Contests! (Mine, other's, and in general) · 11:37pm Jan 18th, 2015
Like everything I write, this post has both an obvious and a subtle purpose. It occurred to me that I should bring more attention to the silly little contest I'm running: The RCL posted an interview of me, and whoever finds the most technical errors wins a free short story of their choice, written by me. Woo! Check out that other blog post for the details.
What's the subtle purpose of this post? My tablet computer ate the first version of this blog post.
I hate that thing. Even when it works perfectly as designed, I hate the interface and the slow, clunky, touch-sensitive keyboard and the inability to right click or cut and paste. It's almost impossible for me to transfer text from my tablet to anything else in the universe. My laptop has a dead battery and a busted-ass D key, and I still prefer it overwhelmingly. This afternoon, I walked all the way to the McDonald's to hang out and write, and there's only one single booth that has an electrical outlet, and my laptop has a dead battery, so I can't write one single thing unless it's actually plugged in, and there was someone else sitting there all goddamned day and he didn't even have anything plugged in he was just sitting there with a reader's digest and a cup of water and and and aaaaaaaaa...
...AAAAVELANCHE OF BULLSHIIIIIIIT
Whenever I write, there's a zillion and nine insignificant problems THAT GET IN MY WAY. I am not a unique and beautiful snowflake in this regard. Somebody pointed out that I haven't written ANYTHING in nine months, and that's largely because of my previous job's crushing schedule. So that's one of the important conditions I need for writing: I need to sit at McDonalds for six hours at a time, and I need to get That One Table. Otherwise, it's a waste of a goddamned day.
I've been trying to get back into the groove of things, so I finally asked myself: What other conditions help me write?
Contests help me write.
Several of my best stories were entrants in writing contests, and they went on to win first place in those contests. I am willing to admit that I won those contests because I am a pretty good writer. But it took me awhile to figure out that the reverse is a more important lesson: Those stories were better BECAUSE they were written for a contest. This seems to go against every fiber of my being: my personality, my attitude, my work ethic... none of it meshes well with "winning is all that matters." You should write because you love to write. So if I don't care about winning, why do contests make me more productive?
Well... deadlines, for one. To my own astonishment, I work faster and better when the pressure is on. Don't have time to write? Make the time. Minor setback? Climb right over it. An annoying distraction? Get over your goddamned self.
I was wandering around the blogs of people much more interesting than myself, and noticed this little gem by Obselescence:
So, a lot of y'all may remember something of the original Most Dangerous Game contest, in which everyone worked tirelessly to prove that there's no such thing as a bad story idea. From Humans in Equestria, to OC alicorns, to second-person perspective, authors brought their A-game, and wrote the craziest and coolest stories in history.
Well, the contest's back. And now it's even more most dangerous! I've partnered up with Equestria Daily (of Equestria Daily fame) to bring you: The More Most Dangerous Game! Now fortified with extra Danger!
I've been told I "do cliche well." How could I resist going into that particular zone? The zone where all the danger is? I had to laugh--like one of those big, gut-busting laughs that comes out of nowhere and won't leave you alone, even though everyone else is staring at you--because you could not have designed a contest that would appeal to DuncanR more strongly, no matter how hard you tried. I decided to jump into this contest, even though I have only half the time remaining, if only to kick start my writing back into top gear.
Unfortunately, I ran into a pretty severe problem...
The Rules
-Word Count Minimum: 2500 words. Word Count Maximum: 15,000 words. Some slight allowance may be given to stories that go over, but in general you should strive to fit within 15,000 words.
Aaaaaand... well, y'see...
This was after five days of writing. It's only two-thirds done.
...Yeah.
As you can see, I might have been a little pent up. The lesson here? Don't ask me to make a moody, slice-of-life homage to "Past Sins" using only 7% of its overall word count. Concision is clearly not my greatest strength. I've said before that short stories are harder to write, and here is your evidence. Anyways. The bad news is, I don't think I'll be submitting this story to the competition. Which is a real shame, because I'm getting a huge kick out of the premise, and I really want to support it.
So at the very least, here's a link to Obselescence's blog post:
http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/425925/the-more-most-dangerous-game-contest
An here's a link to the EQD page:
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2015/01/the-more-most-dangerous-game-writing.html
Go check it out! Even if my story won't be in there, I'll still be reading all the other entries with great gusto.
As for you, Obselescence: Here's my undying gratitude for giving me a story prompt that resonated with me strongly enough that it rocketed me back into a writing state of mind.
Dear Obselescence:
I think you're just dandy!
Because "Taraxacum Officinale" doesn't rhyme with anything cutesy!
The good news is that I have every intention of completing my story and having it edited and posted to Fimfiction before the contest's deadline. If I can accomplish that, I shall consider myself a winner of the prestigious "Everybody Gets A Trophy" trophy.
It's shaped like a finished fanfic.
And it feels pretty damn good.
I've been using Google docs to get stuff from my little mini-tablet to my computer. Just use the app on the tablet to type it up, then go to the website on the computer and copy/paste it into the wordprocessor of my choice. Doesn't help with your other problems with the gadget, but you might want to give it a try next time you are trapped away from the power outlet.
Looking forward to how the story turns out.
Great to hear that you got back in the saddle!
I'm curious about how your grammar contest is going to work. Since starting sentences with words like "since," capitalizing ENTIRE words, and using dot-dot-dots are technically not allowed in English... should we be pointing those things out? Probably not, I imagine, but it's a contest! Gotta have rules!Also, there's a lot of gray area where grammar is concerned. What if a comma is generally accepted, but a valid argument can be made against it? If someone pointed out such a situation in your text, would it count toward their score? I would suggest no, since some people might recognize but dismiss such instances in their own submissions. And who is going to judge whether something is indisputably a mistake? Are you going to look up rules for every single mistake people point out?Never mind, I need to stop. I'm becoming "that guy." No one likes that guy.
2731816
Are you kidding? I love that guy!
Mostly, I"m looking for spelling and punctuation. If you can find an authoritative reference that says "this kind of grammar is absolutely incorrect when composing a letter or memoir," I'll gladly count it.
I'll probably keep a "master version," containing all of the valid edits. In situations where the answer could go either way, you earn points if you notice me waffling back and forth: If I use the Oxford comma in one place, but I fail to use it somewhere else, you may choose either ruling and count the others as errors.
2731749
Ahh, Google docs! Or drive. Or whatever.
I'd use this more often, except my poor tabby's battery life is instantly destroyed by connecting to the internet for long periods.
...Maybe I just need a text editor that allows me to copy/paste. I'm sure the solution is easier than I think it is.
2731843
True. If your tabby can get the Google docs app, you can actually write offline and only connect briefly to upload it. Though doing that might be tricky. Copy/pasting on a tablet is always tricky. Selecting text with fingers is just a pain.
2731843
Er. Each individual one won't count, yeah? With your stylistic inconsistencies, I habitually decided that whichever one you did most often was what you considered "correct", and so I only marked down the less frequent versions as errors. I could give myself a good many extra points if I decided that the more frequent version is bad, just for today.
2736322
The choice is yours. More points is better, right?
...Though I can't imagine what sort of bookkeeping nightmare this will be for me. I've got to proofread the proofreading done by people who are better proofreaders than myself.
If that makes sense.
2736378
Changes to my entry made. Turns out a lot of the stylistic inconsistencies I pointed out also had elements of "but it's also wrong because […]", so I didn't feel comfortable changing many. Buttload of points from commas, though.