Friiiiiist?

Things I've liked: People are really laying it all on the table. I love the openness and honesty in some posts, and I love the fiction, too. Each person seems to be pushing themselves to try different and new things and I love it.

I'm a stickler for not having the topic word at all in your post ever if it's not going to feel natural. I just...don't like it. And I agree with Gary, too. Don't talk about the topic or what you're about to write about. Just write about it. ;) There are plenty of posts I had to push past that opening paragraph or so just to get to the meat of the entry. Give me the meat sooner, damnit. ;)

This topic's got me fuckin' stumped. Hit me up with brainstorming, guys.

Edited at 2013-02-12 02:37 pm (UTC)

Second? Is there a woo hoo for second?

I got a topic idea as soon as I read the prompt, I just hope it turns out! I was really glad to get it, too because I have lots going on this week, so I know won't have a lot of time to write.

Edited at 2013-02-12 02:46 pm (UTC)

Honistly I am finding things interesting tho I do need to think about the second chance topic somewhat as I am uncertain what sort of thing I should write.
Any thoughts on what you all might like to see me write?

I don't have a preference about seeing the topic actually spelled out. I think it depends on the way the writer angles it.
This new one is a doozy. NO Thanks to whoever threw this one into the pot. I shouldn't have looked it up. Now I am stuck in the actual definition! Oh my stars!!! :)

I'm really enjoying the way some of the fiction has been able to capture and hold a specific mood and tone. And also the music from the mc.

In other news: HELLO, GREEN ROOM. THREE DAYS UNTIL I LEAVE FOR NEW JERSEY. FOUR DAYS UNTIL I SEE SEBASTIAN STAN'S FACE LIVE ON BROADWAY. I'M A LITTLE EXCITED.

I have been loving that each week there are people who write really frakking fantastic pieces--not just "this is good for Idol" but "I'm going to try to get the SO to read this, because it's AMAZING and probably deserves to be in some sort of anthology."

I want to give shout outs to applespicy and talonkarrde88 for being people that I without question am excited to read each week. They both write pieces that aren't only creative and layered, but they're also polished. I never read them and think "Well, that was a good idea, but it could have used a round of editing." In fact I usually think "Why don't they have publishing deals, yet?" and "Damn, I'm f***ed." Back in season 6, Sean was the one who showed me that maybe fiction in Idol could be really amazing. Because I get the impression that they're not just playing with an idea to come up with a story--but they're telling stories that need to be told.

I think that a lot of people are pushing themselves to write better, to write amazingly. I like that. I like it when it's clear that someone has taken an editorial hand to their own work--when none of the words or sections feel excessive or superfluous.

"Mistakes" that people are still making... Definitely starting off talking about the topic. This past week since I was still recovering from a virus and crunched for time, if people didn't draw me right in to something awesome, I probably only skimmed their piece. Endings are also problematic... although I'm a little more forgiving on that end. There are a few pieces where I've read them and felt like it was part of a serial and it wasn't working as a stand-alone piece. I think a lot of folks don't fully realize just how difficult it is to make a section of a serial that can stand alone--you, as the writer have this world in your head all the time, you remember what you wrote last week, because it's your baby; you forget that unstated information might not be obvious to a new reader. Really--I can't stress it enough--never, ever, ever assume that people have been reading your previous entries. If you're in doubt about whether something really works as a stand-alone, find someone who hasn't read your work before and ask!



Edited at 2013-02-12 03:45 pm (UTC)

At first I was all "WHAT AM I GOING TO WRITE" and now I have THREE DIFFERENT IDEAS and I CANNOT CHOOSE. *sob*

Okay, so now I want to take an informal poll: Would you rather see me do something along the blogging/autobiography lines, poetry or fiction? (This will probably determine which I try first, not necessarily which I end up with! :P)

Edited at 2013-02-12 04:11 pm (UTC)

Can I just whine a second about submitting a topic and having it used for SCI instead of the main topic. ::mope::

Ok, now that's out of the way...

