Green Room - Week 27 - 11

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

The hamster wheel is coming to a stop today and the fun is about to begin!

TODAY is the deadline for your entries to be in: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/800348.html

Which means, after having an extended deadline, due to tragic circumstances, most people will hurry up and put something together today. ;)

We've also had a "Love Thread/Q&A" thing going on, divided over the course of the last few days: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/802311.html http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/802740.html
http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/802866.html
http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/803106.html

So make sure to get over there and say something nice.

Looking at the numbers, and knowing about sacrifices I've already been told about as well as those forces that no one can quite predict, we will be hitting Top 50 this week, which is the last time byes can be used, as well as the final chance for the Power of Veto to come into play!

If you survive this week though, the ride is only going to get more interesting from here! :)

Comments

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Top 50.

Damn.

I have nothing to say as I have given everyone love in the Love Thread and am hacking away at my NaNo and making uncomfortable realizations about my characters and storyline for this book. Sigh.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Stop being so awesome. You're making the rest of us look bad.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

I am probably not making the 50k word goal this month, if that's any consolation? xD My unofficial goal is 30k, since I haven't written 1k a day on average since, oh, February?

But I'll admit, my Idol piece this week is actually a chunk of my NaNo. I just originally was going to do this idea for our previous Open Topic week, and it didn't come together right so I dropped it. I entirely rewrote it and reworked it and I was like, "Damnit I want to write the shit that comes before this for NaNo." And as a result, I've been writing my NaNo out of order. xD

Clearly J&S do not let me write anything else because they feel they own my brain or something. >(

And I'm not awesome. :) I just have had a lot of free time. (Three days off in a row Wed-Fri mornings, two nights of work, and now I'm off again Monday-Wednesday...)

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Three days off would help my writing projects a lot! And J&S might be right about owning your brain. Good luck with 30K. The times I did it I averaged about 25K.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

Of course, today, I ended up working for a couple of hours, and tomorrow I have therapy, and Wednesday night I work...

My child-free time has been spent doing things other than writing. But I did manage another 1000 words today and am trying to brainstorm my next scene. :) Hopefully I'll write some more before going to bed tonight. I DID do a loooooot of story vomming at Sarah earlier. Because apparently my brain latched onto a totally different plot line than the one I thought I would be writing...

(They are not allowed to own my brain. It's MINE, damnit. MINE. Sigh...)

[meridian_rose]

Thanks for running the love thread. It was a sweet idea and I appreciated the wonderful comments I've received.
The extra time meant I got to tackle an idea that came to me fully formed and wanting to be written, rather than the half-hearted ideas I'd been toying with before. I just hope it pans out well.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

I hope people took advantage of it as a chance to start talking to people they might not have before.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to me to see how the LCIers will do.


Is there a stigma to coming in late?
What about the people voted out who came back in?

*Should* there be, or should people vote for the entries that they enjoy the most, regardless?

One of the things that I like about it is that it takes that "what matters to you" question and puts it out there. It's always interesting to see how people respond to it.

[medleymisty.livejournal.com]

There should not be a stigma. There should never be a stigma on anything other than hurting other living beings.

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

I think they'll do great. :) Fresh voices and perspective are always nice to have, and with them coming in this close to the top 50, I don't think it will hurt them any.

I'm actually more worried about contestants like myself, who've been in since week 1 and have established some sort of "label" for themselves. I didn't mean to write so much nonfiction this season and I'm almost terrified that I am now placed in this box and that my entries might be skimmed over because it's the "same ol' shit." Hah.

:)

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

I always vote for the strongest writing and the pieces where the ideas were the strongest, even though they may not be the fullest recognized. I believe in rewarding both originality and eloquence. :)

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. If I enjoy it and it is well written, I will vote for it regardless.

[meridian_rose]

I feel some guilt, coming in late to the party!
I vote for what I enjoy/what moves me in some way, which is the fair thing to do, and something I try to do always across LJ where there's a competition involved :)

[gratefuladdict.livejournal.com]

I think stigma is too strong a word. But if I am weighing two comparably impressive entries against each other, and one person has been running on this hamster wheel since May, and the other person just climbed on, then it's an easy voting decision for me.

And when it gets to the end, I would never vote for an LCIer to win (assuming the other finalist wasn't the devil incarnate). They are coming in with a HUGE advantage - lack of fatigue - and even if their final entry is the better one, that doesn't outweigh the months and months that they HAVEN'T been doing this while their opponent has not had a break.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I hadn't really considered that aspect of it - the tiredness from months on end of this competition, but as a tiebreaker I might take that into consideration. Otherwise, I do tend to vote for as many entries as I enjoyed.

