In honor of WDC's Twenty Third Birthday, "Cross Timbers Novel Workshop On Hiatis"  is thrilled to present this charity event to benefit "RAOK Upgrade Brigade Group" .
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The deal is: Everything starts and ends with 23.
 Pick a topic or subject. Any topic. If you pick one associated with “23,” so much the better.
Decide if you want to write a short story, a list, an essay, instructions, a micro story, a joke... YOU GET TO CHOOSE.
Whatever you write must involve the number 23 in some way.  23 words or 23 lines or 23 sentences or 23 paragraphs. Even 23 repititons of the word exogenous works.
*WORD LIMIT 2,300 (Sorry. Time constraints and all...)
When you’re ready to submit, you must include an Entry Donation in any denomination of 23 - your choice.
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Well, not really catches, but some rules.
1/ Your submission must be accompanied by an Entry Donation of GPs in denominations of TWENTY THREE.(23, 230, 2,300, 23,000, 230,000).
2. Half of all entry fees will be donated to our favorite charity, " RAOK Upgrade Brigade Group" .
3. See " Contest Prizes" for the distribution of the remaining entry fees. Note that the contest sponsors Carol Saint Ann   and Max Griffin 🏳️🌈  recieve no portion of the entry fees.
4. The amount of your Entry Donation is up to you.
5. Charity GPS and prizes depend upon your decision here, so be as generous as you are able..
6. You must *randomly insert the phrase "Happy Birthday WDC" into your submission anywhere you like. We will find it and mention it in your review.
  Failure to adhere to numbers 1 and 6 or to follow any of " The Rules" will get you SKADOO'D. There can be no exceptions.
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 All submissions WILL be judged on 
 Writing Skills & Craft, such as opening sentence and paragraph, plot, character development,
dialogue, spelling & punctuation, grammar, continuity, form, clarity, and hook.
Creativity & Presentation, to include such things as structure, figurative language & vocabulary, and rhythm & meter.
Judging of submissions will begin immediately ONCE THE SUBMISSION IS POSTED. EDITS WILL NOT BE PERMITTED. ANY EDITS, no matter how trite, will SKADOO your submission. Don't do it. No exceptions can be made to this rule.
* * * FYI: Results may not be available until two weeks after the conclusion of the entry cycle.
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'Bout a hundred years ago, way down in NYC, a group of fellas came up with a coded way to say, “go away”, “beat it”, “scram” or suggest that the person addressed should get out while the going's good. The code, "23 skadoo" became common slang, later shortened to, "Skadoo!" for leave, get outta here as a threat or demand. Both skidoo and the full phrase, as the story goes, had their origins, quite certainly fictional, at the the corner of Twenty-third (Street) and Broadway in New York City.
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YOU MAY
 Submit any type or genre, as long as you Write it in Twenty-Three-Speak.
(For Prose) that means things like 23 words or 23 sentences or 23 reptitions of one word. Use your imagination.
(For Poetry) it means things like 23 syllables or 23 words or 23 lines. Use your imagination.
Submit an item in any genre, type, or rating, from early childhood to erotica, as long as it is rated properly.
SUBMISSIONS MAY BE
Short Story, Vignette, Memoir, Essay, Blog Entry, Biographical, or Autobiographical.
A Prologue, An Introduction, A Chapter *As long as it stands strong on its own, A Query Letter, A Summary...
Got a different idea? Ask us!
SUBMISSIONS MAY NOT BE
 Do Not Submit 23 Chapter’s of Your Novel
(Yes, I saw you over there, rubbing your hands together. NO. The answer is NO
You know that I know that you know I know who you are!).
Do Not Submit Pornography.
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RULES
Submissions may ONLY be entered between
SEPT. 1st-12:01am and SEPT. 7th-11:59pm. WDC Time
to coincide with the week-long WDC Birthday Bash festivities.
No early or late entries will be considered.
Entries may not exceed 2300 words, excluding title, author byline, and word count
DO NOT EDIT your entry after submission. We will begin judging as soon as you enter. This is a hard and fast rule.
