Dude, you suck — Pessimism, brutal honesty or simply a dark sense of humor? One thing's for sure, you're not going to get huge shining rays of sunshine blown up your ass at www.itwillfail.com, a "full-contact creative writing" online forum created by a handful of graduates of Oakland University's journalism program, founded in 2001. Although "it will fail" seems like an apt prediction for many freelance works, the site's creators actually based the name on their assumption that the forum would inevitably crash and burn. On the contrary, the site has stayed afloat thanks to some light merchandising. Check out the goods at cafepress.com/itwillfail — featuring the perfect accoutrement for every bitter tortured writer (other than an empty bottle of Jack and an overflowing ashtray): T-shirts that proudly assert "No Future? No Problem."
It works like this: Editors serve up a theme, and writers are encouraged to create and submit articles and columns loosely based around said subject (past topics have included "Yo Momma" and "Naked in School." The final results are then open to comments and criticism — constructive or otherwise.
The editors concede that it does seem like a blog, but "stream-of-consciousness writing is strongly discouraged," i.e. make your damn point and cut the rambling bullshit, buddy (plus, there's a separate section on the site for the "b word," called ItWillBlog).
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