Need to get the creative juices flowing? Put down the peyote and pick up your laptop. Ficly is a collaborative writing community where members can buck their writer’s block and contribute to shared works of fiction. Armed with 1,024 characters, Ficly users issue story challenges, start new story stubs and add sequels and prequels to existing stories. It’s a grade school English exercise without the bullies.
After AOL shut down 18-month-old CC-licensed Ficlets in January 2009, developers Jason Garber and Kevin Lawver vowed to rescue the service’s 4500 45,000 stories. They even built a memorial site to mourn the loss of their project. Resurrected as Ficly, the developers reconvened and joined forces with some fantastic designers to launch a truly beautiful and well-intentioned service.
Ficly’s first blog post reads:
Tell us your story. Remind us what it means to be a part of the larger human family once again. Let us create, let us be, let us nurture a society. A society of storytellers.
With a call-to-action like this, how can it not lure a community of creative altruists? Budding writers can register to contribute at ficly.com.
Thanks to Kristin Nienhuis for the tip.
