LJI Decathlon!

[aggienaut]

   Good morning LJ Idol, and welcome to another episode of Meta-BBQ on the Fourth Wall Patio (sponsored by Acme Paperclip Co).

   It's nice to see you are all commenting that you and your partners are just finishing up and posting your entries. Especially since I STILL DON'T HAVE A PARTNER. I hope you all have horribly awkward slow speed pedestrian collisions caused by you and a stranger botht trying to pass eachother on the same side of a hallway!!!

   I kid I kid, I would never wish that on anyone some of you.


   I've had a lovely day so far. Called Australia around 5am my time to get her just past midnight Valentine's day there, and then this afternoon while I was out on the bowsprit of the Pilgrim furling the foresail I got a text from Belgium (well via twitter) advising me of a potential LJI partner.
   And incidentally then I went up to the top of the mast and stood on the royals yardarm (90 ft up or so) without holding on to anything, which I probably wouldn't have done if I'd known that my harness wasn't properly rigged on right at the time. Oops. (:


   But on with your weekly dose of meta:


LJ IDOL DECATHLON!!!
   In the spirit of the olympics, I am declaring an LJ Idol Decathlon!! This is of course not an "official" element of the game and is not sponsored by Gary or otherwise to be confused with the sanctity of official business, but it WAS cleared with him so you can be relatively confident participating won't get you burned at the stake for blasphemy.

   The idea is this. I'm a big fan trying to submit a wide variety of different entries, and want to encourage everyone else to try out different things as well. So it's a decatholon of different techniques!
   What I mean by this is, in order to complete the decathalon, one is to have at least one (and no extra points for more than one) entry in ten of the following categories. A single entry can count in multiple, and any official LJI entry previous to or after this is valid for consideration. The categories:

1. Non-fiction
2. Fiction
3. Serious
4. Humorous
5. Narrative
6. Essay
7. Verse
8. Prose
9. creepy - I'm talking twilight zone creepy
10. sci fi
11. drawn (2)
12. phone post (2)
13. vlog (3)
Edited-to-add:
15. Script (Screenplay / play / etc)
16. Historical Fiction

Edited-to-add: when going through past entries to see what qualifies, please keep in mind the purpose of this: to encourage you to write entries that may be significantly different from your existing entries. You may have an entry that is a little bit funny, but is it, you know, "a humorous entry?" You know what I'm talking about, those ones with something hilarious (or at least attempting to be) every few lines, humour running throughout -- a humorous entry. And the same goes for other categories. If you haven't done one that clearly would be identified as "a ______ entry," count it as something you still need to do!

   The categories with a 2 or 3 count as 2 or 3 categories, respectively, because it takes a lot more effort to draw and edit something together. And phone posts, I don't know about you but I find it strangely difficult to get a phone post to sound like a well composed entry. And video, I don't have the faintest idea how to edit together and/or they're always a monster to upload and host somewhere so good luck with that.
   If you can think of a category I forgot I'll take suggestions for additional categories. No there will not be a slash fic category.

   I really hope some of you are up for this extra challenge, I know I can never resist an extra challenge personally. There will be no one winner so much as I'll make a list of those who successfully qualify as idol decathletes, and those who make the list can, you know, bask in the glory.

   To officially* participate in the Decathlon, please comment to the comment, noting which of your entries fulfill which categories.

(*officially only under the authority of the Echidna Media Organization)


The LJI Luge has been cancelled.

Next season we'll have LJI Rhythmic Dance

Comments

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Eh no by creepy I mean the twilight-zone esque entries some people sometimes write.

That one I'd probably categorize as non-fiction serious narrative prose.

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't think it would be creepy for this. I thought you might've been referring to like the zombie stories people do (I actually can't remember if I read any of those, though).

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hmm maybe I should make a category for "fantasy / fantastical" for things like zombies. Because I think that's distinct from the twilight zone creepiness. Hmm I have to think of how to phrase the genre to get at what I'm intending it to include (also any magic / dragons / you know, fantasy stuff). I'm not sure my own zombie entries would qualify, as they didn't include any actual zombie appearances! (:

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

I suspect there are a few more categories you could include like that. Or just use movie genres? Horror/thriller/comedy (which you already have)/drama (which could be the "serious" I guess)/action/sci fi (as you've got)/fantasy/porn (LOL)/etc....

