social writing networks

Listening to an IT Conversations podcast of the Prosumer Media session at Web 2.0.  Among other things, I hear Mena Trott talking about Vox (nee Comet).  One thing she's talking about are the benefits of small and intimate audiences for one's communication.  This echoes another presentation given by Anil Dash, about social networking and audience reach. 

I've certainly been looking around for a closer-knit blogging community smaller than the whole blogosphere for awhile now.  I had that for awhile at LiveJournal, and still might - but I've fallen out of the habit of posting in that neighborhood.  And, as I just linked, I found another small community over in OPML-space.  But, again, I've wandered away from there a bit - this time mostly due to recent major life events, overhauls, and happy disruptions.  What's my point?  Not sure, but I have found a lot of reward from smaller venues.

Another thing Mena was talking about was the importance of keeping people who've signed up engaged.  In relation to that, again, I seem to wander away from communities after awhile.  I'm sure a large chunk of it has to do with my personal combination of early adopter and serial enthusiast.  So, maybe I'm hard to keep around in any case.  But, some things I do like around these Vox parts include site-wide memes like the Question of the Day.  These things get strong legs on LiveJournal and parts elsewhere.

But, what occurs to me this afternoon, is that I'd like to see more writing prompts.  Not memes, per se - and I'm definitely leaving if Vox fills up with cut-and-paste quizzes.  But, I'd be interested in more invitations to self-disclosure or plain old interesting writing.  Hell, this might sound cheesy or annoying, but I wouldn't mind hooking into some half-serious "assignments" ala English classes I've taken.

Actually, now that I write that, I'm also kind of looking for some creative writing prompts in shared blogging form.  Flash fiction, character sketches, etc.  I wonder if something like that would fly around here?  I've been getting finally serious about pushing some finished fiction out into the world is something I'm trying do, lately to the exception of my usual hacking sprees.

Anyway: rambling now - time to post.