LJ Idol Presents:

First? I'm in the entertaining and cute and amusing sort of box. I like it here! I like my writing to have an unexpected element but as long as I keep growing as a writer and keep entertaining my readers, that's what matters to me.

Edited Date: 2013-08-11 02:38 pm (UTC)

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anyonesghost.livejournal.com

Hooray, first! <confetti-cannon>

Yeah, that's really the crux of it -- if you're happy with what you're writing, and the readers are happy with what they're reading, that's what matters.

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Ooh, confetti cannon - awesome!

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I also like seeing what hints I can drop in my writing and see how long it takes people to catch on to what I'm doing!

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ashgaelsonaria.livejournal.com

The Russian lit theme *is* melancholy with someone in love with someone else rift with missunderstandings.
Also war and despondency.
For doing the Russian lit things your stories have been upbeat.

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Yeah, your pieces so far have been pretty melancholy - I think what I expect from them, though, is atmosphere. You're very good at creating a sense of creepy, or a sense of sad, or a sense of yearning, or a sense of desperation - senses, basically. And those senses are crafted so well that they're extremely pervasive. I often find myself sort of shaking my head to clear it after I finish reading one of your stories. Good stuff! :)

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Melancholy a lot, yes, but not remotely in a "Well that was a downer, wtf dude" sort of way. Your use of language and word flow and just the way you put everything together is amazing at conveying moods, getting people to feel for your characters, and just communicating the nuances of the type of energy and emotion hanging in the air of your scenes.

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anyonesghost.livejournal.com

I think that, if you were to look at my long-form stuff, it's "sustained and escalating suspense, dressed in genre du jour, discussing social issues obliquely, but sorely lacking vampires."

I'd like to think that folks here haven't categorized or pigeonholed me yet ... but maybe I'm sustaining a pattern after 11 weeks. (Lord knows I've been trying to avoid a pattern, but it's hard to escape your own narrative voice.) So, you tell me -- how would you describe what you've seen so far?

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"how would you describe what you've seen so far?"

This is a really good question, but one I'm having trouble answering coherently. You've got a super range on your writing - you seem comfortable writing in all kinds of genres and styles and voices. You do dialogue super well. I don't know - I personally think you've done a good job avoiding categorization, as I can't seem to categorize your stuff!

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I'd describe it as "extremely versatile." Definitely don't think you're in any danger of being categorized or pigeonhole anytime soon.

FWIW, your "Cards on the Table" entry is my favorite of yours. The dialogue was brilliant, and the way it all led up to the twist at the end was perfectly executed.

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ashgaelsonaria.livejournal.com

I love M. Night Shyamalan.
His movies don't insalt ones intellect.
If you don't want to think go to an action movie or a romantic comidy.
Personally I do not know what people expect.
I just come up with characters those them into a situation and see what they end up doing.
I am oftain surprised with the outcome.

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michikatinski.livejournal.com

Hrmmm.

I just reviewed what I've written this season and I'm pleased to see that I have poetry, short fiction, and short non-fiction in fairly equal proportion. What people probably expect from me more than they expect from others is some kind of religious/faith or mommy theme, since those two things constitute over half of what I've written this season. My goal each week is two-fold: 1) not to repeat any major aspect of what I've done in the last piece, 2) to tell a story I've never told or convey an idea in a way I've never approached. That's kept my writing fresh for me (and for others, I hope).

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Class clown from day fucking one. I'm about 95% completely happy with that. The Bart Simpson role is simply the one I naturally and instinctively fill, and for the most part, it's a blast, I have a great time doing it, and I don't want to change it at all. I definitely think it's important to try new things and new angles, which is why I make an effort to mix up my approaches and my targets - I don't want, for example, to post back-to-back meta poems, back to back political rants, and then a bunch of posts with an extremely similar use\style of graphics, all targeting similar things. Letting readers know what to generally expect out of you is one thing and (IMHO anyway) can help build a reader base, but becoming predictable is just not okay. It's like buying a music album - If the band is a rock band, and the album is full of a good variety of rock songs, then chances are you got what you wanted. But if the album is full of a bunch of songs that all sound alike and then a few pieces of crappy filler, even if it's still all rock, chances are you'll be significantly less pleased.

