LJ Idol Presents:

Ooooo... good questions! Lemme see here.

1) I wrote a book of terrible pig jokes when I was five years old (I think I was five. Anyway, I was but a wee tiny little me at the time). An example: What do you call a pig in an earthquake? Shakin' bacon! What do you call a pig at a belly dance contest? Piggly Wiggly! They were all like that. Pretty consistently after that when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would answer with "writer". Usually combined with five or six other things: "I want to be a writerteachermarinebiologistastronaut". Like so. (I really do suck at decisions).

2) I signed up for Second Chance Idol in Season 8 on a whim, basically. I'd been seeing many of my friends play off and on over the years and had poked my head in a few times, either to vote or to read. I was feeling really bummed and frustrated with my inability to finish anything, when I saw beldar's post about Second Chance and decided to try Idol to see if deadlines and prompts and competition (I do love me a good game) could help give me the kick in the butt to actually finish even one story. It, uh, worked. A lot. Showing my work to an audience of folks - especially folks who didn't know me, also appealed to me, though it seemed really really scary.

3) Ahahahahahaha you think I can pick. Decisions are hard. Yes, that is a cop-out to this question. I might come back to it later with a better answer, but seriously, this is a tough one.

4) See answer to number three? No, really I have an answer to this one. I think halfshellvenus is an amazing writer and a fabulous member of this community. She gives great feedback, she's an amazing intersection partner, she reads ALL THE THINGS, and she has a really fantastic range of styles and entries. Her voice is extremely versatile and she can do a LOT with just a few words. So she's my first choice. There are many, many other folks who are tied for second choice, though, including fourzoas (whose voice just blew me away every single week) and thegrimms (I'm such a sucker for retold fairy tales).

5. Oh damn. I... um... hrm. Just one? And presumably from this mini-season rather than out of all of them... Probably The Grand Bazaar (http://lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com/36885.html). This is me, because it's like a trip through my imagination - this is the kind of thing I daydream about almost all the time. This is me because it's interconnected and a little goofy but also a bit ominous but also everything works out in the end. This is me because there are all kinds of concepts in there that are made real, and that's a thing I love to play with. This is me because I had so much fun writing it, and I hope it was fun to read. And nope, the answer would be the same if I were showing it to family or friends or strangers.

Question for everyone else, in response to #5: which entry do you think says "this is lrig_rorrim"? If any?

(1) I don't remember a time when I wasn't. I learned to read by writing. I wrote my first story when I was 9, and my first novel when I was 14. (They were bad. Don't ask.)

(2) Whim. I was about to leave LJ forever and saw agirlnamedluna was signing up. I thought, "There's a mini-season of that contest thing going? I never did give that a try ... I wonder how I'd do. I'm thinking this'll last two weeks."

(3) I don't understand the question. ;-)

(4) That's tough, because there are so many deserving and talented folks out there. I have to say, though, I really wanted to read more of emo_snal and recklessblues. (First answer included people from other seasons; redacted.)

(5) Not sure I can narrow it down like that. This week's isn't a bad example, because I wrote interconnected horror stories for years on my website. (And my mother read those.) But the one from a few weeks ago with the split-screen and the footnotes (http://the-lettersea.livejournal.com/5375.html) is probably the best example of my mind in action: something that doesn't look like it should work but fits together like clockwork ... if it doesn't scare you away. ;-)

But what do you think?

1. Before I could write I made up stories and told them to my dolls. I started writing as soon as I knew how. That said, I don't always want to write. I'm learning to do it anyway. :)

2. Someone on my friends list (rm) was doing it, and I thought it sounded like a good idea (having writing prompts and deadlines, both of which help me a lot). I was too late to join, so I wrote home game entries every week, and even went back to week 1 to catch up with the group. Spydie was given a special power to either bring back someone who had been eliminated or bring someone new into Idol, and she picked me. That was Season 4.

3. I think lrig_rorrim is amazing. She's got a great combination of imagination and craft. You can tell by reading her stuff that she loves words. She takes the time to write and re-write until she gets it where she wants it, and it pays off.

4. I'm a huge fan of whipchick's work, but since she's already won before, I'd say notodette. I was sorry she had to drop so early. Also, I really enjoyed reading fourzoas this season.