[gratefuladdict.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a big factor for me, since I've been feeling the fatigue for many weeks now. When we have unlimited votes - up until the point where the numbers are small enough that it would affect my favorite writers - I will still vote for newbies with entries I enjoyed.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's a stigma to coming in late, but those of us who have been around from the start know who we really enjoy reading and if pinched for time we may skip the newbies, so there is that. But when time isn't a factor, I try my hardest to treat everyone equally and vote for the entries that I liked best or connected with the most, but sometimes you have to prioritize.

[medleymisty.livejournal.com]

My job has been stressful the last couple of weeks, and honestly I gave up pressure in non-job activties a while ago. So I have my entry in now, but I wouldn't feel guilty or bad if I finished it in a hurry tonight after work. My mental and emotional health is more important than a deadline that I don't get paid for.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Agreed! I always end up taking care of urgent real-life business, while I work my entry out in my head. This week, for example, my son got the croup on Thursday. This meant that he was even more clingy than normal and made it next to impossible for me to concentrate on writing this weekend.

That is my story and I'm sticking to it. Completely unrelated to the fact that I was also searching through the Sims 2 downloads on The Sims Resource site for wedding party outfits for four different couples graduating from Sim State University.

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Just because we haven't posted our entries yet doesn't mean we haven't been working on them. Some of us have a kid with the croup, you know. :P

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

KFP would have posted his entry days ago! ;)

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Actually, I am thinking of asking him if he wants to write one, after I get mine posted. I think he might like to do his take on the same piece I'm writing. :) You'll see.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

There have been people who have posted entries on their way to give birth!

THOSE people are hardcore! :P

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

(Note: for those who don't know - the person who wrote until they were about to get into labor was ALYCE)

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

Surely madness, that. ;)

Then again, it was easier writing that entry, what with occasional labor pains and all, then it is with a 4-year-old boy home from preschool and going, "Squish me! Now squish me again!"

I confess.

[ellakite.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those folks "throwing something together at the last minute". I won't deny I'm a procrastinator by nature, but I had other things "running me ragged" physically and emotionally for most of the last week. Plus I'm not enthused about my story idea, so I don't think I'm "bringing my A-Game". However, I intend to have something in by the Deadline. Whether it's good enough for me to survive, however...

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

There's also a home game/killing floor topic for this week to be found here: http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/801010.html

Right now I'm the only one who has posted anything there, and I want other folks to come and play!

I'm curious to see if there will be a twist to this week's voting or not.

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

There is, but it sort of got lost with everything else going on, and since no one posted in it, I figured that I'd direct folks to where they could do the most good.

If they *want* to do that though - AWESOME. I'm all in favor of it!

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

Well you did extend the deadline and some habits are hard to shake, so I posted the night before it was due as usual, heh.

Also, what happened to your Steelers?

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

The same thing that *always* happens to them when facing a "bad team".

They don't show up and end up getting beat.

Another example from this season is the Bucs. But there are at least 2 or 3 games per season where this happens.

I was expecting it.

[beeker121.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I didn't watch any games yesterday but I cringed when I saw that score.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

I finished all commenting on the love threads-- every contestant, because each of them has gifts and strengths and wonderfulnes. \o/

I spend a lot of time coding and testing this weekend, as there's a deadline today and I was behind thanks to questionable test hardware. But I did finish my entry. AND... the Ducks won. \o/

[anyonesghost.livejournal.com]

I'm back from Paris. Trying to throw my entry together ASAP amidst trip recovery because I'm leaving tomorrow morning for another business trip. I'm woefully behind on everything, especially commenting on the love threads. I'll get there, I promise.

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

How are you even awake? Or is "awake" different from "coherent"? ;)

[theun4givables.livejournal.com]

As someone who works 3rds...

"Awake" is very, very different from "coherent." I am frequently awake. I am infrequently coherent, after work/after a certain point in time. =p

[anyonesghost.livejournal.com]

Very different! Just think of my entries from Melbourne on proof of that.

[rattsu.livejournal.com]

And by interesting, you mean crazy.

[tonithegreat.livejournal.com]

O month of November, you have got to be frickin' kidding me!

Thank you, Gary, for coming up with the love thread idea. I haven't jumped on to share the love yet, but I will!

Also, I still need to kill Gary.

November, are you really for real?