The Inkhaven Blogging Residency

https://www.inkhaven.blog/

by venkii • 12 months ago

62 78 12 months ago

bthallplz• 12 months ago

It'd be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things, but for nowhere near the cost. (The place looks super neat, but I'm not paying that much, don't live near there, and need to report to my employer's office twice a week.)

I wonder if there'll be an aggregator of the blog posts written as post of this cohort (and others, if there's more cohorts).

paulcole• 12 months ago

It'd be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things

What’s stopping you besides the unsettling truth that it’s more fun to think that it’d be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things than it is to actually do the same things from afar?

habryka14• 12 months ago

It'd be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things, but for nowhere near the cost.

Yep, Bay Area rent and cost of living is a big pain. $1,500 for housing for a month is still below real estate costs on our side, and $2,000 in program fees is barely enough to pay for the staff costs and program supplies. We might barely break even, but my guess is we'll lose a bunch of money on the program (which is fine, we are doing this because it's good for the world, not to make money).

I feel like for a program like this it might make sense for someone to run it outside of one of the highest cost of living places in the world, but it's where we are located, so that's what we have to make work (I do think being in the Bay Area does also attract people and makes it more likely for people to participate, so it's not an obvious call even from first principles).

I wonder if there'll be an aggregator of the blog posts written as post of this cohort (and others, if there's more cohorts).

We're definitely planning to do something like that! Not sure yet about the exact format, but we'll definitely make it easy to find what everyone is publishing as part of the residency somehow.

darknavi• 12 months ago

It'd be fun to join in from afar by pledging to do the same things, but for nowhere near the cost.

I am not familiar with blogging or this sphere at all, but it's so funny to me that I was assuming the website said that the program would PAY the bloggers to be there for a month (including housing) and not the other way around.

I assumed this was one of those "We'll let you write a book while riding Amtrak for free" sort of thing. Not sure why I thought that, but it made me laugh after reading your comment.

munificent2• 12 months ago

It's because they describe it as a "residency" and not a "retreat". Residencies usually pay the artist/writer to be there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist-in-residence

defrost2• 12 months ago

Back in the day it cost a round of drinks at the pub to be read and questioned about your work in progress:

  Until late 1949, Inklings readings and discussions were usually held on Thursday evenings in C. S. Lewis's rooms at Magdalen. The Inklings and friends also gathered informally on Tuesdays at midday at a local public house, The Eagle and Child, familiarly and alliteratively known in the Oxford community as The Bird and Baby, or simply The Bird.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings

throwanem2• 12 months ago

And admission to an Oxford college, of course.

defrost2• 12 months ago

For that group of Inklings, sure.

University was free for, say, the likes of Greg Egan and others to study physics and math, with a nominal student union fee to be able to join / form clubs and apply for a base beer, wine, and cheese fund to lubricate weekly discussion.

voidhorse3• 12 months ago

There are plenty of writing groups in existence today that do precisely this, no degree required.

netown• 12 months ago

interesting idea, kind of like the y-combinator of blogging except with upfront tuition being paid instead of a longer-term investment by the 'provider'--i wonder if that business model could work as well?

habryka14• 12 months ago

We were thinking about whether there is any way to do some kind of income sharing agreement, but given how messy those tend to be (see all the Lambda school stuff as an example) we couldn't figure out a way to make it work.

Maybe if everyone was definitely starting a Substack we could take a small cut of Substack revenue for the next year or two, which would be straightforward enough.

If anyone has ideas, I would definitely be curious to hear them.

inhumantsar• 12 months ago

Maybe an Inkhaven substack that the writers agree to crosspost to for some length of time?

benwerd• 12 months ago

It feels like there's a particular ideology uniting the bloggers involved that isn't actually declared on the page, centering on Lesswrong and the kinds of conversations hosted there. I think that's fine for that community; I'd love to see a version of this for people who buy into a more humanist version of the present and future.

habryka14• 12 months ago

Definitely not trying to hide it!

I do want to not scare people who aren't into LessWrong and similar things, as I would really like this residency to be less opinionated about stuff than LessWrong and other projects we usually run, so I feel like putting a big LessWrong logo somewhere would have given the wrong impression.

I would also love to see other people run similar things (including in places that aren't the Bay Area and so where they can run it much more cheaply). I feel like it could be a cool model.

I also think an online-only version of this could be great. The original inspiration for this project came from seeing that the Nanowrimo charity had shut down, and realizing that I would love to do something like Nanowrimo but focused on blogging and essays instead of novels. I ended up registering Nablowrimo.com (National Blogging Writing Month) and might end up trying to make that a thing, or would be happy to give the URL to someone who is committed to make something happen here.

habryka14• 12 months ago

Oh, hey HN! I run Lightcone Infrastructure which runs this residency (as well as LessWrong.com and the venue, Lighthaven.space).

