance of the meeting. Some authors (eg, Joe Konrath) are using it now as a tool to cowrite a book when they live in separate states. It would be a great tool for writers who are tech-savvy enough to meet for a critique group on Skype! Just an idea, another option to consider.
Congratulations on your publication in WWW3 and kudos for all your ongoing hard work!
Adrian
Adrian, thanks for your suggestions and congratulations! I hope things are going well for you and your writing.
Roisin, thanks so much for your reply to my question. I'd love to hear any of the localized stories you can find. I clicked through to your profile and sent you an email, so hopefully that will make it easy to get in contact with me. In the meantime, I'm enjoying reading your blog.
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