Discussing the Writing Challenges -- November and December 2010

[Mouse]

Ahhhh! Thanks for that explanation, Lenny!

Now if TJ could reveal the hidden thingy in her title...

 

[sloweye]

Well done Hoopy and SF

 

[The Judge]

You can talk, Mouse. Your puzzle is still Greek as far as I'm concerned. (Lenny's went way beyond Greek -- I still don't think I understand it...)

Mine's simple. The first bit is just the name of the tour company. But Diabolic Forces is an anagram.

 

[Mouse]

Of... sacrifice?! Wait, don't tell me! I'm gonna work it out.

My title was 'No Sacrifice.' Which means that the character either decided not to sacrifice the cow to Poseidon in the end, or, it's not really a sacrifice, it's a giant orgy of some sort, hence the nakedness.

Also, the hidden things in mine (which weren't really hidden) was the story being about that whole Poseidon myth where they sacrifice the bull which could walk on water. Only, the character is a bit of a divvy, so says cow instead of bull.

And 'it's a human sign, when things go wrong' is the first line of Elton John's Sacrifice. Which I said I couldn't get out of my head as soon as I saw the theme! And as Elton John's now become a daddy, tis even more relevant. Clever eh?!

Oh, and also the naked stuff is for the reason Chris said somewhere about Greeks celebrating and whatnot.

edit: Blood sacrifice!! Is that the anagram?

 

[The Judge]

Nope. Didn't get none of that. Mind you, since I'd convinced myself the narrator was bovine, it wouldn't have helped me! I put your transliterated title through a translator and that just came up with "Sacrifice" pure and simple, so I didn't look further there. And I guessed that "it's a human sign" thing was part of it, as it was such a strange sentence, but I didn't think of googling it, just spent several hours trying anagrams...

I don't recall Chris talking about Greeks celebrating in the nuddy. I miss all the interesting stuff.

(Your edit -- Yes. It is.)

 

[Mouse]

Oh well. Not as clever as I thought then! No hidden things for me next time. A cow being the narrator could work too though! I like that.

And yay! I got the anagram! I thought your title was an anagram, but I'd been looking at the whole title, not just that part of it.

 

[digs]

And 'it's a human sign, when things go wrong' is the first line of Elton John's Sacrifice.

Haha, I totally should have picked up on that. It's been bouncing around my head all month because of your malicious comment. The only solution is to spread the love...

And it's no sacrifice
Just a simple word
It's two hearts livin'
In two separate wooooorlds

 

[Mouse]

Gah! Do you know how long it's taken to get that song out of my head?!

 

[digs]

I'm just returning to sender!

 

[HareBrain]

I fear my time at the top of the leader-board is drawing to its close. Unless I can concentrate all my creative faculties in January and work as I've never worked be-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Lenny, I sort of got that, but I was trying to work out who the sides were, and I thought the whole story related in some way to the internet standard of English. Hence not quite making sense of it.

Thanks all who voted for or mentioned mine. Especially Perpetual Man for sending my ego stratospheric on Christmas morning, after it had taken such a beating by Santa not turning up. I did try to be good.

 

[Parson]

Re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I thought more people might have understood the final line, but it seems I was wrong - it's a tweet to a fictional person with the handle "monkeyfunk" who, as implied by the line before it, is on the side our protagonist was on before being captured. The bit about his soul being taken away is a personal joke, which I'm sure I've used many times, about selling your soul and signing up to Twitter* - I didn't expect many, if any, people to get that, but I put it in anyway.

So, this "greater good" is obviously a war of two sides. Now this is the abstract leap which I think confused people - the comment to "monkeyfunk" is a classic example of what is called trolling (making incorrect or offensive remarks to get an emotional rise out of your target - in this case, calling out their bad grammar with a sentence that itself breaks many rules of the language). The war, then? Why, it's the legendary Flame War!

Can you blame me? I'm a CompSci who lives on the Internet - I'll take whatever inspiration I can get!

Hope that clears it up for people.


*The title, by the way, is a reference to the logo of Twitter - a small, blue bird. Some of you might know the saying, "You can never trust what you read on the Internet". Put them together, et voilà.

Lenny, I agree with the Judge here. This went way beyond Greek. I can actually read a few words of Greek. As a 60 year old grandfather, I can truly say that your post reminded me of how "out of it" I really am in spite of my attempts to keep abreast of society.

 

[nixie]

Congratulations Hoops and SF

 

[HoopyFrood]

Re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

A couple of people have asked me what on earth I was going for so, whilst I remember, I'll try and explain it:



Sacrifice - the fella giving a few years of life for the greater good, and him being used as bait (a piece sacrificed for tactical purposes).

I thought more people might have understood the final line, but it seems I was wrong - it's a tweet to a fictional person with the handle "monkeyfunk" who, as implied by the line before it, is on the side our protagonist was on before being captured. The bit about his soul being taken away is a personal joke, which I'm sure I've used many times, about selling your soul and signing up to Twitter* - I didn't expect many, if any, people to get that, but I put it in anyway.

