Sekrit Santa - the guessing thread

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I wrote for Victoria: "For me, how about something that would be realistic near future science fiction, or, if you prefer, magic realism"

For some bizarre reason, I went for magical realism. Experience: one 75 word story. But I enjoyed using a different voice quite a lot.

It was an absolutely brilliant story, prefectly written.

Huge thanks to Kissmequick for setting this up!

(So when's the next one?)

 

[Kissmequick]

(So when's the next one?)

It was a pleasure.

And...when I've finished my WIP?

 

[ratsy]

Thanks again KMQ

 

[hopewrites]

aw i missed the guessing.

Truly had a lot of fun with this! So much so I'd offer to host next go round.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Awww. Bum. I go off-world for three seconds and I miss all the fun.

Having said that....my guesses were wrong in the extreme. I could have bet the farm that Hex's was written by Mouse but I had a vague feeling that AMW wrote mine - which was right. And so thank you AMW, I loved it. Something that made me think it was you was the phrase 'close to' instead of 'close up'. Before my fam moved to Bournemouth I'd not heard it said that way and I figured maybe it was a south thing (bearing in mind you're in Soton).

I thought Glisterspeck or Alc may have been responsible for no 8 but that's about it.

I knew I should've 'goshdurnit' instead of 'sod off'.

Mouse your comments on what I wrote are the first positive feedback I have had for anything (eek) and I wanted to say thanks and that I really appreciate it. I started feeling a bit concerned when it became so long so it's a relief you liked it.

AMW. A massive thank you for my tale. Completely lovely to set it in such an original environment. Really transported me there and sucked me into the story.

And whilst on the thanking thing - KMQ thanks for organising this. You've done a great job. I'm also happy to administer another one. However I think we need a bit of a break, right!?

pH

 

[Kylara]

Hahahahaaaaa, wow those are some good openings! My guesses were a little odd - I got Hope, amw and after a few looks Hex, but I thought I would guess springs and Mouse and I didn't :O

I think, if there is another one of these it would be great and I will most definitely get mine in, and on time! Also happy to be admin (as normally I have very little going on aside from reading, giving riding lessons and walking about training baby pony)

 

[TacticalLoco]

Thanks to KissMeQuick for doing this and also everyone who wrote.
Sorry I missed the guessing, which I would have been terrible at anyway.
The last week was very busy as our spring semester ended yesterday.
I very much enjoyed writing this story. Think I'll give it a rewrite and see where it goes from there.

 

[Mouse]

Mouse your comments on what I wrote are the first positive feedback I have had for anything (eek) and I wanted to say thanks and that I really appreciate it. I started feeling a bit concerned when it became so long so it's a relief you liked it.

I was still thinking about it when I woke up the next day, so that's a good sign!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Yes, a huge thanks to KMQ for running the whole thing! It was quite fun, and I, too, would be willing to host another one -- so we shouldn't be short of hosts in the future!

Perhaps we could do it every three months, like the 300, but on schedule like this one so that it falls in the month AFTER the 300. I wouldn't want to have to think of a 75, a 300, and a 1000+ all in the same month, at the same time as (theoretically) working on my own stuff as well.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

With so many folks willing to be administrators, perhaps those of you who have volunteered would like to tell us what month you will start this process. Let's see; this was May 2013, so does anybody want to volunteer for:

August 2013

November 2013

February 2014

and so on?

(It would be difficult if not impossible for me to do this, given the fact that I have to be away from the computer for a week at a time sometimes.)

 

[Mouse]

Thanks, KMQ, for doing this.

I don't mind taking part whenever it's going again (depending if I have time).

Anybody gonna post their whole story?

 

[Kissmequick]

Nice that so many are up for running another one! While I wouldn't mind -- it was great fun -- it'd be nice to have the fun of writing a story to a particular prompt/guessing.

 

[Glisterspeck]

Thanks, KMQ, for doing this.

I don't mind taking part whenever it's going again (depending if I have time).

Anybody gonna post their whole story?

Where would we post them? There are limits to word counts in posts, aren't there?

 

[Mouse]

Easy, just attach the story file to the post.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Where would we post them? There are limits to word counts in posts, aren't there?

No, the only one limited is crits, but the software can absorb longer excerpts,
I think.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

OK, I'll give this a try.

View attachment Love Has Pitched His Mansion.docx

 

[Glisterspeck]

OK, I'll give this a try.

View attachment 19978

Read this on my way home. It's very sweet and touching. Even though you say Shadow has dark hair, I pictured him looking like Andrej Pejić, who is crazy beautiful.

EDIT: For some reason, I wrote gray when I meant dark...

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Read this on my way home. It's very sweet and touching. Even though you say Shadow has dark hair, I pictured him looking like Andrej Pejić, who is crazy beautiful.

EDIT: For some reason, I wrote gray when I meant dark...

Thank you for the very kind words. I had never heard of this person, but it sounds like perfect casting.

Slight spoiler for those who have not read my story:

Spoiler

One difficulty I had with this story was trying to make sure that Shadow was neither a woman nor a man. I think I erred on the side of female, but since you call Shadow "him" I may have avoided that problem to a greater degree than I imagined.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

That's a cool story, Victoria!

On your spoiler: I, too, found myself thinking of Shadow as "he", even though it's made perfectly clear that "he" was neither, and in fact had breasts, if nothing else. I think there is a natural tendency to think of neithers/boths as "he", for some reason -- as in the Betan hermaphrodite, Bel Thorne, in the Vorkosigan books, whom Miles (and therefore the reader) persists in thinking of as male for no reason in particular. Although I'm not sure if, perhaps, males might tend to think of them as female?

And:

With so many folks willing to be administrators, perhaps those of you who have volunteered would like to tell us what month you will start this process. Let's see; this was May 2013, so does anybody want to volunteer for:

August 2013

November 2013

February 2014

and so on?

I believe that Hope, Phyrebrat and Kylara are in ahead of me, but I think I could do any of those months. I could definitely not do next May, as May is the crazy month from heck for everything in the world going on with the kids. Just let me know!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Thank you for the very kind words. I had never heard of this person, but it sounds like perfect casting.

Slight spoiler for those who have not read my story:

Spoiler

One difficulty I had with this story was trying to make sure that Shadow was neither a woman nor a man. I think I erred on the side of female, but since you call Shadow "him" I may have avoided that problem to a greater degree than I imagined.

It was a fabulous story, that captured exactly what I'd asked for. Incidentally, I saw Shadow as a female, although I knew it was a hermaphrodite, possibly because the protagonist was male. So, perhaps my unknown prejudices showing there? But, also, its personality came across as female.