Hi Alphas,
Welcome to Alphaday 10. We’ve still got a full programme for today, and I hope you’ll make the most of it. Alpha seasons are like that, you see. There’s the build-up at the beginning of the season, which allows members to get their bearings and tune in to the Alpha routine. Then there’s an excited outburst of energy as the activities catch on and we throw ourselves enthusiastically into the fray. The sudden intensity can take a few members by surprise, and they flap around a bit as they try to keep up. But onward we charge, and then suddenly… here comes Alphaday 10 and with it the last challenge of the season.
Today’s menu still features the full list of treats:
- This Bulletin from me
- The Log, which this time comes from Zena (Thank you, Zena!) as Margie is away
- The results of the dialogue challenge from Suzanne
- The collated entries re. the deadly sin of jealousy from Clare
- The brief for our final challenge this season from Geoff
- The showcase pieces with their independent schedule by Clare
The neologisms sparked off an interesting sequel with Olaf’s idea of making a list of the best ones and presenting them in a letter to the Times. We could make our mark on posterity, and why not? We’ll follow the story with great interest.
With only three Alphadays left we need to look ahead to next season. There’s always a lot to discuss. We’ll give the last challenge our very best before we start on the details, but we’ll do a moratorium on Season X and I’ll need your views. So, please put on your thinking caps. Alpha needs full collaboration from all members and there are extra tasks to be allocated to willing members for each season.
More about that in the next bulletin.
There’s just one little matter of general interest to writers that caught my attention recently. We’ve discussed it before, a long time ago, but it’s definitely getting worse, in my view. It’s the question of genres. When I started writing stories I didn’t think of having to choose a genre. If anything I’d like to call my stories ‘mainstream’ with a touch of ‘magic realism’ if I had to venture into a more specific genre. But in recent years I’ve noticed so many e-publications, as well as paper ones, specialising in what looks like narrowly defined genres. The latest example (amongst many) I came across was called ‘steampunk’ and I hadn’t a clue! Apparently it incorporates Victorian inventions into fantasy scenarios and it “features anachronistic technologies or retro-futuristic inventions”. Thank you, Wikipedia, for enlightening me! I do think there’s a maze of new genres that I can’t relate to at all. We’ll end up needing specialist knowledge to read fiction in the same way as we do for much non-fiction.
I wonder whether other members have been able to shrug this off nonchalantly – or have found a way of coming to terms with it.
Christine