LJ Idol Presents:

*eliminates your sleep*

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mstrobel.livejournal.com

I knew it was your fault I woke up at 6am this morning!

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Everything is my fault. You'll get used to it.

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rattsu.livejournal.com

Whohoo! First entry posted where I rave about favorite entries. (http://rattsu.livejournal.com/123627)

Seriously Gary, THANKS! Going back and rereading so much awesome made me feel really inspired. This was a great idea for a subject, I hope that everybody homegames it!

Edited Date: 2010-07-21 12:57 pm (UTC)

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I've home gamed it already... I need to make it public! LOL.

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gratefuladdict.livejournal.com

I think a lot of us are going to home game that topic!! I've been mulling over my faves ever since Gary posted it...

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I hope so! I really look forward to seeing what everyone mentions and hoping to come across some entries I missed the first time around. My entry came about just because when I was thinking about my entries, I couldn't stop, I had to go and find them and then write the post itself!

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Glad you liked it!

I hope everyone does as well.

That's what the end of the season is for - sure, we are looking forward to the finals, and to see who wins. But it's also a chance to look back and realize just how far we've come, and how much we have done during our time together.

Early on there was an argument about who "belonged" here, making the case that there were people who weren't good enough to be around. I see that every season.

I only hope that everyone who makes it to this point can see just why everyone *can* come through that door. Because everyone, from the greatest writer of the bunch, to the person who is struggling at the basics, can take something away from the process and enjoy the experience. If they allow themselves to be open to it.

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cobycaroline.livejournal.com

Doing A-OK. The husband and I are planning our vacation to Italy this October, and we're pretty thrilled about it.

Other than that, work, work, work, and a little bit of le Tour de France. I'm rooting for Andy Schleck right now (primarily because I really can't stand Contador;/).

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roina-arwen.livejournal.com

Ooooh - Italy! I've always wanted to go there! Whereabouts are you planning to visit?

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cobycaroline.livejournal.com

The tentative plan is Milan-Venice-Florence-Tuscanyish. We've already been to Rome, so we're hitting up the north now. :)

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Italy sounds fantastic! That's on my list of places I MUST visit!

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roina-arwen.livejournal.com

I'm pretty much all alone here at the office - everyone is either in training today or at court!

Other than the phones ringing intermittently, and having to do front desk relief this week, I've got no complaints (yet).

Well, except that my bra is a wee bit tight. Makes the gals look good, though. Other than that, I've got nothin'.

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Ugh, I hear you on the tight bra. I think my ribcage has been expanding with this pregnancy, which has never happened before, but everything feels tight all of a sudden!

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theafaye.livejournal.com

You may well find that it's not that your ribs are expanding so much as your bump's higher this time round. My bump has been completely different each pregnancy and I was surprised when I saw the photos my husband took the other day to see that I look exactly as if I've stuffed a cushion up my front!

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Gary, it's all well and good to read them as they're posted if they're posted early enough, but if they're posted last minute, it still limits our time to read significantly :P

Here's my favourite 5 from this season (http://comedychick.livejournal.com/443817.html).

And I have a meta question...

How does the length of an Idol entry affect your reading? Has it changed now compared to how you felt earlier in the season? Do you prefer shorter entries? Longer entries? Does it matter at all?

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It doesn't matter to me that much, but I will say that earlier in the season, there were so many entries that if one didn't grasp my attention in the first couple of paragraphs I would move onto the next one without finishing it.

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gratefuladdict.livejournal.com

I prefer short entries for the first half of the competition. There are so many to read, and it's very unlikely that you'll read many unique takes on a topic when so many people are tackling it at once. If it's a short entry, and it's really well written, it whets my appetite and gets my vote because I want to see what they'll write next.

And as a contestant, I also prefer writing shorter entries in the beginning. Not to sound lazy, but I progressively invest more and more time and effort into my entries as I get further along in the season and the stakes seem higher. In the beginning, where nearly everyone is at risk of being lost in the crowd, it just seems more rational to keep it on the short side (which can still be quite time-consuming to write!).

