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3 1/2 weeks (or 25 freakin' days)

That's how long it's been since I last biked outside. Criminy. Today broke the longest streak of garage-biking I've had in... more than 30 years. The endless stretch of cold fog has finally broken, and temperatures are warming up to the low-mid 50s, which I can work with. BUT... we're also entering a period of probably two solid weeks of rain. Ideally, there will be some breaks in that and I'll be able to get outside again. Biking out in the world is not only less boring, it lets you stretch out your muscles more. Stationary biking is a grind. Literally.

You may have seen a bunch of Idol entries pop up recently. The current challenge involved assembling a portfolio that included two new entries, a letter to a past participant, and an overview page to pull it all together. We only have 5 contestants left now, so the poll is very small. Please vote if you can, and thank you for your support!

Christmas tree tomorrow, I hope? We replaced the excellent stand we lost to the fire, and we were lucky enough to get our ornaments back. No outside lights yet, though my son and I put up the mug hooks under the eaves for them. But they're not due to be delivered from Amazon until tomorrow. To be fair, I am ALWAYS behind at Christmas time, regardless of the year. \o?

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LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos: "Portfolio"

Portfolio
Idol Wheel Of Chaos | Week 17, #1

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We're down to just five writers for Idol: Wheel Of Chaos now. This week, we're writing a portfolio that centers on five key components: our favorite story we've written, our favorite story by another author, a letter to an author from earlier this season, and stories for the prompts 6 7 and Banner year.

Choosing favorites is always hard! For my own stories, I wrote a lot of humor this season, but also some drabbles, two poems, a couple of entries with pathos, and a horror story. I considered choosing the acronym fun-fest (Going BATty), the caustic self-help guide (A New Man), the baking witch (Cursecraft), The Three Trolls from last week (Piplet!), or the souful Little Metal Hearts. But I think my best story was unlike all the others. It was a classic, timeless sort of tale with a tinge of bittersweetness. It was hardly read, because I was poisoned that week and it wasn't included in the poll, but it's the one I'm proudest of.

My favorite of my stories: Here Be Dragons

Weighing other authors' stories was just as hard. There were so many I really liked this season. From week 1, the Quality entries by bleodswean and static_abyss really stood out.

rayaso's week 2 War Of The Words (the evils of ChatGPT) was a riot, as was

flipflop_diva's Week 11 beleagured aliens story.

serpentinejacaranda's Week 6 dreamlike political satire (Affliction In The Form Of A Question) really stuck with me, as did

xeena's Blair Witch Idol Meta and

l0lita's hard-hitting zombie apocalypse story. But the one I finally picked used a difficult prompt and featured a great child's voice and very real drama disguised as fiction. It was both beautifully written and painfully true.

My favorite other-author's story:

inkstainedfingertip's Week 5 Toi, Toi, Toi

Next, we were to write a letter to a former contestant from the Wheel of Chaos season. There were so many to choose from: static_abyss (never here as long as I would like), bleodswean (such talent, and such a great Idol supporter), rayaso (so funny, week after week), alycewilson (talent and soulfulness all in one). I couldn't choose inkstainedfingertips because I'd picked him for my favorite other-author entry, plus he's still in the competition. So, I chose one of my overall favorites from this season AND last season (Idol Mini). She was the author whose season this was to lose, I thought, and apparently so did others because she was taken out by a targeted elimination vote after Week 10:

My letter to xeena

And finally, there were two entries to write for specific prompts:

6 7

Banner year

I hope you've enjoyed my portfolio, and the range of offerings it provided! If so, please vote for it here.

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LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos: "All Anticipation"

All Anticipation
Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 17, #4 | 2227 words
Banner Year

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"These are the best years of your life," Lanie's mother always said. With her senior year of high school just a few months along, it seemed as if her mother was right.

Lanie was kneeling on the floor of the art room, working on the Homecoming banner for the game this weekend. She was dating the quarterback, and was every bit as invested in Homecoming as he was. Her best friend Chloe was there with her, helping out and keeping her company. Chloe's boyfriend was on the basketball team, so she was more interested in painting neat letters than what the banner represented.

"How do you think you did on the SATs this time?" Chloe said.

"I feel like the math went better?" Lanie said, "And I'm hoping that will be enough."

"I can't believe you took it twice. I mean, your original score was better than mine!"

