Work Room - Week 9

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

The Work Room is your space to hammer things out when you hit a snag or discuss writing in general.

Need someone to take a second look at your entry? Thinking that "talking about the entry as an entry" has been played out and want to know what other people think?

This is a space for it.

It's once a week, so far, and hopefully people will continue to check back to it as both the main competition and the Second Chancers (and various members of the Idol community, if they want to do so) stop in and talk shop.

There are times when I throw out a specific idea to get the ball rolling. But not this week. This time around it's all you.

So what's going on in that head of yours (as far as writing goes. I'm not sure some of that other stuff is legal!)

Anything you want to bring up?

***
The new main competition topic is up http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/412319.html
Goodbyes from Week 8 are http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/412017.html
and you can read, and vote on Second Chance entries http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/412468.html

Comments

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

Gary, tsk, tak! Everything going on in my head is legal! Immoral maybe... by some standards ;) But then, those people don't know how to have fun!

Oh, my entry?? No. Freaking. Clue. Anyone got a cluebat? Feel free to smack me right here *points*

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

You've got your marching orders to...write your entry!

:ducks and runs:

[the-vernacular.livejournal.com]

I have no idea, either! Usually I have a tiny inkling as soon as the topic's posted and it sometimes needs some time to be refined, but this time, I'm just clueless.

[snarkerdoodle.livejournal.com]

When they get done smacking you upside the head with it, they can come over and bang on my head for a bit as well.

I got *nothing* on this one so far. I at least have one bye left if necessary, but man, I really don't want to have to use it so soon.

I will hope for inspiration to strike, I guess. Or else get hammered and then write what comes to my head and see if it works, lol. ;)

[creature-girl08.livejournal.com]

Me thinks it is time for another animal story. So people want to meet yet another critter?

Animal ideas

[beldar.livejournal.com]

I always find the term "frogmarch" amusing.

As for other animal themes, migration (such as "March of the Penguins") would be an easy way to go.

[vaguelyclear.livejournal.com]

The first thing that popped into my head when I saw the topic was the very obvious military, but I'm not sure I want to go that route. I have another idea, but it's kinda abstract, and I'm not sure it would work. I'll have to mull it over.

[yachiru]

Was gonna do soldiers but have decided on aliens! Mmmm. Aliens.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[lilycobalt.livejournal.com]

This week, I went to the short list of stories that I thought might be good to tell for Idol to get a little bit of inspiration. One of them started jumping up and down and yelling "PICK ME, PICK ME!" What can I do but listen?

I think that I might do better when I pull entries from the list (I've only drawn from it once so far, but it was far and away the best-received story I've told this season). The stories on that list know that they're good ones, so they demand to be told well. I don't want to let them down, so I take the time to polish them over a period of a few days instead of rushing an entry like I do in other weeks.

Now, how do I capture that feeling when I'm not taking an entry from the list?

[zhent.livejournal.com]

Something I want to bring up? yeah!

How about an actual Home Game Thread?

Since I've been eliminated from the main game, but am still writing entries I really wish there was a thread specifically to put those entries. They get lost in here or in the Green Room Threads...

[beldar.livejournal.com]

I've been hoping for one, too. I think Gary is planning on doing it later in the contest.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

When it dawned on me that I could go literally with the topic, being a veteran, a Home Game idea came to me. (My SCI work [voteforme!] is done til Saturday.)

On the other hand I can be more productive for a real LJI contestant.

That's right I'm available for Beta reading. I'll take the first three who respond.

As for the stuff in my head, at this hour, it's all daydream soup. =)

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Me, me, me.

(I didn't ask last time, because I was confused and even considered taking a bye, that entry was a last minute thing. And well, this week a bye I did take.)

[purplehaze9.livejournal.com]

Shoot, I gotta stop writing about myself. I mean, I can fire out some creativity and all but telling true stories is certainly more entertaining to me.

You know, I certainly should be a more productive reader.

But if I don't comment much on your entry, it doesn't mean I don't read it! I just don't feel inclined to say anything.

First Thing I Thought Of - Prompt Is In First Verse

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

Re: First Thing I Thought Of - Prompt Is In First Verse

[the-vernacular.livejournal.com]

I thought of "One More Parade" by Phil Ochs.

[drjeff.livejournal.com]

I'm worried that I feel a stream-of-consciousness entry coming on. :)

Or, a therapy post. Yeah! Yeah, that's it. A therapy post.

