Thursday, January 06, 2011

Plinky prompts

A while back I signed up for something called Plinky, a website designed to help people write more by giving them a new writing prompt every day.  I haven't used it much because most of their questions I don't really have answers for, or don't want to write about.  I've been noticing lately though that I don't have much to say over here.  My story-telling ability seemed to desert me right about the time I started NaBloPoMo this year.  Oy, what a slog that was.  I think I may be done with that for a while unless I can get some zing back into my writing.

So this morning I wandered on over to Plinky and looked at some of the recent prompts:

"Share a memorable job interview."  Um.  The jobs were memorable, but the interviews all seemed to blend together.  Though here's a question I have vowed to never ever ask: "What's your greatest strength?  And what's your greatest weakness?"  Oh, come on.  What does this tell you about the person you're hiring except that they're really good at BS?

"What are you looking forward to this year?"  I haven't really given it much thought.  It's only 6 days into January.  I don't have plans yet for anything special this year.  I'm kind of looking forward to next Christmas, provided I get all of my projects done.  I'll bet by November I'll be shaking my fist at the calendar, wondering why I ever thought giving everyone a handmade-by-me present was such a bloody fantastic idea.  I think my mother's going to teach me how to lay tile this year as she finishes their upstairs bathroom, I'm looking forward to that.  I'm already trying to plan the garden for this spring.  I'm sure as the year progresses there will be more planned things to look forward to, but at the moment the calendar is wide open.

"What does your home say about you?"  Bwahahaha!  My homes says that I'm scatterbrained, untidy, that instead of putting things away when I'm done with them I leave them right where I last used them, and that I'm not all that bothered about living from boxes.  I have some furniture, but not a lot.  I need shelves and cupboards and more comfortable chairs (for company.  We can't all sit on the sofa at once, you see).  I clean in spurts, so the place looks great for about a week and then slowly devolves into the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock before I wake up, look around in surprise, and have another mad cleaning frenzy.  It'd be easier if I just kept on top of it, doing a little at a time.  I've tried that and I can't make it work.  I'm not built that way.  Lucky for me I live alone.  I don't think a roommate or spouse would put up with this.

"Would you ever get an e-book reader?"  A few years ago I would have said, "no."  Now I'm not so sure.  I think if I did, I'd probably get a Nook, not a Kindle, and that's mainly because of the little trick Amazon played with, of all things, 1984.  They promised never to do it again, but still.  Sellers can't do that with a paper book.  Once you buy it, it's yours.  I don't understand why they thought it was different with an electronic version.

Nothing will replace the feel of a book in my hands, though.  And?  If you put a regular book down on a table in a restaurant and go up to pay your bill (which is what I do to signal to whomever was waiting on me that I haven't left without tipping them), you won't find it missing when you come back.   I wouldn't ever try that with an e-book reader.

Apparently there was more on Plinky that I wanted to answer than I thought.  I guess I'll keep subscribing.  It doesn't cost me anything, and it does occasionally give me something to write about.

2 comments:

Hotch Potchery said...

I am seriously considering trying to read a book on my iPad...but so far, I am sticking to paper.

Anonymous said...

He got an iPad as a gift. It sat there. After a loong time I thought about the paper on iPad. Great idea! We used to not get around to reading the paper and they would pile up causing guilt(me). So it was suggested to our daughter who wanted an idea about a gift. Ta-da! Now we have a subcription to the newspaper on it and if it's not read...no accusatory papers to remind us!
Glad you're writing.