Green Room - Week 15 - Day 7

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ROAR!!!!!

Sounds like March is here!

You know what they say, it comes in like a lion, and goes out like a bigger, well fed, lion!!

So get into that arena and entertain us! Maybe you will be the one to successfully escape to fight another day!! http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/434182.html

Who knows - maybe the month will instead go out like a rabid attack lamb!! Perhaps even a zombie lamb!

Maybe a pack of zombie lambs on a sugar high!!!! *checks notes* Actually I'm pretty sure that's close to what I have planned, so I probably shouldn't give you any more hints! ;)

Have a good day - and a great month!!!

Results - Week 15

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Had someone asked me at the start of the week who was likely to be leaving this week, I would have looked at them like they were crazy.

Because they would have been, asking me a question like that.

Had I answered though, I doubt that I would have come up with these four. Then again, maybe I would have. Who knows what throwing darts at names would have come up with?

Alas though, the voters did come up with these names, and this decision.

Today we are saying goodbye to

attheonesix
zhent
roina_arwen
and
wookiewife

I really hope that we will be seeing you all in the Home Game and I know for a fact that at least half of you plan on sticking around, I hope you all do. Because you never can be sure what is going to happen next!

Topic - Week 16

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It's Week 16 and you know what to expect by now.

At least you should.

I post a topic. You write and post your links here.

Except this time around there's a slight twist to that.

It's our first Open Topic!

You've been waiting for it.

It's here.

For those who have never experienced an Open Topic before - what does that mean? It means that even the bare restriction that I normally put on you goes out the window. You have been writing for 16 weeks now. I'm sure you have ideas of something you want to write, if only it fit the topic, or you could find a way to make it kinda, sorta fit.

You don't have that restriction this week.

Bring your A-Game. Wow us.

The deadline to link your entries back here is Sunday March 6th at 3pm EST

Have fun!

Work Room - Week 16

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It's strange to me that traditionally people have the most problems with Open Topic weeks. http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/435280.html

The world of ideas to choose from, and they freeze.

Then again, maybe it shouldn't. After all, there are a lot of folks who come to Idol in search of a regular schedule and a structure for their work, and to suddenly have that ripped away can be jarring.

Fortunately, I knew just the person to ask to stop in to be a Guest Mentor. Someone with a history of marching to that drummer somewhere off in the distance who may or may not actually own a drum.

Unfortunately, she was busy competing.

And then - she wasn't.

The universe gave me an opening, and I took it.

Please welcome your Guest Mentor for the week - intrepia!!

***

Hi everyone! This weekend, I emailed Gary to tell him I was bowing out of LJ Idol.

"Terrific!" he said. "I was just looking for a mentor for this week!"

So you see, he really is as evil as all the rumors say (*feeds Gary a cookie through the slats of the locked wooden crate in the corner of the room*). And since I still haven't learned how to say "no" to him (*mutters something about that gatekeeper round two seasons ago*), here I am, already back again.

I'm Connie, by the way. I'm here to bring you all sorts of wisdom from the three seasons of this thing I have under my belt. For example, you CAN write poetry in the top ten, but you can't write Harry Potter fanfiction. At least, if you're me.

Who knows what you can do if you're you?

That's one of the things I admire in Idol. People are able to take this experience and make it their own, to use it as an instrument for their own writerly growth.

For me, part of it has been an exercise in taking my background in poetry and suffusing it into my prose. The parts of writing that particularly interest me are the ways to make art from words. I like to focus on interesting usages, juxtapositions, musicality, and spareness. I think a lot about making sure that every word in a sentence -- or a stanza -- carries its weight.

Anyway, like the other mentors before me, I'm here, humbly, to field your questions, discuss ideas with you, and give you feedback. I am here to help you, as Nabokov exhorts us, to "caress the details."