You must include the GP Entry Donation with your post.
If there are four or fewer entries, only the RAOK Donation and 30% Winner's Prize will be awarded.
Your item or entry must be viewable (may not be set to private or passkey protected.)
Items and entries must be rated correctly.
*Tophat* Word limit is 2,300. This does not include title, notes, or post scripts e.g definitions.
Word count MUST be included in your post AND at the top or bottom of your item. TWO PLACES: once in your post and once in your item.
All decisions of the judges are final and not subject to appeal or debate.
Submit your entries to this forum in G-ITEM format only. If you don't know how to do this, see " Video: Linking to an Item" .
Multiple submissions are permitted. (Each submission requires the same ▼ For example: If your first entry is accompanied by an entry donation of, let's say, 2,300 GPs, all of your subsequent submissions should be accompanied by an identical entry donation of 2,300 GPs) GP Entry Donation.)
Each Submission must be in its own post. (Please do not submit multiple submissions in one post.)
You must insert the phrase "Happy Birthday WDC" into your submission anywhere you like. It does not have to be integral to your submission--it just has to be there..
Present and former Novel Workshop and Crosstimbers Workshop members are eligible contestants.
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Prizes
Each of the top three entries will recive an Awardicon and the authors will receive a Merit Badge. The charges for these will be paid by the contest sponsors and not from the donations or entry fees.
All other contest prizes and the charitable contribution to "RAOK Upgrade Brigade Group" are dependent on the entry fees we collect and any donations we recieve. .
Fifty percent of all entry fees and donations will be donated to "RAOK Upgrade Brigade Group" .
Five percent of all entry fees and donations will be distributed to guest judges on a pro rata basis. Please Note: Neither
of the contest sponsors, Carol Saint Ann or Max Griffin 🏳️🌈 , or their WDC groups or activities will accept or receive any portion of the donations or entry fees.
The remaining balance of 45% of entry fees and donations will be distributed among the best three entries, as determined by the judges. We will divide this remaining balance of donations and entry fees into ten equal shares.
 The first place winner will receve five shares.
The second place winner will recieve three shares.
The third place winner will receive two shares.
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Pssssst... HEY! NEED AN IDEA?
 The characters could all be 23
or have 23 siblings
or be discussing the 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
or be celebrating an 23rd anniversary
maybe they have a garden with 23 different vegetables or herbs
or they are from Maine (the 23rd state)
or they are descendants of Benjamin Harrison (23rd U.S. President)
or they are on a 23 mile race or scavenger hunt or...
or you use the word diaphanous 23 times in the story
Okay, that's only nine ideas, but you get the picture. Be creative. Entertain us.
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1 Every year, more people see UFOs on July 23rd than any other date.
2 The average smartphone user checks their device 23 times a day for texting
3 When he was assassinated, Julius Caeser was stabbed a 23 times.
4 The Hiroshima bomb was dropped at 8:15 (8+15=23).
5 William Shakespeare was born in Stratford Upon Avon on 23 April 1564. He died 52 years later on his birthday, 23 April 1616.
6 Kurt Cobain, the god of grunge, was born in 1967 and died in 1994 - 1+9+6+7= 23, 1+9+9+4 = 23.
7 Charles Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859 - 1+8+5+9 = 23.
8 Michael Jordan, the American basketball player, wore the number 23 throughout his career.
9 In deference to Jordan, David Beckham swapped his Manchester United jersey number 7 for number 23 when he joined Real Madrid.
10 Each parent contributes 23 chromosomes to the start of human life.
11 The first morse code transmission - "What hath God wrought?" - was from the Bible passage Numbers 23:23.
12 The Birthday Paradox states that a group of 23 randomly-selected people is the smallest number where there will be a probability Higher than 50 per cent that two people will share the same birthday.
