In this series we have an ongoing character appearing in nearly every conversation, no matter the topic. Dog Pile on the Rabbit has been played by many different individuals, people who take someone’s allegation far too seriously, and they run with it! These are the followers of an idea or movement who develop chants, hold signs, scuffle with police, and scream their outrage, regardless of the stance they take. Sometimes these figures are savages, jumping into an extreme far out of dimension over controversy or suspected crime(s).
Dog Pile on the Rabbit is often filled with praise too, shouting overjoy with fanatical politeness. Take this from a writing room (I will not publish the stories or prompts or poems of others, respecting their right to to their own submission.) Tough luck on the conversation, folks. All that is mine. As per usual, names are not changed to protect anyone (fuck those people!), but shoved into a literary affectation to allow for character development. And since this mostly focuses on a specific character type, the conversations will be more highly edited than usual, sometimes picking a handful out and fitting them into a similar reply for the relevant quotes used for this study:
Oh, I’m harsh! Watch out for me!
- Are you sure you want this critiqued? I tread carefully.
Sensitive Artist, turning away in a huff
- no it was what just came to me. My mind is different from other’s. To each there(sp) own. Keep it interesting.
The Birth of Dog Pile on the Rabbit (positive)
It’s not easy to expose oneself and I appreciate your willingness to share with the group. Critiqueing other’s work is a very tricky undertaking, trying to give honest feedback, while respecting the creation and the creator. I personally think anyone who’s brave enough to put their work and themselves in such a vulnerable position deserves kudos for doing so. Thank you for sharing.🙂
This is an important piece for the conversation to follow. Since much of what will pass in the creative writing rooms, peopled by the nervous/arrogant sort of writer, most of them so filled with angst over whether they have any talent or not, yet see in their ideas a work of genius. Some post their first drafts of their work after having maybe re-read their work twice. Inevitably there follows hordes of uncaught spellcheck revisions, spelling errors only sometimes fixed, context and tone of voice problems, and sometimes trying to cover so much ground they make very little sense.
(For the poem that inspired this brief conversation, I withdrew from entering a comment. I read the thing but I didn’t like it. Had I commented it is quite possible I would have harmed this person’s sense of themselves. This is not an arrogant boast, for even the lamest comments, a “This need work,” or even the stark single-worded “bad.” My stuff is the sort of analytical breakdown I used to do in college, deep-meaning speculations on works that I often despised. I used to be a high school English teach too, which caused me to be irritatingly high-minded about the quality of student work–and yes, my mediocre favorites did benefit, while the kids I didn’t like would mildly suffer. I was a TA, or teacher’s assistant, in my undergraduate college years. I knew a lot of the kids socially. I got to grade some of the papers. I was mean.)
The Birth of Dog Pile on the Rabbit (the Sensitive Artist’s Conversion)
Dog Pile on the Rabbit(i)
- . . . continue pursuing your passion (s) no matter what.
Becomes Dog Pile on the Rabbit
i will. Appreciate it alot.
Do not mistake this guise of politeness from what is really going on here. These are, of course, not the traditional Dog Pile on the Rabbit we will be taking on shortly, but they are the progenitor of such creatures: the meet pose, the drunkenly encouraging, the way-too-hard efforts to fix the hurt expression the like-minded recall they have experienced. Then come desperately radical responses. This is how Dog Pile on the Rabbit is born, at least in the slight dialogue expressed in chat rooms. Of course over this time being homebound, that conversation has drastically increased. The talk becomes repetitious. They begin their cultish existence:
Even with an outline, how does one get over writers block?
Either Young or Old Enough to Retire, enjoying the games which precede sitting down and actually writing
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Questions. Very few answers.
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