Good Afternoon!
The sign up sheet is active and seeing a nice combination of old friends and newbies. So please make sure to keep spreading the word! https://therealljidol.livejournal.com/1060711.html
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Is anyone doing anything exciting this weekend? Hopefully it involves avoiding going to see It: Chapter Two. I was really excited for it to come out. Now that it has, I wish I could get back that time before I had gone to see it.
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I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to start giving some "Idol advice", not just for newbies but as refreshers for veterans who may have been away for awhile. Some of this is general advice for writing but some is just things I've noticed over the years of reading Idol entries.
Things like:
- Topics are jumping off points for your creativity. You don't need pigeonhole the actual words into the entry. This goes double for starting off anything "I didn't know what to write this week"/"The topic this week is _____" If you need to write those to get yourself into gear - that's fine. I think there are a lot of people that need to just put words on the page until something starts to form. Just edit them out before posting. A strong opening will grab people's attention. A highly meta one tends to get folks to tune out.
- You will have byes. (the amount will be determined based on how many people sign up) A bye is a "free week", where you can take it off and not write anything. Use them strategically according to your needs. I've seen folks burn through them all at the start, just because a topic didn't grab them. But then when a real life emergency (or even a personal schedule conflict) came up and they couldn't write anything that week, they ended up being eliminated.
- Just as a reminder, if you are writing under an account other than your main one, please let me know. That helps in moderating voting as well as keeping track of "weeks survived")
Any other advice that people should remember?
Any questions that people (especially newbies) have?
The sign up sheet is active and seeing a nice combination of old friends and newbies. So please make sure to keep spreading the word! https://therealljidol.livejournal.com/1060711.html
***
Is anyone doing anything exciting this weekend? Hopefully it involves avoiding going to see It: Chapter Two. I was really excited for it to come out. Now that it has, I wish I could get back that time before I had gone to see it.
***
I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to start giving some "Idol advice", not just for newbies but as refreshers for veterans who may have been away for awhile. Some of this is general advice for writing but some is just things I've noticed over the years of reading Idol entries.
Things like:
- Topics are jumping off points for your creativity. You don't need pigeonhole the actual words into the entry. This goes double for starting off anything "I didn't know what to write this week"/"The topic this week is _____" If you need to write those to get yourself into gear - that's fine. I think there are a lot of people that need to just put words on the page until something starts to form. Just edit them out before posting. A strong opening will grab people's attention. A highly meta one tends to get folks to tune out.
- You will have byes. (the amount will be determined based on how many people sign up) A bye is a "free week", where you can take it off and not write anything. Use them strategically according to your needs. I've seen folks burn through them all at the start, just because a topic didn't grab them. But then when a real life emergency (or even a personal schedule conflict) came up and they couldn't write anything that week, they ended up being eliminated.
- Just as a reminder, if you are writing under an account other than your main one, please let me know. That helps in moderating voting as well as keeping track of "weeks survived")
Any other advice that people should remember?
Any questions that people (especially newbies) have?
Profile
therealljidol- LJ Idol: a writing rollercoaster with iffy brakes
Comments
For advice I'd tell people to enjoy the ride and get to know everyone! It's so much more fun when you comment and interact with people, get to learn their styles and what they like. It builds up anticipation to see what they'll do each week, and they'll feel the same about what you're doing too!
And... FRIST!!
Edited at 2019-09-07 07:00 pm (UTC)
My weekend will hopefully involve me sorting out moving my personal blog to a different host/URL because I need to extricate myself from where it has been hosted in case I lose it soon. I'm kinda in damage control mode right now and plan to use this season to regain some strength in my life.
Honestly, this weekend is just me either struggling to fall sleep or struggling to stay awake when I’m supposed to be a functioning human.Time zone shifts and jet lag are no joke. Other than that, just relaxing and catching up on shows. We watched The Boys which was better than I thought it would be. I enjoyed it. Pretty lazy overall.
The second part? It was funny in a way that I don't think it was supposed to be.
Honestly, this weekend has mostly been struggling to fall asleep and later struggling to stay awake. We watched The Boys, which was pretty good imo. I had no idea what it was about going in, and I enjoyed it. Pretty lazy. Just trying to get used to the new time zone.
That's sound advice, from what I can remember.
I'm foolishly looking forward to the first topic and having an external push to write. Foolishly, because I'm sure that soon enough I will be cursing you, Gary.
Alas no. I have not the funds for It.
Nor have I anyone to see It with. My children do not wish to see it. They had an early trama when their father put It in for them to watch as very small children ( they asked to see the scary movie at 3,4 and 6 ).
It gave them bad dreams.
So now I must watch It alone once It is out on Blue ray.
But I can wait for It.
It's been a looooonggggg time since I've been on Livejournal. There used to be a post that covered different coding for posts, i.e. underlining, bold text, username reference, inserting pictures, etc. Does anyone know where that can be found now, or have a link? I'd like to refresh my memory.
So good to see you! Hi! :-)
Can you be more specific about what you didn't like, Gary?
Write what you want to write. Get a friend to read over it, if you can, to make sure that it makes sense and that there are no big glaring errors.
Write *what you want*.
Not what you think people want to read. Not what you think will win.
Don't panic if someone else says that they have the same idea you do. Your style is your own and odds are good that even if you start with the same idea, it won't end the same way, and they won't be similar enough to draw any unfavorable comparisons.
*Do what you want and have fun with it*.
I'd add "read it out loud before you call it done." I've caught multiple errors because I could hear them before I could see them. Also it reading your piece out loud helps you check how the words flow together.
Edited at 2019-09-08 12:54 am (UTC)
:waves:
Be sincere.
Leaving comments on other's entries is good, but if you're spam commenting on every entry just to play the game and not really reading more than the first line of the entries, people will notice and it's both likely to backfire, and a bit disheartening for the person that wrote the entry knowing you didn't read it.
One particular entry I wrote had a string of comments like "This was a beautiful piece, so uplifting!" and all I could think was "This was horror fiction, and someone was literally eaten alive by zombies. I am disturbed and terrified by the world you must live in to find that uplifting." Every time I saw entries from those people moving forward, I had that nagging memory detracting from how I felt about what they were writing.
I am a zombie
My job is to clean the world
Monstrous people die
2) Pay attention to the formatting, people will be reading on different devices, be aware that whatever you're doing may appear different on different devices which may make reading your entry illegible. And make sure whatever text colour you're using is easily readable against the background colour. (Also paragraph breaks are your friend).
3) Don't say bad things about the piece you've written within your entry.
4) Re what you're writing, I would just echo what everyone else has said: write what you want, people have gotten through rounds writing every thing people say you can't get through on. And trust whatever spin you put on it. You are the only one who can write the piece you're writing.
It has been enough years since I have used LJ that I'm having a really hard time remembering who a lot of folks are. There are a few usernames that I remember well and clearly, and then a whole lot of vaguely familiar, but difficult to place names... Where I feel like I should remember them, but my brain just won't cooperate.