So we are back to somewhere between the couple of paragraphs and the longer pieces. I apologize. But it was that or nothing and figured people would rather have the former. If you want more post-season email me and I'll see what I can provide.
Until then though - YOU, the people reading this - tell us what YOUR favorite pieces from them were.
mstrobel - (Week 34) - What's interesting about her (well, let's be honest, there are a lot of interesting things, but I'm looking at this from a "Idol angle") is that it's a case where we don't have to post a link to the tags. There isn't anything in the journal that isn't Idol entries due to being a construct/writing journal, whatever it is that you want to call it. You would think then that it would be a case of figuring out who this fictional identity is and going through the usual fact or fiction with it.But the truth is that most people have a bit of "fact or fiction" going on in their writing. Sometimes it's chalked up to "artistic license", making the mundane out to be something a little more special and sometimes it's changing the people involved or how things played out either because it sounds better. Often it's a bit of wish fulfillment in a way that only fictionalizing your life can provide.
That would be the case -in good fiction though, you learn a bit about the writer themselves as well.
Even if it might not have been the original intent http://mstrobel.livejournal.com/18025.html and http://mstrobel.livejournal.com/1480.htmlshe ended up revealing quite a bit.
From my perspective, the early entries were OK. I liked them. But wasn't entirely sure of the sticking power of being able to hold people's interest in the storyline over a long term basis. I wasn't sure there was enough of a connection and it felt a bit stiff.
I'd see flashes that maybe I was wrong though, and finally at one point along the way I realized that the style had loosened up and she seemed to be a lot more comfortable. Not just with the characters though, and this could be reading into it, I got the impression that she was getting more comfortable *with herself*.
That is probably the most important thing of them all.
karmasoup (Week 19) - It's really difficult to come up with a way to describe her that isn't way over the top. Her personality seems to invite it. So I'll leave that to her. http://karmasoup.livejournal.com/10901.htmlThere are people who love her and, well, people do who don't.
She managed to do something though that a lot of people try, and the vast majority of them fail at - she managed to be "controversial" and the quality of her work not suffer for it. I've seen more than few people over the years spend far too much time pushing buttons than they actually spend on the writing itself. I think part of the key here is that she was being "her" and the buttons just happened to be what was in the way.
What struck me fairly off the bat with her is that although her entries did tend to be rather lengthy, which can be a problem when you are scanning through deciding what you are going to take the time to actually sit down and read, once you got into the flow of them, they had a nice flow.
It was more like you had sat down to have a chat and everything flowed out from there naturally. You are part of the conversation and she just goes wherever it takes her - taking you a long for the ride.
Check out http://karmasoup.livejournal.com/tag/lj%20idol for the evidence!!
I haven't really seen her post or do much on LJ since she left here - but I *hope* she is still writing and developing her craft. I think she could easily be doing something with it on a larger scale. Given some of her passions, and the usual quality of her work, I would think (if nothing else) there would be plenty of websites out there looking for someone with the combination of background and ability where she would be a very good fit.
joeymichaels (Week 14 - Sacrifice) LISTEN UP FAT MAN! YOU'RE FEELING PRETTY GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF BECAUSE YOU JUST SAW YOUR NAME. WELL GUESS WHAT? YOU STILL HAVE STUFF TO DO! LIKE FETCHING
kittymichaels SOME CHICKEN!THAT'S RIGHT. GO DO IT NOW.
I'LL WAIT.
NOW PRESENT IT TO THE GREAT ONE!
hey man, is he eating now? i figure if we distract him for long enough we can talk and you won't get clawed. obviously only the bold all caps stuff is important. it looks important, so it must be about him, whereas the rest are just random words that hopefully he will ignore and leave you in peace!
my first reaction to you showing up this season? i believe it was something along the lines of "oh shit an improv comic. this guy is going to be used to a lot more than i am going to be throwing at them. he's going to have a great sense of timing and pretty much be able to roll with it."
before you even had done more than the introduction, i figured you to be a contender. on the other hand - i thought that might also be a reason why you would decide to bow out at some point. after all - you were bound to have more than a little showman aspect. so if you made it to the sacrifice round - it was a possibility that you would make the move.
it was a still a huge shock, there was just so much positive momentum behind you, and was a truly a dramatic move that helped completely change the course of the game. it goes without saying, but i will anyway, that it was a kind and generous move as well, which said a lot about you. ultimately, i think it was a move that really did make a lot of sense for you to make.
did he look this way?
THAT'S RIGHT. YOU NEED TO GIVE HIM SOME HEAD SCRITCHES FOR DARING POETRY ENTRIES LIKE http://kittymichaels.livejournal.com/48220.html
BECAUSE HE'S A WINNER. ARE YOU A WINNER? NOPE. YOU SACRIFICED YOURSELF. WINNERS WIN. SACRIFICERS, UM SACRIFICE!!
COULD YOU COME UP WITH SUCH EMOTIONALLY COMPELLING ENTRIES LIKE THIS http://kittymichaels.livejournal.com/48734.html ? OF COURSE NOT. HE'S COMPLEX.
he satisfied? whew. that was a close one.
i have you on my "not tagged" list, so unless that has changed i don't have a convenient link to provide for people. then again, i can't imagine that there is anyone out there who might be reading this who doesn't already know, and love, your work.
being me, i would love to see one of those 'fact vs fiction" from you, just about the elements that did have a basis in fact. but being the international man of mystery you are, i'm not expecting that. because the persona is cool, but i'm expecting that the guy behind it is even more so.
