I don't know the whole story at EL&U. He might just be flooding their site with on-topic-but-poor-quality questions, and creating sockpuppets to get around SE filter mechanisms.
The one time I got myself banned from StackOverflow (it was a really hard project), it was altogether too easy to just sign in to my other account and continue
I find just about everyone on SE does, which I find amusing...to be continued...
but anyway
I had to make a full-on operational multi-threaded chat server and client, having never done any network programming before in my life....not a single TCP connection ever
and idk if you've done network programming in C/C++ before, but it is a nightmare to grasp the nuts and bolts when you're new to it
so I was asking a million questions, and they were so specific they kept getting downvoted, and yeah...banned from asking questions.
The question-ban thing makes sense in many ways, but sooo many people will shrug and open a new account. It's like a gateway drug - rolls you down into the really bad stuff :P
@Standback @Aerovistae if you want the full story on that user, you can visit the ELU chat and ask "what's up with Nortonn" (that's the name of the first acct he created of many)
@KitFox "This blog post is a writing exercise from writers.stackexchange.com. Visit the Writers chat room every Tuesday for new writing exercises. This week's exercise: A short story with 2 paragraphs, no dialogue, containing a rusty nail, a tulip, and the word "spangled". "
I actually considered taking my story in a completely different direction. Like discussing the garden, etc, but then a giant tulip walks around the corner and stabs me with a rusty nail while singing the Star-Spangled Banner.
OK, then for next Tuesday, let's write a paragraph or two. The paragraph(s) should have no dialog, and contain a rusty nail, a tulip, and the word "spangled."
But if you don't have something like that ready, I'm willing to consider anything short
So we had a writing exercise for today. Matt, MrShiny, me, and @DForck have links, and Mussri is sharing a short fanfic (it's his first time here). Anyone else?
@KitFox A tulip in a small brown vase spangled with gold sticky stars, held in place on a dilapidated window sill with a rusty old nail, bent to keep it from sliding off.
@KitFox "This blog post is a writing exercise from writers.stackexchange.com. Visit the Writers chat room every Tuesday for new writing exercises. This week's exercise: A short story with 2 paragraphs, no dialogue, containing a rusty nail, a tulip, and the word "spangled". "
@MetaEd We had an exercise this week, but if you didn't do it or want to share something else, you can, as long as it is not longer than six or so paragraphs.
When we're done with that, let's see how you felt about using this kind of prompt.
@Gigili This week's. We haven't figured next week's yet.
I see that two of our contributors wrote a lot more than just two paragraphs. I'm guessing this was helpful? Did the limitation of no dialog help or hinder your story development?
I liked @Matt's surreal setting too. It made what could be very normal (planting a bulb) into something weird. I want to know more about that world with the man and the mosaic.
@KitFox yeah, me too. I found it telling that the setting is unusual, and yet not uinrealistic (ok, some kind of architecture, pillars, fine) but the guy with seeming modern gear (beer cans?) is muttering incantations while planting a mundane flower in an odd place.
@KitFox, That's unfortunate! OK, so... Tulips! I like the white ones... I'll see if I can get something done quickly. This is another one; shorter and doesn't presume any knowledge of other works.
I won't be back for another 30 minutes; duty calls ;)
@DForck42 Yowza. Nice foray into darkening...I think your transition from innocence to horror could be more emphatic if you smoothed it out a bit. I'd like to see a slower build to your reveal.
@KitFox I agree. It's a good reminder and a good metaphor, because tulips don't last that long (although they are perennial... probably an annual would work better but then it wouldn't fit the exercise)
Also, to slow it down, I'd suggest that rather than "because of my stupid actions that I took to bring down this entire system" you might use something more vague and mysterious like "because I sent a memo to the wrong people." That way, you don't tell us the ending of the story right at the beginning.
If we do critiques, then we should probably select just one or two or spend a lot of time doing it. And maybe people should just ask if they want critiquing?
Oh @Mr.Shiny, I remember one thing that I was going to suggest...you have a lot of parentheticals. I like the style it adds, kind of chatty and distracted, but it seems like too many.
@KitFox yeah. I played with it a bit. It is intentional, but I'm not sure if I struck the right balance. Ultimately I stopped tweaking it and just published it. :)
She was fading now, she knew. She was a little bowed over, her spangled skirt had developed creases, her powder had begun to cake up. But, oh, how the others had fought for her attention! Well, her boys were prone to hyperbole, and she was not sure how to credit their stories. She herself had met none of her lovers. But her boys had told her there were none to rival her.
He lay still beneath her, waiting. He remembered the three times before. Wordlessly she had sprung up out of the cold and the wet, dropped one garment after another, curled up near him, and then blown away. He yearned to stab into her, hold her close, he whose strength had once bound trees together. But now he was wasting away, too weak to hang on to anything.
The Overlook Hotel
The Overlook Hotel