Ideal Use of Contests, Feature Area, Groups, and Forums

Ideal Use of Contests, Feature Area, Groups, and Forums

Contests:
Use them to overcome writer's block.
Use them to expand on your areas of interest and output.
Enter contests that challenge your writing (unless it’s a happy birthday contest!).
Comment on other’s poems, and they’ll give you feedback on yours.
Be moderate in praise and criticism- Rome wasn't built in a day, neither are poets! Just nudge them to take one small step further, don't drop a ton of brick on them!
If your poem won gold, and you haven’t changed it, why be a ‘trophy hog’ and try to win another with it? (unless you ego is hungry, or you need to impress someone, or you like to accumulate shiny things, like the rest of us!)
If you enter a poem in another contest, use it as an excuse to improve the poem first- why have a lot of rough, hard to read, or difficult to understand works circulating 'in here' (AP)?
Don't kiss up to the host! (unless it's me!)
Don't complain if your masterpiece isn't awarded anything. Politics, subjective judging, and luck are the rule rather than the exception. Live with it!

Feature Area:
Feature a poem to get an initial reaction.

Feature it to scare yourself into improving it more.
Feature it again if you’ve just changed things and need fresh critiques.
If you haven’t rewritten anything, and it's getting applauses, go ahead and be an applause hog and keep featuring it! (for our ego's are always hungry!) In the old AP it may have been that your motivator was 'most clicked on' or 'most applauded' for the week.
Spend more points per click if you need instant feedback, less if it can linger for a while.
3 comments out of 10 clicks is the norm. Less, your poem needs work. More, your poem needs work! If it's a great poem, people may be afraid to comment if they see imposing comments already.
Spend more total points for more clicks if it's a large piece, the larger the piece, the less it will be commented on.
If you have a piece you think will brighten people's day, feature it!
If you like to see your name in lights, you can even feature a lousy poem with lots of points per click, and your name will be in that top 'group of six' for a long time! You'll soon be famous, for all the wrong reasons.
If you have a poem that will make people exclaim, 'Wow, what a great poet!', feature it!
Remember, newbies think the feature area actually features the best of the best, from AP's most illustrious poets! Treat yourself! Be one for a day!
If you've written something that's just taken you to the next level, feature it, but don't expect others to also 'see' your improvement, unless they follow your writing from day to day, and as closely as you do, or you have your own personal, devoted poetry-history professor or poetry critic!


Most Popular and Most Applauded Poems of the Week:
Don't be jealous of those- such things can be bought and paid for, (kind of like playing 'favorites' games to increase the number of people who have you on their favorites list). Both are cheapened thus.


Groups:
Use them to socialize.
Use them to learn, and see what others are doing in the area.
Use them to see what ideas are floating around in the area.
Use them for area-specific critiques for your poems.
Use them for group-only contests and events.
Use them to rub elbows with poets that you admire.
Use them to rub elbows with narrow-minded fools!
Use them to rub elbows with stuffy, pompous asses!


Other Areas:
Exchange Comments Area: This generates some interesting encounters.
Pluses: The Comments.
Minuses: You may get a poem to comment on that you don’t relate to or don't know anything about.

Forums:
Gossip!
Worldly matters.
Develop your personality!

Meet new poets.
Oh yeah, discuss poetry!

Remember- this is AP, where we develop our work. Fame and fortune are out there in the world somewhere... AP is not the end, it's the means... unless you just have pointless fun here, like I do, then it is an end...

and finally remember- if you poem isn't in the 'World's Most Beloved Poems of All Time' compendium yet, your poem needs work!

Now get to work!