The best I can come up with...

[alexpgp]

During this past week, I have found myself increasingly describing things as "interesting," a word that means nothing, really.

It reminds me of my Houston period, before returning to Colorado, during which I kept catching myself saying "what I need to do is—" followed by some words about what needed doing.

Repeated often enough in Houston, the phrase had a cloying effect on me. The same can be said for this current craze with "interesting."

I've taken a bye this week in the LJ Idol competition, having decided it was high time to take one for no particularly good reason. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I took full advantage of the lack of (external) compulsion to write during the recent holiday season.

More to the point, although I thought my most recent effort—relating the story of how Wendell (not his name, BTW) got is martini glass—was a perfectly reasonable piece, I cannot but wonder why it would take the mechanism of something like LJ Idol (responding to a prompt within a given period of time) to move me away from bottom dead center when it comes to writing about it?

Galina and I spied a magnificent fox downtown this past Wednesday, during a little just-for-the-heck-of-it jaunt . I came out from between a couple of cars on the east side of Lewis Street, near the Methodist Thrift Shop, and for the first few milliseconds of its appearance, my brain registerd "dog," until the tail came into view. It reminded me of the incident, back in 1991 (when I was renting an office over the movie theater), when a bear ambled into the front door of the drug store on Main Street, browsed the shelves for a while, and then lumbered out the back before the animal control people could get there.

The decks are mercifully clear as we head into the weekend. And I fear the only way to deal with having taken a bye in LJ Idol is to hunker down and write something anyway.

Cheers...

Comments

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

A few days ago we saw a fox too. It was quite startling as I've never seen one in the city before. It had quite a spring in its step too, bounding across the road like it was on the moon.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Yes, foxes are quite light on their feet. And ubiquitous, apparently.

Cheers...

[vuzh.livejournal.com]

Some young friends of mine once became similarly doubtful of the word "interesting" and dedicated themselves, as a thought experiment, to try to thoughtfully substitute a more descriptive word any time they found themselves wanting to say "interesting". It was probably a good vocabulary exercise at least!

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Well, to this day I'm a little "allergic" to hearing "what we have to do is..." (or variations on that theme), because it reminds me of a time I felt quite powerless.

But vocabulary exercise or not, I suspect finding new descriptions is always a good thing.

Cheers...

[vuzh.livejournal.com]

I'm a little "allergic" to hearing "what we have to do is..." (or variations on that theme)

I hope that's not the way it came across, because that wasn't their intent, nor mine.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Oh, heck, no! Not at all. I should probably have put an emoticon or something on that sentence!

That, or edited it to say "'allergic' to saying "what we have to do is...'" (as it is, any time I catch myself even thinking of considering the possibility of maybe electing to say something like that, I find myself consciously changing course).

Cheers...

[vuzh.livejournal.com]

Ah... I misread your comment! Fully understood now. :)

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

As soon as the "marching orders" topic came up I thought to myself "I bet Alex ha s a good story for this from his marine days!"

But yes it's interesting how having a prompt and deadline can cause one to write things that in retrospect one probably should have written anyway. That's the main reason I do idol.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Actually, I had no really good ideas for this week's prompt, and really didn't try very hard at all to come up with any. My bad, with or without other things on my mind.

Before my exit from Idol last year, I got into the habit of jotting down story ideas, which at times tumbled out of my brain faster than I could write down a one-line summary. I also jotted down one-line descriptions of episodes that might qualify as tell-able memoirs, and the Wendell story was one of these.

However, I sense something in the wind, as far as writing is concerned, and I'm just going with the flow.

I am bothered by the fact that I cannot seem to kick myself in the butt hard enough to write out episodes along the lines of Wendell's martini glass unless it's for Idol. It's beyond pathetic and really beginning to annoy me, because if I'm to make any progress as a writer, it will have to be outside the framework of anything like Idol.

Cheers...

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I'm not sure if you recall my story about "Melissa the Bee" but I wrote it for LJI 2009 or so and everyone loved it, and it would only take a little polishing to submit to one of the national beekeeping magazines, or wirth a major overhaul Theafaye has expressed interest in publishing it as a children's book, but I can't seem to get around to doing the necessary polishing without a deadline!

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

Ah, you took a bye. Kris and I both have discussed that we have no idea when the end of the bye season is. But he has pointed out-and I agree with him- that writing something is a good way to generate interest in your writing. (As well as doing the writing itself.) However, I am in a quite different category than you are. Somehow, luckily, I am in a tribe that generally gets fewer votes than yours does. So I have a little more wiggle room, not that I think your vote-getting needs wiggle room!

Anyway, I voted for you, bye or not.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall Gary mentioning that byes go away at the "top 75" point of the competition.

Short of engaging in some kind of pathological activity (e.g., hiring people to like one's stuff), indeed, the only way to generate interest in one's writing is to write.

The nasty trick with byes is that taking them makes it just that much more easy to not write. It becomes a short cut to exiting the competition, either by losing interest in it or by cutting the creative legs out from under oneself, or both.

Last year, in my second season as a competitor, I confirmed that I do not have the skills to win Idol, a situation made somewhat less odious by the realization that winning doesn't really mean much in the greater scheme of things. I signed up for the third season because, I rationalized, at least having a weekly deadline on various topics forced me to write.

But right at this moment, I'm wondering whether that kind of impetus is, in fact, a healthy thing, and thus face a dilemma: If I continue with Idol, I face the prospect of never becoming a "self-starter" as far as writing is concerned, though I will have some writing end product to look back upon. If I discontinue my participation, I face the opportunity of becoming that "self-starter," with the accompanying risk of not doing so and not writing anything at all.

Thanks for your vote, in any event. I appreciate it.

Cheers...