HalcyonSpirit

Happy New Year 2009! The January Freeform competition has begun. I'm hoping to see quite a few submissions this time around. I'll hopefully be participating in this one as well! Good luck everyone, and happy writing!

You can have the idea now. You can develop the idea now. Develop the idea all you want right now! You can write down ideas and such, and you can keep thinking about it all you want; the rules don't govern those. What you can't do is start to actually write the piece until the competition starts.

That explains everything. I feel enlightened!

Holy crap that's awesome. You're awesome. The pic definitely captures the personalities of each -tan.

I haven't had much time to play video games in the past year; too much college work to be done. But this summer I had a personal top moment in X3: Reunion: I flew a fighter 200 kilometers to the nearest jumpgate through the middle of a Xenon fleet consisting of 250+ fighters, corvettes and destroyers, 90% of which were faster than my fighter, and survived with 5% hull left. It took me two hours of constant dodging to make the trip. Oh, and just prior to that I had lost my entire fleet to the same Xenon force.

First OA gets a baby, then bLiNd gets married, and now THIS? Jeez, it seems like everything is happening all at once! Incidentally, you notice that it seems to be a backwards trend? ... Ahem. Congratulations you two! Keep the good times rolling!

Well, I've been busy for the past 12 hours, so I decided to just wait and see whether we would be getting more than just votes from participants and myself. Alas, this was not the case. In any event... THE RESULTS ARE IN! 1st Place: Media by M W Runner-Up: Soon by SoulinEther Here's the vote spread: Media by M W: 8 Soon by SoulinEther: 7 The Name by Random Hajile: 6 Electronic Transaction by TheHands: 6 Congratulations to everyone, and especially to M W and SoulinEther! There weren't very many entries for this round, but I think the quality was just as good as ever. Incidentally, if there is anyone else who wants to chime in about my proposed changes to the rules, now would be the time. I want to have an answer concerning it before the next competition starts.

Nice, Doulifée. I'll go through it sometime soon and see if there's anything missing. Only a few more hours until the official voting period ends, people! (Remember, we're running on UTC time now.) I want to see some more votes!

Definitely interested here, though time might be an issue once the next semester gets going. I'm fairly sure many of the people who participate in the Writing Competition around here would be interested as well.

Check your PMs. For reference, I sent you a PM regarding your vote about a week ago.

We only have a few days left for voting, and I've only gotten votes from two people! I don't want to judge this thing based just on three votes!

Just so it's clear, I'm not saying that they MUST submit that piece for a later competition. They can either use that work or make something new. It's completely up to them. That thing about it possibly being a really good piece is one of the reasons why I'm like "I'd be upset if I submitted a really good piece for a competition that doesn't happen and I can't submit it ever again!" Seems a bit unfair to disqualify a person's work based on the lack of work from other people. I don't think we'd have to worry about people writing something to "counter" the previous piece; is that even possible? The contest is about which piece the voters think is "best," which is entirely subjective, so to say that something can be written to specifically counter another work just doesn't seem possible...

The submission stage is now officially over! We've got four entries this time: The Name by Random Hajile Media by M W Soon by SoulinEther Electronic Transaction by TheHands Time to get voting! Remember, anyone and everyone can vote, so don't be shy! --- I have one other matter to bring up since we almost had this problem with the current competition. There is nothing in the rules that cover situations in which there aren't enough entries for the round to vote on. I know that we've just been dealing with it as it occurs, but I feel like a basic framework should be outlined in the competition rules. To that end, I have two proposals for additions to the rules: I want to add to the rules something that states the competition must have a minimum number of entries for the competition to be viable that round. I was thinking 3 or 4 (input please!). To go with that, perhaps it may be wise to say that if the number of entries is below the minimum by the end of the official submission stage, the submission deadline would be automatically extended by a week. If the current round of the competition does not meet the minimum requirements, the round ends without a vote. Since we're running a friendly competition, I want to make it so the people that did submit aren't essentially backhanded by the lack of submissions. To that end, I was thinking we could allow those entries, unedited, to be submitted in the next competition they are eligible for. It's just something I've been pondering; naturally, with me being an engineering major, I'm going to be thinking about ways of standardizing the competition rules while not sacrificing the feel of the competition itself. What do you guys think?

