I regret to inform you that Finish That Thought will be on hiatus. I haven't decided if it will be permanent or not, but there just hasn't been enough participation to make it worthwhile. I know many of you come to check the page and the prompt, but we haven't had an entry in a couple weeks and it's been slim for several months before that.
I started this contest to encourage writers and provide a place to hone skills and challenge each other. It seems as though the time of FTT has passed. It may be a difficult day of the week for some. It may be a hard couple of months for others. Whatever the reason I have missed you all, but I know we each have our families and responsibilities.
Know that you have enriched my life. Thanks for sharing your stories for the last few years. Now run with wild abandon toward the next great thing. I wish you all the best, Alissa :)
Hi Lissa
ReplyDeleteI have been one of the absentees and there are of course various reasons. I have to say thank you for running your prompt. It helped me immensely when I started blogging and first started writing flash. Now my focus is more on my novels but the discipline of flash is always an aid. Thank you. Geoff
ReplyDeleteDave @ParkInkSpot
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Wicked people never have time for writing. There are so many worlds and characters waiting to be born, but through lack of motivation or lack of inspiration, they wither and die unborn in pools of dark despair. The writer feels it too, the black and poisonous knowledge that he should be producing something, anything, instead of watching television or web surfing.
The habits we should be building, write something every single day, don’t sit and wait for motivation. Grab a club and go drag your story home.
The seeping poison is can’t or won’t. Too tired, too uninspired, I’ll write it later, I’ll write it tomorrow. I hate deadlines, just give me a week and I can crank out something. I don’t like giving away my opening hook, that first sentence is important. What a silly idea, I’ll wait for a better one. I’ve written something just like this before.
Worse yet are the stories bravely begun and then abandoned. What’s next? This is stalling out. Oh, this is terrible. I just need a character. What’s the plot, where is this going?
I ran into an entire website of demotivation, once upon a time. M.F.A.’s and poets; my work was never, ever good enough. Look at all of those grammar and punctuation errors, oh my. Your metaphors are not strong enough, your similes don’t sing. Why do the same people win this competition every week? Your let the judges enter your own competition? Something smells fishy.
Now they want to sell me a membership. Purely for my benefit, of course, there are several levels of helpful advice. I see the direct correlation to the most frequent winners. This “competition” is, blatantly, For Sale.
I went searching for less mercenary setups. There are sites with rotating judges, there are sites dominated by a single clannish writing group, there are “Everyone’s a Winner” sites, too.
Competition does help me improve, even on the sites where it doesn’t feel entirely honest. Those clannish writing groups tend to vote for each other, for instance. Comments from more “social” writing sites help me improve, too, particularly from writers whose work I respect.
I keep a working list of fiction/writing sites that I like for various reasons. I don’t always visit all of them each week. I don’t always contribute stories, nor do I write every day (as I should). Sometimes, the toxic inspiration despair or simple exhaustion after a full time job still wins.
Sometimes, wicked television and evil internet still defeat your white knight, and often without a struggle.
But the sites that Did Things Right keep disappearing, and I feel guilty for that; like one more story might have saved them.
Hi Alissa,
ReplyDeleteThat's very sad news to hear. I hope it will be temporary. I noticed that there have been fewer writers over the recent months. But I must say, the one-liners are often fun and interesting.
For me the problem was the 24-hour time frame.
Would you consider moving the challenge to the weekend or extend the time frame to 48 hours instead for example?
I think it's worth a shot.
You could also consider having two first lines for people to choose from.
I hope you won't quit on us just yet.
Love,
Nada
Every week, I wait to get an email and see what the newest prompt is.
ReplyDeleteI was reading some Neal Stephenson today, and his florid style inspired me to write something. I just don't have enough original ideas, but if an idea does come to me, I love detailing it out with words. So, came back. How sad. I had thought that I hadn't seen any Facebook posts about the flash contest in a while, but it was still saddening to see that it was over. Let me know if you start up again.
ReplyDelete