 Contests & Activities: September 10, 2014 Issue [#6546] |
  Contests & Activities
This week: Now What Edited by: Leger~  
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2. A Word from our Sponsor
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editor's Picks
5. A Word from Writing.Com
6. Ask & Answer
7. Removal instructions
The purpose of this newsletter is to highlight some of the current contests and activities on the site, help educate members on how to host contests and activities, and provide clues to submit quality entries to contests. Write to me if you'd like something in particular covered.
This week's Contests and Activities Editor
Leger~
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| ASIN: B01MQP5740 |
Product Type: Kindle Store
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Amazon's Price: $ 4.99
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Now What?
With all the birthday excitement winding down on WDC, and everyone taking a deep breath, the question comes to mind: What now?
Well, first a little housekeeping. Be sure to get all your contest entries into the right folders and once the contests close, do your editing and review changes. If you're happy with your work, find a place to submit it for publishing. Ride that train right into the station!
If you had a story or scene which you worked on but didn't finish in time, now's the time to work on it while the idea is still in your head. Flesh out as much as you can and save it. You might find the inspiration to complete it later.
Spread the love. If someone reviewed you, take a few moments to return the review. It tells the reviewer you valued their time and effort and want to return the favor. This costs nothing except time, and you get gift points for doing it. How can that be a bad thing?
All those gift points you got for logging in during birthday week? Buy a raffle ticket for a friend, or send them a gift. Or buy a few more and upgrade your membership!
In the end, I hope everyone had fun dashing around the site doing all the fun contests and activities. It's a great way to meet other members and network with some great writers. Write on!
This month's question: What was your favorite activity during birthday week? Send in your answer below!  Editors love feedback! |
Excerpt: Each day in October, complete an assignment from the "October Nano Prep: 2014 Calendar". The exercises will help you develop your novel-length story before writing it and prepare for the marathon writing of NaNoWriMo
Excerpt: Every couple weeks or so, I'll post a cliche, overused or just plain amusing quote. With each one, I'll leave a spot blank. This is where you put in your own word or phrase to breathe some new life into these sayings.
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#2001407 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: This contest is designed for the writer who enjoys writing true stories from memories. Maybe those memories aren't happy ones. However, once written, they may help someone else to realize how lucky they really are. Life lessons could be learned here. Real friendships could grow. New prompts will be given each month. I am more than willing to take suggestions anyone may have.
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#1997581 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: This one is meant to get your creative juices going- and quickly too. It runs for a week, once every month. Each day of the week, you get a prompt around noon. Well, what's new? The twist is that each day, a different type of challenge will be set.
Excerpt: This a monthly contest to encourage writing Japanese form poems. Merit badges to all authors who post links to # of poems equaling the # of days in the month by the last day of the month.
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#2003720 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Two Women or Two Men, sometimes One Woman-One Man relationships anywhere in the world "a special close relationship" "wonderful friendship" "friends for years, for life" "forever loving friendship" with a love based on a trusted relationship, rather than intimate as sweethearts or married.
Excerpt: CLOSES 31ST OCTOBER 2014
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
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| ASIN: 1945043032 |
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Amazon's Price: $ 13.94
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This month's question: What was your favorite activity during birthday week? Send in your answer below! Editors love feedback!
Last month's question: What have you done to promote your contest or activity?
Turkey DrumStik  responded: I have lots to say in regards to this NL.  To address the topics of promotion, I'll occasionally use the scroll bots to promote my contests in some capacity. For example, I could make a bot for "Long, Long, Long" [18+] and have puzzle solvers try to figure out what rules are part of my contest. Also, when I do submit my contests to the NL, I try to schedule it a month in advance so that it's being advertised soon after a round begins. That way, participants who like to plan have enough time to do so. 
I also wanted to address a couple things in the Ask & Answer session that caught my eye. The first response mentioned going prompt free, something I wholeheartedly support. I'm pretty sure most people who have been here more than a year know that. I will say that going prompt-free doesn't always mean more entries, but it does allow writers an opportunity to take something they already have and polish it up. Thus, the quality of entries does have the potential to be higher.
The second response about no editing allowed after the deadline has a couple layers (at least from my perspective as a host). At its core, prohibiting edits after the deadline is an issue pertaining to judging fairness. Some judges (myself included) may read pieces at any point and go back to reread them if we're struggling to make a decision. Edits after the deadline can be used by less scrupulous entrants to make a change to the piece that extends beyond a typo and thus potentially giving that person an unfair advantage. For judges who review entries, edits outside of the deadline may prompt a judge to completely redo a review, which could delay the results being announced. I get that typos happen, but depending on the duration of the entry period there is time to catch those things before the deadline. That's another reason to prohibit editing after the deadline. On WDC you have the opportunity to make edits, but for those looking to publish or enter offsite contests, you will not get that chance. I treat the contests I host like training wheels on a bicycle; I tailor the rules to mimic offsite contests to help writers build good habits and develop solid rule comprehension abilities to maximize their opportunities in other markets. That ties into the word count issue as well. Many offsite contests have rules specifically stating where the word count is to be included. In particular, I've encountered this when entering contests for Writer's Digest.
It's usually mentioned about halfway down the list of official rules, and it's #4 on the list for their genre fiction contest that's currently running. The point is, for some contest hosts, strict editing deadlines and word count requirements stem from experiences outside of WDC, and they figure it's easiest to replicate those parameters. It makes sense to me, anyway.
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| ASIN: 1542722411 |
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Amazon's Price: $ 12.99
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