Challenge Comms... a challenge?

[risingtides]

I'm of two minds about the existence of challenge comms.

I find they do provide inspiration, but they're also a distraction. I often find myself setting aside my "projects" to perform in a challenge comm. If I needed the inspiration, it'd be one thing, but I don't. Instead, it riles my competitive side (and I AM one competitive bitch when things

Comments

[measuringlife]

Just wandering though, figured I'd drop my .2 cents.

I'm a bit divided when it comes to challenge communities, I'm in a few, not a huge amount but enough to keep me scrambling at times and wishing I'd had the foresight to not claim two couples at 30_kisses

In a lot of cases, it's a really good thing, especially in small fandoms, or more obscure pairings. For example, having finally started looking for Sukisyo fanwork, for one particular coupling, one person has written half the fics in a claim. If she hadn't made that claim, there'd be aproximately two fics written for this pairing. Does that mean that each ficlet is a epic? No, but all were very enjoyable and well written.

But it also tends to put quantity > quality. When I first joined I had tons of plans, but when it comes to actually doing it, it seems ever so daunting. I had to resort to quick drabbles when it came to the second claim, and I rather regret that-- For I love the pairing and found so few good fiction for it, but because I claimed two, my attention is divided and I can't write as much as I would like to for each theme.

I was somewhat discussing this with ninjatrauma-- The '30 theme' communites are similar to reality TV. When they started it was a new, fresh, and rather original, but soon everyone wanted a piece, and very few people actually made any changes to the system. 31_days is one of the first to make a significant change on the trend, doing something other than changing the themes and the catalyst.

I did participate in 31_days, I did all of August, and a few of September, I had planned to do a few for October, but midterms prevented that.

There's tons of great authors there giving their best and it also serves as a way to get to the lesser known talents of the fandom.

If I have anything to say, it's that there's a lot less time to edit, and I found myself barely making it most of the time. I think that perhaps the quality of the writing might've decreased some, but it got written.

I didn't produce any epics for 31_days, but prior to that I'd never produced anything due to over editing, and I suppose that's the point. I don't think anyone truly thinks there's going to be amazing fics for the '30' communities, it's more to spead out the "rather good" in a moderated amount.

Though now the trend is tipping towards smallar communties, due to laliho (whom I can commend, she's actually gotten through her '30's claims in a timely manner, no less. )

"one-line ficcing"? Are you referring to the one-line meme that was going around, or the 20 facts meme?