I check challenges daily. I'm very habitual,

and habits, as we know, are hard to break...

which is why it may seem difficult as to why

I've abandoned the one post a day minimum

set for myself, on inception.

For me, a challenge needs to be just on the

edge of personal significance. I need to relate.

Too intimately relevant is not for me. But if,

I can spin it into abstraction, so that it applies

across several planes of shared existence! ahh...

And, also important, mathematically, should

a challenge elicit no less than seven possible

immediate threads... then a line will surely

take the hook, and the hook shall take bait,

and maybe something sensible will catch?

In any case, I'll answer. Form is irrelevant.

Length critical. Keep it open. Time is key.

Require a specific wordage and... I can't.

Though my aim, artistically is bombastic:

I can answer Anything. In brief.

One more Thing: why not post a post???

Like rando. Ah, yes. But you see, I reply

to Challenges!! because this is at heart,

a writing community, and at root it is

Challenges that have the given 'n take;

Even if on posting... nobody replies...

my reply was a reply to a "wondering"

in someone else's mind and in this way

something like a dialog... which writing

always is... extended... when others read

01.31.2025

Challenges Challenge @KarenKitchel

I enter challenges that inspire me. For example, the asylum challenge stuck in my mind because I kept thinking about the two almost warring definitions: asylum as in seeking asylum, like refugees do when they enter the US, and asylum as in an insane asylum, somewhere people cannot necessarily leave when they want to, although that’s also true of asylum seekers of the refugee sort. The prompt called to me because both definitions brought out thoughts of desperation, which was an emotion I was also already experiencing. Question challenges are motivating because they are easy to write responses to in either prose or poetry, whereas quotes I find more difficult to write about, and I generally avoid prompts that give me a plot to follow. I’d like more prompts that start with characters (write about someone who…) although I guess that’s somewhat counterintuitive given what I just said about plots. I appreciate all the challenges, whether I write for them or not.

I like it when there are multiple ways to interpret the challenge. Otherwise I feel like someone else could post something similar and I can't add anything new.

I write when the challenge appeals to me or I get inspired reading it. The best challenges I feel are broad, vague and mostly fun. I want an idea, a spark to follow, not a shared box to dig around in with all my fellow prosers.

I enjoy it when challengers give you a title to work with or a random sentence to work into your writing. I am not on prose a whole lot, so I don't respond to a lot of challenges, but I look for specifically fiction and story writing and I don't find lots of fantasy prompts or challenges that interest me.

For myself, it can be a number of things that sometimes feel contradictory. I enjoy challenges that aren't hyper-specific in their subject matter and yet, I am often drawn to posts that ARE hyper-specific in their formatting. The specifics of the challenge are important to me, but I need to be putting my own unique thought into that.

An example of a good and bad challenge for me would be as follows:

Good:

Write a piece of prose/flash fiction under 500 words based on the quote "It all adds up to much the same on the plane of proof."

or

Write a poem in Iambic Pentameter on the subject of darkness and light.

Bad:

Steven is a 16 year old from Newport. Sick of his boring life, he decides to pack his guitar and go on the road. Any format.

(I won't write this second one out, but I am not usually a fan of being given a paragraph, or even a few sentences as an opening to a story that I should continue. I don't mind doing this sort of thing in real time with people, but not just me and one person, in this format.)

Be evocative. Be specific in your format and open with your subject matter. :)