Green Room - Week 4 - Day 5

[clauderainsrm]

Good Morning (for real this time)!

The new poll is up: therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1150210.html

Two contestants are going home this week, and with the bye-outs that means things are getting a *little* more serious. (As veterans know, these aren't *that* serious numbers. But that feeling is going to just intensify as we move forward.) 

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Since we don't have Work Rooms this season, I thought it might be interesting to have a "post mortem" on your entries for this week:  How did you get your idea and what went into executing it? What were your struggles and what do you think you ended up pulling off? 

(if you don't want to discuss *this* weeks - there is an active pool after all... how about any of the previous weeks? Which one do you think was your best - so far - and which did you struggle with the most and what was it about those two that stands out to you?)

Comments

[aggienaut]

I'm obviously using LJI as motivation to actually get some momentum again working on the memoir, obviously, it's always a question if the prompt will fit the next section I plan to write (though I'm open to the idea of jumping around to somewhere that fits a prompt), but so far I've gotten really lucky as I think both prompts perfectly fit the sections I was planning, especially since as previously planned out, some kind of emotional arc for them was precisely what was missing, but the two prompts really gave me the idea to shape and add that (:

[banana_galaxy]

This is similar for me. I signed up this time because I'm working on my own memoir and I was hoping the prompts would help keep me motivated and writing content for it. But so far only the last prompt, Without You, has been something I wrote that I could plonk almost verbatim into my memoir. I can probably use some of what I wrote this week for the memoir as well, but it'll require more work.

[adoptedwriter]

This was a tricky topic for me to wrap my head around. I honestly wanted to expand on my New Earth story, and I wrote something, but I wasn't satisfied (enough). I couldn't figure out ways to bulk it up with more detail, but then again, YA is less about all the superfluous words and much about storyline and characterization. Still, I didn't want it to look "skimpy", so I came up with another idea while simply cleaning house. While sorting through 40 years of accumulated closet "crap", it felt like visiting an alternate universe I once lived in. I also toyed with going the adoption route and how so many adopted people, (at least from my era), often feel "real-not-real" because they have no birth story. I just hope I chose well in the angle I took for this week.

[chasing_silver]

"Uncanny valley" is a term I really love, but to me it can mean more than its definition. I was struggling this week but then stumbled on the fact that it is an uncanny valley to be in someone else's house and in someone else's life, but know it'll be your house and your life someday. The entry then wrote itself!

[roina_arwen]

Once I knew the term, it gave me a basic idea of where to go with this storyline, and then I got the lightning bolt about how to best approach it. I really like how my entry turned out, and I hope others do, too!

[xeena]

still working on comments but I've now read everything and I really enjoyed where you took the story!

[roina_arwen]

Thank you so much!

[hangedkay]

Sadly, this week was too much craziness to have time to write on this topic, which I had a couple what I think were interesting ideas on.

As to past topics though, I am still intrigued by the responses to my "without you" entry. There was a "hidden" secondary aspect of it that I am still not sure anyone picked up on - at least no one noted it in the replies. And that always troubles me as to whether I am being too subtle or not - something I have struggled with in prior writings. Finding that right spot between "too obvious" and "no one could ever have figured that out" is a constant battle for me.

[n3m3sis43]

How did you get your idea and what went into executing it? What were your struggles and what do you think you ended up pulling off?

I was inspired by the original definition of uncanny valley which states that as a robot becomes more humanlike, people will respond more positively to it — up to the point where it looks almost but not quite human, when people will respond negatively. Then the response becomes positive again as the robot becomes indistinguishable from a human.

The topic made me think of some characters I’ve written in the past for Idol, with mixed success. It was fun dipping into their universe again so no regrets if it gets me eliminated.

[flipflop_diva]

I struggled a lot with this prompt. I originally wanted to write non-fiction but I was having a hard time finding an idea that really fit the topic and also had a good emotional pull to it. So in the end I went with fiction and a more literal interpretation of the prompt. I struggled with that a bit too, but I mostly like how it came out, so we'll see how the voting goes.

[halfshellvenus]

There was no evidence of struggle in the final product, I promise you. It was awesome!

[xeena]

This funnily enough was the only prompt where I knew right away what I was gonna write. Like I wrote in the top of my entry, that character is the one that sticks out most to me from the characters I've written in lj idol and this as perfect for her.

[hafnia]

I thought about writing nonfiction again this week specifically about the experience of being diagnosed as autistic as an adult (feeling as a kid that I lived in Uncanny Valley because I just didn't quite fit in), but it got really personal really quickly, and I was not certain I was up for editing it.

Scrapped it, spent a couple of days thinking about it, and eventually remembered some of the lore about the daoine sidhe, specifically that they look human but...not. The rest spiraled out from there. I feel really rusty writing short fiction (it's all been novel work or putting together campaign stuff for ttrpg these past few years), but I felt good about what I put out :)

[muchtooarrogant]

For this week's entry, I really wanted to move away from anything that felt like a traditional android story, while still incorporating something to do with computers for the uncanny valley prompt. Then I thought, "Well, at least I know it's pretty much gotta be a fictional entry," then wondered, "but what if I made it appear to be nonfiction?" As it happened, I had toyed with the idea of writing a nonfiction entry for the last prompt about how blind people are trained to travel independently, Without You, and so it wasn't hard to come up with something else from my past that I could use to make this week's piece seem as though it was nonfiction. Given the comments I've received so far, I think I was successful.

