Green Room - Week 14 - Day 4

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

It’s a new day, and a new twist… in order to get into the finale, you will have to push a busload of orphans off a climb into a pool of endangered sharks. Then you will have to tell your favorite relative to post a video of themselves doing something embarassing on youtube and help it go viral, and make them read the comments section!!


Or maybe you will just have to survive some polls, I really haven’t decided.. but it will be one of those things!

One of those polls in question though is already up: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/689432.html so you should probably go check it out!

Comments

[agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com]

I am glad I killed you before the deadline, that is all!


Edit: Frist!

[n3m3sis42.livejournal.com]

Congrats on FRIST!

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Just when you thought it couldn't get any more evil...

[x-disturbed-x.livejournal.com]

Everyone let their guards down.

[x-disturbed-x.livejournal.com]

I looked at the poll this morning and had to laugh. xD I am glad I got out when I did! I saved myself!

[n3m3sis42.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, I laughed last night when it went up, and then theun4givables informed me that it was mean of me to comment saying as much. :)

[agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com]

You know, when I saw that this morning, I thought exactly the same thing, that you saved yourself just in time.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Hello from a very long registration line in Atlanta! It is actually moving at a pretty good clip so I guess I can't complain too much, but I will anyway! *gripe gripe gripe*

Fun poll twist... At least from THIS side!

[agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com]

Wish I could swap places with you in that line!

[anyonesghost.livejournal.com]

Can we just have our favorite relative pushing a bus of orphans of a climb into a pool of endangered sharks with video cameras on their heads?

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Anyone want to go get some buzz juice?

http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/204646/this-insane-christian-anti-porn-movie-will-make-you-so-grateful-youre-a-sinner/

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Oh

My

God.

I'm too busy going NO ONE EVER TALKS LIKE THIS IS THIS REAL LIFE HOW CAN YOU EVEN THINK THIS IS HOW PEOPLE ACT.

And dying of hysterical laughter.

[agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com]

"Recommended by DeeperUnderstanding"

I haven't recovered from that one yet.

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

*laughs* All right all right, you got me with the "keep some perspective" thing there.

I just... you know, I know it comes down to "there can be only one" but it's tough when you THOUGHT you were working together, you know?

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

You were in the last eight people standing, in a game where only one person can win, and you thought you were "working together"? ;)

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I would comment in the Green Room, but I'm still not speaking to you. :P

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I just asked someone an interesting question - which is rare for me, so I figured I should share it before it went out of my head again! ;)

If you had KNOWN that people were competing against each other (either you getting the hints or for some reason I decided to tell you) would you have paired with someone else?

Who? and why?

[agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com]

No, because I was the person picked last D: so my writing partner really had no other choice :P

Mind you, in the opposite case I probably would've been the most popular kid in town >.>

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Definitely. Namely, someone I don't know very well, so that the results felt less personalized.

There are strategic reasons to do so as well, but the personal aspect is really getting to me.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

:waves from sidelines:

It'll be interesting to see if anyone still playing answers this.

Never mind.

Answer from the sidelines:

IF this twist had been announced beforehand and you're playing this the way it's intended to be played, you would have strategically picked someone who you believe is a weaker writer than you. You don't tell them this, though. You may be best buddies. You may have one of these "wave across the GR" friendships. Neither matters at this point because the point, right now, your job is to up your chances of advancing to the final 4.

HOWEVER...

I'd be pretty pissed right now too about this twist if I were still playing because when one hears "intersection" or anything to do with pairing up, you automatically grab somebody whose writing you admire and/or someone you want to work with and/or your best buddy.

BUT...

Having to "turn" on your partner at some point, no matter how much you like him/her, is what part of this game is about, especially toward the end. It's very much a Survivor/Big Brother tactic.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Yes.

I consider PTW to be a good friend, and I'm a huge fan of her writing and believe she should be a finalist.

So, now the only way I can continue to hope for that to happen is to stop hoping that I will do well. It's true that I've already done better than I expected to do, but I'm just getting my feet under myself as far as feeling good about my fiction.

So now, when I thought I was working arm in arm with my friend, hoping we'd both advance, I'm sucker-punched with the thought that one of us has to fail this week, whether or not both of us might have advanced at least another week or so.

