Getting The Ball Rolling

[JillStar]

This is the Coffee Shop (hence the name).

This is pretty much the place for talking about things that are NOT really, truly about writing. We can start up some of the old games which you can see in the threads below or just chat about whatever. Obviously this is not the focus of WT, but sometimes people want to chat about other stuffs.

[JB]

is there a way to post "new topic?" I may just be missing it...kinda blind today

[JillStar]

You should be able to... there should be a New Topic button at the top left side of the list of topics and under the heading Hanging Out.

Do you see that? If you can't see it then I need to fix something... lol!

[JillStar]

Anyone around?
We seem to have gone quiet again and really, until we can all come together and decide to utilize this site on a frequent basis, I'm not really thinking I'm going to spend a lot of time posting prompts and writing discussions. We'll keep the site up and running until it can't run and we'll see what happens. I'm not complaining too much because my interest level wavers.

Some of us are on FB a bit but even that is slow. I post Fast Fiction prompts there, although admittedly NOT EVERY Friday the way it's supposed to be... but I do post prompts.

It seems honestly that the Internet has become less and less interesting to people. Kind of like having a phone in your home... it just IS and we all take no more interest in it than making calls. If you get a call or make a call... whatever.

When I joined this site... what... 12 years ago or so... it was up and coming... the newest biggest thing and a great place to meet fellow writers. Now, with social media and all it has to offer (and not offer) people spend much of their time making quick posts rather than something long like this one. People just don't have time. They shorten everything and try to say much in as little words as possible.

Our attention spans have lessened to less than 180 characters and even that is asking too much for some. Writing is something that either burns you up inside or doesn't... however, there are times when it burns, fades, burns, fades... and burns again. This is much of how it is for me and poetry. I will write hard core for 6 months and then nothing for 6 months. Why is that? Distractions that last an enormous amount of time.

But I have stories burning small holes in my brain that someday may just turn me into Swiss Cheese. Our friend Timber can write a story every week it seems. I have not been one to write shorter stories as much so it's unnecessarily daunting for me... it's just a longer poem with more words.

So if and when we all come together to work on our stories, that will be great. In the mean time, I will work on my poetry and website where I post them... maybe work more on my blog and continue to be on FB until ultimately give them the finger (which may be sooner than later). Yes, I have said that off and on for years now but the only reason I'm on there is so I can stay in touch with friends who are not local. That's it. I don't use it for business and I don't use it as a journal. I just post small snippets of my life, pictures, etc... but it's really just a massive spiders web of information I can't seem to find.

Please comment here and let me know what you think. Party on dudes!

[pengwenn]

My enemy is time. I just don't have very much of it left after I take care of all the things I HAVE to do.

Granted some of those "have to" items I've self imposed on myself and could get rid of them if I wanted to. The biggest thing is that I started a YouTube channel to post videos of me playing video games. I did this because I'm a serial starter. I start a game, play until I get bored or stuck, then quit and move on to something else. My online friends hate it because I won't let talk about a game I haven't finished when they're around me. If you hold my feet to the fire I'll get things done. So . . . I started the channel and made the commitment that I for any game I posted videos for I would finish. So far it's worked. I've finished a lot of game that I probably would have just stopped playing once things got too hard.

What I didn't realized when I started this was how much of a time commitment it would be. There's playing the game and filming it, rendering it, syncing it with audio, saving it, editing it, saving it again, compressing it, and then finally uploading it. It's become a 2nd job with me spending about 20-30 hours a week just to post 5 videos a week. In addition to my regular full time job, it doesn't leave a whole lot of extra time to do other things. I've even started thinking and planning on starting a Twitch stream. I have the channel, just haven't got all the pieces in to place, not to mention finding the time to do so.

I've barely read anything lately. My cross stitch has almost gone the way of the Dodo. And I can't remember the last TV show I've watched (including hockey and baseball which I loved to watch/listen to while stitching). When I do have a free moment or two I'm usually too mentally exhausted to do anything but sit there and stare at the ceiling. I hate popcorn ceilings.

On the other hand, I follow someone online who kept talking about a book they were writing as they were playing games. Once he finished the book he did a live Twitch stream and read the book to everyone. Listening to him talk and seeing him go through the process made me get really excited to start writing again.

I pulled out an old story I was working on and read through the 30 some odd pages I couldn't remember writing half of them. The opening was very familiar to me but the rest seemed like a stranger wrote it. When I was done I started to remember where I was going with it and started planning things out in my head. I'm afraid I won't get the voice right to match up with what I already have.

It's a story that hasn't let go of me and I will finish it someday. I guess I can be grateful that all those stories in my head haven't given up hope when it seemed like the rest of me had. Those stories still believe in me and have stuck around. I guess I owe them something for that. Maybe I need to turn this site into my own "writing YouTube" so make myself make those commitments to finish the things I post here. Writing is so much more personal and vulnerable for me than playing a video game and talking about myself. Weird.

[JillStar]

Hi Pen
I know it’s been 2 years since you posted the message above but maybe you will see this. Mlou was looking for your contact info a while back and all I can find I see your blog at http://lifeofagamergirl.blogspot.com. She isn’t at Allpoetry and on her 9100’th poem. Not exaggerating. If you haven’t talked to her, please take a trip over there and say hi.

For the life of me I can’t remember if you’re on FB. There’s a small wordtrip group if you’re interested although not much going on there either. Maybe I’ll see you theres. Trying to revive this site has failed.