Party Time! Come See What’s New at Tuesday’s Writing Essential

If you have been around Gather longer than five minutes, chances are you’re already tired of hearing me complain about games, or you’ve grown weary of hearing others complain about me complaining about games. If you will stick with me here, I am going to change my tune – a little.

Jennifer Hodge offered me a much-appreciated opportunity to combine fun and writing in the role of Gather Writing Essential’s Tuesday Member Editor. At first, editor sounded too much like a four-letter word beginning with the letter ‘w’. This was scary to someone whose mother spent forty years trying to convince her that life is not a party, and who would rather play than w—k . . . Quick! Someone name a safer word that starts with the letter ‘w’.

When the initial shock wore off, I realized that, with a little creativity, I could turn games into writing, and with a lot of coercion I might convince my political friends to join my writing friends in some activities, and people who have never written before might enjoy creating characters and sticking them in stories that others have already written, and we could turn Gather into one huge writing game. And readers might stop by to tell me that sentences like that last one make their eyes bleed and their heads spin, and editors might want to tell me I can’t write run-on sentences like these, no matter how excited I am, and with all those people here it would feel like a party.

If I can make it more like a party than a four-letter word that starts with the letter ‘w’, I’m game. That’s what I plan to do on Tuesdays, and hope you will join me. If you’ll overlook the troll, grammar police, and elitist tags I’ve collected around here, I’ll show you who I really am and how we can have a great time writing and playing together.

I believe the person who said we all have a book in us (anybody want to name that person, or would it be more fun to attribute it to the person commenting below us), and I know every one of us can spill our book onto paper – or screen for the more dedicated tree huggers – with the right encouragement and commitment. Not to shortchange my self-esteem, but I cranked out nine novels, everyone else can do one.

Before you panic, I’m not asking anyone to submit a novel for Tuesday Writing Essential. My plan is to organize (another word that scares me) ongoing, interactive projects through which we will develop characters through games, turn personal experiences into fiction, have our characters interact with one another, sneak them into each other’s work, and write stories together - some of which you might want to expand into novels.

Even if you aren’t interested in writing a novel, I hope you will hang around as a reader, a player, or an editor – at least long enough to create a character with the rest of us. That way, you will be prepared if you decide to join in later.

Since my plan involves assigned projects, and to accommodate a range of schedules and time zones, the currently posted project will be for submissions on the following Tuesday. I will specify dates when posting, to make this clearer.

Today, February 24, 2009, will be an open fiction day for submissions. I will feature writers, readers, nitpickers, and gracious hosts.

The exercise for submissions next Tuesday, March 3, is to create a physical description for the character you would like to enter in this game (almost like creating an alter only we’ll be proud to claim them because we’ll know how to keep them in character), and to invite your friends to join the Gather Writing Essential group so they can write with us.

Things to include in your physical description (game association – “tag one another” lists that are going around): Name, gender, age, nationality, height, weight, body type, hair/skin/eye color, clothing style, marital/family status, car, career

Tags: fiction, funtue1, character development

In keeping with Gather Writing Essential goals (The Writing Essential was created as a home for Gather writers to congregate and publish their work and receive constructive criticism, as well as to share their experiences and ask questions about the craft of writing), I ask you not to cross-post with any group whose primary reason for existence is to attract views for points or rating boosts, generic comments, picture comments (this is about writing so we should use words), or to pay anything forward or backward. Those comments will distract from pertinent discussion. Also, in order to satisfy the group’s stated atmosphere of congregation and discussion, comments must be open to everyone, without moderation, and only removed if they violate TOS or require an adult flag that the posting member has not opted to use.

I look forward to spending Tuesdays with you and welcome your comments and suggestions on this thread.

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Links to character profiles created by members here