Green Room - Week 8 - Day 1

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

By popular demand, I have brought in the Home Game thread! http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/672071.html

Hopefully, now they won’t get lost in the Green Rooms. HOWEVER, if the Green Room threads continue to not be all that large in the first place, that kind of rules out the need for a separate HR. That goes double for the Work Room, where I’m waiting to actually see a need. If the Green Rooms show me that we need a separate area so that people can brainstorm, well, of course I’ll give one. Right now though, there is plenty of space to have those sorts of conversations here!

Such as: What is your approach to multiple topic weeks/how do you manage your time/select which ones to write? Is it really any different from a single topic week? Do you just write one at a time or tackle them both at the same time?

***

Last night featured goodbyes http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/671490.html and a new group of topics: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/671853.html

Also, a My Little Pony convention. Well, that happened at your house, so you already know about that.

Comments

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

This may not seem like a very useful response, but I think it's all about how you do it. People have written multiple (non-fiction) entries that pertained to the same event or series of closely-related events in their lives and done it beautifully. IMHO anyway, I think the key is to make the entry itself unique. If it related to an even you've already written about, but the entry itself isn't something we (readers, voters, etc) have already heard, then I would think that qualifies as a unique entry, regardless of what it does or doesn't pertain to. The only thing I'd suggest is making the entry itself a stand-alone, as opposed to a "go back and read this entry first" type of thing. Give a few sentences of background if you need to, and definitely link your other entry in the context of "complete backstory is here" if you want, but IME having some sort of required reading outside of the entry itself can deter voters, even if the required reading is another Idol entry from the same season.

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

This makes me think of something that isn't as mean in my head as it's going to sound here:

If a writer wants me to read an additional entry in order to understand this week's entry, the previous piece must be better than any other thing I want to spend time on that day, INCLUDING whatever professionally-written, professionally-edited, and professionally-published reading is on my nightstand.

To me, ''read this previous chapter" is writer-speak for "I am so arrogant that I think what I have written deserves twice as much time as everyone else; I am so selfish that I think you should spend your time reading all my stuff instead of making it easy for you, the reader, to access my work that you have already taken time from your day to come to."

Wow, that is pretty mean :) please note that it is NOT directed at meepalicious upthread. And to be more diplomatic, no matter what stage our work is at, the reader is always doing us a favor by spending time on it, and it's up to us to make the work both accessible and rewarding.

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

Hey, no worries! I'm in this thread too, so you're guaranteed not to be the biggest bitch here :P

Srsly though, I agree with all of this. I'm all for the whole "hey, here's a link to [part 1\more information\the backstory\etc] just FYI if you want it" because if I'm reading something I like or it piques my curiosity, then sure, thanks for the link. But the whole "you need to read this entire other thing before you read this current thing or else it's not gonna make any sense" definitely gets my hackles up, all like "oh, I'm sorry, I thought I was here to read and vote on an entry, not get sent on a wild goose chase just so I can have the privilege of doing so." Unless you're Dumbledore, Yoda, or an enchanted princess from a far off realm, you don't get to send me on a quest, ya know? Exceptions definitely apply if "this other thing" is your partner's piece during an intersection week or whatnot, but if "this other thing" is anything other than another current entry up for voting, then my gut reaction is usually to call Homeland Security and report an attempted hijacking.

[meepalicious.livejournal.com]

This might sound a little silly, but thanks for saying it wasn't directed at me. (I tend to get a little anxious that everyone's secretly mad at me, so the clarification prevented any undue nail biting - and I've got enough to bite my nails over with the two topics!)

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, totally not :) And I think approaching the same topic with more/different angle is a great idea!

[meepalicious.livejournal.com]

Well, I've locked the entry in question so it's private and only I can see it, so I won't be linking it back for required reading. Thanks for the feedback.