I really like the size of the group that we have. I have enough time to give everyone the attention they deserve (even though I still suck at commenting).

I've done more reading and less skimming than I did last season. And I've gotten involved in some discussions in comments, which was something we did a lot back in Season 4 and 5.

I think people have gotten better at writing pieces of larger works that stand alone.

That said, the 3 things I've seen that bugged me are 1. Feeling lost because I walked into something and I don't know who the character is or what they're talking about,

2. meta at the beginning of a piece. That really is harder to do well than people think.

3. The exact topic word or phrase in the entry. I've seen a couple of posts that were really good, and clearly fit the topic in a way that wasn't *whomp* in your face, and then right at the end the topic was inserted and it felt ruined.

I can't believe I misread the topic last night. I was getting excited about all the deep fried possibilities (I'm a southern girl). :P

I watched the dog show last night, and I realized that I'd really like a dog. I think it would be a good thing for me overall; a dog (any dog) would probably make me feel safer in general, and if I had a dog at my side, I probably wouldn't get extremely anxious walking out my door. In addition, it has been noted that dogs can sometimes sense whenever a person is going to have a seizure. I had a guinea pig who could do that, so I know it's certainly possible -- and even though the guinea pig couldn't really do anything about it, it was nice knowing that at least someone knew that I was in trouble. Whenever the seizure was over, he'd want me to hold him, which was extremely comforting to me.

Unfortunately, I live in an apartment in the city, and my lease doesn't allow dogs.

I have no idea what I'm going to write about this week, but I'm posting here anyway because I feel kind of lonely today.

Edited at 2013-02-12 04:11 pm (UTC)

trying desperately not to turn this topic into a cocktail to make for my bar regulars tomorrow just to have something to write about lol.

Phew! Will I go science fiction this time around? Or maybe some more Cameron? I'm kinda hooked on the bastard...

Wow. I feel smarter now. Ok, not really, but check out this paragraph.

The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) is an image of a small part of space in the center of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field within the constellation Fornax, showing the deepest optical view in space. Released on September 25, 2012, it took 10 years to compile the images and shows galaxies from 13.2 billion years ago. The exposure time was two million seconds, or approximately 23 days. The faintest galaxies are one ten-billionth the brightness of what the human eye can see. The red galaxies are the remnants of galaxies after major collisions during their elderly years. Many of the smaller galaxies are very young galaxies that eventually became the major galaxies, like the Milky Way and other galaxies in our galactic neighborhood. The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, or XDF, adds another 5,500 galaxies to Hubble's 2003 and 2004 view into a tiny patch of the farthest universe.

There are so. many. things. that can written about that.

I am also feeling QUITE stumped on this topic. Last night I googled it and then got so overwhelmed with how absolutely effing cool our universe is, and started asking my boyfriend how many other life forms he thinks are out there ("because LOOK AT ALL THOSE GALAXIES!!") and both of us were just sitting there staring at my computer screen absolutely mindfucked. Then I started googling random things like "how can we take pictures of the milky way if we're INSIDE the milky way!" and "where exactly is this Hubble Telescope?" And no writing ended up ensuing, I was too overwhelmed with the majesty of the cosmos.

Well, I ended writing something for this Idol topic that's, shall we say, REALLY different from what I usually write. REALLY DIFFERENT. Like CAPSLOCK-level different than the sort of stuff I'm likely to write, so yay me?

Starting off talking about the topic usually loses me, too. How I respond to pieces that name-drop the topic some other way depends on how it's done. If it seems shoe-horned in just for the sake of naming the topic, then no. Sometimes it really fits smoothly into the piece.

The other thing I'm not liking this season is pieces that are rambly and unfocused, which is a good reminder for me, because I can get rambly sometimes.

Endings are hard. I always struggle with knowing where I should end a piece (and sometimes I have an ending in mind, but I keep writing and writing and writing and can't make my way to the ending, until finally I just have to cram it in there because Deadline!) Someone should teach a writing class devoted to endings.

