For the TL;DR crowd who have yet to google, in a nutshell, GISH is a Guinness World Record-setting, several day, international event that empowers players to push their creative boundaries, tackle hilarious challenges, and perform incredible acts of kindness, most from the comforts of their own home. The event features special guests, literary challenges and more. The Book Bash Mini-Hunt! this weekend is thirty-six hours and while more literary oriented, no less wonderfully chaotic.

Because I did not want to leave the house, I chose four out of the nearly 100 challenges to accept. Since I never attempted fumage art before, I did what I thought would be the hardest out and got it of the way first with yesterday’s create a sign protesting the banning of books. I was wrong. The next challenge turned out to be, not so much harder, but a lot more detailed and time consuming. Create a portrait of LeVar from quotes from famous black authors and activists. I have yet to see other artists’ interpretations, but here is my entry:

I posted my entry to my Instagram account, tagged GISH and thought nothing of it. And then THIS happened… So, imagine my shock of all shocks when I saw the first “Like” on it, and who it was from!

I’m sure this is something curated by his staff and all of us who took up this specific challenge also got a “Like”, but it’s from his official account and it looks so cool on my account.

My third chosen challenge was a breeze. @yung_pueblo posts lovely meditative poetry on Instagram. Write your own poem in his style. Post yours on Instagram:

Because I like futzing around with photoshop I was volunteered by our team’s captain to do the challenge of taking a screenshot of barren land from Google Maps and overlay a Photoshop image, as if you have carved into the earth. Make it, of a message or drawing that would be seen from space. The message should be a call for help, as if a passing space fleet of benevolent aliens might see and come rescue us from ourselves.

Because even aliens know Girl Scout Cookies are out of this world! (Or maybe they think the cookies are made from actual Girl Scouts. Hmm, maybe I should have checked the “To Serve Man” menu.)

And finally, I did it just because: According to GISH, not everyone knows this, but the first novel ever written and the world’s first science-fiction novel were both penned by women authors. In honor of these literary trailblazers, show us Frankenstein’s monster reading a copy of The Tale of Genji.

Yes, Creach -what? he was never given a name- is wearing earbuds and listening to “Monster Mash”, don’t judge his musical choices!

Still, as much fun as it was, it was a lot of hours on my computer without break. At 8pm, I called it quits. All I know is, if this was a mini one, I’m part excited, part terrified to experience a full one.

Day 28 of 31 – Let’s see how others are slicing it out today…

15th Annual Slice of Life Writing Challenge
Two Writing Teachers

To give you just a tiny piece of how Book Bash works here’s a what I thought would be an easy challenge to try:

“It was a pleasure to burn.” Using pyrography or fumage, create a sign proOtesting book bans and censorship.

Fumage you say? Having never done it before, my (not-so) inner pyromaniac and artist vibe were both sparked to say the least.

Book Bash is a mini GISH, so I only have thirty-six hours. The very first step was to remind myself I’m using unfamiliar techniques. I won’t have time to dedicate to just one challenge for corrections or perfection. It’s not going to look exactly like I envision it in my head, but I can do this. Okay, pep talk over, let’s get some fire going!

What books shall I choose? I wanted a mix of classic and current books that have been banned and these quickly came to mind.

Let’s see: glue, scissors, paint and a fresh reminder to tell the Virgo in me to zip it(!), and the here’s end result:

I may yet do this over when I have oodles more time to block text, properly arrange the “logs” and about fifteen other things I am internally screaming about, but here it is.

And this is just ONE challenge my team and I completed. 24 hours down, 12 more to go.

Stay tuned…

Day 27 of 31 – Let’s see how others are slicing it out today…

15th Annual Slice of Life Writing Challenge
Two Writing Teachers