Perpetual Ruminations

The Passing of Twenty-Five Words

How do you write something meaningful in twenty-five words or less? At first, it doesn't sound very difficult, but after giving it a try for the last few weeks, I have found it to be a nice challenge. I'm speaking of the contest here on WdC called, of course, Twenty-Five Words or Less.  I'm sorry to say, the contest is now closed, but for the last three weeks, I have participated and enjoyed the challenge.

It wasn't just the idea of winning something, although it's always nice to get some kind of recognition for writing something. In fact, when I first found it, it wasn't any kind of fancy payout, just a point system based upon a person's entry, and once you accumulated enough points, you would win a merit badge. Having been suffering from writers block and little time to chip through it, I thought this may be the way to go. I mean, with such a short entry, I could focus my writing on an idea that could be drafted, edited, and submitted rather quickly. It provided the motivation to get some ideas and work with them without being too demanding of my limited time.

I know little of hosting activities and contests on the site, but I imagine it takes quite a lot of time and effort. With only one person doing all of this, I can understand why the contest came to an end. I had thought about offering to help out, to pick up some of the workload, but with barely enough time to write for the contest, I know I wouldn't be able to help much. Even so, it saddens me to see it end. Not just because I enjoyed it, although that's part of it too, but because it was very unique in getting a person to write in few words instead of many.

I'm thankful I had the opportunity to participate for a few weeks and surprising as it sounds, learned a bit about the art of expression. I already knew that good writing paints a picture with words, but Twenty-Five Words or Less taught me to create a picture with just a few crayons.