Challenges Options

[Sekhmet]

Good morning to anyone who reads this.

OK - Where are all the members when the gauntlet of a Challenge is thrown dawn?
I wander about the echoing halls of the weekly, monthly, slam, short prose, and drabble sections - and see only the same names, week after week.
It is now a cosy little corner, for just a few of us - but we need new blood to survive, and what better time than Halloween to go out and hunt for it?

Why not have an extra condition placed upon all members, (apart from the two responses to other writers' poems for each poem published) -
A response to at least one of the challenges every second month. That's sixty-odd days to think up some kind of response!

These Challenges stimulate the mind into branching off at a tangent; and are important tools in our poetic arsenal. I am amazed at what turns up, unbidden, when working on a challenge.

Surely, all the members are capable of meeting at least one of the challenges every couple of months? If not- they need assistance from the more experienced writers to achieve the required result.
When Newbies, (such as myself) squeaked;
' I know nothing about poetry criticism - I couldn't possibly crit anyone else's work.'
We were all briskly told to look at other members' crits, and do your best; you'll soon get the hang of it.

Why not give exactly the same advice to anyone who baulks at answering a Challenge? Just as in the various critical sections - the standard of work will vary,from writer to writer - but we are all learning, all the time. New Challengers will get bolder as time passes, and who knows what might be drawn forth?.

Leo

[Cleo_Serapis]

Hi Leo,

Thanks very much for offering some suggestions that will hopefully inspire others to post more (and in the different forums we offer here at MM).

While I'm not so keen on making it a requirement to have our members post responses to challenges, I do think that the suggestion has merit. There are members that simply only venture into one or two areas like the poetry for crit category and/or the challenge category with all the forums offered within them. Each persons motives and goals vary so greatly. It would be hard to moderate your idea and still allow for freedom.

I enjoy seeing a post that was created from a challenge being re-posted for critique. It's the ideas that come from the challenges that can send you off in wondrous directions. For myself, these challenges (Times Ten, Pandora, Book Titles, Drabbles and the Flashes) have inspired me to rethink the subject matter, locals, characters etc. in a positive way. It's a thrill to create a response that can be discussed, it's an even bigger thrill to take that feedback, revise the 'theme' of the response and post it for critiques.

I admit that I haven't posted the flashes as frequently as in the past. It used to be a bi-weekly thing. I just cannot always come up with ideas on the fly.

Wally -thanks for posting your ideas!!! Would you mind if I used them in future challenges? Any member can offer suggestions for any of our challenges and I very much appreciate it and will certainly post them with credit to those members shuld anyone desire to offer ideas, as is the case here in this thread.

Let's see if any others respond to this suggestion. For now, I say definitely throw the suggestions out there as you reply to others' posts.

!
~Cleo