Ravenous Beauty: A Writer's Workshop

I was wondering, how many of you guys are currently working on novels? Either finished, unfinished, whatever?

I was wondering if some new things I was considering sound useful to you all:

First Pages: A place to discuss the first page or two of a novel. The first pages of a novel is the first thing an agent, publisher, even reader sees when they open your book. The first page is crucial to hooking them and getting your work out there. Essentially, we'd comment/critique each other's first pages (the writing style, if you're starting the story at the 'correct' spot, if it hooks you) with an emphasis on if you would continue reading past that page if you were a potential buyer.

Query Critiques: Critiquing and helping each other out with Query letters. Queries are the letters we sent out to get agents and publishers attention so that they'll help publish our books. A place to help polish them would make a whole lot of sense - but only if enough of us are currently working on novels?

Synopsis Critiques: A place to critique the synopsis of our work, for when agents or publishers ask for them?

Manuscript Exchanges: We don't really need a forum for this of course, but we could have one to arrange full manuscript exchanges for people to read your entire novel and offer feedback, while you do the same. Could be helpful for those of you who are writing, or planning to start, a full scale book. Also might interest those out there who already have a book written and aren't really looking for lightweight chapter critiques.

What do you guys think? Yes, no? Good, bad? Giving me an idea of who actually is writing a novel is probably the most helpful, telling me how useful this would be to us.

what im writing is a novel of a sort. i mean, its mostly a short story collection. but, its very interconnected. that is, its going to be between five and seven shorts. some of them share characters.

basically, its cutting in and out of three or four peoples lives. short at this time period, short at that time period. this character here, now there and meets her/him. im not sure if im explaining this well. also, the shorts range greatly in length.

as far as how complete this is, its mostly completely done in my mind but i havent had time to write any of it down for the last two months. so, im very far behind myself. im hoping to get it, more or less, complete by the end of summer. which might be possible.

i think this is a good idea. especially for longer pieces. not necessarily just for novels, but shorts that range in the 10k + area.
i think you could put query, first page, and synopsis in the same forum.

Well, those features are already up, but I'm glad they're there. I've been trying to get back into novel writing lately (I have one under my belt, gave it a brutal edit towards the end of 2007, but I've been out of the marathon for too long).

By the way, what's with the new karma dealy? It's a comment thing now, but I just want to give a point to say, 'Hey, this person actually critiques.'

Don't worry, the karma comment thing isn't necessary. You can just throw a point up without putting a comment. It's just there to give them a private thanks if you'd like or whatever. All optional.

I've been advertising this place at another site or two, and I was wondering if you guys have any suggestions for other writer's sites that might be populated with writers who would find this place valuable? Or if you have any friends at all, even if they're not writers, even beta readers or book-lovers or poetry writers would be very welcome additions.

I'd like to grow the place a bit. If any of you have any friends you could invite, or any sites you know of that I might be able to advertise, please let me know.