submarine dreams: and now for the tour Link post
Editor’s Note: If you’re looking for a place to help you find your way around tumblr, read writing about writing, or tips about tumblr… or just have questions about the TWC, it’s worth taking a look!
Reblogged from submarinedreams May 11th, 2012 22 notes #prose #spilled ink #writing about tumblr #twcwelcomecenter #jayarrarr #lilysofthefield #noellewonder #shesanargonaut #loqui #moderateclimates #rakuli #girlbrokendown #nodHi there! My name is Amy and I run things over at the TWC Welcome Center. In case you haven’t figured it out, TWC stands for “Tumblr Writing Community,” kind of like a little boarding school here in our corner of the Internet. You’ll soon discover who the professors are (folks like Jen and Lilli) and you’ll make friends with your classmates. I sincerely hope that you enjoy your time with us. Now let’s go buy you your books and pens and pick up your school uniform, and we’ll get on with the tour.
There are five houses here at the TWC, and you get to choose where you’d like to live. So let’s start here. Noelle is the prefect of Andromeda House, and it’s the dormitory I call home. Our house is all about fiction, we like to weave words into fantasy and escape into characters who do extraordinary—or quite ordinary—things. The hallways of the dormitory shift and change, and it is always exciting. If you love writing stories then Andromeda is the house for you.
The door to Leo House is here in the back of the coffeehouse. Solange is the prefect down here, and they hold weekly open mic nights. These are the best spoken word artists in the school, and you will always see them wandering between classes reciting under their breaths and marking out beats with their hands. This is the dormitory for you if you love being heard, if you blossom behind the microphone and revel in attention.
Now watch your step here in the next dormitory, a haphazard collection of crooked walls broken by windows in all shapes and sizes. This is Orion House, and the prefects are Greg and Nicky. This is where most of the poets live. You’ll find many wonderful, beautiful people inside these walls, and in the gardens surrounding them. And you will find that these are some of the kindest and most supportive people in the school.
If we continue on a little past Orion House, we come to this low, concrete bunker of a building. This is Luke’s dormitory—Virgo House—and their thing is concrete poetry. They carry around paintbrushes and they are always painting pictures in sketchbooks. Their common room has a long blackboard covered with all sorts of poems in various states of completion. They are one of the dormitories with the most house pride, and they have custom apparel that they wear around instead of their uniforms.
The last dormitory is Centaurus House, where the writers of short prose and prosetry live. Joanne is the prefect of this house. They generally write pieces which are somewhere between prose and poetry. Short pieces, often with highly creative styles and a flagrant disregard for grammar—and we love them for it. They are always stringing words together in pouring cascades, the masters of stream-of-consciousness.
Of course you might not feel like you fit in any one of these houses perfectly. That’s okay though. Most of us hardly spend any time in our rooms, we like socializing around the school, there are a number of wonderful public places.
Now if you come this way, this is the forum. All along the walls of this plaza you’ll see pieces of poetry and prose tacked up, with students eagerly reading the pieces. We call them features. The editors pick pieces every day and hang them up here. Don’t worry if you’re not getting featured quite yet. Spend some time around and make friends and it’ll happen soon enough.
Just beyond the forum is a tiny house, with a beanstalk growing in front of it. You’ll need to eat a bean to get in, they’ll shrink you down small enough to fit through the door. Inside is TinyChat, it’s one of our favorite places, well, for many of us it is. Come join us for a good laugh.
Before we head back to the Welcome Center I have one last thing to show you. This is the school post office. It is always abuzz with the little mailbots carrying around notes and letters. If you ever want to ask somebody anything, this is where you go. Writing tips, personal questions, confessions of love, this is your place. Once you register you’ll get a key to your mailbox and you’ll be able to start corresponding straight away.
So that’s the tour. Have any questions? I’d be happy to take them now. If not I’ll get you your room and mailbox keys and send you on your way. Welcome! And I hope you make plenty of new friends.