5. I think my "Playing With Fire (http://kathrynrose.livejournal.com/817225.html)" piece was a good example of me on the outside, both in content and in writing style. "Let Not Light See (http://kathrynrose.livejournal.com/802823.html)," from Exhibit A, says more about me on the inside. (Hello, I catch the irony that it's fiction and I'm always saying you learn more about people from nonfiction, but I don't think anyone else would know it represents me from the inside.) Like the narrator in that story, I often feel like I don't belong where I am, and that something important broke a long time ago that I can't fix, even though I'd like to do whatever I can to make it better. Also, when I wrote the story I saw it as a hopeful piece, and it wasn't until I saw the story from the perspective of people outside my head that I realized it was really very sad. writing that story was an important thing for me in a lot of ways.

1) I didn't\don't. I have a blast in Idol, but I couldn't honestly give less of a fuck about writing as its own ends. I love interacting with people and doing any ridiculous shit I possibly can to get laughs (or indignant squawks if I'm in one of my more troll-like moods), but writing for the sake of writing is something that completely escapes me. Words are a fun toy, but if I'm not using them to interact with and\or get a reaction out of people, then there's no point, ya know? I don't see the purpose of writing just to write any more than I see the purpose of sitting at home on my couch talking to myself, and I always feel like a zebra (or some would argue jackass, I'm sure) in the horse stable when everyone starts talking about trying to get works published and doing stuff in the "writing world" and whatnot. It's just a completely foreign ambition\draw, and while I'm definitely happy for people and friends who achieve whatever success they set out to achieve, writing as its own ends, or writing to get published, just doesn't resonate on any personal level. Why would I wanna do a bunch of work for nothing or jump through a bunch of hoops on other people's terms that take the fun out of everything when I can be clowning on the internet instead and having a grand old time?

2) Initially: I got dared. It was supposed to be a joke - create a fake journal with the most ridiculous name I could think of, post a few gag entries until I got voted out, walk away laughing, get on with life. It sorta didn't work out that way. Exhibit A: I missed the rush of competing, I missed the community interactions, and I needed to prove to myself I could keep going without tripping up. Exhibit B: I'm addicted as hell, it's fun, I wanted to see how far I could get, I love the competition itself, and I wanted to see what new crazy shit I could drum up and get away with. Idol also gives me something to focus on, get caught up in, and just sort of lose myself in - it's an exhilarating challenge that can take my mind away from work stress and throw a big ol' wrench in the banality of the every day bump and grind. I also love interacting with the people here. The community aspects are some of the best parts, if not *the* best part.

3\4) Ohhhh no, no you don't! If you get an "ixnay on talking about specific contestants" escape clause, so do we!

5) OH GOD THIS: http://porn-this-way.livejournal.com/5657.html (It's my Google image enhanced "political correctness rant" from Season 8.) This is the only entry I've ever written that just came exploding out of me in a burst of passion and fury, where I didn't edit or censor anything at all, and where nothing was second guessed or held back. Granted, I was *trying* to get voted out that week (part of it was that I just hadn't connected to Idol yet and was getting tired of writing stuff every week, and part of it was that I was so fucking disgusted with "Lamegate" - NOT at you, Gary, at the pieces of whiny shit who started it - that I decided I didn't want to be hanging around someplace so overrun with pathetic butthurt crybabies and people who pandered to them) so I decided I'd go out with a big ol' fucking bang. A lot of the shit in that rant had been building up for a long time anyway, from stuff in other comms and other experiences in tons of other places too, so it was just this devil-may-care, graphically-enhanced explosion of my own internal pressure cooker, with a nice strong dash of troll thrown in for good measure. That post is very much my "know this, and know me" Idol entry.

Ironically\appropriately enough, that's also the post that got me truly into Idol, as in personally involved, invested, and here for keeps. The follow-up post (http://porn-this-way.livejournal.com/6280.html) the next week upped the ante after a gauntlet was thrown, and after that, I was in like sin. (And yes, IRL friends and family members have seen both of those. I have no shame. Complete strangers are welcome to look as well. I can learn a ton about them by seeing how they react.)