Or, you know, something about soldiers on LSD.

Or

...

[theafaye.livejournal.com]

I'm likely to go historical this week for the first time ever in Idol (first time I go historical, not the first time anyone has ever thought of doing an historical entry for Idol!). I am toying with the idea of a bye given that last week's entry didn't do brilliantly in the polls and this is a pretty out there idea where the link to the prompt is going to be quite subtle, but I have a policy of writing if I have an idea, so I guess I'll go for it and take my chances.

It wasn't intentional, but since I decided to write as cheese, theafaye has been doing nothing but real life, fact based entries as a counteraction. I don't want to change that any time soon unless a short story whacks me in the face and demands to be written.

Since I'm going to have a tenuous link, I was wondering about the whole question of using the prompt words in your entry. How many times is too many? Once? Twice? A hundred??

[beldar.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the entry. If when you read it over it fits the rhythm and flow and narrative, go for it. If you feel that it's too much, it probably is (part of being your own editor is knowing when to prune, to realize less is more).

The bigger hazard in my opinion is when you use it zero times. Sure, you can make your intent clear in context, but there's the risk of someone saying "nice story, but what does it have to do with the Idol topic?" You don't have to make a point of putting it in the first paragraphs, or shoehorn it in clumsily, but at least a passing mention of or reference to the topic should be included. Just my $.02.


Edit: A look over my recent home-gamers indicates I don't always use the exact prompt words, but I think I've managed to make the thematic intent clear. It it felt right to use that word/phrase repeatedly I probably would, but that hasn't happened for me yet. =)

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm finding this topic hard!

[joyfulfeather.livejournal.com]

It's funny -- last week's topic was tough for me to tackle. I had a knee-jerk "UGH" reaction, and I just couldn't come up with something. I finally wound up taking a different tack, interpreting the topic differently and writing fiction. And it paid off! That was kind of thrilling.

This week, I saw the topic and laughed out loud. I spent nine years in marching band. I could probably do an entire LJI season writing about nothing but band. Since I'm not doing that, I had to narrow down my ideas for this week. I've settled on something and should have it written soonish! I just have to hope that this week's nonfiction gathers as much interest as last week's fiction.

[rattsu.livejournal.com]

Funny thing is, I was already sketching out a horror story to submit before the topic was posted, which would work perfectly.

So I might actually write it up in English first for LJI.

[the-vernacular.livejournal.com]

Whew, I got my entry all posted! It's a little weird, but it's finished!

[banyangirl1832.livejournal.com]

I really liked it!

[banyangirl1832.livejournal.com]

Help. Who would judge a baking contest between the Devil and a person they challenged to keep their soul? Should I be utterly ridiculous and have the ghost of Julia Child show up?

[snarkerdoodle.livejournal.com]

Julia Child is a winning choice for pretty much anything, IMO. ;)

[cheshire23.livejournal.com]

ARGH! The best thing I wrote all last season (http://cheshire23.livejournal.com/512457.html) was for an Open Topic, and it fits THIS topic perfectly.

I can't just go back and do it again, and it's distracting me from any other direction I try to take with this.

[/venting]

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

I'm trying really hard NOT to write my "Marching Orders" entry about my ex, because blecchhh depressing, and I already wrote about him once. However, the nature of the State of the Kittn this week is that it feels terribly apropos. Hrmmph.

Musings (Idol)

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

I've challenged myself to spend ten weeks writing non-fiction this year, so the hardest things for me so far this season has been *not* writing my fiction ideas for the prompts. Years of improv training means that I have like six ideas right away for the prompt (maybe 1 of them any good, if I'm lucky) and then I usually have dreams that are prompt related. Generally, last season, I rolled with dreams.

The biggest challenge to non-fiction entries has been keeping them accurate. I wrote a first draft of my current piece and was 100% that it was accurate. My kind editor, sharya, had a bunch of questions about the entry and I answered them with absolute conviction. Then it was pointed out to me that I'd written about the actual event in a locked entry a couple of years back.

I went back and read that entry and was shocked at how little my memory matched up with the reality, so I radically rewrote the entry. I mean, I misremembered huge, important pieces of information but was absolutely certain I was right. Then, of course, I was wrong.

Is this something that other folks have experienced? Your memories not matches your journal?

[from-the-pit.livejournal.com]

Home Game Entry - Marching Orders
http://from-the-pit.livejournal.com/2922.html