Come on now, people. There has been one submission this round so far. That's not good. I don't want to have to extend the deadline for my first competition at the helm! You've got about a day and a half left to submit. Let's see some writing!

Wow, time's really crept up on me this month. I guess that's what happens when you've got many things to worry about at once... Alright people! We've got one week left for submitting your piece! Get a move on, go go go!

I just got finished listening to all three tracks just a minute ago. My mind has been overloaded with Awesome. Seriously, this is top-notch stuff. Great for both listening to alone and listening to while doing work, as usual. I especially loved the first track of Part 2. Great job with it!

I've never played it before but I've always wanted to give it a try. Seems interesting, if a bit long.

Wouldn't you like to know.

In my case, it's because my friend doesn't have a stable wireless connection (doesn't have the wired adaptor) and can't seem to connect to Brawl online regardless. On that note, does the Wii have to be updated fully before it allows you to use the online mode? If so, that would explain why we can't Brawl to work online yet...

The new thread is now live!

Current Submissions for the September 2011 Short Story Competition: Bobert's Boredom by Mirby NOBODY by Jax Mandrake Savanna Dream by Simplicity Results for the September 2011 Short Story Competition: 1st Place: Savanna Dream by Simplicity Runner-Up: NOBODY by Jax Mandrake The vote tally: Savanna Dream by Simplicity - 10 NOBODY by Jax Mandrake - 6 Bobert's Boredom by Mirby - 2

The Writing Competition Thread News 1/2/2011: The submission and especially the voting participation has faltered lately. Make your 2011 resolution to participate more this year! Current Stage: FREEFORM SUBMISSION Contest Dates: Submission: 0:00 UTC 1 January, 2012 - 23:59 UTC 31 January, 2012 Voting: 0:00 UTC 1 February, 2012 - 23:59 UTC 14 February, 2012 Results Posting: 0:00 UTC 15 February, 2012 - 23:59 UTC 16 February, 2012 General Info: The Writing Competition Thread holds competitions starting at the beginning of every other month, with the submission, voting and judging stages usually lasting six weeks followed by a short break. There are three categories that our competitions fall under: short story, poetry, and freeform. Each competition focuses on one of these categories. We aim to be a non-threatening competition, and to help our entrants improve their creative writing skills. If you are interested, please enter regardless of your skill level. We try to give feedback and helpful tips for entered works once each contest is over. Submission Rules: Late submissions will not be counted. Entries should reflect the category of the competition. If an entry is deemed to not fit into the correct category, it will be ignored. Only entries written within the time frame of the submission stage will be considered. After all, the idea behind the competition is partially to promote creativity within a particular time frame, and inherent in the idea of creativity is the act of creation. Only one entry per person is allowed. Finish your work before you post your submission, or if you make a revision, identify it clearly and do so before the submission deadline. Edits of submissions after the voting phase begins will be ignored. Competitions, to be viable, must have at least three (3) entries. Additionally, if a minimum of four (4) entries are not submitted before the end of the official submission stage, the submission deadline will automatically be extended one (1) week. If the current round of the competition does not meet the minimum entry requirement, the round ends without a vote. Entrants, if they so choose, will be allowed to be resubmit their piece, unedited, in the next competition it is eligible for. Remember to include a title, or at least something for people to call your work during the voting phase. Please post your piece directly into this thread whenever possible! Otherwise it may get overlooked. If your piece is too long to fit conveniently into a forum post, please find some alternate form of hosting such as Google Docs or FictionPress.com and link us to it instead. Uploading your finished works to hosts such as Google Docs or FictionPress.com and sharing the links with us is highly recommended! While not necessary for entering, it will help us archive the entries from each competition. Category - Short Story: No fanfiction. Fanfiction will belong in the Freeform category. Why? Because creating and developing your own characters in a limited amount of space is a significant challenge. Working with existing characters in existing universes is like remixed music; it's one thing to remix a song, but something completely different to make it from scratch. Fiction and nonfiction are both welcome. Please limit your submissions in this category to 3000 words. Feel free to label your work according to its genre, style, etc. This will help people understand and better judge your piece. Category - Poetry: No fanpoetry. That is, nothing that qualifies as fanfiction, but in verse form. See above for the reasoning behind this. Also note that allusion is one thing; basing the majority of your work on another person's creative product is another. Poetry can be almost anything. You need not adhere to a particular form unless you wish to. Anything from sonnets to haikus to free-verse belongs here. Please limit your submissions in this category to 1000 words. Feel free to label your work according to its form, e.g., ballad, villanelle, palindrome, limerick, free-verse, acrostic, etc. Category - Freeform: If it has words, it belongs here. Examples could be Maddox-style rants, journalistic articles, how-to documents, or really whatever creative idea you can come up with. Please limit your submissions in this category to 3000 words. Feel free to label your work if you think it will help. Voting Rules: Early or late votes will not be accepted. Anyone may vote, even if he or she does not have a current submission. If foul play is suspected (i.e., an entrant finding a bunch of friends or alt accounts to artificially support their entry) an investigation will occur. Scoring: If the voter has submitted an entry this round or in the past, he or she will be allotted 6 points to distribute. If the voter has NOT submitted this round or in the past, he or she will be allotted 3 points. When voting, you will award your allotted points to any two or more entries as you choose. Note: this means you may not award all of your points to one and only one entry. A voter may allot up to one point to his or her own entry if he or she so chooses. Please submit all votes via PM to me (HalcyonSpirit). Judging Rules: After the deadline for voting has passed, I (HalcyonSpirit) will tally the votes for each submission and post the results no later than the end of the judging stage. The submission with the most points will be declared the winner, and the submission with the second most points will be declared the runner-up.

