DISCUSSION THREAD -- JANUARY 2023 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge

[farntfar]

Congratulation Ashleyne.

I would also like to agree with Cat's about the excellent title of Victoria's story.

 

[Bowler1]

Well done @Ashleyne, enjoy the sweet taste of victory. You had a great idea so it was well deserved.

 

[OuttaInc]

Congrats @Ashleyne on the win, and to everyone who participated! I love these 75 word challenge, and I'm always better off for having done it.

(And thank you to @Artoriarius and @Hugh for the unexpected votes... made my day!)

I've posted mine up in the Improving thread for feedback if anybody is so inclined.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Thanks for the vote, @farntfar!

Felicitations, @Ashleyne!

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Congratulations @Ashleyne . Fantastic story!

Thanks to @The Judge , @BT Jones , @Ashleyne and @Yozh for the votes.

Thanks also to @johnnyjet , @M. Robert Gibson , @OuttaInc , @Wayne Mack , @paranoid marvin , @Hugh , @Elckerlyc for the mentions

 

[mosaix]

Thanks to @nixie, @johnnyjet, @Vince W, @sule, @Elckerlyc and @farntfar for the mentions / shortlists.

A special thanks to @OuttaInc for the vote.

 

[Elckerlyc]

My story got 3 mentions. So, all hail @THX1138, @M. Robert Gibson and @Hugh for recognizing quality when they saw it.

 

[Aknot]

Congratulations Ashleyne! Well deserved

 

[Shyrka]

Damn, I thought I had more time to get my vote in. A thousand apologies - time just got away from me this month. I had started building a shortlist but was too busy prevaricating.

 

[JS Wiig]

@Ashleyne congratulations!

 

[Phyrebrat]

Oh, the shame!

Dan, Harebrain and I have just been recording the March episode of Chronscast and I learnt that I've missed poll for the 75 word challenge, even though I entered!

So, before any thanks for shortlistings and votes, I'd like to offer a huge apology and beg forgiveness!

Congratulations, @Ashleyne ! I have a good feeling about you choice for theme and genre for Feb

Many thanks for the shortlist for my sad salmon story, and to @Venusian Broon @Parson @Cat's Cradle and @Ursa major many many thanks for yer votes. It's bad enough to not vote, but to get four and not vote is shameful. :/

In Battlestar Galactica (2004 - ) there is an in-world poet called Ketaris (or Kataris?) which Starbuck quotes: 'From the darkness you must fall, failed and weak, to darkness all' which has stayed with me for years -- I use it as a motivation meme for the kids I teach. I wanted to use a version of this couplet to make the title and last line rhyme. And of course my obsession with entropy...

 

[BigJ]

Congratulations @Ashleyne on the victory; it was the winner for me as soon as I read it.

Thanks for the mention from @THX1138 for keeping my story from pulling a double-zero this month.

Now that that's settled, maybe a few more of you can put something together for the 300. That thread is a little thin at the moment . . .

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Now that that's settled, maybe a few more of you can put something together for the 300. That thread is a little thin at the moment . . .

Working on it.

 

[Parson]

Congratulations @Ashleyne. Nicely done.

-------------------------

My own story came about through the convergence of two things. I had the idea that I wanted to do a story of someone intending to do something for the last time, but could not. When I was thinking about this I realized that this is really pretty much my own story. I've fought my weight for my whole life. I did the Atkins Diet, twice. I also spent a summer running and eating mostly meat and salads. I joined Weight Watchers. I went for Hypno-therapy. And then I had a lap-band installed. I lost weight on every one of them. Usually around 40 pounds, and I always put the weight back on and then some. The lap band I had about 10 years ago was by far the most successful. In the end I lost about 90-120 pounds (depends on when you count I started because in preparation for the surgery you begin a diet.) I've gained about half of that back, proving that it too is no "easy" fix. In all of those attempts, I've tried more times than I could count to give up a certain food. I'd eat and say something like "That's the last cookie I'll ever eat." And of course, since I didn't die; it wasn't. I have all of the signs of being addicted to food. (so @Victoria Silverwolf had the story pegged right on.) But I was most happy when I remembered a part of Robert Heinlein's book "Between Planets" when the main character is treated to a fancy restaurant meal on Venus and finds that he's eating a baby moveover and feels like a cannibal. (I'd be interested in knowing if anyone caught that reference.)

 

[THX1138]

@Parson I haven't read the book yet myself, but I did get the addiction reference.
Thanks for sharing good Parson, and keep going.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Many congratulations!

 

[The Judge]

Congratulations, Ashleyne! Commiserations to the nearly-theres!


Real life intervened so I had time to vote but nothing else on Saturday, so no shortlist from me for a change, and no thanks list, either. I think I've now "liked" everyone who mentioned or shortlisted my piece; apologies if I've missed anyone.


If anyone was confused by my story, the title comes directly from the medieval tapestries made around 1500 in the Low Countries called La Chasse à la licorne literally, the Hunt of the Unicorn, and the plot came from me recalling the myth that the beast can be captured by a virgin and mis-remembering the last image in the sequence and an earlier scene

which I'd also managed to conflate with the other series of tapestries made at about the same time and place, La Dame à la licorne where the lady and the unicorn sit quietly together (and with a lion) and there's no violence used against the beast. (The earlier scenes in La Chasse actually involve a proper hunt with dogs and huntsmen with weapons, and the unicorn is killed.) I was trying to juxtapose the fantasy of capturing something pure and lovely of any kind against the messy reality.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Congratulations @Ashleyne. Nicely done.

-------------------------

My own story came about through the convergence of two things. I had the idea that I wanted to do a story of someone intending to do something for the last time, but could not. When I was thinking about this I realized that this is really pretty much my own story. I've fought my weight for my whole life. I did the Atkins Diet, twice. I also spent a summer running and eating mostly meat and salads. I joined Weight Watchers. I went for Hypno-therapy. And then I had a lap-band installed. I lost weight on every one of them. Usually around 40 pounds, and I always put the weight back on and then some. The lap band I had about 10 years ago was by far the most successful. In the end I lost about 90-120 pounds (depends on when you count I started because in preparation for the surgery you begin a diet.) I've gained about half of that back, proving that it too is no "easy" fix. In all of those attempts, I've tried more times than I could count to give up a certain food. I'd eat and say something like "That's the last cookie I'll ever eat." And of course, since I didn't die; it wasn't. I have all of the signs of being addicted to food. (so @Victoria Silverwolf had the story pegged right on.) But I was most happy when I remembered a part of Robert Heinlein's book "Between Planets" when the main character is treated to a fancy restaurant meal on Venus and finds that he's eating a baby moveover and feels like a cannibal. (I'd be interested in knowing if anyone caught that reference.)

I was intrigued by your story Parson, but in the end I just didn't know what a baby moveover was.

 

[Luiglin]

Congrats @Ashleyne.

Apologies, never got my vote in. Deadline day passed me by, like most of Jan.

 

[Ursa major]

On the off-chance that some readers didn't notice -- and as a footnote, so to speak -- my story of human ascendance (of the "uploaded into a computer" kind) was interlaced with a few mentions of shoe-related items (one of them "misspelt"): last, sole, cobblers, clogs and boots.