Ok, I'll bite. I don't see any reason why we can't start another challenge before the last one wraps up, since there's no correlation as far as who runs them. I hereby declare the games open, and I also hereby declare that this shall not deter the finish of SSX from ...err... finishing. This means you, phyre-y friend.
For those unfamiliar with our customs, this is the challenge known as Sekrit Santa, in which the following happens, on a random schedule:
people who would like to participate announce below just what sort of story they would like an anonymous person to write for them -- "SF romance with dragons", or "shamanistic fantasy adventure with optional singing frog" or whatever. There is a certain contingent among the participants that prefers the requests not be too outlandish, or at least that the outlandish elements be optional, but another contingent looks forward to whatever fate throws, so feel free to express a preference in that direction if you wish. The story fairy may take pity. See previous SS challenge threads for a general idea of what the requests look like.
After the requests are all in (reasonable amount of time for requesting to be determined, but generally at least a couple of weeks to cuss and discuss), the story fairy bestows the requests upon their anonymous recipients -- if you make a request, you get someone else's request to write.
You then have (reasonable amount of time for writing the stories to be determined) some time, generally at least a month or two, to write a story of no less than 1000 words and up to as many as you wish.
You send the story to me (the story fairy) and when they are (mostly) all in, I will send the stories out to the people for whom they were written.
Then I post excerpts of all the stories in the guessing thread, and everyone gets to try and guess who wrote what. After that, the authors are unveiled.
It's up to the author of the story whether to post the whole thing here (via attachment, mostly, as they tend to be larger than the allowed 1500 word limit), which some do and some do not -- some are thinking of publishing the story and don't want it being disqualified for that -- but you generally get to read at least a handful of the other stories here.
I exhort you (as the total hypocrite that I am) to make every effort to participate once you are assigned a story. You have plenty of time to back out before the stories are assigned, but after that it messes up the algorithms and makes people cranky if you don't write.
Let the games begin!
For those unfamiliar with our customs, this is the challenge known as Sekrit Santa, in which the following happens, on a random schedule:
people who would like to participate announce below just what sort of story they would like an anonymous person to write for them -- "SF romance with dragons", or "shamanistic fantasy adventure with optional singing frog" or whatever. There is a certain contingent among the participants that prefers the requests not be too outlandish, or at least that the outlandish elements be optional, but another contingent looks forward to whatever fate throws, so feel free to express a preference in that direction if you wish. The story fairy may take pity. See previous SS challenge threads for a general idea of what the requests look like.
After the requests are all in (reasonable amount of time for requesting to be determined, but generally at least a couple of weeks to cuss and discuss), the story fairy bestows the requests upon their anonymous recipients -- if you make a request, you get someone else's request to write.
You then have (reasonable amount of time for writing the stories to be determined) some time, generally at least a month or two, to write a story of no less than 1000 words and up to as many as you wish.
You send the story to me (the story fairy) and when they are (mostly) all in, I will send the stories out to the people for whom they were written.
Then I post excerpts of all the stories in the guessing thread, and everyone gets to try and guess who wrote what. After that, the authors are unveiled.
It's up to the author of the story whether to post the whole thing here (via attachment, mostly, as they tend to be larger than the allowed 1500 word limit), which some do and some do not -- some are thinking of publishing the story and don't want it being disqualified for that -- but you generally get to read at least a handful of the other stories here.
I exhort you (as the total hypocrite that I am) to make every effort to participate once you are assigned a story. You have plenty of time to back out before the stories are assigned, but after that it messes up the algorithms and makes people cranky if you don't write.
Let the games begin!