I'm not going to name someone I'd have paired with, because that's all strategy and not the point. The point is I have a lose/lose situation this week, and it's because you intentionally misled us, and gleefully so. From where I'm sitting, it's just mean.

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

Yes, it sucks to be pitted against someone who is your friend, and with whom you worked hard this week.

But when two friends have books out at the same time in the same genre, that's pretty sucky, too.

Or when Oprah calls and says she's got two minutes available, so only one of you can talk.

This isn't just a "good writing" contest. In that case, we could line everyone's pieces up in front of gatekeepers and do it in four weeks. And someone whom a committee of judges agreed none of them hated enough to vote against would win.

This twist is no more anti-good-writing than vote-farming, pimping, pandering, sympathy-begging, or Tyra telling the models they have to run through Walmart picking up clothes before the photo shoot (damn I miss the shorties cycle--I swear that was the last good one).

I get names of literary magazines to send my work to from writer friends all the time. We submit to the same residencies and the same contests. It's not as blatantly out there, but yes, we are being pitted against each other.

We're still friends. If they get in and I don't, I feel shitty and jealous for an hour, and then I get over it and write something else. Because I'm a writer. And there will be another contest, or residency, or magazine--just one click away.

Idol changed my life. I learned to write quality to deadline, to promote my own work, to take responsibility for reminding people that they liked my work and they should read it and vote for it. And when I'm sending out a hundred polite publicity letters for a novel and getting 99 no's, it's all going to be part of the routine. Submit, lose, feel shitty, get over it, repeat until win.

So make a choice.

Do you care about your friend more? Then spend the next couple of days getting your voters to read their work and see if they like it. Link it on your Facebook with a tantalizing quote. Email it to your friends. Call someone up and read it to them.

Do you care about winning more? Then now is the time to promote your work. Do the same steps for yourself. No-one's good work is magically recognized with zero promotion.

Neither choice is wrong or bad. But making one of them and taking action will probably feel better than feeling crappy about a tough situation.

Keep writing.

[n3m3sis42.livejournal.com]

*standing ovation*

[x-disturbed-x.livejournal.com]

This poll is more a direct competition because two people are fighting for one spot but in the regular poll it's not much different. You're going against your friends every week. This week just makes it a bit more personal but I still don't see the difference or reason to fret so much.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

That's how I'm feeling too.

There are some seasons where people are more gung-ho and openly competitive than others. This hasn't been one of them. Every season/exhibit has its own flavor :shrug:

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

Ya know, at first I had Lots Of Opinions on this, and then I tried laughing it off, and then I had more opinions. Maybe it's just the way things are. Maybe it's some representation of the way Real Writing works. Maybe it's proof that Gary sold his soul to Satan Almighty in a shady back alley in exchange for a hoard of intarwebz minions to lord over. Maybe it doesn't matter in the first place, because once you hit the Top 10 or so, nothing means anything since the whole thing's devolved into little more than a pimping contest where nothing is remotely indicative of anything and nobody actually loses to anybody and people just lose to each other's friendslists, facebooks, and friends of friends instead. Maybe it's time to FIRE ZEE MISSILES (but I am le tired) and there's nothing left but fuckin' kangaroos.

Whutevs. If Kate wins this round, I'll be happy for her. If I win this round, I'll be happy for me. Right now, I'm happy work's over, it's a 3-day weekend, and I just got home from the bar.

What I'm not happy about is that I can't root for myself without wishing failure on a friend. Not doing everything I can to advance my own interests and ensure my own success goes against every instinct and fiber of my being. Wishing failure on a friend also goes against every instinct and fiber of my being. I know there's some fucking annoying philosophical argument that points out this whole thing is inevitable, but IDGAF. It's not inevitable *yet*, or at least it didn't have to be, so I'm fucking annoyed.

FIRE ZEE MISSILES.

[n3m3sis42.livejournal.com]

Having really only done season 8 (mostly), I guess I just see everything after top 30 or so as competing against your friends anyway. But I get (now that xo_kizzy_xo pointed it out), that this season wasn't as constantly competitive as that one was, so it probably feels different.

Late Commenter Edition

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I feel like I should post this again tomorrow, but this is worth a listen by everyone.

Re: Late Commenter Edition

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

Beautiful.