Journaling Game Guidelines

The #Journaling Game’s mission is to promote a sense of security and compassionate, constructive interaction to improve the community members’ quest as authors.

Inasmuch as the creative process, manifested in any medium, is a raw, bare flesh exposure of artists’ hearts and souls, joys and aches, conceits and insecurities, often communities built around the experience of writing are neither as kind nor as honest as they could be.

This place is different from any other you may have encountered–here, your fellow writers and the folks gathering to read understand and appreciate the angst associated with sharing personal works AND the compulsion to bare your Self to the world.

We are novices, veterans, not yets and still working, amateurs and professionals. We are not never will bes, never beens, has beens. We are writers by birth, by calling, by desire.

Come write, read, share with us.

To participate, please do one or all of the following things:

1. Submit a #journaling phrase.

Journaling game phrases come from poems, stories, novels, articles, conversations, eavesdroppings, flotsam and jetsam, anywhere you can snatch a snippet to inspire.

Sometimes full sentences are submitted. I either choose to allow the whole sentence or edit the sentence for concision. For this exercise type, short, thought-provoking but non-directive phrases work best as they permit author freedom.

Example:

Every glance was smooth caress, and Ann was sweet heat dissolution beneath his friction fingertips.

I like this sentence. In fact, I wrote it just now in demonstration. If I were to use such as a #journaling game prompt, I’d choose only a provocative portion–
“sweet heat dissolution” or “friction fingertips.”

Such allows each author to decide various, innumerable paths to storytelling.

2. Visit this blog to find the phrases for each edition. Choose one, some, or all of the phrases to inspire your story and to drive it. Writing from your own phrase is fine (I do it myself from time to time), but do yourself the favor of checking out the others. Those that seem the most challenging, even those that may strike you as trite, deserve a second glance and provide the greatest challenge (and that’s really the fun of the exercise, right?).

None of the phrases is ever truly trite–if they seem such, please take a moment for introspection as this notion reveals more about your stretch as am author than it does about the phrase submitter.

3. Relax, breathe, and write.

This exercise is, above all else, about discovery or celebrating the joy of writing. Writing is pleasure, bliss, liberation, therapy, privilege, and right. Find your voice.

Write anything you want, too. Possibilities include poems, stories, songs, tirades, speeches, lists, letters, defenses, soliloquys, jokes, anything you can imagine.

Do be considerate of the group. Taboos may be explored, but a certain sense of good taste will be upheld. I’m neither easily insulted nor a proponent of censorship, but–especially as my name is associated with this–I will ensure that the pieces included converge for quality and literary value.

I recommend 10-15 minutes of writing, but feel free to follow your energy. No minimum or maximum lengths.

4. Submit to me. Submit. To. Me.

nolaerus@yahoo.com

I love to read and post your work, but I’m a busy lady, too, so please understand if it takes me a day or two to get back to you.

Pieces must be attached to an email with the subject line “#journaling game submission.”

If you would like to have me include a link to your blog, please include the URL in a two sentence bio line at the bottom of your story submission attachment. Bios will be edited as necessary.

If you prefer anonymity, please make a note of that in your email.

Twitter username links will be used for every submission, unless the submitter specifies anonymity.

5. Read your fellow authors’ works.

The authors I’ve met and meet here are friendly, engaged, bent on self-improvement, and highly entertaining. You’ll find romance, humor, horror, sci-fi, mystery, creative nonfiction, and various genres represented. How cool to have them all right here, some from established authors, others from up-and-coming voices. In fact, a few professional authors have found their start right here.

6. Join the conversation.

Authors yearn feedback. Keep the comments constructive and fair. If you have a beef with a particular author, find a better venue for tackling that. This community is about celebrating our roles as artists and audiences. Period.