What's the Matter With You?

[walkertxkitty]

o/` "Yes, and the ocean parts when I walk through, and the clouds dissolve and the sky turns blue
I'm held in very great value by everyone I meet but you
'cause I've used my talents as I could, I've done some bad, I've done some good
I did a whole lot better than they thought I would so, c'mon and treat me like you should!" o/`

-- "Everybody Loves

Comments

[beldar]

On that last one, coming after advice for other writers at first had me thinking that you felt insulted if a person posted an entry with a default icon. I was going to remark that Lucky Lemur is not amused, until I understood what you were writing.

Still, clever iconage only goes so far in an idol entry =)

[walkertxkitty]

No...I get a lot of questions about it along that line and last year it started a big, big commotion to the point I had to post a public disclaimer in my journal.

I created the icon after Dee and I had been together six months without killing each other. The first time he called me that...well...braining someone in public is frowned upon. Good thing I didn't.

[shadowwolf13]

Actually one of the contestants 'is' in grade school, my step daughter. However, she's smart enough to no start out her entry with that crap about what her topic is. (That or she's just read way too many of my entries over the past year.) ;)

[walkertxkitty]

More points to her, then (I remember seeing and voting for that one and thinking "Wow, she raised a good 'un!")

You'd be surprised how many people do that, though. Less this year than in prior years.

[xo_kizzy_xo]

Make that two. There's also Theafaye's daughter.

[walkertxkitty]

Again, a mark of their good parenting AND good teaching because I knew both of those young people were there (I was speaking in generalities here) and their essays NEVER registered as being written by grade school children. Impressive, and I've told them so (I think).

Used a bit of Jack as an edge against sleep so now I'm all fuzzy :P

[alinsa]

Hey now! No hating on "cerulean." It's an awesome color name!

[quoting_mungo]

Don't start your piece with "This is my essay/work for this week's LJ Idol topic, which is...." None of us, I would assume, are still in grade school.

I'm curious; does this apply only where the "main entry" starts with such, or do you also feel that way about things like the metatext I put at the top of my entries? I'm hesitant to do away with it for the sake of the non-Idol parts of my friendslist, and for this season, leaving the link back to the introduction seemed prudent (as I can't guarantee that any given Idol reader has read and remembered that entry). I'll gladly take suggestions for how to make that metatext less annoying, if it is, but I don't dare leave it out entirely, especially not now that I'm letting my characters do the talking.

Also, you probably already knew this, but I don't expect to be cut slack regarding anything but possibly idiomatic usage (which my bilingual brain tends to muddle up, though shurhaian is pretty good at catching it for me by now) just because I wasn't born speaking English. I'd rather be told I'm

[walkertxkitty]

Yours is done in a talk-show format, which is different. That type of thing counts to me as an original take on the subject. I was referring to the standard form we're taught in grade school over here in the US:

- statement of topic
- three paragraphs supporting the topic
- conclusion

[quoting_mungo]

Oh, that. I struggled an awful lot with that in US high school, especially since I believe there was some bull about how each paragraph should also be the sentence equivalent of that form. Essay writing isn't taught in quite the same way here so the other students' refresher on essay format was my first exposure.

I've thought on it, either way, and think I'll be inserting an anchor link before the entry illustration in my future entries and linking to that from the topic post. That should let Idol participants skip the boring repetitive disclaimer while my friendslist still gets a heads-up as to what I'm doing.

-Alexandra

[imafarmgirl]

It interests me a lot what others do when voting as far as the process of deciding. I'm always interested in what people think about my writing specifically, but the bigger picture is even more fascinating.