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hmm yeah there's definitely more genre categories than I have. "Creepy" is probably not optimally named either. Action is obviously a genre in video media but I'm not sure how it translates here. I guess that corresponds to those novels referred to on their jackets as "thrillers." I'll definitely continue to think about how I can better arrange the genre categories. I want to balance encouraging creativity with not-accepting-just-any-old-thing-so-people-can-get-gratuitous-amounts-of-points. (:

Pending optimization of the genre categories I'm certainly willing to take case by case submissions

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

hehe, fair enough. I shall hold off posting anything until you have determined all the categories you want to use :)

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Oh I'd say go forward with it, I really can't guarantee I'll come up with an overhaul of the categories in a timely manner. I've renamed "comedic" to "humorous" though. And like I said you can list "screenplay" as a category.

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

Okay, no problem! I will probably start working on that next then, because it seems less daunting than reading the 14 odd entries that've been posted this week and I haven't read yet :)

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

That = a humorous piece?

I used to write a fair bit of humorous stuff but I ran into someone I used to write with the other day and realized that I think I've been really slacking in that category.

Markmade is definitely the idolist that comes to mind when I think humorous entries.

And I'm still standing by to "start working" on my entry this week. Being partnered with Jack Batelin means even more than usual my hands are tied until I find out where he wants to take it!!!!

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

No, that = sorting my posts into categories and linking them for the decathlon :) (I think I can categorise my screenplay as humorous).

Oh, absolutely, I love his entries. That's why I was so pleased I got to work with him last week :D I think you've had at least one somewhat humorous entry for Idol this season. The pagan one? (That was for Idol, right?) I can't think of any others off the top of my head. Well, last week's comic, but I suspected you didn't mean humorous comics.

I suspect he might choose The Place That Can Not Be, going by what he's written recently.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Oh I think humorous comics totally qualify. The pagan one hmm.. I don't know I might actually go with "serious" for that because I'm making a dead serious point, one that offended a number of idolists. ...and thne I made a follow up to drive my point home to those same offended individuals :D But for humorous I mean not just having a "lol I can't believe you went there" ending but tending to be humorous (or at least try) throughout.

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

Hmm, see, I guess for me humour can come in different forms, but I see what you mean.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Oh and on that note, I'm not sure I'd categorise the screenplay as such. I mean I think my comment to it started with "lol," but as I noted above, by comedic I mean those entries that have an attempt to be humorous running throughout /:

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

The idea of Jessica believing that sort of stuff isn't funny? Maybe I'll just have to make another attempt at humour. I can always re-submit something different for humorous later anyway.

It's a bit odd, given I perform stand up comedy, that I actually haven't written anything else for Idol that could probably be classified as humorous.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Time break it out! (:

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

I know, I'm sure people have been waiting for me to do so!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hooray! And see that's what I wanted to come of this decathlon, people to realize what they hadn't done yet and do it!

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

I like doing things that are a bit different every week to keep things interesting anyway, but most of the time that's just been me trying to talk about a specific subject that I hope no one else picks so I stand out ;)

I did have an idea for something humorous once, so maybe a topic will come up where I'll get to write that one :D

Although I don't think I will ever do verse! (I would not be able to pull it off).

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Plus the categories other than genres I don't expect to change much.

HisFic

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Okay I added screenplays to the official list and also "historical fiction." How could I forget the latter, it's one of my favourite things???

Re: HisFic

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I like the idea of historical fiction! Partly because I have an unfinished novel along those lines. :D

Re: HisFic

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Oh? What about?

I really like historical fiction. (: I would definitely like to encourage people to write it. (though it takes a lot more research than just writing out an entry off the cuff, and can sometimes be a bit painful if they're writing things I know are not accurate about a time/place)


And I'm regretting I don't have any icons suitable specifically for talking about hisfic, I might need to work on that. :D

Re: HisFic

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

I planned on setting it around Julius Caesar's time, when he captured Alexandria. But I admit I need to do a lot more research before I can write it successfully. It's actually meant to be a bit of a sci-fi piece too, and involves time travel :D

Re: HisFic

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah them things take research. I rather want to write a hisfic novel myself but yeah the amount of research behind it is very intimidating.

Re: HisFic

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I'm rather intimidated by research myself.