Super quick drive-by lunch break comment!

Classic mistakes I'm still seeing: forcing the topic into the piece when it doesn't naturally fit, and just plain doing the obvious! Lord knows I've been guilty of both a time or two, but that's what's still sticking out at me. Def not saying I'm a completely innocent party.

As for this current topic: It sorta reminds me of Weak Force from last season. At first, we were all like "WTF whut is this even!" and then it was just like "o okay, obscure ass science shit" and then everyone just sorta ran with it in a million different directions and, imnsho, that topic brought some of the best and most creative entries all season.

Home fro work! We lost power during Snowpocalypse, got it back, then lost it again at precisely 5:30 this morning, right when I had two racks of bread in the oven :p It didn't come back on until noontime. Talk about an Amazing Race of yeasty proportions...

But hey, everything is now nice and shiny clean!

I really like the size of the group that we have. I have enough time to give everyone the attention they deserve (even though I still suck at commenting).

Yes, yes, YES :) The quality of writing this time around happily astounds me. I don't like saying that it's because it's the pay-to-play and that the more committed are here because the more committed would be here anyway...there have been many, many talented writers through the regular Idol seasons too.

I cannot stand being obvious with the topic to the point that it's mentioned it in the entry, or the need to obviously mangle an otherwise great entry in order to fit the topic. Whenever I run across something like that, all I can think of is 7th grade essay writing :boggle:

I'm also not a fan of serials. As others have already mentioned, it's very difficult for a reader to intimately know the characters as well as their author in a venue like Idol. If you're reading X number of entries every week, you're apt not to remember the continuing story and be less inclined to look at previous pieces to get caught up to speed.

Ack, this topic! I've thought and discarded a number of ideas already, but I'm still thinking about it...

Finally got an idea for the topic! It involved interviewing a family member, so this should be interesting. I'll work on my rough draft tomorrow.

Things I love -

- High-context communication. In rattsu's piece last week, it became really clear who the psychic and the trainee cop were, what their relationship was, and why the protagonist thought the psychic could help her, in three or four lines of dialogue, none of which directly addressed any of those subjects.

- Non-fiction. I'm a lot more forgiving of B-level craft moments when the topic is honest, brave, and self-revelatory without necessarily being self-laudatory.

- Fiction that creates a world I'm deeply curious about, but doesn't waste time explaining the world at the beginning, so that I'm eager to piece it together as the story goes.

Stuff that bugs me -

- A ton of character description in the first few paragraphs. By all means clarify the basics so I'm not surprised your dude is 19th-century Chinese, or has long blonde hair if that's relevant, but "Susan brushed her long blonde hair and tightened the strings of her corset before donning a long green velvet dress that perfectly matched her eyes" feels like bad romance or worse porn.

- Fiction where the setting is more important than the characters or action - it's great to create a lavishly detailed planetary governing system or a biosphere full of exotic plants, but unless the plants are about to eat the House of Commons, save it for your 300,000 word trilogy.

- Self-laudatory non-fiction, whether it's "I'm a hero who totally saved the day" (unless it's leavened by humor or shows a character change) or "my life is so miserable gosh I had a horrible life feel sorry for meeeeeeee...." is the exact same kind of egotism in reverse.

Absolutely enjoying reading such a wonderful field of writers!

I'm on the quest for a beta reader who ISN'T familiar with the Tomorrow Trilogy universe OR my Stellar universe to read over an entry I wrote yesterday. I wrote a scene (post death) for two of my characters from the TT 'verse.

Basically, if you don't know who Jazz, Savin, and Mitchel are, please hit me up and read over my entry (and offer me other beta critique). I THINK it's stand alone-able, but I know my world intimately, and so do my two friends who usually look over my stuff these days. And while events alluded to in this entry were shown in my entry for week 1, I don't expect anyone to remember THAT, either. ;)

Cool topic - if I have time I might write up something for this one. Odd, but the first thing that popped into my head was a "satisfaction guaranteed" permanent tanning salon.