Work Room - Week 1
Hello there, and welcome to your first "Work Room".
For those who are new - or generally missed it in the FAQs - the Work Room is a space to bounce ideas and talk about writing. Yours. Other peoples. Give and take advice.
It's your space. I'm sure you can come up with something to do with it.
Every once in awhile, I'll bring in a "Mentor" to Tim Gunn/Tom Colicchio things.
This week (and next) it will be zia_narratora Especially with throwing you into the fire in Week 1, I figured you could use a friendly face (and a professional editor/former contestant!)
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Hi, everyone! My name is Tea, and I’ve been very happy to participate in therealljidol in the previous two years. If you’re new to the wacky world of LJ Idol, you may know me from Gary’s lightningbolt icon.
Gary asked me to mentor the first two weeks of the LJ Idol Work Room, and I suspect that he has an ulterior motive in doing so: last year, when I was playing on an alternate journal, people apparently cottoned onto the fact that I might actually be playing because he didn’t ask me to mentor. So, here I am. I’m mentoring the Work Room, and not competing.
I’m a professional editor, and one thing I have always felt strongly about is that I am better at helping other people achieve their best in terms of their craft (whatever craft that may be) than I am at creating my own. Part of this involves the nitpicky stuff like spelling and grammar and sentence structure and flow and all those things that make us anxious about whether our writing is polished and professional but part of this is about confidence in you, your ideas, and your ability to communicate to other people. I think the best lesson I have learned about how to make my writing great is not about polish or narrative arc, but about just being myself. And in a competition like Idol, being yourself counts for a lot. When you’re in the midst of hundreds of good writers, having a voice that is uniquely you, however you go about achieving it, can be the difference between eliciting a smile and a nod and really having people remember your name.
For those who are new - or generally missed it in the FAQs - the Work Room is a space to bounce ideas and talk about writing. Yours. Other peoples. Give and take advice.
It's your space. I'm sure you can come up with something to do with it.
Every once in awhile, I'll bring in a "Mentor" to Tim Gunn/Tom Colicchio things.
This week (and next) it will be zia_narratora Especially with throwing you into the fire in Week 1, I figured you could use a friendly face (and a professional editor/former contestant!)
****
Hi, everyone! My name is Tea, and I’ve been very happy to participate in therealljidol in the previous two years. If you’re new to the wacky world of LJ Idol, you may know me from Gary’s lightningbolt icon.
Gary asked me to mentor the first two weeks of the LJ Idol Work Room, and I suspect that he has an ulterior motive in doing so: last year, when I was playing on an alternate journal, people apparently cottoned onto the fact that I might actually be playing because he didn’t ask me to mentor. So, here I am. I’m mentoring the Work Room, and not competing.
I’m a professional editor, and one thing I have always felt strongly about is that I am better at helping other people achieve their best in terms of their craft (whatever craft that may be) than I am at creating my own. Part of this involves the nitpicky stuff like spelling and grammar and sentence structure and flow and all those things that make us anxious about whether our writing is polished and professional but part of this is about confidence in you, your ideas, and your ability to communicate to other people. I think the best lesson I have learned about how to make my writing great is not about polish or narrative arc, but about just being myself. And in a competition like Idol, being yourself counts for a lot. When you’re in the midst of hundreds of good writers, having a voice that is uniquely you, however you go about achieving it, can be the difference between eliciting a smile and a nod and really having people remember your name.