Hi Alphas,
Welcome to Alphaday 4 Season XIV. The Alpha routine is rolling along nicely with past, present and future writings clamouring for attention. There’s plenty to stimulate us into trying out new territories – or making progress along our chosen road and banishing fiends like procrastination and other stumbling blocks. That, for me, is why it’s so beneficial to communicate and interact with fellow writers.
Today’s agenda will go a long way towards satisfying some of those writerly needs. As follows:
- This Bulletin from me
- The results of the ‘Pride’ challenge from Stephen
- The collated entries for the Open Page slot from Christine
- The brief for Challenge 3 from Morgen
- A prompt for our next Alpha Log from Sally
You won’t know where to start (except perhaps as it pops into your inbox!) and I expect there’s enough there to occupy your attention for far too long if you’re trying to get on with your work in progress.
There’s one more Alphaday to come before we take our seasonal mid-season break which this time gives us six weeks to indulge in whatever pleasures and rituals you think appropriate. One of these will be the long-established Alpha tradition of subjecting ourselves to the intellectual torture of attempting to solve Olaf’s irresistible and fiendishly difficult Christmas puzzle. Brace yourselves!
Alpha news:
Michael is joining the group today and we give him a hearty welcome to our writerly activities. Michael lives in Leeds, UK, and he enjoys writing “latter day new wave SF” as well as reviews of music and films.
I’ll send out an up-to-date group address list for everyone’s benefit. Please make sure you adjust yours.
General news:
The one word that’s caught my attention recently is the word ‘inappropriate’. Personally I think it’s a totally inappropriate word to carry the weight of meaning it’s been loaded with of late.
I suppose it’s the natural sequel to the cleansing of the language that ensured ‘political correctness’. Words like ‘woman’ and ‘lady’ were condemned as denigrating terms (along with a huge crop of others) – especially in ‘char-‘ / ‘chair-‘ combinations and the like. They were replaced by ‘person’, ‘assistant’ etc.
Having cleansed the language somebody discovered that actions might need a similar treatment. That’s where inappropriate behaviour comes into it. That term covers a list of actions that’s as long as a piece of string. It’s not exactly criminal, and words like ‘immoral’ or ‘unethical’ seem to be shunned by those who condemn ‘inappropriate behaviour’ (say, towards serving wenches, chamber maids, personal fortunes, movie guys and dolls). Roaming hands and roaming money are scrutinised for inappropriate behaviour. Many are those who tremble in case their wishful thinking may have spilt over into action. George Orwell was indeed a brilliant writer. Watch out for the Thought Police (Thinkpol) that these days are busy patrolling your cyber divagations.
Christine