Once the field has narrowed somewhat, and the contestants have gotten into their rhythm, I like reading longer entries (within reason). They don't have to be especially long, but if they are especially short, they run the risk of being perceived as a sign of less effort, whether or not that's true.

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spydielives.livejournal.com

I have to disagree. I tend to think that someone who makes their point particularly eloquently (and especially poetically) in just a few paragraphs, has shown they know how to edit. It's just as important a skill as verbosity.

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gratefuladdict.livejournal.com

I think you and I do agree. For example,

onda_bianca has an efficiency with words that is not lost on her readers. But I feel that a short entry has to be *extremely* tight to garner good support in the polls, lest it be dismissed as only a small effort.

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I definitely agree with your first and second paragraphs.

The shortness of my champion entry worried me for the reasons you mention in the third. I think the "within reason" aspect is important. I don't have a problem with longer entries now, but when I read everything on my netbook, there's this perception of extra length since my screen is smaller than it is on a regular sized laptop or computer, and too much length is daunting for me, to the extent that sometimes I can't even attempt to read the first paragraph. I blame my lack of a great attention span when it comes to reading because it seems like not very many other people have this problem.

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Well, sure. But then you only have to read the last minute ones! :)
(Unless of course they are *all* last minute!)

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Most of them were last minute last week. That's what I'm saying :P

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spydielives.livejournal.com

I am just not reading the long entries if they don't grab me in the first paragraph. Period. And if I am not reading them, I am not voting for them.

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At least you still read the first paragraph. Sometimes too much length for me is too daunting for me to even get that far.

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rattsu.livejournal.com

I like long entries (perhaps not very odd considering the long ones I write). But that being said, they still have to be interesting. On the other hand, I'm just as likely to skim a short uninteresting entry as a long one.

For me, shorter entries really needs to be very, very good, for me there's a difference between being short and succinct (like some of onda_bianca's stuff), and feeling lazy.

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theafaye.livejournal.com

I'm aiming at posting at least one a day so that I *don't* have a last minute panic. I don't do last minute as it is and since the baby may come any day now (unlikely for another week, but a possibility), I really do want to hustle to get my entries in so I can sit back, relax and read everyone else.

As far as length is concerned, I still prefer shorter to longer, but my overriding criteria is well written. Well written can overcome anything else. But if I find text to be quite dense or overly verbose, much as I'll try to persevere with it (because I figure at this stage, I really should be reading everyone), there's only so much that I can cope with, which is when I fall back to my trusty technique of seeing what the comments tell me I'm missing so I can tackle it anew. I mean, I could have written a LOT more about my five final picks (and my goodness that was hard - I really did want to give more of a nod to a whole heap of other people) but I figured that the entries pretty much speak for themselves as to why I think they're great and I'd rather people read them for themselves. Funnily enough, none of them are that long, so I guess that answers the question in and of itself!

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One a day is a good goal. And good for us readers, too. If we're able to read 5 a day and then vote once the polls are open, it'll be much easier than having to attempt to read 25 entries in one sitting!

Yeah, I think that's fairly close to where I am. I do really want to read everything now but there are times I just can't, and then I end up just feeling guilty for it. When an entry is on the shorter side, there's a better chance I'll take the time to sit through it, though, because I can guarantee myself I'll be able to read more entries that way.

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It's a decent day at la casa de lawchicky. I've been cooking yummy things all week and will be back at it again today because there's some ground beef that needs to be cooked. It's amazing how much food I need to cook when we're eating/taking all meals from home instead of buying lunches or fast food or whatever. I've been making an effort to use up a lot of the stuff I have in the pantry too, so it's a big cooking adventure!

I think my siblings are coming over later and sleeping here tonight. My kids are excited about that. They're used to being together every day (when I was working my mom babysat) but since I've been home, they haven't seen each other that often.

Oh, and I'm determined to get out another day of my trip report.

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