What Are Some New Ways of Connecting With Others You’ve Developed Over The Years?

Sunny Side Updates ANNIVERSARY EDITION || Week 52

It’s been A YEAR with TBIN! I can’t believe it. That’s at least 365 prompts generated, and 182371923871892376123918273 (fact check: a deeply exaggerated number) amazing responses from the community since that.

Thank you so much for actively being a part of the brain noodle community. It’s been such addition of joy into my life this past year. ❤

Though physically distanced for most of that duration, this has been a community that has helped me feel connected despite the circumstances.

Alone but connected

a poem

medium.com

This past year has also been an experimentation of new ways of connecting that I might actually going to keep up, going forward.

Other than building the TBIN community and having found WEOC by Allison Gaines and Teressa P. and numerous other amazing writing communities on here, scrambling to remain social but online this past year unearthed some new opportunities for me.

As most of my childhood friends have scattered across the world (North America, for the most part), the push to set up online game nights proved to be super helpful as ways to connect despite the distance. We’ve explored such a plethora of online games, including but not limited to:

gartic phone (drawing / broken telephone game)
skribblio (drawing game)
jackbox (numerous board games)

If you have recommendations, please let me know!

For this week, I’m curious to hear from others — what are some new ways of connecting with others that you’ve developed over the years?

Excited to hear your suggestions and stories! ❤

Until next week,

Lucy 🍳 EIC of The Brain is a Noodle* Podcast || Twitter || Instagram || Redbubble || Newsletter *This is factually incorrect. Please absolutely do not go out and eat brains. 📚 PS, I have a new book?????????

✍ Active Challenges

🎃 October Interview Challenge How to join || #October2021TBINInterview Responses

Weekly Shortform Challenge How to join || Prompt Archive || Responses

This week’s shortform prompt
What are some new ways of connecting with others that you’ve developed over the years?

Daily Poetry Challenge Prompt Archive || Responses || Subscribe for weekly reminders!

#OngoingAdventure Fiction Series Submit your chapter here || Start reading here

Noodle Book Club How to join || Prompt Archive & Responses

🍜 Piping Hot New(dle) Pieces of the Week

Challenge: *highlight* the ones you bookmarked/ read and make sure everyone gets highlighted at least once! ❤

🧠🍜 [1] Our Shades by Kyomi O'Connor ‘As you are driven to be in the light you hardly see the shades of the darkness As you run into the shadow out of the bright you are blinded, so you perceive only whiteness’

🧠🍜 [2] The Frustration of Getting a Bus in Indonesia — Expectation Vs Reality by Sh*t Happens - Lost Girl Travel ‘Don’t be fooled into thinking there’s such a thing as a 10 am bus in Indonesia.’

🧠🍜 [3] The Good Fight by Greg Proffit ‘sufficient for the day is the trouble thereof’

🧠🍜 [4] Hustle by Damilola Abiola ‘Why does success feel like a trap? Like people refuse to understand Even your loved ones can’t be trusted, Trust them and you will later get disgusted,’

🧠🍜 [5] Scheduled Time for ‘Chillin’’ by Thalia Dunn ‘I toss my phone into a drawer each Sunday to begin my scheduled respite,’

🧠🍜 [6] Use Them by Dennett ‘Blocks are for building, wooden, plastic, brick or mental — you’re the builder, the licensed contractor, the creator of your world.’

🧠🍜 [7] Submit to Publications by Leese Wright ‘Throughout my short time on Medium I’ve seen a few people, mainly new writers like myself, talk about how they haven’t worked up the courage to submit their work to publications yet. The common theme seems to be that they’re too intimidated, or they think their work isn’t good enough.’

🧠🍜 [9] Zeros and Ones by Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles ‘My life is ruled by Zeros and ones partying in my computer’

🧠🍜 [10] “Sleep Comes Like A Drug” by brian g gilmore (bumpyjonas) ‘I write to the point of mental exhaustion. Or until my left shoulder hurts.’

🧠🍜 [11] Oga Police by Damilola Abiola ‘Mr Officer pause first, What makes you think I’m jobless? I am a law-abiding citizen,’

🧠🍜 [12] October Interview With The Brain Is a Noodle by Kevin Alexander ‘Getting started is exhausting. I feel like typing that first word is the hardest. Once I get rolling, all of that weight just falls away. Finishing an article is like a lightning bolt of energy.’

🧠🍜 [13] Cash by America Zed ‘Some days you can lose it,’

🧠🍜 [14] I’m Speaking by KSHernandez ‘can’t you talk? peculiarly quiet painfully bashful she stay up under you, Max I don’t trust quiet’

🧠🍜 [15] Tanaga Trails by Jenine Bsharah Baines ‘Will you write something silly – or choose paths shadowed, hilly?’

🧠🍜 [16] Beware, Don’t Get the Order Wrong! by John Gobins ‘One day I made a pizza pie By spreading out some cheese. Not wanting it to be too dry, I poured tomatoes on like seas’

🧠🍜 [17] This Is a Sign It’s Time to Let Go of That Toxic Friend by Nia Simone McLeod ‘It’s definitely both. Freewriting, letting the words flow in an inhibited manner from my mind to my fingers to the page, is energizing. Editing, on the other hand, can be exhausting.’

