Round Robin Journal: Inspiration/ Round 1

Have you ever been reading the newspaper when suddenly an article leaps off the page, grabs you by the throat, and says, "Look at me! I'm amazing, and you need to write a story about this!"? Or maybe it slithers up to your shoulder and whispers seductively in your ear. Either way, that story idea has got your imagination.

Sadly, by the time you find the time to write it, it's not there any more. We need a journal in which to safely keep all those wonderful ideas that make our breath catch and the goosebumps shiver up our backs!

Get a composition notebook, the kind without wire holding the pages together. On the first page, put your full name and address, plus your screen name and the name of this swap.

On pages two through six, attach five newspaper or magazine articles that you find exciting or inspiring or mysterious. You can use plain Scotch tape, or narrow double-sided tape. Please put one article per page, even if it's a short article.

When your partner is assigned, send her your journal. You'll receive a journal from someone else. In the new journal, put your screen name on the first blank page, which would be page 7. On pages 8 through 12, you will tape five articles, just as you did when you created your own journal.

Put the journal in a safe place until partners are assigned for the next round. It's important to remember that this journal is the personal property of someone else, so it it your responsibility to keep it secure from pet damage, toddler damage, and weather damage. And coffee spills.

Round Robin swaps have a dubious reputation for good reason, so I am going to include several layers of protection in this swap.

1. Please be honest with yourself. Make sure that you want to commit to five rounds. Those of us who have done RR swaps before know how hard it is to retrieve a wayward journal when one participant changes her mind.

2. Before you send out your first journal, copy each page to keep for yourself.

3. If you become ill or have an emergency and cannot continue with the five rounds, let me know. I will mail you a postage paid envelope with the correct name and address on it so you can send it back to who it belongs to. You can contact me through Swapbot, or by emailing me at [email protected]. No questions asked, no scolding; I'll send you the post paid envelope.

4. Subsequent rounds will not begin until all previous journals have been received and rated. I think the journal will be easier to track that way.

If you get your own journal back before all five rounds have been done, you can either A) keep it and start a new journal, or B) add five more articles and send it on. I have no control over how Swapbot assigns partners, so there is that chance.

When we get past the last round, I'll arrange a "non-swap" so we can each get our journal back. Each of us will then have a journal with 25 articles in it.

So, to sum it up: one composition book, five inspiring articles, one partner, five rounds. I don't think this needs to be mentioned in this particular group, but, yes, I'll be checking everything except your bank balance!

ETA: I should add that the articles need to be written in English, please :)

Edit 3/8/17 I've been asked if it's acceptable to print out articles from online news sources, and I think that's fine! If it's news, and it's inspiring, then let's go for it :)

Edit 3/13, Please note that this swap has been changed; we each will only send copies of our pages to our partner, and not the entire journal. For future rounds, I will rewrite the swap to eliminate the old information, and include the new.

Are there any questions? I'm here every day to answer!