The Contest Challenge

Okay, I am working to give you as much credit as possible for your entries, but I think there might be some miscommunication about how to pick contests for entry. I'm counting this one for February 2018 because when I asked what to count it for, you didn't' respond.

When you are trying to do a catch-up month, be sure you look in the "Previously Highlighted Contests (year you want)" dropnote. Choose a contest from the month you want to get credit for. Maybe you've figured this out by now, but I suspect not since you keep doing "The Writer's Cramp"  entries--far more than you're supposed to, I think.

So, for example, we'll take March 2018. Go to "The Contest Challenge" , then to the Previously Highlighted Contests 2018 dropnote. You'll see 3 choices. "The PET NEWS CONTEST" , "The LGBT Writing Contest" , and "The Dialogue 500" . When you go to the 1st contest page, you can see on the page that it's closed for now. The 2nd contest page is obviously closed per the title, which I always appreciate when folks do. The 3rd contest, if you check the forum, it's getting entries and the page says this is the August round. More likely than not, this contest is open, though I didn't see it specifying August 2023.

Anyway, so you'd enter this contest using the current prompt. You submit your entry with {bitem:#######}, I presume (or {entry:#######} or whatever). Then you post in "The Contest Challenge"  forum with the title of the contest and the month/year you want credit for as the title of your forum post. So, in this case, you'd create a post with the title "The Dialogue 500 March 2018." (The quotation marks are just to show the actual info, separated from the rest of the sentence. ) Then in your forum post body, you would post a link to the contest page post where you entered. You aren't linking to your item. You aren't linking directly to the contest main page. You are linking to your post. You do this with {post:#######}. When I click that link you create and post in my forum, it will take me directly to the forum post where you entered the contest so I can see your entry, if I should so choose.

Does this make sense? Please check "The Contest Challenge" 's forum and click the Previously Highlighted Contests 2018 to open it and see the March 2018 contests to ensure you understand. Right now, I'm still able to put your entries into blank spots that need to be filled and that nothing else is available to fill because all the contests in that month/year are closed. But soon you'll run out of that opportunity and your entries won't count anymore. Also, when you need to fill in a month that didn't have any open contests, please check with me. You can suggest some contests, if you'd like, but I don't want you entering the same contest over and over as you've been doing with "The Writer's Cramp" . That defeats part of the purpose of the challenge. It's supposed to get you to enter different contests you might not have otherwise entered. And it gets additional entries to a variety of contests.

If you are needing to fill in a month that has all the contests closed, let me know. Also, if you want to suggest something, you need to suggest equal length contests. So, nothing like Say it in 8 for a month where all the contests were regular-length. I think you know this now, but it was an issue early on.

I do apologize for not keeping up better. I'm doing my best to ensure you don't waste any of these entries. I see that sometimes I asked you what month/year you intended a certain entry to count for, but you didn't answer. That's part of why I wanted to be super clear about where you find the contests for each month, to ensure you understand where you are supposed to find the options and so you know you are entering a specific contest to be counted toward a specific month and year. Also, I don't think you've done this, but I've had a couple of people recently entering contests that are closed. No. Don't do that. And don't hunt down the old prompt from years ago. (No one has done that recently, as far as I can tell, but it has happened twice in the 7 years I've been running this challenge.) Enter the CURRENT prompt so you can hopefully win!

If you aren't sure how to post an entry, there are examples above the forum.

Okay, I think that's all the instructions and tips. Please let me know if you still need help. I'm working on only your entries right now to ensure I can give you as much credit as I possibly can. I'm going through and double checking what credit I've given you vs. what credit I can give you because sometimes I asked what month/year you intended something for and you didn't respond, so you didn't get any credit. When I get to the last entry you've posted (as comes up on the forum search), I'll let you know what months I've recorded for you so you can better plan for what months you need to still do to get the celebrations. If you are confused about which contests to enter, please let me know so I can help ensure you understand where to find them and how to know what's available to enter...though I think you got that last part down. You're not entering closed contests, I don't think. You're just not entering the "correct" contests nor are you telling me when to mark the entries down for.

Intuey gives an example of how you can post in "Catch Up April 2021 - Kit's Higher Ratings Contest"  . She doesn't have to tell me it's a catch-up contest since she's telling me the month/year she's catching up (April 2021) and she doesn't have to tell me she's replacing a specific contest since all the contests for that month are closed, but she's telling me why she didn't enter the correct contests (they were all closed) and she's linked to her own entry in that forum. She also tells me the contest she entered (Kit's Higher Rating Contest) in the title of her forum post.

Does seeing an example help? Kitti does an even more precise job with "Writer's Cramp - March, 2020"  . She tells me the contest she entered and the month and year she's replacing--Writer's Cramp - March 2020. Then in the body of her forum post on my challenge page, she tells me she got permission to replace these contests with "The Writer's Cramp"  because all the contests for March 2020 were closed. Then she links to her entry in the Cramp forum with {post:#######}. Quick and easy--Contest title, month/year, your post on the contest page, and if you are replacing a contest, let me know it's because they're all closed so I know you understand you're not supposed to enter this contest, but you didn't have an option since all the "correct" contests for this month/year were closed.

Please let me know if you need more help! The challenging part of this challenge isn't supposed to be picking contests or posting.

GOOD LUCK! YOU GOT THIS! I BELIEVE IN YOU!