A few weeks back I was delighted to discover there was an hashtag on Twitter – #1lineWed – that I thought would be nice to use for our weekly prompt of the same name here on WordPress. I spoke to the lady who, I assume, came up with the hashtag. It turned out that it was in use as a prompt for writers to post one line of their work-in-progress on Twitter. The “owner” of the hashtag and I discussed it and came to the conclusion that the more the hashtag was used, the more exposure both our prompts would receive. Good for everyone, right?
However, the “users” of #1lineWed have other ideas. I keep getting complaints that I’m using it wrong – that it’s not for me because I don’t participate in the prompt they’re used to seeing. For instance, this tweet (directly quoted) I received this morning:
in case you didn’t know, this # is for writers to share there lines and there is a theme each week.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not worth the hassle of getting chewed out by people who think they own the hashtag. Therefore, I will be changing the “rules” of One-Liner Wednesday once again.
I’ll take suggestions on a hashtag that won’t infringe on anyone else’s ownership rights. One that we can share not only amongst ourselves but with the world in general. Because we’re nice like that. Please leave your ideas in the comments below – if there are enough, maybe we’ll do a poll next week and vote on it. 😀
Tonight I went out with friends for dinner and drinks – something I haven’t done in many years.
It’s important, I think, to connect with people. I consider myself lucky to have friends. Friends aren’t something I’ve had a lot of in my life, at least not since high school. Oh, I’ve had a few here and there, but the life I lead isn’t one many people can find something in common with. I’m a parent, yes, but my kids are … special. Being a writer and admitting it usually results in people looking at me as though I’ve grown an extra head.
It’s Friday, right? So hard to keep track of the days some weeks. If it is indeed Friday, then it’s time for your Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. Many of the battles on my to-do list continue to daunt me, but never mind; one at a time, slow and steady, and all those other sayings we love and/or are sick of can be put into play. Ah, so what to do with the prompt? Let’s see:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “-ay.” Find a word ending in “ay” and use it as the theme/subject of your post. Play with it, I say!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
You, the voters, have chosen our new Stream of Consciousness Saturday badge! For a while there it looked like I would have to make the final decision, but I was spared by a hair.
First, as promised (and so the winner’s badge doesn’t show up in the reader) here is the badge we have dutifully used for the past year. Since Doobster has departed for what I imagine are greener pastures and fresher air, I thought it would be a nice tribute to give everyone the opportunity to remember him with this:
As I said, it was very close. There was only one vote between each of the top three:
In first was: My Leaky Boat with “Flowers,”
followed by Nearly Wes with “Sun Rays.”
In third was Owl Wonder with “Splash”
and then in close fourth was Irene Design with “Gems”
and bringing up the most honourable last place was Ever Changing with “Waterfall.”
Congratulations to all the entrants for a job well done and thank you to everyone who voted!
It’s after midnight and all the entries are in for the new Stream of Consciousness Saturday badge contest. We have five fantastic badges to choose from! Anyone can vote: make yours count!
I’ll name them all to make it easier for voting purposes. Here are the contestants in order according to their entries:
Walking the track yesterday was going so well I didn’t want to stop, even though my foot hurt… just another half an hour, I said to myself: blister = no more track for the rest of the week.
Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.
As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”
The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:
There’s a contest going on right now to design a badge for my weekly prompt, Stream of Consciousness Saturday! The winner will have his or her artwork posted numerous times every week, along with a mention/link to his or her blog as the designer of the badge.
This contest closes on Wednesday, August 12th at midnight, Eastern Daylight Time (-5 hours GMT), so get designing or please spread the word via re-blog!
Because I just know everyone out there in WordPressLand is interested in my to-do list for the next week, I’m posting it publicly. You see, I have a partial week off. Which means the kids are with their dad for a week, but I still have to drive my mother here and there, and I still have my basement troll (aka my eldest son) and his cats dwelling in my dungeon. During this time I hope to accomplish the following:
Finish editing my novel.
Write the remainder of my Second Seat series for my fiction blog – only 21 days left to go and I’ll have published one entry every day for an entire year!
Annihilate all of the fruit flies in my house, if not the world.
Pitch an article to at least three different publications for my Interview with a Magician. (Yes, I italicized it to make it look as awesome as it’s gonna be.)
Write some fiction, poetry, and articles to sell, to raise money for my upcoming trip to Tokyo!! (Yes, I’m going again in November. The tickets are booked because I won the lottery to get the concert tickets I wanted!!!!!)
(And this may be the hardest of all,) get away from the computer and get some exercise.
(And this may be the hardest thing to avoid, but I have to be realistic,) procrastinate.
Remind everyone that there’s a contest going on for which we have one (fantastic) entry so far. It’s for the new SoCS badge in case you missed the memo. Don’t make me break out the pom-poms. And for pity’s sake don’t make me enter it myself. You’ll rue the day you have to look at any more of my mad paint skillz.
So there you have it, WordPressLand. Can I do it? I think I can. Wish me luck.
I can’t be the only one this happens to: I’ll have something–an event–to look forward to and I’m so enthusiastic about it that I can’t wait. I look forward to this one thing so much that I’ll begin to imagine what it’ll be like. How much fun it will be. And then the day comes when it’s actually going to happen…
And I don’t feel like going.
I’ve been thinking about what this phenomenon must be caused by, and the only thing I can come up with is that I’m afraid whatever it is won’t measure up to my expectations. That I’ve built the event up so much in my mind that nothing can possibly match it. And the longer I wait for it, the more I don’t want to do it, because I’ve had so long to envision what it’s going to be like that I’ve basically already done it in my head.
Enthusiasm is such a fickle thing, isn’t it? It’s like when I get an idea for a story in my head that I just HAVE to get down on paper. It’s gonna be great! But if I don’t get to writing it almost immediately, it becomes, ehh, whatever.
There should be an opposite for enthusiasm. You’re either enthused or unenthused… but unenthusiastic isn’t quite the right word, in my mind. Disenthusiastic, on the other hand, comes closer. Un-, to me, means I never was. Dis-, to me, means I was and then I wasn’t.
Do you ever write a word so many times that it stops making sense anymore? Or just doesn’t look right. I’m getting that now…
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