Chatter Post -- Friday, February 20, 2015 -- Week 3
Good day, my Friends of Fire. Happy Friday, and happy weekend!
I was just catching up on some of the Chatters for this week, and responded to the Tuesday chatter. Some of the comments were very interesting, and got the wheels turning. (Which is good because I had no idea in any of the worlds about what topic to choose for MY chatter.) I *HATE* the drabble as an art form. I find the work I have done this month bothersome because it does not feel *finished* to me. I’m writing because I’m a mod and I was “asked” to write {by Miss Bossy Pants herself}. I am not liking the process. NOT.AT.ALL! Then she asked about what other exercises people had done. I really enjoyed the discussion of English teachers who really challenged their students. It seemed to me that those who gave their students joy about writing were willing to play fast and loose with the “This is How You Teach Writing” rules.
The only writing games I have played have been Word Wars during NaNoWriMo. It’s a timed exercise - write as many words as you can in 15 minutes. In 2010, when I still was handwriting, I had decided not to participate in the word wars, because a typist is at least twice as fast as a handwriter. November 2014 is the month in which I realized that I could actually compose at the keyboard, and come up with something that seemed to be English and made sense. That had never happened to me before. My neurological issues had gotten so bad that I could not write for more than 5 minutes without such horrible tremors that my hand was all over the page and I couldn’t even read it. I was also woefully behind on word count as a consequence. So I sat down in front of the keyboard and, lo and behold, necessity being the mother of invention, I could do it. There was one more evening of word wars left in my Region’s chat room. We got 3 or 4 sessions in each night. Since the goal is to drive up word count for the Region, I figured it couldn’t hurt me. In the chat room, there is a chatbot named Timmy. He can creep up on you, welcome you to the group, throw things at you - and he can also challenge you to do a certain thing for the next round. My goal was to write more words each time. One round, Timmy challenged me to “write a scene in which the weather was crucial in some way.” Well, I decided to accept the challenge. With that thought of weather being critical, one of my characters whom I hadn’t seen much of all month, told me a snippet of her story. It was great - and I don’t know what I would have written without that challenge.
How do you feel about writing games? Do you feel that the prompts we have here are writing games? Do you like the challenges, or do you just want people to leave you alone and let you write?
REMINDERS:
Join in the Dialog Workshop, we have four exercises for you to explore.
The Week Three Challenge is "Heart-shaped Paper". Your stories should consist of no more than 100 words, and be submitted by 11:45 EST 2/22. #gowrite
I was just catching up on some of the Chatters for this week, and responded to the Tuesday chatter. Some of the comments were very interesting, and got the wheels turning. (Which is good because I had no idea in any of the worlds about what topic to choose for MY chatter.) I *HATE* the drabble as an art form. I find the work I have done this month bothersome because it does not feel *finished* to me. I’m writing because I’m a mod and I was “asked” to write {by Miss Bossy Pants herself}. I am not liking the process. NOT.AT.ALL! Then she asked about what other exercises people had done. I really enjoyed the discussion of English teachers who really challenged their students. It seemed to me that those who gave their students joy about writing were willing to play fast and loose with the “This is How You Teach Writing” rules.
The only writing games I have played have been Word Wars during NaNoWriMo. It’s a timed exercise - write as many words as you can in 15 minutes. In 2010, when I still was handwriting, I had decided not to participate in the word wars, because a typist is at least twice as fast as a handwriter. November 2014 is the month in which I realized that I could actually compose at the keyboard, and come up with something that seemed to be English and made sense. That had never happened to me before. My neurological issues had gotten so bad that I could not write for more than 5 minutes without such horrible tremors that my hand was all over the page and I couldn’t even read it. I was also woefully behind on word count as a consequence. So I sat down in front of the keyboard and, lo and behold, necessity being the mother of invention, I could do it. There was one more evening of word wars left in my Region’s chat room. We got 3 or 4 sessions in each night. Since the goal is to drive up word count for the Region, I figured it couldn’t hurt me. In the chat room, there is a chatbot named Timmy. He can creep up on you, welcome you to the group, throw things at you - and he can also challenge you to do a certain thing for the next round. My goal was to write more words each time. One round, Timmy challenged me to “write a scene in which the weather was crucial in some way.” Well, I decided to accept the challenge. With that thought of weather being critical, one of my characters whom I hadn’t seen much of all month, told me a snippet of her story. It was great - and I don’t know what I would have written without that challenge.
How do you feel about writing games? Do you feel that the prompts we have here are writing games? Do you like the challenges, or do you just want people to leave you alone and let you write?
REMINDERS:
Join in the Dialog Workshop, we have four exercises for you to explore.
The Week Three Challenge is "Heart-shaped Paper". Your stories should consist of no more than 100 words, and be submitted by 11:45 EST 2/22. #gowrite