h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Effers, I'm so happy you think so!

"Well I want us to be the best...'

Effers you've uncovered our secret stratergy..

> Do people here seriously think I have a destructive motive towards New h2g2?

Yes.

Oh, was that secret? Budweiser, I thought it was the "official agenda", and the secret agenda was...

*shuts up, before I ruin it all*

*slaps TRiG on fingers*
Play nice!

You remember when I said it might get a bit long...


I don’t know if you remember the Stretcher, the writing competition which the Post ran a couple of years ago?

I loved the Stretcher. I didn’t participate, but I followed it religiously and I thought it was the most exciting thing that had happened on h2g2 for a while.

What I liked about it was that it forced people out of their niches. So if they were Edited Guide writers, here was a challenge for the Alternative Writing Workshop. If they usually wrote stories, here was a poetry challenge.

What I liked about it was that was individual, but also collective. So if the prompt was ‘shell’ (as I believe once it was), you had a whole bunch of people writing on the same topic, except, of course, that they really didn’t. The fun there was seeing how each individual would interpret the task. Or get round it, in the case of the more proscriptive ones (the acrostic challenge still makes me hyperventilate in fear).

What I liked was those prompts. Constraints. Challenges. I thought that in the interpretation, in overcoming them, people outdid themselves.

What I liked about it was the camaraderie. Not just among the competitors, although if they don’t feel a special sort of something for each other even now I’d be a bit surprised, but among everybody following. I liked the fact that it generated comments and discussion and disagreements and opinions.

What I didn’t like about it was that once it started, you couldn’t just join in. Well, you could. I actually, and this is something pretty unusual for me, submitted a Guide Entry to PR in response to one of the prompts, but you weren’t in the group proper, and if one of the group proper did miss a task, that was them done.

So Create is, in part, a sort of sustained and sustainable Stretcher. We plan to have a set of tasks each month, each aimed at different areas of h2g2. You (and by this I mean the general you, not a specific you) could take part in them all one month and none the next and one or two the following month. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t sign up when we launched, or even if you miss the beginning of each month.

Regarding the tasks themselves, I don’t myself see it as particularly aimed at new writers, although I am concerned that we don’t exclude new writers or members of h2g2. The idea is to have a range of tasks. If you think the recipe share is a soft writing option, which as a writing topic it is, then fair enough, you should see the one we are working on for next month. But then next month, the poetry challenge might be easier than this month’s one (if we have one – we’re not quite that far ahead), set by Minorvogonpoet, who I don’t believe was pulling her punches at all. I certainly didn’t ask her to! Incidentally, she also had a poetry challenge in the Post in the last few weeks. And if you don’t think Trillian’s Child’s story challenge is a challenge in every sense of the word, I shall look at you in disbelief, at least until you’ve actually taken it.

That said, I don’t think recipes are not a valid topic for the Edited Guide, and Create is also just about giving people ideas (I’d say inspiration, but I don’t want to get too carried away) and, yes, a bit of a push. I am aware and in awe that there are people on this earth who see the virgin untouched vistas of the Edited Guide and just want to dive in, who do dive in. Or people who are able to (or perhaps not able not to) write a story, maybe even literature, powered by nothing more than their own inspiration (I’ll use the word this time), but I am not one of them. So Create is for people like me, who like a bit of a spur to get them out of bed in the morning and in front of the typewriter. It doesn’t have to be art, it just has to be something that makes me finally get around to figuring out how the zoom function on the camera works.

That said, I do fundamentally disagree that having a task, a spur, a prompt, a challenge, a proscription, call it what you will is the death of creativity. I don’t think I need to actually drone on about this myself much, though, because I can just wave my hand at some of the posts from the NaJoPoMo project, some of which were nothing short of outstanding pieces of writing and thinking. And yet that came out of what is an extremely proscriptive and utterly mundane prompt, ‘post a journal entry every day for a month’.

