Challenge Me!

[katiefoolery]

I'm still buoyed up by this rush of excitement about my writing, not to mention feeling incredibly virtuous for having spent the last hour or so cleaning up the house.  So, as I said to the mess on the kitchen table as I cleaned it: why not take advantage of these feelings of achievement and self-faith (as opposed to my more accustomed self-doubt)?

starlingthefool posted a lovely piece of writing this morning, inspired by a challenge community.  This, in turn, inspired me and I went in search of more and more challenge communities.  There are so many!  How do you choose from amongst such an embarrasse des riches?

This is where my dear friends list comes in handy (and anyone else who might be lurking around out there).  Do you have a favourite writing challenge community on LJ?  If so, please point me in its direction.  I have a feeling that if I start challenging myself in my writing on a more regular basis, I will become a far better writer indeed.

Please share.  Even if it's just a community you watch.  Fanfic, original fic, drabbles, anything!  I long for a good challenge or two!

Comments

[lexicalcrow]

I know it's designed for fanfiction, but I love the prompts for the wtf27 challenge. If you wanted some silly but very awesome prompts, go there.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Thank-you muchly! And I don't mind if it's for fanfic - I'm prepared to write anything at all. (I forgot to write that in my original post, so I've edited it in.)

[lexicalcrow]

Awesome. :D But yes. That has to be my favourite prompt list ever. The other fic challenges I'm doing are smut69 and 50kinkyways. Yay! I know there's a 100 situations challenge as well, if you wanted something less smutty. A lot of fic challenges are llinked to from the original fanfic100 community. If you hadn't noticed I know a lot of fanfic challenge communities. I know there's a couple of art challenges as well. Take your pick? :)

[rigel-7.livejournal.com]

Personally I'm a big fan of the "5 things" meme that floats around on LJ as a writing challenge.

It's a drabble challenge whereby you write 5 different variations of a theme. For example:

"Five ways in which Ryn lost her temper" or "5 places Ryn never went to" and then you would write 5 little ficlets, each explaining a different way in which this scenario might have (or might not have) occurred.

There's a Stargate Fanfic community centered around the premise (of course :P) and I very much love reading them, people are so creative with such broad prompts. sg1_five_things

[rigel-7.livejournal.com]

Also, cos you know how much I love reading other peoples fic :P

The user interest writing prompts (http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=writing+prompts) turns up many an interesting community - not all of them fandom based :D

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Thank-you! I just had a quick look at fanfic100 - so many communities! This is fun. :)

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I think I recall someone writing some of those "five things" stories on one of the FMA communities. It looked like fun. It might be something we could even introduce to LorF, just for something different. Maybe for the next anniversary of Invasion Day?

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was trying to think of which interests to search. Thanks for that. :)

[cat-eyes-el.livejournal.com]

Somewhere, somehow, I once came accross this community which had 50 themes and you picked a pairing and wrote 50 stories using one of the themes each time. It looked interesting.

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Oh, they all look interesting. That's the trouble. How are you supposed to choose?

*pokes about for a link*

[beckyo.livejournal.com]

I like this one, 7_virtues, along with the others already mentioned. I've also done 1character, 1sentence and 1fandom. Those were fun because you only get 1 sentence per prompt. Also there is 5sentence_fics. :)

[violetcreme.livejournal.com]

Well, PG fic is always stroked lovingly and we're having a bit of a dry spell at the moment !

[flamehail.livejournal.com]

Rather than giving you a link, I think I'm going to goink the ones people are giving you. Rest assured that if I had a link I'd give it to you, dear Bunn, however, I think writing is just what my life is missing now and since I haven't had any luck working on my own regular stories...I thank your friends. ^_^

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

You know, what with these little hints of yours, I'm beginning to suspect you'd like to see some Press Gang fic... ;) Trust me: if it ever happens, I'll post it for you. :D

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

I completely understand, believe me. I'm so excited at the prospect of all of these challenges and I hope they can inspire you too. :)

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Thank-you so much!

Every time I have a look at the profile pages of these communities, there are dozens of links to others, too! It never ends. It's going to take me a while to work out which challenges appeal to me the most at this rate. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Great attitude, Katie! Good luck!
~Kelly Parra

[katiefoolery.livejournal.com]

Thank-you! I'm incredibly optimistic about the whole thing. :)