WE ALL KNOW THAT ALL OF HIS ENTRIES ARE 100% ACCURATE DEPICTIONS OF HIS LIFE AND TIMES. IF ANYTHING, HE MIGHT BE TOO NICE AND UNDERSTANDING TOWARD YOU AND THE OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE IN HIS PRESENCE!
i think pretty much everyone is just in stand by mode waiting for your novel to be released. let me know when the line is about to form so i get the sleeping bag ready. because i know it's just a matter of time. unless of course you don't get him some more chicken. seriously. he's eyeing you again.
superhappytime (Week 25) - On one hand, going out in Week 25 was a shock. On the other? It's a lot more difficult to get attention when you are used to already having it. He certainly *should have* had it. The insecure genius of Idol and the guy who is having sex with your Mom, sister, and maybe even you - right now.Seriously though, the guy is *good*. Sometimes you are positive that he knows it, whereas other times you just end up wondering if he actually does or not. Not that he would listen to me - but he is. Hopefully there are plenty of other people telling him that as well.
I think his work was a lot more restrained (just more consistently focused, in my opinion of course) than it has been in past seasons, still with the same general subject matters, but finding new twists to them and more ways to make them work.
With his technical proficiency combined with the flow of his narrative, I think there is a lot of raw material there, and it's not really all that "raw". There is a tension between his words and in the moments he selects to talk about. Forces pulling at each other, on the verge of snapping. It's something that I think he does really, really well.
It's kind of interesting for me to be thinking back over the last couple of years (at this point) of reading him and doing the whole "is this guy serious?" more than half the time in the early days. He really ended up becoming one of my favorite people/writers to have around and I'm not sure if that says more about him, me, or the nature of what happens over time.
http://superhappytime.livejournal.com/tag/idoling has some of the entries. It's interesting (to me anyway) because he DOES do something that is for many people to be the ideal - his Idol entries read exactly like the entries around them. You want to know "Is this someone I want to friend and get to know better?", the Idol entries are a fantastic entry point to that. Of course, *finding* them after the fact might be a little more difficult given that there is no other label. On the other hand - like I said, that is actually an ideal situation for many people, having it so ingrained, and the quality of all the other entries around it being so high, that you really can't tell the difference.
I think he stayed low key this season. But from remarks, he disagrees. I'm pretty sure though that we both agree that he went out way too soon, in a lot of ways it felt like people were *just starting* to find his work and he had been slowly building up a few generation of Idol fan, finding out exactly why he had done so well in the previously two seasons and why he's become somewhat of a legend around here!
pixiebelle (Week 28) - Writing wise, this might just be the "success story" of Season 6. Or one of them at least.Take a look at the first couple of entries from the season: http://pixie117.livejournal.com/352706.html and http://pixie117.livejournal.com/357962.html
and then take a look at the last couple http://pixie117.livejournal.com/464960.html and http://pixie117.livejournal.com/462394.html
There is promise in the first set of entries that you can see taking shape in the last set. It is still very much being realized, but there (and in the fiction she has been writing http://pixie117.livejournal.com/488678.html there is a vision (not just a "glimpse") of the writer, and person, that she is becoming.
Take a look at http://pixie117.livejournal.com/tag/lj%20idol as well for a better, and fuller picture of what exactly you are looking at.
Getting that sort of snapshot of someone at the moment of transformation is a rare gift. Or rather, it happens all the time, but we don't often have the documentation for it, to go back and examine, to see the process.
Obviously there was more going on outside of the written word, some good, some bad and a lot of it just the easier said than done figuring things out of what to do and what is going on in life vs what you want to be happening. There was more going on, and as tends to happen when that occurs, that is when the writing tends to be at it's most raw and revealing. That is when the most progress tends to be made.
I know there is some self deprecation when it comes to her viewing her own work - and really what writer/artist of any kind *doesn't* have some? It's the people who *don't* seem to have any that are either hiding it the most, or possessing little to no self awareness of just how flawed their work actually is. Knowing that you can get better, and taking the time to interact with other writers, are key steps in becoming a better writer. I'd go as far as saying that the same rule applies for life in general as well.
Looking from the first couple of weeks to the last couple of weeks, there was a hell of a lot of progression there. There was *a lot* that was realized. But I think that you can look at the last few entries and see the promise there as well. I'm going to be interested in seeing what comes out of that as it develops.
Miss one?
Part 1: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/330062.html
Part 2: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/347182.html
Part 3: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/348753.html
Part 4: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/351336.html
Part 5: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/355319.html
Part 6: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/357155.html
Part 7: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/358961.html
Part 8: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/361618.html
Part 9: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/363128.html
Part 10: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/363838.html
Part 11: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/366595.html
Part 12: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/367714.html
Part Luna: http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/367945.html
Part 14 - http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/370040.html
Part 15 - http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/370191.html
Part 16 - http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/371123.html