In an effort to try to increase participation on this site, the management has come up with an idea we hope you'll like.

We're going to post a regular weekly challenge, but it will be done by rotating different types of challenges.

and occassionally we could throw in something like a Haiku or Tanka challenge. By offering varied challenge types, everyone has a chance to try their hand at what they feel comfortable with and perhaps also to step outside their comfort zone and try something different.

We'd like to ask members also to submit topic ideas, short phrases, word lists and we'd like to then choose from those submissions, in that way each member's ideas will be utilized.

These will be open challenges and even though we might have moved on to the next type, we still would love to see entries to past challenges. Sometimes a person due to time constraints, vacation, health, writer's block or any number of reasons, would be unable to participate that week, yet weeks later write something that fits a past challenge, we'd like you to post it and bring that thread forward again. It might lead to more entries from other members. There is no limit to how many you choose to do for a challenge.

Topic - a topic will be chosen and you can submit a poem/short story/drawing to fulfill the challenge topic.

Phrase - a small phrase will be given and the phrase must be used either in the title or the body of your poem or story.

ex - soft breeze(s), moon's glow, in my dream(s), depending on the phrase - it can be singular or plural.

10 Word - a list of 10 words will be given and at least 6 of them are to be used in your poem/story. Sometimes they will be themed, such as a list of colours (was already done) or just random words. We willI intermix common words with not so common words in these, I find them useful in vocabulary building. Each word - can be either singular or plural. There are also ways to vary this type too, by using words strictly as a noun

We've created a separate message board for each type of challenge, but there will be a main challenge board linking all the types. This allows you to access each one via that board, it's listed on the left side column. - http://groups.msn.com/SpiritMusings/challengesboards.msnw - (Please check out this new area)

The new challenge will be posted each Monday, the exception being a holiday week, we may let it run 2 weeks in that case.

We'd love to hear your ideas, so please feel free to contact managers via your members tools (email to management). After all, this is YOUR site too and if there is something you'd like to see us do to make this a more rewarding experience for you, please tell us.