{"id":254,"date":"2014-05-16T17:19:37","date_gmt":"2014-05-16T16:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/?p=254"},"modified":"2014-09-17T15:00:45","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T14:00:45","slug":"alpha-season-x-alphaday-10-bulletin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/alpha-season-x-alphaday-10-bulletin\/","title":{"rendered":"Alpha Season X &#8211; Alphaday 10 Bulletin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Alphas,<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to Alphaday 10. We\u2019ve still got a full programme for today, and I hope you\u2019ll make the most of it. Alpha seasons are like that, you see. There\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2026 here comes Alphaday 10 and with it the last challenge of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s menu still features the full list of treats:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This Bulletin from me<\/li>\n<li>The Log, which this time comes from Zena (Thank you, Zena!) as Margie is away<\/li>\n<li>The results of the dialogue challenge from Suzanne<\/li>\n<li>The collated entries re. the deadly sin of jealousy from Clare<\/li>\n<li>The brief for our final challenge this season from Geoff<\/li>\n<li>The showcase pieces with their independent schedule by Clare<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The neologisms sparked off an interesting sequel with Olaf\u2019s 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\u2019ll follow the story with great interest.<\/p>\n<p>With only three Alphadays left we need to look ahead to next season. There\u2019s always a lot to discuss. We\u2019ll give the last challenge our very best before we start on the details, but we\u2019ll do a moratorium on Season X and I\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n<p>More about that in the next bulletin.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s just one little matter of general interest to writers that caught my attention recently. We\u2019ve discussed it before, a long time ago, but it\u2019s definitely getting worse, in my view. It\u2019s the question of genres. When I started writing stories I didn\u2019t think of having to choose a genre. If anything I\u2019d like to call my stories \u2018mainstream\u2019 with a touch of \u2018magic realism\u2019 if I had to venture into a more specific genre. But in recent years I\u2019ve 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 \u2018steampunk\u2019 and I hadn\u2019t a clue! Apparently it incorporates Victorian inventions into fantasy scenarios and it \u201cfeatures\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Anachronism\">anachronistic<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Technology\">technologies<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Retrofuturism\">retro-futuristic<\/a>\u00a0inventions\u201d. Thank you, Wikipedia, for enlightening me! I do think there\u2019s a maze of new genres that I can\u2019t relate to at all. We\u2019ll end up needing specialist knowledge to read fiction in the same way as we do for much non-fiction.<\/p>\n<p>I wonder whether other members have been able to shrug this off nonchalantly \u2013 or have found a way of coming to terms with it.<\/p>\n<p>Christine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 10. We\u2019ve still got a full programme for today, and I hope you\u2019ll make the most of it. Alpha seasons are like that, you see. There\u2019s the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}