I think the word sacrifice has just lost all meaning.

I. love. Cindy.

New drabble time!

Challenge #106 (the In Crowd) is now closed.

Challenge #107 is a repeat, but it's been over a year since we did it, and it's one that I like quite a bit, so I'm recycling: describe a person/character by the contents of his/her [_______]. The brackets stand for "anything in which the tangible bits and bobs of your life might accumulate," like a wallet, purse, car trunk, junk drawer, desk drawer, second shelf of the refrigerator, under the bed -- anything that holds your stuff.

The LJ post for this week's topic is considerably longer than it is here, mostly b/c I know all y'all, and all y'all know me, and I just wanted to explain things fully in LJ, where I *don't* know all the community members. I figure all y'all know what I mean when I say stuff, so I don't need to elaborate. And here's what I explained:

I got an e-mail this week from someone who I assume is a member of the LJ community, pointing out that some of the posted drabbles are over 100 words, and telling me that they think the word limit is an inherent part of the challenge.

I respectfully disagree, b/c it's my community. What I care about is the quality of the writing, and if something that's stunning needs to be 126 words -- or 300 -- I'm NOT going to tell the author to chop off their baby's legs to make it fit in the cradle.

Yeah, the 100-word limit is a good aspect of the challenge, in that it forces one to consider word choice carefully, etc., but the word count is not the point of the weekly challenge, for me. Plus, nobody so far has tried to post a 1,500-word thing week after week after week. People know the 100-word thing, they aim for it, sometimes they hit it, sometimes they're close, sometimes they go way over. Doesn't matter to me. All I care about is the writing.

Plus, I ain't gonna sit there and count words. Nuh and uh.

Got your back, Tep.

Besides which, for longer pieces, people will mostly say upfront "This isn't a drabble" or "on topic, but longer than a drabble".

I truly don't think it's a big deal, but since the person e-mailed me, I figured I'd just throw it out there to the community at large.

But if they want a word counter, I'm not their man.

But if they want a word counter, I'm not their man

"Sorry, we're into the quality of the expression. Thank you for being anal about it, but you may be in the wrong place. Deal."

Teppy, I'm with you.

I can't understand why anyone would care about anyone's word count but their own, anyhow. It's not like we're winning fabulous prizes.

You may have noticed when I take you up on the weekly challenge, I generally note my word count, and I usually do stick to 100. I do try to incorporate that part of it into my response to the challenge, because it is much harder for me to say something in 100 words than it is in 1,000. But that's me, my brain, my writing style. Some people don't need that sort of challenge.

If you haven't already responded to the e-mail, you might tell the person s/he's free to include the word count parameter as one of his/her own limits, but that's not our primary purpose.

As one of the prime length "offenders" I have two special words for that person, but they have a point that the length *could* be part of the challenge. Written topiary, or something.

I think one of the nice points about this challenge, as conceived, was that Teppy's stated format allows either the concentration on the drabble aspect in its pure form - as a writing discipline - or on the topic aspect: the content.

I write both. Shall continue to do so.

Dude, I'm so bad. When I feel moved to wqrite a drabble, I think "short" and that's it. I think I did word count for maybe the first three drabbles I did here? And then I...um, didn't.

Sometimes I forget, but sometimes the longer ones are better anyway and I appreciate Tep not being Word Count Sheriff. Even if she is just on her way to Australia.