So, where was I? Create’s aim, then, is just to provide a range of tasks, a range of topics, aimed at a range of different aspects of h2g2 and with a range of difficulties all in one place on a regular basis. Nobody has to take part, and once I am reasonably confident that everybody has heard of us and is checking up to see what we’ve got, I may stop spamming the convos to bring tasks to to people’s attention. May…

In fact, and this is a comment for Effers, to be perfectly frank with you, the idea you had about the bookcases was exactly the sort of thing, in both the task itself and the spirit of exhibition rather than competition, that I actually mean for Create to be. If that hasn’t been clear and if it isn’t clear now, then obviously I am not getting the point of Create across properly and I would welcome any feedback on how to convey what Create is/ could be better.

To which end, is it the tone? I know that you, Effers, and I fundamentally disagree about how funny Eddie the shipboard computer from the Hitchhiker books is to channel when writing announcements from when I was doing the Consortium blog. I haven’t for example, toned down the titles of the tasks in response to another horrified comment about the ‘Pimping…’ one (in my own defence my cooking magazine, has an article on ‘pimping your Christmas pudding’ this month. Actually, that probably is the reason I shouldn’t have used that title). What about everybody else?

And that’s it really. Except to say that t really isn’t because the whole project really is up for grabs. Nothing, and I do mean this, is set in stone, even its existence. If it turns out not to be what h2g2 wants, then I really don’t mind if it fizzles out. If you want to change the name, feel free to suggest something. Destroy has a certain ring. If you want particular tasks, or never to see that task again, tell me. If you want to write the Create page in a more sedate style, or have me submit it to you for toning down before it goes live, that’s great. Really. We are recruiting. We even have a name for the Create volunteers.

I wanted ‘Creationists’ but I was overruled.

We are ‘Creationeers’.

*runs*

Oh yes, the Stretcher archive: A45104906

just got in and looked at this back log and my god any chance of a

There you are, RjR

And pants, I meant to say 'I have toned down the wording of the titles of the tasks' not haven't. Ah well, if that is the only typo...

I think I'll have a after all that typing too.

Hey I just started up on the first entry of my project, it moves so slowly...it doesnt seem to grow - and this is just the first

I can't believe you did all that on a typewriter, Sol.


(Paragraph 10, I think)

Ta! Bel

Inspiration is constantly sought, and rarely found. Having something like Create is having something that may just trigger that spark that you need.

My uncle was an arts teacher of the old school variety. He'd go up the hill at the back of his house most weekend mornings with his paints, waiting for sunrise just in case it was a good one he could quickly sketch and paint. He'd also wander around with a camera to take photos of textures he saw that he wanted to then try and incorporate in his pottery.

My aunt was an artist and photographer, she never went anywhere without her camera. She was the one who introduced me to the phrase "The best possible camera to have, is the one you have on you." You never knew what you'd see while you were out that triggered that perfect shot.

My grandma was an English teacher and a published writer. She kept a note book on her since she was 14 and would constantly jot down in it little things that she saw that may or may not give her ideas for something to write about.

I myself am a produced playwrite, won best new writer for East Anglia when I was 18. I've had two plays I've written put on by theatre companies. I'm constantly making notes on my phone whenever I see or think of something that would fit well into a story.

The thing is, you can't force creativity, but you can be inspired by what you see. Whether it's a sunrise over country fields, tree bark with the dew glistening, someone walking a duck on a leash, or a little kid eating an ice cream. Whether it's the interaction of an old couple on a park bench, slowly turning to gaze at each other remembering their youth as they see a younger couple walk past hand in hand, or a mother feeding the ducks with her young child. Whether it's a cover of a comic book, a phrase some in a pub says, or a joke you over hear, or whether it's a competition idea, inspiration comes in many forms.

I applaude Create.

If people seriously think I have a destructive motive, I won't hang around then...but to be honest it's already mostly dead...Happy NaJoPoMos.

I'm slowly leaving along with anhaga. There's nothing to stay for creatively though if CREATE is where its at, and people are intelligent enough to comprehend the concept of DESTROY.

Irony died with Aunty.