🧠🍜 [18] Is It All or Nothing? by Will Hull ‘Response 0001: Oh, dear grand number ‘0’ to this nerd-prompted weirdo, both circle of life and nothingness rife. You, Sir, are my numeric hero.’

🧠🍜 [19] Let’s Be Fools For A Moment by Ravyne Hawke ‘Oddly enough, at times it can do both. Most of the time, I get into a flow and the words come easily.’

🧠🍜 [20] Engage! by Ravyne Hawke ‘Most of my readers of this past year and a half have come to the realization that my work is going to be somewhat dark, somewhat mournful, or of a spiritual nature’

🧠🍜 [21] Alphabet Soup for the Soul by Samah Fadil ‘Arguably, being considered darling enough for grander horizons isn’t just kissing,’

🧠🍜 [22] Faces In A Rock by Dominick Bernard Francois ‘Intrigue’s entry is a dark cave of diamonds That shimmy and bling just enough to blind men Characters on the wall Telling the story of enchantment How these diamonds came to be vessels for souls abandoned’

🧠🍜 [23] Ideal by Dominick Bernard Francois ‘Something about recalling throughout the day what you prayed for that morning’

🧠🍜 [24] My October Interview Questions with The Brain is a Noodle! by Samedra Carter ‘If I’m honest, it can do both. Exhaust and energize. Writing energizes me because it is what I love to do. It is what challenges my thinking. It is what I wish I could do for a living, sun up and sundown.’

🧠🍜 [25] Writing with my right by Las siete y más ‘Who said what way was better? Why is that?’

🧠🍜 [26] What Are You Writing? by Penny Grubb ‘There once was a prompt call to write About nothing — imagine my plight Words are my thing I don’t do zeroing And yet they still got me to bite.’

🧠🍜 [27] 🧠 If Brains Are Noodles, Is Noodling Fishing For Brains and Not Catfish?🐈🐟 by Aimée Gramblin ‘The window before writing is usually exhausting. I’m a procrastinator. I want to take a nap or play candy crush or promote or tweet. I wasn’t going to write anything today because I didn’t have the energy worked up even though I wanted to work up the energy. Lucy’s interview questions SAVED THE DAY!’

🧠🍜 [28] You Are Not Allowed to Be Different From Us by Orla Kenny ‘I wasn’t a girly girl. I wasn’t interested in looking pretty for others. I liked my style and wanted to wear what felt comfortable for me. I didn’t like heavy make-up on my face and flouncy dresses. I had my own style.’

🧠🍜 [29] Business Arrangement by Chris Mooney-Singh ‘You have a closer relationship with the bedroom mirror than with me. Is your nose cute? Are your fangs sharp? ‘

🧠🍜 [30] I Don’t Come Cheap by Sherry McGuinn ‘So, “Kyle whoever the hell you are,” you want to interview me on Zoom for an hour?’

🧠🍜 [31] With Curd Rice, It Is WYSIWYG by Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles ‘Yes, some foods are exactly what you think they are. Curd rice is one such thing. What you see is what you get. No surprises, unless you count the garnishings and the additional flavors. But you just cannot take away the predominant taste of the curd rice.’

🧠🍜 [32] Dinner 🍕 by Ravyne Hawke ‘A tiny and delicious piece x’

🧠🍜 [33] The Joke on the Exempt Employee by Kim McKinney ‘They say you are scheduled for 40-hour work weeks. Theoretically, some weeks you work 60, others you may work twenty.’

🧠🍜 [34] Olivia Nubuck Meets Kickadoor Veet by Dominick Bernard Francois ‘Not much for words But all for advancement Sometimes it’s the way her clothes accent her body language’

🧠🍜 [35] The Big Fat Zero by Barb Dalton ‘The big fat zero can be a mark of shame not associated with being a hero or putting a diploma in a frame It means nought literally Sometimes diddly squat figuratively’

🔊 Voices to Amplify

We don’t have to leave it to the algorithm to suggest our favourite pieces! Here are some of my archived faves!

Use Your Inside Voice

My work-related pet peeve

medium.com

Roadrunner

A Poem about Anthony Bourdain

medium.com

Dear Writer, You Really Do Not Have Be a Control Freak

Sometimes you have to let go and go with the flow

medium.com

Black History Month and Women’s History Month Are the Same Season to Me

I’mma just keep talking about Black women

zora.medium.com

Finding Love

The more layers you take off, the less protection you need

medium.com

Thank you to Jennifer Dunne, Joshi, I. Trudie Palmer, Casira Copes and Kyomi O'Connor for these pieces! ❤

🧠🍜 Thank you to the Noodle Team!

challenge: pick 3 writers you haven’t met yet and get acquainted with their pieces!

New writers: AK (Aaska Aejaz) | Matt Inman | Penny Grubb

Ps, if any of these links are outdated, please leave a note to let me know!