SS the 5th

101 most humble apologies... I have just finished my story (hah - admit it, you thought I was going to say that I hadn't :p) but I've been AWOL for ages and I'm so sorry for not posting.
I seem to have just come out the other side of that Kate Bush song (December Will Be Mayhem Again) which ended with an encore of tonsilitis that turned me into a pathetic, snivelling wreck. Anyhoos, I had this week as the sub date so thought I'd best knuckle down to see if I could finish on time - and stayed off here a while longer (I figured if you'd all disowned me already, a few more days wasn't going to make any difference ;)).

I don't write short stories and adopted my usual approach of spinning up some characters, throwing in a thing and letting them kick it around to see what came out. After a couple of weeks, I realised this was going to turn into 50k and I needed to rein it back a bit - then December flew by. I didn't want to restart, thought I could make it work as a short and did a bit of an Edward Scissorhands on it. I suspect I may have ended up with Spongebob Squarepants rather than a really cool dinosaur, and I'm about ten short of my usual dozen edits, but I shall throw myself at the mercy of my recipient!

Right, I'd best quit waffling and send this in...
 
I just found my first Sekrit Santa story, which also happens to be the first short story I'd ever written. It isn't very good but I still find it quite amusing. I think the call was for a Space Opera with a forgetful MC and a busty sidekick.

Give it a read if you are so inclined for a quick space romp of silliness :)
 

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I will have mine sent to you in the next two days pb, sorry for the delay!
 
Hah! Finished. Just doing an edit, and then I'll have to quest deep into the lair of the Title monster to wrest one of his precious Title Eggs from him.

I really should have thought about that metaphor for a little longer.
 
johnnyjet said:
Not bad, ratsy, for the first story you ever wrote. It's a pretty fun space romp.

Seriously! The first story you ever wrote?
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Thanks Johnny! Well it wasn't the first thing I'd written. I had been doing the monthly challenges, and had made a couple false starts on books at that point. But it was my first full short story.
 
Good evening, all! pH, I have just sent the first part (the semi-completed part) of my goofy story to you, via e-mail. I have decided to stop feeling badly about not finishing by the deadline, as I fully intend to finish the story and send it to my recipient...but also, they will be receiving approximately 12k words of story...really that's like receiving 11k of bonus story! Hmm...not sure though if that's bonus or bane. But I'll let them decide! :) Hope you all are doing well with your stories! Looking forward to the next rounds of the event, CC
 
I turned in my entry a few days ago even though I felt it was still in need of some punching up. But I guess that can come later. I'm looking forward to the next phase of this event, too, especially since this is the first time I've done one of these. Phyrebrat, be gentle on us first-timers please. Make sure we know all the rules.
 
Okay, well it's not exactly a rule, but for those of you mentioning your word counts, you're giving a lot away to the recipient of your story; they'll identify you as the author just by counting the words... :p

I've had a tidy little batch in so will be sending out in 2 days when @Quellist finishes if nobody objects. (Assuming I have all stories in by then...)

pH
 
Yikes, pH! You're right! And I never would have thought of the giving-yourself-away-by-proclamations-of-word-count scenario! (That's a LOT of dashes...or are they hyphens??:)). This may be wrong of me, from a guessing-is-part-of-the-spirit-of-the-challenge aspect of SS, but honestly I would like everyone in the event to get about 90% or so right in the guessing round.

And to go out as I came in, I am in a very-very-excited-to-receive-my-story!!! mode! Aww, I've been meaning to get some dash/hyphen work in lately! :) A public thank you to phyrebrat for his fine hosting of SS5!! CC

ps--nice to see you, Darkchrome! Happy you're able to participate. I hope you're feeling much better now, after re-tonsilitis! Yikes, that must have been a drag, I'm sorry.
 
Puts hand up sheepishly.

I'm confused how we would give ourselves away with that? The recipient knows who the story is from and only a small excerpt is put in the thread for guessing against? So how does the length give it away?

Sorry. There's always one... :D
 
Oh dear, springs, I am such a novice at SS! I was thinking that the story recipient isn't told the identity of their personal author until after the guessing round--thus, my saying my story-fragment is over 4k (when they have received a story fragment of 4k+ in length) helps them realize I could be their author...but I most likely am wrong about that..? (In honesty I still am unsure of some of the rules...it might be a bit late to ask...but I am correct, I was supposed to write an incredibly long story for this, right? A near novella? What...no, 1k is suggested for length?? *sigh*..always know your rules! :))
 
Cat's Cradle said:
Oh dear, springs, I am such a novice at SS! I was thinking that the story recipient isn't told the identity of their personal author until after the guessing round...but I most likely am wrong about that..? (In honesty I still am unsure of some of the rules...it might be a bit late to ask...but I am correct, I was supposed to write an incredibly long story for this, right? A near novella? What...no, 1k is suggested for length?? *sigh*..always know your rules! :))
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I'm not sure we have formal rules but I'm fairly sure I've always known who my story is from when I got it (here is your story by...) Having said that I quite like not knowing because then that one could be in the guessing thread too. What if the guessing thread was before the stories went out? Does that solve everything?
 
Yes! I think that would solve things! (You'd not, of course, know how long the stories are just by the excerpted bits thrown up for the guessing round.)

And apologies all...to quote springs up above, "Sorry. There's always one..." (Me, in this case!:))
 
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