Tag: assignment

  • Sleeping Through Class

    I have a confession to make.

    I have not been a very consistent Confabulator Cafe reader.

    Because I have a life, and sometime between that and keeping up with Facebook and LOLcats posts, the Confabulator Cafe just keeps stacking up in my feed reader. I have to choose how to use my time— do I want to write for the Cafe, or do I want to read it? Pick one.

    And so, with a heavy heart and no small amount of guilt, every few months I declare blogroll bankruptcy and Mark All Read. No more Crunchy Betty. Sayonara Captain Awkward. Goodbye Unf*** Your Habitat.

    I expect things will be somewhat better from now on, though. I’ve taken up Editor Minor duties at the Cafe. Another year of Nanowrimo has reinforced bonds of friendship and resparked my interest in how other writers do their thing. I’ve reoriented my blogroll away from cute cat videos and more towards literature.

    We started this experiment a year ago. We’re still here. This exercise in group writing, which could easily have died of neglect well before the last frost date still has a dozen active participants. We still like one another, we’re each still posting pretty much every week, and we have yet to run out of things to write about. So let’s keep going and see how far this road will take us.

  • Bring me another!

    We have been asked to look back at all our assignments over the last year and pick a favorite. I’ve been over the calendar multiple times, trying to think of a specific week that spoke to me. I’ve scanned over the posts, mine and my colleagues, waiting for something to jump out.

    Nothing has. It isn’t that we haven’t had interesting assignments. We have. It isn’t that we haven’t had good contributions. They have been great. The more I’ve tried to isolate an assignment, and the more I have failed to do so, I’ve realized my brain just doesn’t work that way.

    Ask me about my favorite story I’ve written this year, and I won’t be able to answer it. I’ve already moved on. I rarely think about the things I have written in the past, unless I am currently re-writing or submitting them. The other day, a guy I know asked me a question about “Perfect 10,” a horror story I wrote for Insomnia Press. It took me a second to understand what he was asking about. I hadn’t thought much about the piece since it got published. (more…)