Kevin's Watch

CovenantJr wrote:Well, I posted my submission yesterday. Heh.

Good luck, Cov.

Thanks. However, considering I haven't had a confirmation email, I doubt my entry even arrived.

Dear Contestant,

Your story did not win in the quarter ending 30 September (4th quarter).

I lost, despite one reader telling me my entry looked better than many of the previous winners. I guess I should've dumbed it down to L. Ron Hubbard level.

Sad thing is, that's probably the case.
Better luck next time, eh?

Just got my answer too. Well, it was worth a try. Sorry to hear you didn't make it either, Foul. Funny that what prompted me to enter in the first place was the generally poor (or at least not particularly good) standard of the winners. Heh.

Lord Foul wrote:

Dear Contestant,

Your story did not win in the quarter ending 30 September (4th quarter).

I lost, despite one reader telling me my entry looked better than many of the previous winners. I guess I should've dumbed it down to L. Ron Hubbard level.

Well, that means we're safe to prep it for the Anthology. Better situation for you anyway, since you don't want to lose the rights to an important link in your book.

Thanks to Edge for calling my attention to this!

Dragonlily wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:

Dear Contestant,

Your story did not win in the quarter ending 30 September (4th quarter).

I lost, despite one reader telling me my entry looked better than many of the previous winners. I guess I should've dumbed it down to L. Ron Hubbard level.

Well, that means we're safe to prep it for the Anthology. Better situation for you anyway, since you don't want to lose the rights to an important link in your book.

Thanks to Edge for calling my attention to this!

Yeah, maybe the fact that my story said "Part V" hurt it. It did have some elements from past stories, but it also stood well on its own. Meh.

So I finally pulled together something that kinda seems to be a story...well: it has a beginning and an end and middle bits! (:lol:). Needing a reason to just stop stuffing around with it, I submitted it to this competition tonight. Wacko! I've been wanting to enter this for years. I can cross that off my list of things done!

..now the nervous wait and the inevitable YOUR STORY IS FABULOUS email I can't wait!

Good luck little sis!! I am sending good vibes your way!!


You might be interested to know that a computer program named Brian Burt who worked for me a number of years ago won and was published in Volume 8

www.writersofthefuture.com/books/writer ... e-volume-8

I have had the pleasure of reviewing a number of his short stories and he has an as yet unpublished novel that I read for him and provided comments on.

www.briantburt.com/

Good luck, Sea!

Thanks big bro and Ali.

That's fascinating about your work colleague, bro. Maybe since you know one winner of the competition you'll bring me good luck.

I'm being realistic, but at least I'm doing something with what I'm writing (which is a start). I'll just get totally drunk when I get the "you haven't won this competition" email. Of course, if I win one of the competition quarters I'll get drunk as well! If I win the whole thing, hey: the drinks are on me!!!!

Oh and, Ali, I fluffed around with the story a bit more. Added one sentence to the end of that passage you mentioned (don't know whether it works but I've done my best) and, yeah.... Tried to fix the middle bit (after Joe's story) because I didn't like the flow of it. Anyway.... Thanks so much for your input. And thanks to everyone else that read it.

No worries, it was fun to do. And your story's good. If they don't accept it, they're idiots.

aliantha wrote:No worries, it was fun to do. And your story's good. If they don't accept it, they're idiots.

Well, I wish you were on the judging panel, Ali!

That said, it did dawn on me the other day the first page contains two swear words ("bloody" which isn't really that bad...but the other one is "s**t"). I contemplated this (after sending it) and thought that I've probably shot myself in the foot. If you've got two swear words on the first page, the woman that does the initial "yay" or "nay" for stories might think "oh, here we go" and throw it in the "nay" pile. Anyway, too late now. I'm just going to convince myself I've got a chance...just so the universe latches onto my positiveness.

Well, I didn't win. Didn't even get an honorable mention. That said, over the last month or so I've come to realize Writers of the Future might be a tough nut to crack if you want to get places in it. They're very particular about what they want, how it's written, all that jazz. The editor knows what she likes and pretty much sticks to that. I don't think my story fit key criteria for one (let alone whether it was well enough written).

So, I'll just keep writing (no harm in that ) and will continue to submit but I'm not going to go out of my way to make sure my stories fit what they're looking for because I just can't write that way.

So sorry, little sis

We all know how wonderful you are - so keep writing!! HUGS