So, this "greater good" is obviously a war of two sides. Now this is the abstract leap which I think confused people - the comment to "monkeyfunk" is a classic example of what is called trolling (making incorrect or offensive remarks to get an emotional rise out of your target - in this case, calling out their bad grammar with a sentence that itself breaks many rules of the language). The war, then? Why, it's the legendary Flame War!

Can you blame me? I'm a CompSci who lives on the Internet - I'll take whatever inspiration I can get!

Hope that clears it up for people.


*The title, by the way, is a reference to the logo of Twitter - a small, blue bird. Some of you might know the saying, "You can never trust what you read on the Internet". Put them together, et voilà.

Oooooh, right. I see now. Yeah, I felt...wrong...signing up to Twitter.

Many thanks to everyone who voted for me. Each and every vote is always such a surprise. As I've said elsewhere, it's certainly giving me more confidence in my writing. However, damn Storm for stealing my victory! *Shakes fist* Kidding. Hers is delightfully seasonal and apt; go SF!

I voted for Oxman -- it wasn't until I reached the end of the story that I realised what it was about, and then it just stuck me with -- and digs -- I don't think I understood it, but I know I liked it nonetheless.

 

[Ursa major]

Although I didn't have time to post here, I did manage to use all three votes**. Having three votes has thrown my usual reporting format, so the following will have to do:



Honourable Mentions:

• Writer's Block by Paranoid Marvin
• Ho Ho Ho! by StormFeather

Runners Up:

• They Didn't Believe by J Riff
• Desperate Measures by alchemist
• 15:13 by HoopyFrood

Winners:

• Rostario's Liver by R.M.Tobias
  [*]An eye sack for an eye sack by Moonbat
  [*]On a Long Road by Harebrain (which would probably have received my one vote in other circumstances)

Thanks for the vote and the mentions, by the way.


** - At least I hope all three were counted....

 

[Moonbat]

Many Many Many Many Thanks to Hilarious Joke, Digs, The Dusty Zebra and Ursa Major for thier votes. I think this month I have received more votes than in all the past months combined, but that's probably due to the 3 votes malarky that was somehow shoe-horned into the voting procedure this month (did I miss the memo on that?)

I wrote two tales this month, and the other was

The Price of Love

The insult was too great, the ignominy unbearable. She begged for some relief from the torture she endured.
Upon her knees, she swore, muttering curses under her breath. The sight enraged and disgusted her, the smell brought tears to her eyes
‘Martin!’ She hated him, but loved him, and couldn’t believe that she was once again cleaning up his mess, she scrubbed away the stains on the toilet, and opened a window.


Which was inspired by my GF, when I asked her what sacrifice meant to her she said "This!" as she left the bathroom after I let one rip!

I had trouble voting as I only got round to it late last night and I struggled to read through all the tales. None of my 3 votes were for the two winners, but they did go to

Oxman's Wargames - which I thought was a great twist on the theme, and brilliantly executed.
Jude's - The Turkey revenge, very amusing and with a solid Christmas theme
DeathFromMassive's - Sugar and Spice, despite the spelling error in the title I thought it was very clever with a powerful punchline.

I'm off to cast my vote in the tie-break

Thanks again and again and again for my votes.
Oh and Merry Christmas everybody, and a happy new Year!!!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

but that's probably due to the 3 votes malarky that was somehow shoe-horned into the voting procedure this month (did I miss the memo on that?)

If you mean a memo in advance, there wasn't. The extra votes were a Christmas present from the moderators; you don't get an advance memo on gifts. They've supposed to be a surprise. However, I did give an explanation here as soon as voting opened.

There was a discussion in the Staff Room, about how to reward you all for being so good during the nine months of the Challenge. That, of course, was conducted with great secrecy: heavily cloaked figures scuttling in and out, midnight convocations (difficult to arrange, considering I'm in California, Cul is in Australia, and TJ and pyan are in England!), and all this in addition to the usual passwords and high signs.

*****

Possibly due to Karn's bad influence (deciding who to vote for before all the stories were in), I knew that I would vote for HareBrain's the first time I read it. But then I already knew there would be three votes, having attended all of those secret meetings. While I could imagine one or two stories turning up that I liked better, I couldn't believe there would be three. As it happened, it remained my unquestioned favorite. I was pretty sure about Parson's early on and I loved No One's, too, from the first reading. But StormFeather's was a very close fourth. It was one of those stories that stuck in my mind. So I was very pleased to be able to vote for it in the tie-breaker.

 

[Chel]

I try hard not to even read the stories properly before voting time. My standard MO is to write my own story, then quickly skim through the ones already posted to check that none of them are too close to my own, post and forget all about it (TRY TO, ok?) until I read all of them properly and decide which to vote for.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Surely the question is :-

Will we be keeping the three voting system?

 

[Hilarious Joke]

I say not! Save it for special occasions methinks.

 

[digs]

It'd be interesting to see how having only 1 vote this month might have changed anything.

Also, I wanted to remind you guys:

It's no sacrifiiiiiiice
Aaaaat aaalllll