Happy to answer questions if anyone has any. Ben (one of my co-founders) is more centrally in charge of it, but I should have enough context to answer really any question.

TimorousBestie6• 12 months ago

Any sweetheart deals with a blogging platform yet? I expect the Nearly Free Speech folks or the bearblog dev would hear you out.

habryka14• 12 months ago

Not yet! My guess is Substack is the best choice for most people, just because it's easy to set up, has a bunch of UI problems solved, and has a non-terrible way to get towards getting food on the table (even if you don't paywall anything).

gorgoiler• 12 months ago

I could be the only person to have thought this, but when I saw this was a residency advertising money and accommodation I assumed this was a grant for an arts/culture programme. If it’s just me that thought that then I’m clearly too naive, but if ten people do then it might be worth adjusting the copy.

habryka14• 12 months ago

Makes sense, it certainly is the case that these programs tend to pay people, though I have kind of learned to treat that with a bit of suspicion (having run lots of programs of that kind).

As they say, "if you are not the customer, you are the product", and I really wanted this fellowship to not be the kind of thing where the actual underlying motivation is some kind of recruitment scheme that drives the program objectives, while looking on the surface like a thing that is optimized to help the residents.

venkii• 12 months ago

Any sense if applying later will be detrimental?

The main reason to delay: I've started writing relatively recently, and expect I might have more posts I'd showcase in my application by then.

habryka14• 12 months ago

My guess is not much? Because we are doing rolling applications, so we are somehow trying to judge how many good applicants in total we are going to get (classical secretary problem). Applying early means we might let you in with a lower bar if we end up getting a lot of great applications later and raise our bar. Applying later might be better if we realize we were overly conservative in the beginning and are disappointed in the later applications.

Thinking about it, my guess is we will probably let promising people who applied early know that they are on some kind of waitlist and extend an invite to them if we end up disappointed with the later applications, so if you are flexible, I think that makes early strictly easier. I don't expect the effect to be that large though.

cosmicgadget• 12 months ago

I'd be interested to see the writing of folks that do this course.

TimorousBestie6• 12 months ago

It’s a pity Gwern is saddled here with the two Scotts. It’s like if Umberto Eco shared the stage with Travis Baldree and Sarah Maas.

velcrovan6• 12 months ago

Is Gwern known for being a great creative coach and advisor?

TimorousBestie6• 12 months ago

He’s known for being a prolific blogger with multiple interests and excellent research skills.

The other two blog, yes, but now Scott flirts with race realism [1] and other Scott is hyperfixated on being pro-Israel at any cost. I can’t imagine they’re much fun at parties (or in communes, shtetl-optimized or not).

[1] https://www.stevesailer.net/p/scott-alexander-comes-out-of-t...

velcrovan6• 12 months ago

This is something I might otherwise consider, but Gwern being an advisor gives me pause. Awhile back I shared a blog design on Twitter in response to someone doing a “show me your cool stuff” kind of thing, someone replied and tagged gwern and then he replied with a bunch of very unconstructive crap-on criticism. I had looked up to him before that. Maybe he’s different in person but based on that interaction I have no desire to find out.

Edit: if someone can explain why this was instantly downvoted I would genuinely appreciate knowing where I went wrong here

gwern4• 12 months ago

Edit: if someone can explain why this was instantly downvoted I would genuinely appreciate knowing where I went wrong here

Alluding to some conversation which supposedly demonstrates my unsuitability for such a role, while pointedly refusing to link it or describe it any detail which could be judged (to the point where I, the person in question, have no idea what misdeeds you are talking about), is not credible and reeks of, one might say, 'very unconstructive crap-on criticism', and people might be understandably reluctant to upvote it.

If you think my criticisms were that bad, then link the tweets in question - and, since my account is currently locked, I will happily copy them all out here so everyone can read them and judge for themselves. I am not afraid.

h0p32• 12 months ago

I can appreciate your defending yourself here, and you should. You're obviously suitable for the role, and I think folks will be incredibly lucky to learn from you. I'm not saying your criticisms are that bad (far from it), but I can't say I think you're always as careful as you should be in that role (which I also suggest you're sometimes too quick to assign yourself) either, sir. If you're asking for bug reports, this is one.

throwanem2• 12 months ago

It's just that you come off as a high-handed, unbearable jerk even by my standards, which is saying a really enormous amount. Everyone thinks you're an asshole because you act like an asshole, and some people are afraid of you because of that and the social power they understand you to have, ie the ability to effectively blacklist people from a weird, unpleasant, mostly pointless, but highly remunerative niche labor market providing an expedited path to US citizenship which is still probably a few years out from its inevitable collapse in value. (You're not really special in this, of course; your pal Scott also has it, for example. So do lots of others.)

