LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos: "Portfolio"

[halfshellvenus]

Portfolio
Idol Wheel Of Chaos | Week 17, #1

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We're down to just five writers for Idol: Wheel Of Chaos now. This week, we're writing a portfolio that centers on five key components: our favorite story we've written, our favorite story by another author, a letter to an author from earlier this season, and stories for the prompts 6 7 and Banner year.

Choosing favorites is always hard! For my own stories, I wrote a lot of humor this season, but also some drabbles, two poems, a couple of entries with pathos, and a horror story. I considered choosing the acronym fun-fest (Going BATty), the caustic self-help guide (A New Man), the baking witch (Cursecraft), The Three Trolls from last week (Piplet!), or the souful Little Metal Hearts. But I think my best story was unlike all the others. It was a classic, timeless sort of tale with a tinge of bittersweetness. It was hardly read, because I was poisoned that week and it wasn't included in the poll, but it's the one I'm proudest of.

My favorite of my stories: Here Be Dragons

Weighing other authors' stories was just as hard. There were so many I really liked this season. From week 1, the Quality entries by bleodswean and static_abyss really stood out. rayaso's week 2 War Of The Words (the evils of ChatGPT) was a riot, as was flipflop_diva's Week 11 beleagured aliens story. serpentinejacaranda's Week 6 dreamlike political satire (Affliction In The Form Of A Question) really stuck with me, as did xeena's Blair Witch Idol Meta and l0lita's hard-hitting zombie apocalypse story. But the one I finally picked used a difficult prompt and featured a great child's voice and very real drama disguised as fiction. It was both beautifully written and painfully true.

My favorite other-author's story: inkstainedfingertip's Week 5 Toi, Toi, Toi

Next, we were to write a letter to a former contestant from the Wheel of Chaos season. There were so many to choose from: static_abyss (never here as long as I would like), bleodswean (such talent, and such a great Idol supporter), rayaso (so funny, week after week), alycewilson (talent and soulfulness all in one). I couldn't choose inkstainedfingertips because I'd picked him for my favorite other-author entry, plus he's still in the competition. So, I chose one of my overall favorites from this season AND last season (Idol Mini). She was the author whose season this was to lose, I thought, and apparently so did others because she was taken out by a targeted elimination vote after Week 10:

My letter to xeena

And finally, there were two entries to write for specific prompts:

6 7

Banner year

I hope you've enjoyed my portfolio, and the range of offerings it provided! If so, please vote for it here.

Comments

[bleodswean]

*smooch*

Rayaso got eliminated waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too soon. Way way way too soon.

Glad to see your portfolio, K! Good luck!

[halfshellvenus]

Rayaso was also poisoned, but it was JUST after the week where new/old people could come into Idol. His timing was terribly unlucky!

I'm glad I finished the Portfolio on time! It was a lot of work. :O And the HTML coding... yikes.

[bleodswean]

This season was not for the faint of heart!

[drippedonpaper]

OK, yet again, maybe I did the portfolio wrong? Because I just now see there is no way to comment on each of your individual links?

So here is a reply for 6 7:

Yes, that's the best and the hardest part of parenting....getting to "see the world as a child" again, but also ...getting to see them get their hearts broken, sometimes by similar things that broke yours.

I really loved your 6 7 entry. Made me think of a little spot I "made" in the woods when I was about 9, called "Pinecone Palace." (the name is much more impressive than the actual site, lol.)

Have you ever read the kid's book, "The Littlest Angel" by Charles Tazewell? The memory box in your story reminded me of the memory box in that book. It's one of my favorite kid books :)

[halfshellvenus]

You should be able to comment on the individual links! But I appreciate your leaving comments, period! It's gotten very sparse in these last few weeks.

I'm glad you liked the 6 7 entry. Kids create such wonderful things from their imaginations (or at least, they used to), and a lot of that is because of them being at those younger ages. SO much seems possible, and it takes so little to suggest a larger idea and let your imagination run with it. It's one of the advantages of letting kids have unstructured time (which seems all too scarce these days). They invent their own games and worlds!

I haven't read "The Little Angel." That sounds like something I would like!

[inkstainedfingertips]

You have got a wonderful portfolio. It's a beautiful curation of your journey to this point, my friend. And I am so very honored you chose mine. Thank you for that!

Wonderful work, as always.

[halfshellvenus]

Thank you! I wish I'd done something clever like your Overview entry, but I was thinking along more straightforward terms. Possibly because it took me an entire week to write the Banner Year entry. It took a lot out of me.

I loved your entry for that week. I hated the prompt, and I was blown away by what you did with it. Your story was painful and true, and something that needed to be said. It was truly my favorite entry of the whole season!

[inkstainedfingertips]

I can see why/how your banner year piece took a lot out of you. It was heavy and emotional. But it was a really amazing piece.

And it really means the world to me that my piece resonated with you. Thank you so much!