"I just want to have the best options for where to go to college," Lanie said. "Could you hand me the yellow?"

Chloe passed the can of paint. "Well, there's always Podunk U."

"Don't remind me. My dad went there–it's why my mom keeps reminding me not to settle."

"She chose him, though," Chloe said.

Lanie moved around to the other side of the mural. "Yeah, but we all thought he was a better person than he actually turned out to be…"

( Read more... )

If you enjoyed this story, please vote for my Portfolio here!

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LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos: "Childhood Treasures"

Childhood Treasures
Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 17, #3 | 1424 words
6 7

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It was never a time capsule, no matter what Bobby Lockerby said. It was a memory-box, where Jake kept souvenirs and other special things.

Jake was 6, almost 7, when he started collecting those things. It all started with a pretty little red rock he found down by the creek one day.
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There was a four-leaf clover, dried and flattened, and the ticket stubs from the first ballgame Jake ever went to with his Dad. There was a trilobite fossil, a squashed souvenir penny from a trip to Disney World when Jake was eight, and a Kingfisher feather as blue as the sky.

Jake kept all of them in a metal Superman lunchbox in his closet, with Jake's–Keep Out! written on the top. The note was mainly for Jake's younger brother Eddie, who had no respect for privacy. Mom said it was because Eddie was only five, but all Jake knew was that he didn't want some little pipsqueak pawing through his stuff.

It was a miracle Jake ever had time to find any of the cool stuff he did. It seemed like Eddie was always there, following him everywhere he went: "Whatcha doing?"

Sometimes, Jake just wanted to explore quietly on his own. You saw more of what went on that way– animals weren't so afraid of you, and nobody was there to distract you. A little brother with non-stop talking was just about the biggest distraction there was.

And when he wasn't out exploring, Jake would rather be playing with Bobby Lockerby or one of his other friends.

"Mommmmm," Jake would moan. "Why can't Eddie go bother someone else?"( Read more... )

If you enjoyed this story, please vote for my Portfolio here!

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LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos: "Letter to xeena"

Idol Wheel of Chaos | Week 17, #2
Letter to a past participant

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Dearest xeena,

I've always enjoyed your writing, starting with when you were in Idol at Live Journal through being

xeena now at Dreamwidth. You brought quality storytelling to Idol every single week, and not many can say that!

But these last two seasons have been stellar.

I love your quiet, often ethereal style, so effective for the spooky tales you love so much and just as evocative for dramatic and non-fiction entries. The language is gorgeous, the flow is smooth, and the content always makes me think.

This season featured the dark, stark Week 9 story about a suicidal woman who has lived a violent, hopeless life and who decides to burn the world down with her. Her fatigue and recklessness are palpable, and her behavior shockingly nihilistic. I think this is an immensely strong piece, and a risky one, and you pushed through and did it.

There was also the soulful Week 4 entry about the sentient house. The things it has seen, the memories it keeps, and the renewed life it yearns to hold within it once more! This was poetic and unexpected. Just lovely.

But my favorite—one of my favorite entries of yours of all time—was the Week 5 Blair Witch Style Idol Meta. The script format was ingenious and fresh. The dialogue sounded so much like what I and other Idol contestants would say that I went back to check the Wheelhouse comments to see if I actually HAD said exactly that. But best of all, it was humor, which is a flavor we don't often see from you—AND satire, AND meta.

You showed us you could truly do it all.

I'm just sorry that one of the twists this season took you out early. This felt like your season to win, but there were people determined to keep that from happening. When week after week of being poisoned (but also earning the antidote) couldn't take you out, the directed Elimination vote created the circumstances they sought.

It still seems unfair, even though we all signed up for a season with built-in chaos.

But I hope you know that, to me, you will always be a winner!

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Thank you!

Huge thanks to everyone who voted for me in the Idol polls! I made it through another round, and I'm now working on my 6-part portfolio project for the upcoming deadline. It's a lot of work, but I'm glad to still be here!

Now, here's something from Chuck Wendig. Chuck is an author who blogs a lot about books and heirloom apples and the writing process. He is also very anti-AI, not just AI as a substitute for creative endeavors but also because a lot of AI output is simply wrong. Here's his hilarious screed on the results of the simple question, does Chuck Wendig have a cat? Talk about a snowball effect!