I said I'd be back, and I'm back. I'd once again like to congratulate everyone who participated in this round of the competition; the stories were all interesting. Submissions these days, including this round's, have been on the rise in average quality too, which I am quite happy to see. Ubernym, yours was especially good, which was no surprise, so again, congrats on winning. And congrats to GAJK for the runner-up position. *pats self on back* With Imagery moving on to greener pastures (missionary work, was it?), responsibility for this competition has been passed onto me, as has been mentioned. For anyone worried about the competition's future, know that writing for these competitions has been a source of great enjoyment and inspiration for me in the past and will continue to be in the future. I hope to be able to continue the recent trend of increasing participation, and I expect to see this competition running many years into the future (barring djp doing something rash with the site, of course). With any luck, we'll have grown even more for when Imagery returns. Is this sounding like an acceptance speech yet? You will be missed, Imagery. I really liked those pieces you've submitted in the past, and I always looked forward to reading more from you. I hope to see some works from you upon your return! I'll keep this place running, of that I can assure you. Administration-wise, don't expect much in the way of changes to the competition; the current process has been serving us well, but suggestions are always welcome. Everyone just needs to remember that votes need to be sent to me now. I expect there will probably be a few mix-ups here and there regardless, but I'm hoping it'll be minimal. I will be making a new thread for the competition when that begins (and that's... holy crap, that's tomorrow, isn't it?), and I will hopefully put a link to the thread at the end of this thread once that is done. I'm not sure how exactly I'll be setting it up (if it's even going to be any different from how it is now), so I ask that you don't post in the new thread until the green light has been given. I'll indicate that at the top of the first post for as long as it takes for someone else to post. I think that's about all I have to say at the moment... Well then, congrats again to everyone who participated in this round, I hope to see you all return for the next round, and a special goodbye to Imagery, whose efforts running this competition are greatly appreciated!

Wow, both of the winners for this competition didn't even enter anything for this round! AMAZING! Congrats to everyone who entered, and to Ubernym for winning this round! I have more to say, but I have to take a test right now, so I'll come back later and hopefully the results post will be corrected, right, Imagery?

Man, I hate busy weeks... oh well. Voted!