As for the twist ending thing and possibly cheesing off readers who expect X and get Y...that's the other edge of the sword when you start consistently doing a certain type of post. The up side is you build a rep for being the [insert genre here] writer, and if people tend to like the way you do [insert genre here], then you've found a consistent market for your stuff (I say market for lack of a better word - in this particular market, the currency is poll votes, because that's what you need to earn (or beg for :p) in order to stay alive.) The down side is that if you stray from doing what people have started coming to you for, you risk making your readers feel like they've been betrayed or baited-and-switched. I had a post at one point that, while it had comedic elements, was more serious minded and emotionally raw than what I normally post, and I almost didn't post it. Part of it was just that I hate opening up, was worried the post sucked, and all the usual anxieties and misgivings a lot of us have when we stray from our comfort zones, but another huge fear was that, even if the post didn't suck in its own right, I'd still disappoint and thus annoy readers who showed up expecting X and got Y. Even if Y is a perfectly valid type of post in Idol that tends to do reasonably well in the polls, a person who consistently posts X suddenly popping off with Y could go any number of ways - including KABOOM in the writer's face. The post did just fine in the polls, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief, but when I've had people blatantly tell me they save my posts for last or read mine first because they want to start or finish their reading with something they know will be light\goofy\silly, it sort of sets up that whole double-edge thing. On the one hand, I'm super thrilled and excited that someone thinks I'm consistent and enjoyable enough as a writer for them to make a comment like that (and the super thrilled and excited is about 95% of my reaction, NGL.) On the other hand though, I do worry about what a reader might feel like if they think they're going to a comedy showcase and they get blindsided with Srs Bzns instead.

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I personally think that your voice is so strong, and your sense of humor so all-pervasive, that even when you write something edging onto Srs Bzns, there are laughs there, and if not laughs then smiles. That's part of how you get your point across, after all. So even when you've got something that's a little closer to the heart and a little less class clown than usual, nobody feels like they're taking a trip to dullsville or that they got tricked.

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Yes.

Thank you for saying this so I didn't have to try to put words together to do it. :)

Need caffeine!!!!

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GET CAFFEINE POWDER OFF EBAY. It is awweeesooome. And WAY cheaper than standard caffeine sources like coffee and No-Doze.

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THIS. Regardless of if what you write is silly or more serious, you have a knack for always being entertaining.

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♥ TTYYYYY

I will try to take this thread into consideration next time I'm considering quasi-personal post, because challenging myself out of my comfort zone is something I want\need to do, but boring everyone to death with a "my issues, let me show you them" post is decidedly NOT on my Idol bucket list.

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I think almost everybody feels this way when they post something personal. It's not quite so much WHAT you are talking about, as HOW you are talking about it. At least that's my opinion. *Hugs*

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Phew! Thank you for saying that, seriously. Judging our own work with anything resembling objectivity is tricksy business for just about anyone I think, so throw in the bait-and-switch possibility, and it's just like I DON'T EVEN KNOW. I think I'm so used to hearing my own voice in my head and used to my own dumb jokes that I'm not sure what (if any) amusement factor will be present unless I'm intentionally setting out to spoof\mock\rant about [insert topic here].

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I write weird fiction. I try to keep it a variety of weird - fantasy, sci-fi, horror, something funny, something cross genre, maybe even a mystery - but in the end, it is what I write, and I think that's what people expect. I'm ok with that, because I'm writing what I enjoy writing, what I enjoy reading, and for the most part my pieces are well received.

My efforts at "shaking people up" come in the weird fiction itself - that's where I tackle and subvert expectations or reverse archetypes or generally do the things that, well, make it weird.

So here's a question: is there something different that you folks would like to see me do?

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When I started Idol (way back in season 4) I wrote primarily nonfiction. Probably 90% of that season was NF. As we have gone along I've done more and more fiction each season, with the occasional NF and poetry tossed in for variety. My fiction tends to be relatively light or lighthearted; I rarely do dark fiction or horror, it's not my thing, but I will write fantasy or Sci Fi now and then. I try to mix it up a bit.

I love your stuff, you are on my short list of favorites week after week!

Edited Date: 2013-08-11 05:58 pm (UTC)

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Other than "run a D&D game set in the universe of your Nothing Special entry for this week"... I think you got it covered!

What I find most amazing about your writing is you take these bizarre, abstract concepts - ones that should theoretically be difficult to even concretely imagine let alone clearly communicate to another person - and convey them in your stories in a way that's not only clear as a bell and easy to understand, but downright enthralling to read about. Your worlds always make this odd sort of sense, even if it's a seemingly nonsensical world or completely off the wall concept that should theoretically defy both sense and description, and it's just like..."how the fuck did she *do* that?!"

