Good morning and welcome to Challenge Number 2!
First, let me thank all of you for the outpouring of support. When I asked Gary to submit the first challenge I never dreamed so many people would come back and join in. I am thrilled and I can only hope this is an upward trend.
Now, I didn't do a very clear job of explaining
WHY I issued the first challenge in my last entry and I wanted to be sure to clear up any confusion. So here, by way of three cups of tea and a lot of late night thinking, is my attempt at a concise explanation:
I'm trying to raise community spirit.
No really, that's it. I want to see the community bond again.
I've been a participant here for the last three seasons. When Gary told me I wasn't able to take part in Season 3, or any season thereafter, I was disappointed but after what I gained from playing this "game" there was no way I was just going to walk away. Any chance I had to chime in with topic ideas, game twists, anything Gary would listen to, I was going to do it. He
rarely listens to me but I've stayed anyway. :D
The spirit in the community dwindles at the end of every season, that's pretty much a fatal fact of almost any online contest. If you're not able to participate you tend to drift away until you can participate again.
However, I've noticed a real downard spiral in the community spirit here than I've seen in seasons past, especially in the last few weeks. It may just have been me personally but it had me concerned. All of you have worked so hard these several months, I couldn't stand the idea of seeing Idol take such a sad turn at the end of it all. Especially since the final four are still writing their wee hearts out to stay in it.
So I thought to myself, why did we all join in in the first place?
Well...speaking for myself, it's because I wanted the glory of it all, the winners hat, the million dollars....
Ummm...no.
Other than a very lovely icon there was no prize. What I won was my writing talent back. It's not the best and brightest talent but it's mine and relish it and it was this competition that gave it back to me.
And it occurred to me that noone would have stayed in this thing for all those months, struggled and fought that hard to get entries in on time, put their lives on hold and bit that bullet unless they really loved to write.
What better way to bring everyone back, get that community spirit brewing again than to get everybody writing one more time?
And in doing so I've noticed more people taking an interest in Idol as a whole. I've been reading the entries and I've seen commenters who never participated before contemplating joining next season. And if they're interested in the community they're going to stop in and read and what better way to support the final four as well than to get new readers interested and involved?
Spirit, spirit, spirit!!
So that's my thought process behind the whole thing and hopefully it makes sense as it's 7:30 in the morning and the three cups of tea are not killing the desire to go back to bed after only 3 hours of sleep.
That being said, CHALLENGE NUMERO DOS!!
Please pick four more topics from the topic groups and post them back here by
Sunday, June 1st 3 PM fake time EDT. You can write all of the, one of them, none of them. You can just read, comment, whatever you'd like, it's up to you. This challenge is writer's choice, a way to support your finalists as well as challenging yourself to write again. Writing those last four entries for me was hell but really invigorating, how 'bout you guys?
You can find the topics in the topic threads where you can also find the entries that the final four are writing. I owe the final four an apology, I had meant to post a link back to their entries in my last challenge but I kept editing and editing to get it right and completely forgot the last most important paragraph.
I won't forget this time.
They are the most important reason we are all still here:
chite
kittenboo
porcelain72
tulip_in_yellowTheir entries are
here and
here .
Please read them and give them your love and support.
That's all for today. Write on Writer McWritersons!!