A Mad Dash Across the Finish Line!

Okay, wow, this was a crazy rush! But I had a lot of fun with it, despite my self-judgements and comparisons to the other participants. Judey really gave us a stress test!

Just some preamble.

I tried to do this challenge a few days ago and ended up cheating. Honestly, I just came to it with the wrong headspace and intentions, so I don’t think it really counted. I felt the obligation to start all over again, so this is the real version. And yes, it is very stream of consciousness, and jumps from topic to topic like crazy.

Without further ado:

Timer starts…NOW!

1. Okay, the last time I tried this, I was going too hard.
2. One thought per number.
3. Let’s do this.
4. I am freaking out with the timer, but Imma ignore it.
5. I have a really annoying song in my head.
6. I heard it on YT shorts today.
7. The way songs get stuck in my head is crazy and I don’t like it.
8. Do we think concerts are a good or bad thing in society?
9. Like the amount of money that goes into them seems potentially damaging (to society).
10. But then again, people’s happiness is priceless.
11. I’m erring on the side of good.
12. But I prefer small concerts without all the fanfare.
13. Some middle ground is fine.
14. I hate the auditorium concerts.
15. Too expensive, too loud, too much.
16. Art is so cool.
17. I want to write more stories and poems based on fine art.
18. I’m having trouble writing the myth challenge.
19. I don’t know what I want to focus on.
20. Origin of what???
21. I’ve been so thirsty today.
22. Anyone else experiencing weird allergies, like only in the morning, only for an hour or so, then nothing the rest of the day?
23. I’ve discovered a new band (new to me), Greta van Fleet.
24. Cannot get over how good their songwriting and melodies are. Amazing talent.
25. I have so many Beat stories planned, but haven’t written anything for them yet.
26. I’m so slow with my ideas.
27. I have a list of Glimmers that serve as a catch-all for writing inspiration
28. Includes things like lines, concepts, stuff I see, connections I make, songs I listen to, etc.
29. How are people succeeding at this challenge?! Ugh.
30. I am going to fail so early.
31. I have so many conspiracy theories running through my brain these days.
32. I’m a skeptic on so many things.
33. Andrei Z wrote a good poem about paranoia.
34. I can’t fathom how some people have written over 1000 stories or close to it on Vocal, and all in like 2 years. How???
35. I’ve discovered Haiku is a form of poetry I love and that comes pretty easily.
36. I like the challenge of brevity Haiku poses.
37. And syllables over rhyme is more approachable for me
38. I have to focus so hard to write in meter and rhyme
39. I love slant rhyming and free form better.
40. Google docs is my go to place for writing.
41. I can’t start a story on Vocal.
42. It’s daunting.
43. How many of you do it there versus in Notes or by hand or Google Docs?
44. Okay, 13 minutes. I’m halfway done, almost exactly.
45. Just gotta go fast to make up for 10 behind.
46. Ugh I feel my brain freeze up with this time crunch.
47. I wonder what we’ll learn about the world when we die that we are so wrong about while alive.
48. I believe in an afterlife.
49. I don’t think we engage with the real world.
50. I hate cities.
51. I might end up living nomadically one day soon.
52. American architecture is so ugly.
53. I want to live somewhere beautiful.
54. I don’t care if it’s in surrounding nature or in a town.
55. I just want the place to have designed beauty.
56. Not the bullshit boxes that litter landscapes.
57. There is so much ugliness in the world.
58. I crave such a different life.
59. Both visually and spiritually.
60. This past month has really changed my views on these things.
61. It’s been hot there.
62. I’m in colorado.
63. 90 degree days are not fun.
64. The sun feels evil.
65. I really want to go to a reservoir to be near water but the sun feels like it wants to melt my flesh off.
66. I get sunburned so easily.
67. I know I'll get skin cancer one day.
68. Driving has been frustrating lately.
69. I try not to hate drivers but it’s so hard.
70. People drive terribly.
71. That’s probably true everywhere.
72. But it seems especially true here.
73. Their reflexes are so slow.
74. They don’t use their signals.
75. They get angry immediately.
76. They hate people in front of them.
77. They cut people off.
78. Then they’ll go super slow for no reason, especially after a jam.
79. No one cares about funneling lanes.
80. Sorry i'm going on and on about drivers which is super boring.
81. Woot! Almost to 80.
82. I got 8 minutes left.
83. Maybe I'll get this done early, like Oneg.
84. His thoughts were way cooler than mine.
85. I might steal some for inspiration.
86. I wrote a poem about inspiration a while back.
87. Maybe I’ll edit it and post it soon…
88. I have a lot of poems i could do that with.
89. I want to publish my work one day, beyond Vocal.
90. Never done that before.
91. Seems daunting
92. Maybe my longer stories will get reads finally.
93. Idk why people don’t go hunting for people’s older stuff on Vocal.
94. I like doing that, it’s fun to click on their last page of stories and peruse their earliest stuff.
95. Even if it causes a delay in reading their more recent stuff.
96. I wish people did that more.
97. I also wish Vocal had a bookmarking function so we could have an integrated list of stories we want to go back to when we have more time.
98. I work a lot so there isn’t much time to dedicate to reading 20-30 minute stories.
99. Sometimes I don’t like the estimated reading time function.
100. It seems to chase people away after a certain time, around 10 minutes or more.
101. I'm amazed by how talented people are.
102. I sometimes feel like a hack or fraud by comparison.
103. I guess this is just imposter syndrome.
104. Wow this was a mad dash!
105. I'm still goin’.
106. Got 5 minutes left.
107. Might keep going till the timer rings.
108. I now have “Cure For Me” by AURORA stuck in my head.
109. My husband had it stuck in his earlier and we played it in the car and now I'm singing and bopping to it, lol.
110. At least that annoying song is gone now ("Cruel Summer," Taylor Swift).
111. Maybe I’ll do this exercise again, get some glimmers out of it, clear the cobwebs.
112. I do feel that I’m clearer-headed now.
113. Did you know that R. Angeli writes amazing stories about Art History? And now he/she is onto myths, which are so good. I’ve got to catch up!
114. I always end up writing my newer things late at night.
115. I seem to want to do the social side of Vocal during the day.
116. Maybe I should switch those.
117. Wow, 114.
118. This is something I could keep doing if there was no timer.
119. It’s nice to write stuff down without filtering much.
120. Of course writing itself is a filter.
121. True thought cannot be captured.
122. And on that note, lol…
123. I’m now thinking about the immaterial.
124. The existence of different dimensions.
125. Seems timely, given the talk around aliens, which I have many thoughts about.
126. I don't think they’re real but I also don’t think there isn’t anything else out there.
127. It’s a weird space to be in, kind of between the polarized opinions.
128. I like being a skeptic.
129. People don’t know what to do with it.
130. It can be good for writing stories.
131. Your mind is open to almost everything.
132. Creative leaps aren’t that crazy.
133. Especially when weighed against really crazy things.
134. I think people confuse the two.
135. And timer.

If you stayed around this long, wow, you deserve a prize! I finished so early, I was like, why not keep going? And yeah, maybe I broke the rules slightly with how many thoughts I stretched over multiple numbers, but, look, I didn’t get an instruction manual, okay?

Thank you again to Judey for issuing this challenge. I’m finally done fulfilling my promise to Cendrine and Oneg for my participation. I hope it was worth the wait, guys, lol! I’m really loving how the community is taking on its own brand of fun writing exercises and creating all this fun engagement.

Cheers, everyone! It’s really late now, and I should go to bed.