let's just take a moment to breathe

Okay, so there are currently something like 3 writing games going on over on Mastodon. I'm a pretty frequent user of Mastodon, and really like it. It's simple to me, and with boosts turned off on my home timeline, everything moves kind of slow. Obviously faster then here, but slow for something like Mastodon. It doesn't cross into overwhelming, is what I'm saying. sweat

That said. The writing games.

So the writing games are the basic "here's a bunch of questions related to writing, answer with one a day and hashtag it" kinds. Some of these have been going on for months, with new questions for months. Personally, I'm not a fan just like, on the basic questions premise.

Like, the questions are all just very unhelpful. I don't think deep about my writing, or my characters, or my worlds. (I mean of course I think about it, but not in that way.) I don't have a lot of the answers these questions want, and I'm frankly uninterested in finding them. And it's just not fun to be faced with yet another question leading to yet another realization that hey "I don't know this".

It's alienating, and weird, and honestly kind of elitist in some strange way.

I don't know why I have this impression. I'm also not in a particularly charitable mood, and kind of don't want to interrogate that.

Obviously these questions work for a lot people, or the the writing games wouldn't have grown to such popularity among many of the writers on Mastodon. So like. I'm happy for you, but also please stop shoving it in my face.

Thankfully, Mastodon has really good filters! And now it's not in my face anymore! :D

But I think it basically boils down to 2 things, aside from the general "this is really just not my thing" thing.

1) There's no opportunity to catch up. These are endless; there's new questions and new answers literally every single day. Even though I'm not participating, that doesn't mean I'm not interested in what other people have to say. I am curious about other people's writing process, and it is fun to see them getting talked about.

But with no breaks, it is impossible for me catch up. It is impossible for me to read them. It is impossible for me to sit with any one response and think it over. It is, in a way, a very superficial interaction.

There's no space to breathe, and oh my god is it overwhelming.

It's to the point where, after months of getting inuended with these games, I am exhausted just thinking about it. I'd really rather it all just stopped, but of course that's not something I can ask.

I dawdled to getting the filters set up because the writing games have really turned into the main way people talk about writing on Mastodon. With them gone, it's really clearer than ever. And because I have those filters set to show that that's what they're hiding, I can see exactly how many of the posts on my timeline are just... that.

It's kind of a shame, how structured and pace-less those conversations have turned into. Very... passionless, I suppose.

I barely know what I mean by that.

2) I don't remember what the second thing was. Perhaps something about how the questions are all dependent on you being a certain kind of writer, doing things in a certain way, writing in a certain way, and somehow it all kind of feels like I'm repeatedly being told "your way of writing is wrong".

And now I forgot it again. I was on the track! Damn. XD

Second try to remember. Maybe it has something to do with... nope, I'm out of juice. If somebody else could think of the second thing for me, that'd be awesome XD, LOL.

Nevertheless, I have now filtered all the games and am having a much more pleasant, less stressful experience on Mastodon again. Cheers!