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alien-writings.livejournal.com

I'm not sure I stayed in Exhibit A long enough to be cast in any sort of role. In Season 8, though, I became one of the people known for doing lots and lots of serial fiction. I think people also knew me as one of those "creative idea" people who has an interesting brain. People seemed to think I had neat ideas, so that was cool -- I didn't mind being thought of as someone who had "quirky" writing.

I also did some deliberate self-pigeonholing when I wrote almost ALL fiction in Season 8 (except for, like, three pieces total) because I just way prefer fiction over nonfiction. I like how I relate to the audience through fiction better. The nonfiction I did in Season 8 had to be a bit of a surprise, too. I did mostly okay with it (got through the Gatekeepers on a nonfiction piece!), though one of the pieces I wrote the week I got eliminated was nonfiction.

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Your brain is both shiny and glowing. :)

And yeah, one can always count on you for novel approaches to a prompt and unique ideas. This is a good thing!

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Your ideas. Damn, just damn. Plus you are this bulldozer who plows through any sort of writer's block anyone might be having. It's pretty damn cool, especially the dizzying speed at which you come up with things!

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I kind of think I'm all over the place, but really, I find that what other people get out of what I write is often not at all what I meant them to get out of it when I wrote it, so I'm not sure I can know where I fit.

Also, Signs sucked, regardless of what it was about.

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I can't see into your brain (Snape kicked me out of occlumency class) so I can't comment on the first part, but I definitely agree with you about Signs blowing chunks. Where are Joel\Mike and the bots when you need em??

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On another note -

Who in here has a Kindle?
Which one do you have?
Do you like it?
Why or why not?

TYVM.

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I have a Kindle Fire. I like it for reading more than for games though it is pretty good for those too. I also like it when I go someplace with free Wifi and don't feel like bringing my laptop along, but want a bigger screen than my iPhone to read the internet on. I am so-so on the keyboard and the auto-suggest words, but nothing is perfect.

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Can you post to LJ on it?

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As long as I have Internet access yes. I left my kindle at work, but I've used it to read and reply to LJ entries before.

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cool. thanks. :)

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I have a kindle keyboard. I love it.

Pros:
+ the e-ink screen is super easy to read
+ the controls are nice and intuitive
+ it is super lightweight, and easy to carry around, even with a case
+ the battery life is amazing. I leave the wifi off except when I'm syncing to get new
books or magazines and I charge it once every two weeks.
+ You can charge it from the wall or from your computer, and either method is nice and easy.

Cons:
- It is *only* an e-reader, really. There's an experimental web browser, but it tends to crash things. If you want it to do anything other than read books, you're out of luck
- Magazines look a lot better on my tablet (on which I have the kindle app) and the touch screen controls make more sense for reading magazines, I think. It's easier to skip around in the table of contents, and you can see the artwork as it was meant to be seen.
- Ditto with .pdf files. I've got a bunch of .pdf crochet patterns on my kindle, and they are WAY easier to read on the tablet than the actual e-ink device.

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Thanks. :)

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n3m3sis42.livejournal.com

Ditto to all of this. I kind of want a Kindle Paperwhite really badly, but at the same time I'm scared it won't be as awesome as the super-inexpensive Kindle I already have.

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theun4givables.livejournal.com

I write a lot of interpersonal/dark fiction. I like to focus on relationships -- particularly dysfunctional ones. Stories of struggle and pushing through them. I do try to mix up fiction and nonfiction, but my nonfiction right now is going to primarily focus on one particular event of my life and I'm sick to death of talking about it. Or thinking about it, lol.

I do occasionally do other things, just to shake things up a bit. It was really well received when I did humor in the past, But that genre is difficult for me, even though I did enjoy the hell out of writing it. :) I do want to shake things up, because I don't wanna be a one-note writer, either. :)

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I usually have two mediums. My writing could end up being really humorous with snappy dialogue or it's pretty dark. I tend to focus on the characters and have a minimalist way of writing it. :)

And on a random note I got a kitten! OMG he is so cute! :D

Edited Date: 2013-08-11 08:32 pm (UTC)

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PICTURES!!!

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I don't want to clog the GR up with pictures but if here (http://x-disturbed-x.livejournal.com/306782.html) then you can see a picture of Smokey. :D

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Did you miss the forty-eleven pics we posted the other day? :)

Sweet baby kitty! Congrats. :)

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I think I did. xD

Thanks! He is so adorable. :D

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http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/682668.html?thread=68911276#t68911276

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I don't know how I missed that. xD

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Aww - so cute! And Smokey fits him perfectly. :)

Congrats

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