Writing challenges, anyone?

November 23, 2005 12:19 PM

Writing challenges, anyone? Would MF respond well to a weekly short writing challenge, perhaps posted on Fridays? Example challenge: Invent a new urban legend (in 50 words or less). There are no prizes, no scorekeeping, just for fun. Yes? No? Maybe? Try it?
posted by StarForce5 to Etiquette/Policy at 12:19 PM (31 comments total)

Hmmm, strikes me as something for MetaChat.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:26 PM on November 23, 2005 [1 favorite]

Or maybe Projects?
posted by grateful at 12:32 PM on November 23, 2005

Second the MetaChat recommendation.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:13 PM on November 23, 2005

Every day's a writing challenge around here.
posted by scarabic at 1:35 PM on November 23, 2005

New urban legend: MetaFilter has a weekly short writing contest every Friday.

And hanging from the [more inside] tag... was the hook!
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:47 PM on November 23, 2005

No.
posted by ijoshua at 1:47 PM on November 23, 2005

Won't that hurt our NaNoWriMo wordcounts? Sheesh - priorities, man, priorities!
posted by freebird at 1:56 PM on November 23, 2005

*glances at stagnant wordcount, shrugs*
posted by cortex at 2:04 PM on November 23, 2005

Not only no, but no thank you. I don't think something like this is suited for anywhere on MetaFilter.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:44 PM on November 23, 2005

I don't think something like this is suited for anywhere on MetaFilter.

Only on bizzaro mefi.

(or metafilter platinum)
posted by justgary at 2:54 PM on November 23, 2005

I think it's a great idea, but, yeah, like grateful said, it belongs on Projects. No reason you have to limit it to MeFi users either.
posted by zanni at 2:58 PM on November 23, 2005

For those of you who may not yet be aware, MetaChat is here.
posted by killdevil at 3:08 PM on November 23, 2005

Nomad's roommate in college crapped in a garbage can in the hall outside their room because he had locked himself out.
posted by Plutor at 4:11 PM on November 23, 2005

If everyone (including me, 'cause I suck as hard as the next person), put the effort into their comments onsite instead, the New Golden Age of MeFi would dawn, all a-trumpets and darting cherubs.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:13 PM on November 23, 2005

Okay, FIRST CHALLENGE:

Write the story of the September 11th attacks, from the point of view of a microbe clinging to mathowie's shorts.
posted by scarabic at 4:23 PM on November 23, 2005

And then there's constrained.org , if any one's interested in similar writing challenges.
posted by dhruva at 5:00 PM on November 23, 2005

Thisis not really what any part of MetaFilter is for, unless you want to make a larger project out of it and announce it on MeFiProjects.
posted by jessamyn at 6:10 PM on November 23, 2005

dhruva, thanks for the site. (Here's the correct link, tho...)
posted by rob511 at 6:29 PM on November 23, 2005

Kick this over to MefiProjects. I might dare you to a duel!
posted by snsranch at 7:20 PM on November 23, 2005

Metafilter: a weekly short writing contest every Friday.

(do I win?)
posted by blue_beetle at 7:50 PM on November 23, 2005

I like this idea a lot but seconding what everyone else said re: not really being appropriate on site. If you really care about it make another site and link us to it.

ps. But don't do it on metachat, I hate those dicks :]

pps. I'd be willing to help with development gratis, I've got a background in most of the potentially relevant languages.
posted by moift at 9:03 PM on November 23, 2005

Write the story of the September 11th attacks, from the point of view of a microbe clinging to mathowie's shorts.

I first met Amanda on the seat of Haughey's recumbent bicycle. She was an E. Coli who landed there in a droplet of canine saliva, I was a lowly H5N1 flu virus on a stopover, hitching rides from duck to duck. She floated by me, a blur of cilia and flagella, with a membrane that left little to the imagination. That gal was out of my league, no doubt about it, but at that moment I wanted nothing more than to be inside her, letting her polymerase scan every nanometer of my RNA... but I reminded myself that it all ended the same way -- one day you are reproducing and the next it's tears, accusations, and exocytosis, never to see her again.

Meanwhile, at thirty thousand feet above the Earth, a tragedy was unfolding...
posted by Krrrlson at 9:11 PM on November 23, 2005

Nice, posted at 9:11 PM PST.
posted by Krrrlson at 9:11 PM on November 23, 2005

Nice, posted at 9:11 PM PST.
only because the jews wanted it that way...
posted by moift at 9:20 PM on November 23, 2005

with a membrane that left little to the imagination

lol genius! Well met.
posted by scarabic at 9:33 PM on November 23, 2005

ROFL Keyboard ruined; Tears of laughter everywhere.
Krrrlson wins. Kudos to scarabic.
posted by adamvasco at 3:15 AM on November 24, 2005

Thanks for the feedback. I'll make it a separate site and announce on MeFiProjects.
posted by StarForce5 at 9:08 AM on November 24, 2005

Brilliant, Krrrlson!
posted by nobody at 10:02 AM on November 24, 2005

Holy shit that was weird... I clicked on adamvasco's ill-wrought link, which looks like this:

http://http//metatalk.metafilter.com/mefi/10629#264539

(too many https!) ...and I found myself at microsoft.com enjoying some noisy Xbox 360 flash intro. WTF? I'm not even using IE.
posted by scarabic at 12:42 PM on November 24, 2005

scarabic: "Holy shit that was weird... I clicked on adamvasco's ill-wrought link ... and I found myself at microsoft.com enjoying some noisy Xbox 360 flash intro. WTF? I'm not even using IE."

That's Firefox bug 263213. Essentially, when Firefox can't find what you're looking for, it uses a Google I'm Feeling Lucky search to bring you to what it thinks you meant. Sort of a more-flexible version of web keywords. (Type in just "ebay" and see where you end up. Or "metatalk".) The first result when you do a google search for http is.. you guessed it.
posted by Plutor at 7:15 PM on November 24, 2005

posted by killdevil at 2:01 PM on November 29, 2005