"Rarity!"

Rarity looked up from her sewing machine to find a distressed-looking Rainbow Dash standing in the doorway of her work room.

"Why hello there darling! You look a bit worried, is something the matter?"

"Yeah something's the matter!" Rainbow walked inside. "I just checked on that contest thing we're doing with that one weird human with the two-letter name, and get this: no one's entered yet!"

Rarity laughed. "Oh, is that all?"

"What do you mean, 'is that all'? This is a huge problem! What's the point of hosting a contest if no one enters!?" To punctuate her statement, Rainbow took to the air on steady but nervous wings.

Rarity set the cloth in her hooves down. "Be patient, Rainbow Dash. These things take time! Writing is an act of slow and steady progress, like most artistic endeavors. Trust me; I am a professional creative." She smiled. "Besides which, there's still a month to go until the deadline! Plenty of time. Trust in the authors, Rainbow."

Rainbow frowned. "I guess..."

"Now, kindly get your hooves back on the ground before you blow all my pattern sheets across the floor."

"Oh. Sorry."

One month left in the contest, folks! The deadline is, in case you forgot, October 10th, and no later. Get those pages written!

And, uh, if you wanted to comment down below about your current progress, that would really make RB Rainbow Dash a lot less nervous.

I am writing a story for the contest, but I have yet to figure out how to include the prompt in it. Story’s about 25% done, but there’s still a lot of time left to work it out.

And someone commented on a previous forum: maybe advertise the contest a little more? It’s a very unique type of contest, if a little difficult to write for. Try finding a way to make a site-wide announcement? (No clue how the site news work.)

But anyway, see ya in a month! Toodaloo!

7877995
My computer may have died, I may be jobless with no more help from the unemployment agency, and I may be on and off the story without a solid plan, but I have 5k words with speculations that it'll end in 10k.

I would like to make that 20k max for what I have planned in the story, but I think I can work around it.

7878002
Unfortunately, to get a site post you have to have proved your integrity by having run a contest with prizes before, and I have not. I’ve advertised it everywhere I can find to advertise already, too. But anyway, good luck with your story!

7878013
Oof, that’s rough. I also lost my job recently. Best of luck to you in sorting all that out. I hope writing can help take some of the stress off.

I’ve got a story I’m working on. The first rough is done circa 4 days ago. I wanted to work on editing this weekend, but life has gotten kinda busy. Good luck to everyone else!

I like mysteries, but I don't get the prompt. And I'm going to miss the deadline probably.

And I don't really know what counts as a clever mystery either.