Event overview | Review spreadsheet

Voting times have been reduced for this event. This is experimental to see if shorter voting periods are workable.

This event has a prelim round. This means that once the submissions close, you will be assigned a series of stories to read and rate. You must either complete the assigned records or abstain for your stories to pass to the next round.

Note for newcomers: While many participants choose to review others' entries, doing so is by no means required nor expected.

Please refrain from saying anything that might compromise your anonymity. Doing so is grounds for disqualification. It's recommended you do dummy reviews of your own stories should it otherwise be easy to deduce which you wrote.

Maybe I'll actually remember to/be able to enter this time.

It begins... :)

BAH.

Thursday through Sunday this week? I think there literally couldn't be a worse time for me. Any time up to Thursday, great. Any time after Sunday, great. Those four days, not so great.

Well, maybe I'll get lucky and find some time. Otherwise I guess I'm sitting out again.

Pity that this overlaps with the Slam Jam.

4471960
hope it's a bad time to write because you're busy with other fun stuff, at least.

I'm currently on the fence... I'm coming off a couple lousy writing weeks, time that I was supposed to put into novel editing... But I might procrastinate and write an entry anyway. Time (and the prompt) will tell

Maybe I'll actually enter for once. :P

4471971
Statistics work. I fly in to stay with my advisor and do some collaboration on Thursday. He flies out (and I do some house-sitting in his absence) on Sunday. I think. There's a small chance he might be flying out Saturday, which might give me a window to work with. But yeah, some really unfortunate timing on my end.

4471968
Going to make this something of a challenge, but hey, that's life. Time to do all the things.

This is happening during a week long business trip. Even if I manage to write something, the likelihood of me having time to read other entries and vote are slim.

I'm in!

I'm going to be traveling/staying with relatives for the entirety of the writing period. Maybe I'll get a few hours to myself, but more likely than not, I won't be in this one.

I'll be taking an extended, maybe even permanent, leave from the events. Well, I've already left one in the middle and skipped another, so not exactly news.

Turns out my dislike for the S4 finale, and more specifically the Library's destruction and the new castle being added in its place, was stronger than even I expected; after the Castle Sweet Castle episode made it sink for me that it had really happened I found myself unable to find enjoyment in anything pony at all, at a point where being involved with anything pony was just making me burn out. So, to avoid getting to a point where my previous joy turns into hate, I will be avoiding everything pony, including this group and event, until I can get over that.

It was great taking part in this group for as long as I did, and while I can't be with you for a while at least, you all have my best wishes.

So is this is the normal pony contest? Or the generic fiction contest?

Puns. Obviously this contest is ripe for punning, after we had the Pandering Bear from Episode 100 :)

Lets get to it! Prompt time!

I think I might enter this one. Here's goes nothing...

Unfortunately, this contest coincides with my return to the States for a few weeks of training, and I'll be travelling for 36 out of the 72 hour writing period.

I won't say it's impossible for me to participate for this round, but it'll be tough. Certainly I won't be pushing the high-end of the word length. Maybe I can get some writing done on the plane.

4472113 Safe travels!

Not sure I'm going to be able to get enough words out in time, but I'll give it a go!

Here's hoping the prompt isn't a troll one.

I have to get ready for my graduation, so I will have to abstain from this one.

Prompt submitted. This is gonna be a busy weekend for me, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to get something down.

4472063
Normal pony, my friend. I have a feeling that we'll be getting a pretty big warning once we make the eventual switch.

4472036
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that you stay safe, and find success in whatever you do!

I don't see any reason why I can't put in an entry for this one.

Gasp! A weekend I BARELY WORK! YAY!

4472219
You do realize you have just doomed yourself to 48 hours of NO IDEAS. Right?

I'm probably in. Writing time will be tight with Father's Day and all, but I can usually pull something off.

4471968
Yeah, slamjam's gonna make this difficult, and I'm only reading at this point. I'll probably sit out reviews again.

I may or may not enter, since my writing speed has gone from "maybe 750 words in 2 hours" to "a few sentences each morning and evening".

4472322

4472008 Just explain to your advisor that you really need him to leave a day early so you can write My Little Pony fan-fiction.

4472113 Again, just go to your CO and explain that you need to be excused from training for a My Little Pony write-off. I can write you a note.

4472570 A note? Heck, you could write him a symphony.

Darnit, now I'm going to have to write a story about a Royal Guard who gives a letter from his mother to Princess Celestia asking to be excused from the upcoming invasion.

4472618

a Royal Guard who gives a letter from his mother to Princess Celestia asking to be excused from the upcoming invasion.

Reminds me of this (skip to 3:24):

I just realize that I have a trip on the very day that the writeoff begins and won't return until late Monday when the writing time is over. It might be close but depending on the prompt I might squeeze something in, or beg RogerDoger to slip in a late entry on Monday. (Hopefully.)

Pretty sure that shortened voting time means I can't participate, just wouldn't have almost any free time those four days for doing the prelim voting if I wrote something. Oh well. Good luck to those who do.

Man, looks like this is going to be a brutal round on the writing front. Half of us are traveling or booked and most of the other half are going to be setting aside time for Father's Day (myself included). And then the shortened voting period. Welp, time to start thinking of a 2000-word idea!

4473023
Really? Inserting feather puns?

Enough with the put-downs!

... I'll just see myself out

I have nothing to do on Father's Day, Tee Hee Hee

Incoming M1GarandConspiracyTheory

Hmm, well there are fifty five prompts, with nine of them being potential. (In my opinion.) Hopefully some luck will come there way in the voting.

Aw man, I missed the prompt submission. Pooh. Hope you all came up with some good ones :p

4473039
#Not_My_Alt

4472113 I've been on leave for basically a month, and ironically I've had less time to write. But I too will be doing training during the entire duration of the contest.

4472570 A note... hmmm I could use one too. My CO will understand.

Gah, I'm off by a day, and I missed the submissions! Srsly, brain.

*cracks knuckles*

Let's see if I can manage to reach the finals.

While I have no idea if I'll be able to write or not, I'm really wondering if, if I do write, I'll be able to make wordcount... It'll be fun, for sure!

Well, submitted a prompt (a while ago), voted, and ready to go if I can avoid some other catastrophical large batch of work for the weekend and wrap up what I have in my greasy little hands right now (I am humming "Sixteen tons").

When submitting or voting on a prompt, ask yourself, "Would I like to read 50 stories based on this prompt?" I think some people didn't think of that...

Is it already time for another one? Huh.
And of course I'm busy the whole weekend. Won't even have internet access.

One of these days, I'm gonna participate in a short story writeoff, guddarnit.

Welp, y'all have fun.

With this many choices, picking prompts that you think you can write well with becomes even harder. xD

4473375
This is indeed an important question to ask. And why I'm so looking forward to "Oh-Pun Season" winning.

I am a terrible person.

4473375
There wasn't even a prompt about poop this time

I noticed something useful while voting on prompts. I have a story idea in mind, and I went thru the prompt choices asking how I could work each one into this story idea. Most of them I couldn't, but when I found one that I could, it was because the prompt idea was already weakly implied by part of the story. Because the prompts were usually sorta univeral themes, I think that finding the ones already present in my story and making them more obvious will make it a better story.