I think (sorting it out in a very tired, very scared brain) that my problem with the painting/personals challenge is that it feels purely like head-stuff: I don't know, intellectual, amusing, nothing from the soul. That would make it a writing exercise, rather than a challenge to my creativity.

And I'm passing on anything resembling a writing exercise right now, since I'm not in a place where I feel it would be useful to me personally. Also, I don't write purely intellectual stuff, any more than I generally read it. It doesn't engage me.

But I'd love to see what everyone else comes up with for it, since everyone here is someone I know.

Man, does the above not read right. It sounds pompous as hell. Sorry. My own brain is firmly fixated today and won't deal with anything else.

Steph, maybe a personal ad from an inanimate object generally, and then the painting thing could be an example?

(Um yeah, I write and don't post drabbles about half the time.)

I still like the idea simply because I think it would be interesting to try and capture the voice of the painting (or other inanimate object). And I'm all for writing exercises lately, because my head is being stubbornly resistant to the writing I'm supposed to be doing. But if it's just me shouting yay over here, we should do something else.

And you don't sound pompous at all, Deb. {{Vibes}} if you need them.

Actually, Amy, I think the majority is firmly in favour, which is fine. Who knows, maybe something will pop out.

And thanks for any vibes. I need to get back here later in a state that isn't mush, and get some work done on something, anything at all. This particular appointment has been monopolising my life for a week.

Hey, now. Nobody sounds pompous -- I wanted input because it IS a little less straightforward than they've been in the past.

Maybe I'll make it a two-option challenge, like I did for the challenge where the drabble was supposed to be a key passage of a story; in case that topic really didn't work for some people, I suggested they just drabble about keys.

So maybe I'll do that for this one.

Like a bonus challenge? I like that, Teppy.

Like a bonus challenge? I like that, Teppy.

Bonus, or multiple-choice. You can drabble both topics, or if the painting one is too weird or just doesn't inspire anything creative, then you can drabble the alternative topic, which will be more straightforward.

Sounds cool, Teppy. The alternative could just be "paintings."

Damn, how much do I love having a medical and science writer in my writers' group?

Having run my take on "level four pathogen before we grokked there were such things, only not contagious, triggering instead" scenario for "Burden of Memory" in his lap? He came back to me within five minutes with this:

Well, off the cuff, it could be a virus that enters only the germ line and intergrates itself there. I am not sure why it would just target these cells, though it would be a really nifty way to replicate itself from host to host (being a nonlethal expression, maybe it just integrates into all cells including, for some advanced reason, germ cells). Another idea, again, just thinking out loud, is to have infection similar to the ways HIV is passed onto a baby: mom has it and during delivery the baby gets exposed and thus infected. This would only pass it along maternally, however, though that could be interesting and gets you to your next generation.

Have now pinged back going, sounds amazing. What precisely is the "germ line"?

What precisely is the "germ line"?

There are two types of cells in the body: somatic cells and germ cells. Germ cells are the reproductive cells, the egg and sperm. If your virus entered the germ line, it could be passed down through generations as well as sexually. I think it needs to penetrate more than just that for it to have physical effects on the carrier, though that might be the catch: the carrier is just that, a carrier, and it's only the child that manifests the disease, having been created via the genetically modified germ cell. Also, one of the key differences between somatic cells and germ cells is that somatic cells divide by mitosis and germ cells divide by meiosis, in which the cell divides but halves the chromosome number before undergoing a round of regular mitosis, forming four haploid cells from one diploid cell. Oh, gametes. I knew there was another word I was more used to calling them.

Now, another idea would be for it to hit any sort of stem cell, like in the bone marrow, because if it modifies those, all the various cell types it differentiates into would be affected. And there are, in fact, hematopoietic stem cells, which would be perfect.

If I've just confused you more, the answer to your question is "sex cells."