{"id":6933,"date":"2013-01-04T06:00:09","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=6933"},"modified":"2013-01-04T06:00:09","modified_gmt":"2013-01-04T12:00:09","slug":"confabulating-is-a-calling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=6933","title":{"rendered":"Confabulating is a Calling"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/images_blogs\/wiredscience\/2012\/03\/rainbow-brain-map-science-aaas.jpg\"<\/a>
Somewhere in there are the stories waiting to be discovered and told. Some of them are beyond me right now and that’s pretty exciting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s been a year since we launched the Confabulator Cafe.<\/a> The meetings we had leading up to this launch were fun and filled with lots of writers who were interested in contributing and some others who were looking for something different from the group. It took us a while to separate the Cafe from the writer\u2019s group but that\u2019s finally happening thanks in part to NaNoWriMo but that\u2019s another story for others to tell.<\/p>\n

Over the first year of the Cafe we\u2019ve covered a ton of topics and done a lot of writing. By my count I\u2019ve written well over 45,000 words for the site on everything from the politics of writing and storytelling to flash fiction to my influences and so many other things. I\u2019ve unknowingly echoes thoughts of my fellow Confabulators and been far afield from the majority, too. I\u2019ve learned a great deal about how I write, why I write and even when I write best.<\/p>\n

As a storyteller, the monthly fiction assignments<\/a>\u00a0have\u00a0been the most fun. I missed one assignment early on, but I\u2019ve had the most fun writing every story. Being \u2018forced\u2019 to write short\/flash fiction on a monthly basis has been sometimes nerve-wracking, but it\u2019s always paid off. I\u2019ve always gotten something I can be proud of despite the amount of sweat that\u2019s gone into the writing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what brings me to what I like about the Cafe. The weekly assignments have forced me to think critically about what I do as a writer. Every question has an answer whether you like it or not, whether you want to hear it or not. I\u2019ve wracked my brain more often than I might have if I was only writing my own blog every week. This blog has definitely influenced what I\u2019ve written elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Really, the obligation I feel to write a weekly post on whatever topic everyone else is talking about has been my favorite part of the Cafe. My fellow Confabulators are smart, erudite, funny, knowledgeable, talented, and they know how to sling words together. There have been several weeks where I felt like I really connected with one post or another and across the entirety of all the writers.<\/p>\n

Which is what the Cafe is about. There\u2019s something for everyone here if you\u2019re willing to read through it. Nobody is sloughing it here, no one is just typing for the sake of typing. Readers are given the best we have in the moment we have it.<\/p>\n

What? You\u2019re really going to pin me down and remind me that I\u2019m supposed to tell you which was my favorite\u00a0 Cafe assignment this year? Sigh. Okay.<\/p>\n

Hands down, the Straeon Manor stories<\/a> have been my favorite. There\u2019s so much creativity, so much originality going on in them that it\u2019s stunning. This latest round<\/a> was just jaw-dropping. We\u2019ve started to connect the tales and the next round promises to be even better. I won\u2019t tell you which have been my favorites because I don\u2019t want to have to pick only one or even a handful. Trust me that you should just go and read them all.<\/p>\n

So one year down and a new one beginning. I suspect you’re about to be amazed at what we’re going to do next. I know I am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a year since we launched the Confabulator Cafe. The meetings we had leading up to this launch were fun and filled with lots of writers who were interested in contributing and some others who were looking for something different from the group. It took us a while to separate the Cafe from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[61,127,215,393,1276],"class_list":["post-6933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influence","tag-anniversary","tag-brainwork","tag-confabulating","tag-favorite","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}