Hard to believe we're already two weeks into this contest. As of right now, we have 13 submissions -- many of them written by first timers in the fic arena. I can't tell you how proud I am of all of you so far.

So, as the days have gone by and I've answered questions (and bite off a few heads, as a few of you have experienced and for that I extend my apologies), I think now's a decent time to address the issue of how I intend to judge stories.

In all honesty, I'm still looking for a good answer to that. I'm really quite averse to establishing a rubric or list of bullet points each story must hit in order to maximize its chances of winning. Rather, I'd like to revisit the prompt that kicked this story off.

Write a story about ponies... from a non-pony's point of view.

I've said this before and I'll say it again -- I'm not interested in holding a lamp to your viewpoint character's face until they break and admit 1% of them is a pony so I can disqualify your entry (humans and crossovers are still off-limits, though). If I were to ask you "Is your character a pony?" and you say no, that's most likely good enough for me (unless you're lying). And the reason I'm saying that is because I want you to remember that the most important part of this contest comes from this part of the prompt:

Write a story about ponies...

We watch a show called My Little Pony. Even with four seasons' worth of episodes, reams of comic books, two movies, and Meghan being an absolute tease on Twitter at times, there's still a lot of cool and incredible stuff about ponies that we just haven't seen yet. Your focus when writing stories for this contest shouldn't be about presenting the flashiest, most unexpected, most awesome or most original non-pony species to your readers (though you are welcome to go for awesomeness if you wish!).

Whatever you choose for your viewpoint character, it should act as a lens of highest clarity pointed at the children of the cutie mark. And however you choose to portray your ponies, be it over eons, the turn of a year, or a single, unyielding evening, doing so with honesty and authenticity will give you the best chance of doing well in this contest.

All of you have something to say about ponies that no one else can say. Putting that out there is why we're here.

I wish you all the best of luck as we head into these next two weeks.