I actually have a semi-good idea for a story here. Could this be my first short story I actually complete?

Guess how many words I wrote today!

If you guessed "zero" you would be correct!

I can't very well complain about the results if I half-ass my entire story on the last day, now can I? :V So how are you all doing?

3629535
About half way through. And I hate my ending, so I'm trying to think of a different one that doesn't involve rewriting all of the first half. We'll see how this goes...

3629535

I just finished ironing out what I wanted to do exactly, and am about 1k words in. Hopefully I can keep it up tomorrow.

3629641
I hope I'm about halfway through with mine, because I'm not going to be able to turn in a complete story within the deadline if my muse insists on continuing to add scenes I don't have time to write.

3629535
Get cracking, sir! Not much fun if we can't complain about the results, is it?

3629806
I'm at the "try to half-ass original idea or just spit out a complete wooden spoon candidate" stage now.

Looks like I have to go overnight to finish my entry. =(

3629535 I'm about halfway through mine, but that doesn't leave me with much. Still not very good at this whole horsewords thing.

Mine is fully drafted, every scene hopefully locked in place, and I do like my ending, but only the first third is finished; the rest is not in a presentable state (my drafts are an intermediary between outlining and actual draft).

And I can't believe I wasted almost a day to decide which of my ideas I wanted to write, I should have been at this stage yesterday

3630351
My usual process is:

-Spend Friday morning deciding on story
-Start writing
-Stop writing because Friday is a busy day
-Look at what's been written Friday evening and marvel at ability; people will like this
-Look at what's been written Saturday morning and despair at ability; no one will like this
-Spend Saturday Not Writing; it's a busy day and there's no way I can keep writing that well
-Half-ass everything on Sunday
-(Optional?) No one likes it; self-fulfilling prophecy achieved

3630399
Not much different from my own. But this time it was supposed to be different[1]; I spent a bunch of my free time during the week brainstorming half the prompts, so I could have something ready to write the moment the prompt was decided.

Only this was a prompt that got me more than a few ideas, so I couldn't decide which of those I wanted to do

[1] Famous last words.

3630428
-Try not to cry
-Cry a lot

I'm dropping out of this one. My entry is completely no good and I don't have time to rewrite a new one. =(

My entry has been submitted. I have no idea how well this is going to work. Fun!

About to submit. I set a writing record for myself!

3630443
A three-day deadline is a harsh mistress.

Hug?

3630428
> Famous last words

Wrong prompt, silly!

I spent all of Friday brainstorming, and all of Saturday writing. Now I'm about 2/3 done with my first draft. I've never even written so many words so quickly before. I'm almost certain most of it isn't half as good as I think it is.

3629535

started two hours ago, about 1500 words in.

Now I'm officially in the final stretch, with over 2/3 of my story done (though not linearly). Perhaps I will have time to revise and edit it once more after finishing — though, given that I already do both in real time as I'm writing[1], at least it won't be a total disaster if I have to skip the extra revision.

3630706
Oh, I don't know. If I was writing about how I'm writing this story[2], it would fit a number of other old prompts. History Repeats, One Little Mistake, and Double Edged Sword all come to mind, though I don't think it would fit the current prompt

[1] Yes, I know I'm not supposed to do that. But my OCD flares up if I write anything beyond an outline without revising. It's why my drafts look more like very detailed outlines than actual stories.
[2] Recursion for the win

Agh, six hours and redacted words later. All the words are starting to blend together.

Just goes to show, all it takes is a bunch of complaining and you can do anything! :V Got submitted about two hours ago. Thankfully it turned out much shorter than I anticipated. Good luck, everypony!

I'm going to take a chance here, and halt my writing to go head off to an Ultimate Frisbee pickup game. With six hours to go, I'm banking on the idea that I'll have enough time to finish the final scene and my editing after I return. So if there's an entry that becomes totally incoherent at the end, you'll know I was wrong.

Just got mine in. Oh my goodness, even if this one totally tanks I'm really happy with myself. Never thought I'd be able to pull off so much in such a short time.

Can't wait to see what the rest of you came up with!

3631265

Six hours left? I count 17.

3631351
It's actually at five hours now. Monday at 2 AM Eastern Time is the deadline.

Just a bit of encouragement for everypony: there are Magic: the Gathering prizes this time around, with first place valuing (probably) $66!

You can do it, ya'll! ^.~

*rattles gothy pom poms*

3631364

oh snap, I thought it was 1pm CDT, since thats what all the other deadlines are.