I suppose you have some justification for all of that, but I wouldn't really know; without the aid of either preternatural patience or some sort of pharmaceutical support that Shulgin would have no doubt highly favored, I've always found you so needlessly and interminably self-indulgent in prose as to consider it must be really fortunate for your sake you had firmly established your reputation before the advent of true conversational AI. Certainly I don't expect you to change your whole personality at this late date. I doubt you can even very reliably restrain yourself from indulging it.

velcrovan6• 12 months ago

Since you offered: https://x.com/gwern/status/1235977354918404096 — though it seems like the intermediate commenter I mentioned has also either locked or deleted their tweets.

…But responding as though this is an attack to be countered and defeated further illustrates why I had doubts about your suitability as a creative advisor. It may be the only way you _know how_ to interpret any reference to yourself or anything anyone might compare to your work. It doesn't mean you're a bad person. You just may not have the tools to draw out the best of other people’s creative skill. And then again, maybe you do, and I just caught you on two separate really bad days five years apart.

dang• 12 months ago

if someone can explain why this was instantly downvoted I would genuinely appreciate knowing where I went wrong here

It seems unduly personal.

egypturnash• 12 months ago

Man I wish I had $3.5k to do this. Actually I wish I had $3.5k to do this and try to go into total overdrive mode on my queer comics for a while, I could probably crank out a page a day if I just sat my ass in front of the computer all day instead of going out and doing errands and slacking around the park.

Oh well, guess I'll stay in New Orleans and draw queer comics at a less punishing pace instead.

(actually sheesh if we use the standard conversion rate of "a picture is worth a thousand words" then my usual peak of two pages a week is probably more work per week than the stated minimum of 500 words per post.)

01HNNWZ0MV43FF2• 12 months ago

500 words a post and I'm not working full-time? Shit that's not even a third of a NaNoWriMo. My hands don't even hurt. I already shitpost 500 words a day on Hacker News, my third-favorite social media content platform.

Honestly I'm tempted. I know the rationalists have a bad rap but I have a grudging respect for Scott Alexander.

Plus $3,500 to live in Cali for a month... barely more than I'm paying over here

itronitron• 12 months ago

This submission is just an advertisement, and advertisements submitted to HN usually get flagged dead.

ttoinou2• 12 months ago

Why is that a "residency" ? Isn't it rather a "retreat" ? Anyone knows how to know about more weekly or monthly events like this for writing and others creative topics (and more in Europe :) ?

habryka14• 12 months ago

Seems to be a common term for longer writing programs. At least when we did user-interviews, people thought "retreat" would imply like a week or two at most, and also imply a more remote location than where it is (and also imply you can't source your own housing), so we didn't go with that.

Some writing programs with similar naming schemes: * https://iyws.clas.uiowa.edu/2-week-summer-residential-progra... * https://www.banffcentre.ca/programs/literary-arts/deep-winte... * https://www.hedgebrook.org/residencies

Open to other names. I don't like "retreat" because of the above, don't like "fellowship" because it IMO more strongly implies that you would get paid money instead of paying money, and don't currently have any other great ideas.

ttoinou2• 12 months ago

Thank you, makes sense !

tty4562• 12 months ago

This is not a residency. YOU pay $3500 for the "privilege" of living in some dorm-like facility to write each day.

pclmulqdq3• 12 months ago

$3500 is the minimum and includes only breakfast. If you want a private room and you want to be fed, it's $5700.

nmstoker• 12 months ago

Prices vary around the world but this seems pricey: they say it's at cost but it feels like a premium/markup on London prices, not a city known for being cheap!

Surely most people dropping work to focus on blogging would be looking for minimal costs (whilst they have limited income as they hone a skill) rather than maximal costs?!

If you rent sharing for maybe $1,500 pcm and then spend $50 a day you'd finish with $500 left vs Inkhaven.

habryka14• 12 months ago

That's not true!

The minimum is $2,000 if you want to source your own housing (and for example stay with a friend in the area).

The food cost is just fully straightforwardly passed on ($20 for a catered meal is not a lot!), and the rooming is also provided below cost (good luck finding a short term rental for less than $1,500/mo, or even $3000/mo in Berkeley). We are subsidizing this with our own money, this isn't going to make us anything.

Like, man, what are these expectations? Where can you get a month-long hotel experience in a major metropolitan area for less than $3,500 a month? And that is ignoring all of the costs associated with the rest of the program, which will involve a lot of volunteered time from staff with opportunity costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

$100/night in Berkeley is not going to get you something pretty, and definitely no food included.

m463• 12 months ago

Sort of like writer's workshop meets vanity press.

I guess on the other hand, it wouldn't be a blog if the author didn't do it all.

ajkjk• 12 months ago

I appreciate this as an example of (what strikes me as) millennials doing institution-building.

miohtama• 12 months ago

Writing advice from AI: $20/mo.

gwern4• 12 months ago

Value of LLM writing advice: −$3,480; total value: −$3,500.

The Inkhaven Blogging Residency

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