As for my favorite piece, I don't imagine anyone here will be surprised when I say that my favorite was last week's entry, The Price. What I liked the most about that piece was the fact that there were several story arcs going on at the same time. The conflict in Jake's family, the music he's hearing and why he's trying to play it, the secret that Marissa has asked him to keep, and the fact that he's reconciled himself to almost certainly dying.

Dan

[murielle]

It was a challenging week and a challenging prompt. I ended up with only about an hour and a half to write and so many ideas and I wanted so much to do them justice. I have loved robots since I was a little girl and spent an enjoyable time prepping for the prompt by watching my most beloved robot movies. But it was what my counselor said just before I started writing that really hit home, "Have you seen the YouTube video about the robot that committed suicide?" And so...

Also, I love the name Karen. All the Karens I have known in my life have been wonderful, beautiful girls and women and it hurts my heart every time someone uses the name in a derogatory way. So, my heroine is named Karen. :-)

[halfshellvenus]

I already knew the meaning of the prompt, and it got me thinking of this meme re: Wax Mark Zuckerberg vs. Real Mark Zuckerberg:



And the picture on the right reminded me of how fair-skinned people (usually redheads) with black eyes look kind of demonic/inhuman. And then my story was born... but quickly morphed into a poem because it was clumsy in its original prose form. \o?

[xeena]

Bahaha I am super pale skinned and have a strawberry blonde hair color. I once wore black contacts and it really freaked people out especially those who were used to my real color which is pale blue/green 🤣

[halfshellvenus]

Not surprising!

Black eyes are normal for Asian and dark-skinned people, but for pale people they do exist but generally look creepy AF.

[xeena]

I honestly really like them and do not find them creepy! It's green eyes that I find can have that uncanny look to them a lot but I wonder how much of that is because i have a horrible childhood memory of a person with bright green eyes! 🤔

[reidharriscooper]

I haven't started reading yet (life) and now I'm super intrigued to read your entry.

[halfshellvenus]

I hope it didn't disappoint! Unless you wanted more Mark Zuckerberg? But I find it hard to believe that anyone would!

[pixiebelle]

I hate that I missed the deadline. I started my entry three times. I literally wrote the same beginning in three totally different styles 😂 but then I fell asleep just as I figured out the best angle. I haven’t been feeling well, and I was just too tired.

And now I have an idea for a cute nonfiction entry that likely wouldn’t have been as difficult, but it’s too late now. That idea would have been about how my Great Dane Annabelle used to be scared of anything that resembled an animal in a realistic fashion. I wish I could have written it, it would have been fun. Maybe I’ll get a chance for another prompt.

[xeena]

This sounds so cute I hope you write it in another prompt. My dog hated and used to bark at a stone statue in front of a store near where we lived back then. He was convinced it was a real (very small) man and would growl and stare at it!

[pixiebelle]

That’s what Annabelle used to do. She was a goofy dog, always making me laugh. I’ve wanted to write a memoir about my life with her but it’s just difficult to do.

[static_abyss]

I was originally going to write something very different for this week. Then I got sick and couldn't get started on the entry early like I wanted. And end of the months are always really busy at work, plus I'm finishing up a research paper for one of my masters classes this summer. So I took all my medication (as prescribed), waited for those 30 minutes of clarity and focus they give me, had a new idea, wrote it, and promptly fell asleep lol.

I woke up today, called out of work finally, and have been sleeping on and off all day. I think my body finally decided enough was enough and is holding me hostage. My mother's cat is helping because he won't move from my feet, so I am forced to remain warm in bed.

[reidharriscooper]

I feel how I got to where I took the prompt was very clearly in how I wrote it. Yet, maybe not, so.. I truly started from the most modern definition which pertains to AI Art and its attempts to create humans and coming so so eerily close that every extra thing that seems off is just unnerving. My brain pulled that so fast to humans who aren't human or more human than human...

Where I then got stuck is properly wording the three examples. That was a difficult write. Especially trying to explain my personal connection without letting my personal feels get into the narration. All three examples were people because of how long I'd been in the industry had seen develop, grow, change, evolve and de-evolve, to break them down into the sum of parts in a paragraph or less was a struggle indeed.

[nicholewithanh]

"Uncanny valley" was a difficult one to come up with anything that I was excited to write about. I thought that something would eventually come to me, but I got so busy with my new position at work that I completely missed the deadline! Hoping I have a bit more inspiration (and mental space) for the next one.

[off_fleek_geek]

This week I actually had the basic thought for my entry pretty quick. I was trying to think of things that felt "off" and being creeped out in a Walmart at 3am came right to mind. The cold kinda sterile setting with unnatural lighting and the lack of people, plus you're usually there lacking sleep and feeling off already. Then I just ran with it :D