Discussing the Writing Challenges -- November and December 2010

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re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Elephants don't have hooves. Neither do walruses, actually. I suppose it was a very good disguise (a bit like putting stiletto heels instead of ballet slippers on hippopotamuses).
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

As the creator of the contest I shall now elucidate the rule:

Within reason, hyphenated and compound words are considered one word (I say within reason, so that no one decides to run a long series of words into one word to get around the rules). Within reason, any uninterrupted series of characters surrounded by spaces at either end counts as a word.

Who gets to decide what is "within reason"? The presiding moderators, if it ever becomes necessary -- although I do trust that Chronicles members will use good sense and act in good faith, so that we never have to make such a decision.
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

chrispenycate said:
Elephants don't have hooves.
Click to expand...

Chris has nailed it. ;)

I expect it'll either be the eponymous heroine of a cost-reduced version of Cinderella (with an evil fairy stepmother), or DCI Jim Keats on a night out.
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

I'll join your girlfriend in admitting I missed the point as well, mgir!

Disguise, huh? I fear I'll need all of the twenty-three days (twenty-two now, I suppose) to bend something into shape for this one...
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

My mind is a blank at this point. It's a great theme, but it's just not suggesting any ideas to me right now. Still, early days yet.
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Hm! I wonder what the foreordained number of posts will be in this round?:D:D
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Perhaps we should take over-unders on forty-two? I think under, but only just...
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

I now have an idea. Whether it will turn into something I want to submit, who knows.

I'm betting under, too. In fact, I think we'll have fewer stories this month than we had votes last month.

It's nothing to do with HareBrain's theme, which is excellent. But I suspect that interest is beginning to wane.
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

I've just hammered out my first idea! Now to let it simmer...

And come back later, realise it's unsalvageable trash, and scrap the whole thing.
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Ohh TEIN, I loved your story! I had to read it for my husband. :D
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Teresa Edgerton said:
I'm betting under, too. In fact, I think we'll have fewer stories this month than we had votes last month.

It's nothing to do with HareBrain's theme, which is excellent. But I suspect that interest is beginning to wane.
Click to expand...

It was bound to happen. I still think there will be a core of about twenty-five or thirty who participate most months though.
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Well, if it's not just rehashing an old argument, I think that there would be more interest if there were more than one challenge in a month. There is a rush to enter stories at the beginning, then a lull in which the rest trickle in, then a long waiting period of not much happening where it's not quite time to discuss stories seriously but there's nothing else to do either, then the last stories hurry in and finally voting and discussion. That middle period is dreary for the impatient among us (by which I mean me, at the very least). I really liked the three-week plan that was submitted a while back--it would be nice to cut out that middle section and leave in the exciting bits. Or maybe it's just me.
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

It's nice that there is an 'official' challenge, and that so many people take part, but there lots of room for other challenges. Lately I've been fooling around with hundred-word sentences and a few other things.The board is the only writing I do lately since I'm on strike here.
Yes, 100-word sentences, without sounding ridiculous... I've run into a few of them lately and it's a great way to learn all about colons and semi-colons and sentence structure in general.
There's four good stories already, couldn't choose, but Talysia's stands out.
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Well, you've seen some of my sentences--I should be a shoo-in for that category! :)

Reminds me of classes in high school and college, when the assignment was to write a paper on such-and-such and the other students' first reaction was "how long does it have to be"--my question was always "how long CAN it be"!

Note that I have hit precisely 75 words three times in a row; it's not so much a need for precision (although that plays in too) as it is a straining against the limits.
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Nothing is stopping any of us (right?) from putting up unofficial challenges and exercises. I for one would welcome them, as I feel I'm still in my infancy when it comes to writing (maybe in my re-infancy, as I used to write non-stop as a teenager but then "didn't have time" for many years).
 
re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Last month I was thinking that I might devise some sort of very brief exercise to keep us busy during the period of the doldrums -- the last week before the voting begins -- a sort of Workshop Pop Quiz, not a competition, just something easy and fun but still creative, brief enough that people could do multiple entries, etc.

But last month I was too busy and mentally overwhelmed to do it. This month, I shall try to come up with something.

In the meantime, there are a number of older exercises in the Workshop that people might like to revive, which I shall dig up and link to in this thread ...
 
 
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re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- June & July

Teresa Edgerton said:
Last month I was thinking that I might devise some sort of very brief exercise to keep us busy during the period of the doldrums -- the last week before the voting begins -- a sort of Workshop Pop Quiz, not a competition, just something easy and fun but still creative, brief enough that people could do multiple entries, etc.

But last month I was too busy and mentally overwhelmed to do it. This month, I shall try to come up with something.

In the meantime, there are a number of older exercises in the Workshop that people might like to revive, which I shall dig up and link to in this thread ...
Click to expand...

Similarly, I confess I couldn't find time to read them all last week so didn't feel it was right to to vote although I knew there were some very good ones in the early part of the competition.

Just lately I'm feeling like a white rabbit with a watch with a girl chasing me. My friend the smiling cat tells me it's all in my imagination, but what does he know.
 
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