3631388
Damn, dude, I hope you can get your entry in on time.

3631398

I've been working on it, at redacted words, probably another redacted at most and quite a bit of spacing and editing. I should make it, just might make another Build boards mistake lol

Well, I've restarted my writing again and just got done. Gonna let it sit for an hour before I edit it and submit.

Edit: I think this is one of my worst entries in the writeoff (the other being Rain =x). Hopefully I can edit it up to standards. =s

3631519
Hey, you get a ton of points in my book for giving it a shot. Good luck, man!

Oh hey. Here I thought I had another 16 hours nearly, and it's 3.5

Well! That'll have to be enough!

A bit over three hours left, and my characters insist on straying from the script

At least there is only less than half a scene left to write. Unfortunately it's the single larger and most important scene of my story.

Redacted words of unedited mess. Well, three hours to make it look pretty. Gonna play a game of aram to get it off my mind so I can try and look at it fresh.

3631697

I know that feel bro. Every time I thought I was 1k words away, I would write 1k words then think I still had 1k to go. It felt like it would never end. Heck I even added a character halfway through.

Back home with three hours to go! Let's do this.

I'm pretty sure y'all will dislike mine this time around, and I'm pretty sure I can point to why, but at this point I'm committed. Time to test the hypothesis!

3631519
Congrats! Getting back on the horse, so to speak, is a big deal. You've got a little editing time left, but just as importantly, you'll have time to tighten the story up based on the reviews. Like with NaNoWriMo, gotta get it done before you get it better.

Done! Done done done done!

It's not bad for starting from scratch half way through. Now I've just got to format and submit!

Ugh, I did my best with the entry in the short period of editing. The plot and construction is still pretty much a mess. =/

Well! Submitted, and I feel rather happy with the end result, especially given that it went from barest outline to finished work in a little under 3 hours. Given how much I struggled with a concept that fit this prompt, I am quite pleased with what emerged.

Well, with little over an hour left, I'm not going to make it. Rather than get closer to the end only to fail, I'm just going to bail out and try to do the story justice on my own time. I probably wont participate in reviews either; it get's too painful knowing I had a shot at getting in but missed it. Ah well, fingers crossed for next time!

3632020
No worries pal, everyone feels that way with these things. ^.^
You just might be surprise what others think of it, and if not, then thanks to all the experience you'll be ten times more prepared for next time.

#woodenspoonlyfe

3632040
Any chance you could limp to something resembling a submission with what you've got? If your entry's not up to your usual standards, judging by comments here you'll be in good company, and it'll give you a benchmark for next time.

There have been a few rounds where I have literally written my final words within five minutes of the deadline, and was racing the clock to get it formatted in time. Oddly, that's helped steel my nerve for tossing in what I considered a half-assed submission — because I have a built-in excuse for not turning in my best work.

I finished mine and submitted it. Still an hour to do another look over but honestly its all i've been staring at for hours so just gonna let it be. redacted words of exactly what I was going for. Its a story I had thought of writing a long time ago and glad to finally get it out. I'm not sure it has the emotional impact I wanted so will definitely tweak it once the contest is over. Now time for sleep.

3632040
I think my biggest problem is that I can't write anything decent in a tight deadline. I prefer having weeks and months to go over my stuff. =x

And yeah, there's an hour left and I still remember typing all the words for In Between minutes before submission for Obs' Most Dangerous Game contest. Don't give up! =x

3632056

#woodenspoonisjustasmallbowlonastickusedtoeatfromalargerbowl4lyf

16 submissions. holy crap thats at minimum 32k words

3632071 Yes, I'd feel just awful if I submitted anything I hadn't written in just the last minute, because then I might have to blame my lack of skill or some other personal failing for the quality, rather than the lesser foible of "bad time management."

Just submitted... oi, really wish I'd had more time to work on it, as I really liked my idea this time. Not so confident in the execution though. Too busy with actual for-pay work this weekend though, so at least if I complain, it's because I was actually earning a paycheck for the first time in months. I also have a new day job that starts tomorrow, so that'd hanging over me as well. I feel bad, because I find myself hoping that there aren't too many entries this time... as I'm afraid I may not have much time for reading/judging if there are.

Ten minutes to spare. Oo-rah.

That feel when you decide to stay up that remaining hour and see the story list, only to have the deadline extended five hours. Guess its really bedtime this time

3632184
I'm assuming that's due to technical difficulties. I'm getting "502 Bad Gateway" errors when trying to do a last-minute edit on my entry, with Cloudflare saying it's the site's problem.

3632192
Are you still getting this? The site is loading fine for me.

The deadline hasn't been extended.