Carnival of Aces, April 2022: 200 Words

Hey all–I’m hosting the Carnival of Aces again this month! For more information on this project (or to volunteer to host it), see its masterpost here. In short: I’ll propose a prompt for conversation, and those interested in responding to it can do so. At the end of the month, I’ll put together a post that links to everything submitted.

Submissions can be anything I can link to in a blog like this one: other blog posts, images (drawings, edits, etc.), videos, creative writing (poetry, drama, etc.), music/sound files, whatever. Comment below with links to what you’d like to submit, or email me at conbougie@gmail.com! (If you’d like me to post your response for you–whether because you’d like it to be anonymous or for another reason–email me your submission, and I can post it here.)

You can find last month’s call for subs here and its roundup post here. The topic was asexuality and law!

This post is also on Tumblr here and Twitter here if you’d like to share it around!

April topic: 200 words

This topic’s less of a theme and more a structure thing, but I’ve been finding it to be an interesting/helpful writing exercise, so adapting it for this month’s topic! For this month’s topic, write exactly 200 words. Write about anything you’d like (related at least tangentially to asexuality)! There are a few prompts in the section below this one, though, in case you’re looking for more specific ideas.

The goal here is to see what happens when you’re made to condense everything you’re trying to say into a smaller space–what words best describe what you’re trying to say? It’s kind of fun to just write 200ish words and then go back and revise them–usually revisions are kind of a pain, but they can feel more approachable when it’s just 200 words.

As an example (and some further thoughts on this prompt), see the paragraph below! (I wrote it back in November.)

If I intend to write something only 200 words in length, what will I delete when I revise? I already don’t like the end of that first sentence; there’s a spot. (Deleted the beginning instead.) I don’t have a plan here. It’s technically fall break for me now, but I’ve got things due yesterday to finish first. What’s something smart to say here? How would Judith Butler summarize Gender Trouble in 200 words? 200 is a tight squeeze, but it feels so approachable. It’s hard to get my students into revision; I don’t do it enough myself—200 feels revisable, though; I can see it all at once. What could you do with that in a classroom? What would you discuss changing? If my students and I each wrote 200 words of something, we’d have 4000—I haven’t seen published work like that, but it’d be badass as shit. Could we all get published together? How could I facilitate that activity so that my own creative decisions didn’t take priority over those of my students? What would I offer as prompt? I like the idea of us writing one by one, responding to the 200 above our own blank space, asking questions.

Some prompts

A few questions/prompts/words/works in case one of these sparks your fancy:

• Roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons
• Kinship networks
• Dr. Kim Tallbear on Reviving Kinship and Sexual Abundance (1 hour podcast episode)
• Asexual time
• Evil plans
• Your favorite book
• An ace character
• Ends of semesters
• Charts, graphs, tables, databases
• Crafting
• Asexual tarot

Hope this post finds you well!
Ulysses