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!

[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 :)

[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.