13 According to Josephus, Adam and Eve had 23 daughters.
14 Blood takes an average of 23 seconds to circulate in the human body.
15 April 19 – April 19th, as in 4-19 (4 + 19 = 23), is the date of the Battle of Lexington, Waco, and the Oklahoma City Bombing
16 Ancient Sumerians and Egyptians celebrated the start of the New Year on July 23.
17 Euclid formulated 23 axioms for geometry.
18 The Romans had 23 letters in their alphabet.
19 In the disaster movie, Airport, the bomber has seat 23.
20 Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Chewbacca sneak into detention block AA23 to rescue Princess Leia.
21 The average human physical biorhythm is 23 days.
22 For numerologists: the 23rd prime number is 83. Since 23 is also a prime number, this makes 83 a super-prime number: a prime that occupies a prime position in the list of all prime numbers. Also, 83 is the sum of three consecutive primes: 83 = 23 + 29 + 31; and the sum of five consecutive primes: 83 = 11 + 13 + 17 + 19 + 23.
23 The Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr., whose struggle to overcome mental illness is documented in the movie A Beautiful Mind, once told a student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that 23 was his favorite prime number, and insisted that he had appeared on the cover of Life magazine, disguised as Pope John XXIII. Nash, oddly, died in a car accident on May 23, 2015.
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January 23, 1812. Mammoth earthquake strikes New Madrid, MO.
February 23, 1836. Siege of the Alamo begins.
March 23, 1066. Perihelion of Halley’s Comet.
April 23, 1985. New Coke is released. Discontinued in July of 2002.
May 23, 1934. Bonnie and Clyde killed in a shootout with police.
June 23, 930. Iceland establishes the Alþingi , the World's oldest parliament .
July 23, 1904. Ice Cream Cone invented for the Saint Louis World’s Fair.
August 23, 1960. World's largest frog (3.3 kg) caught (Equatorial Guinea).
September 23, 1952. Nixon’s Checker’s speech.
October 23, 42BC. Brutus, one of the assassins of Julius Caesar, defeated in battle and commits suicide.
November 23, 1887. Notre Dame loses its first football game, 7-0, to Michigan.
December 23, 1888. Vincent van Gogh cuts off his left ear with a razor, after an argument with fellow painter Paul Gauguin, and sends it to a prostitute for safe keeping.
Source: http://onthisday.com/
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Benefactors
Donations to " Invalid Item" without entries are welcome and would be greatly appreciated. They will go toward RAOK and funding prizes!
Any donation above 60k GPs will receive an MB of the donor's choice. (If no choice is mentioned, we will award a Fund Raising or Generosity MB.) The cost of the MB will NOT be deducted from the donation.
279,841 (=23*23*23*23) GPS Max Griffin 🏳️🌈
230,000 (23 x10,000  ) Carol Saint Ann
230,000 Joy 
69,000 WriterRick 
96,700 accumulated entry fees as 9/7/2023
905,541 Total GPS pool
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First, write your entry and save it as a static item to your portfolio.
Please do not use a book entry.
The first line of your item should tell us how you measured the number 23 (words, lines, syllables, etc). Integer multiples of 23 are acceptable here.
Be sure to include the phrase "Happy Birthday WDC" somewhere in your item.
Don't exceed the maximum word count of 2,300.
Title, author byline, and how you measured 23 do not count against the maximum word count. Do not count these as part of how you measured the number 23.
You may, at your discretion, include the phrase "Happy Birthday WDC" as part of how you measured the number 23.
Be sure your item is set to public and that reviews are allowed.
To submit your item, post a new message to this forum as follows.
The SUBJECT of your post should include the number of GPS in your entry fee and whatever kind of entry you are submitting.
Examples: " Submission, 2,300GPs, Short Story", " Submission, 23,000GPs, List", Submission, 23,000GPs, Poem".
The BODY of your message should be a link to your entry in GENRE format, (G-item) along with your chosen GP Entry Donation.
For an example of genre format, {g-item:2262515} produces .
One of our judges will read your submission and, time permitting, review it.
If all rules are followed, your submission advances to the judging phase.
If all rules are not followed, your entry will be SKADOO'D
Winners will be chosen and announced by September 15th.
Prizes and Awards will be distributed.
That's it! Easy-peasy!
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