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#Post#: 460--------------------------------------------------
[10/07/13] Writing Competitions
By: Dot Dreadful Date: October 7, 2013, 11:51 am
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[font=georgia]Writing competitions are something that inspire
and foster a creative, constructive competition between writers.
It's something that helps all of us to gauge where we stand, a
chance to stretch our creative muscles and test out different
themes and ideas right alongside fellow writers. It puts our
writing in perspective if you're wanting to be published, but
helps us all gain a more literal understanding of where our
writing stands and where we could use improvement. Our craft is
ever-changing, always growing, and these competitions help us
break out of our comfort zone and that deserves a reward, don't
you think?
We on Staff certainly think so, and we have a new announcement
to make in regard to the writing competitions we're going to
begin hosting.
To start, we are planning on hosting regular writing
competitions, contests, and Community-wide writing events. This
is part of the new Archive we are looking to host, and to foster
a very involved, interconnected Community full of supportive
members. These standard contests will come with the standard
prizes; you'll have your story featured (first place only) and
you will receive a specialty button to place within your Archive
profile (and Forum profile should you so desire) to display your
placement in the contest (for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.) All
standard writing competitions will place out to 3rd, as we on
Staff believe there's always room for more voices to be heard,
and oftentimes it's incredibly difficult to pick just one story
to honor. These standard writing competitions will come with
their own guidelines and rules that will be on display once we
have our Archive and Forum back, but I want to make the
distinction now; these standard competitions will be frequent
and while themed, will stand apart from what new things are
coming.
Because new things are coming. For those special Holidays and
other theme days throughout the year we've got something really
enticing planned, to coax you shy ones out of your comfort zones
and to honor those who place with prizes. While all of this is
still in a tentative, formulative stage, we are ready to
announce that we are now going to start awarding prize packages
to those who place in our themed contests.
Yes, you read that right.
If you place 1st, 2nd, or 3rd in a themed contest, you will be
receiving a specialty prize package in the mail, complete with
hand-selected gifts centered around writing and the theme of the
contest. Depending on your placement, your prize package may
include new writing tools/utensils, keepsakes, and other
trinkets honoring you as a writer. All prize packages will
include a letter of congratulations from the Staff, honoring
your placement in our contest and commending you for a job well
done. We on Staff want to praise all of our writers and
encourage you to keep on in your craft, and to thank you for
being apart of our Community, and since writing fanfiction (or
sometimes even original fiction) is a relatively thankless job
(no offense to all you wonderful reviewers out there!) we wanted
to do something to change that. We wanted to reassure all of
you, whether you place or not, and let you know that we on Staff
are in this to foster a warm, friendly environment where you
truly are free to express yourself, and we want a chance to
reward you for doing so.
So those of you who were asking what we were offering for the
Halloween-contest, now you know.
If you are still wondering what this means, allow me to further
explain. Using our Halloween contest as a basis, here's how the
process works. We are implementing a blind judging process,
which is explained in the contest thread located here
HTML http://fosffstaff.createaforum.com/newsletters/%28100713%29-halloween-contest-2013/,<br
/>and so once the deadline for story entries is reached and the
judgments are in, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place stories will be
eligible for prize packages. Since this is an incredibly new
process, we're unable to display just yet what all will be
included for the Halloween 2013 Contest, but in the future when
we announce the themed contests, we'll display pictures of what
each package will contain. If you are competing in a
Holiday-themed contest, please be aware that you will more than
likely be receiving the same Holiday-themed packages. So for
Halloween, your prizes will be centered around said Holiday. I
would just like to make this expressly clear--you are absolutely
able to opt out of being sent anything if you don't want the
package. It is not mandatory. Otherwise, once the winning
stories have been announced, we'll contact the victors privately
and you'll be giving your addresses to me personally. If you are
uncomfortable with that for any reason, I urge you back to my
aforementioned statement of you may opt out of being sent these
packages, but otherwise you are going to have to trust that I'm
not going to mail you chain letters. [s]i still might though[/s]
Once I've received your addresses I'll have the packages shipped
to you! It's as simple as that.
And that's really all there is to it! For now please understand
this is a new process and there might be some growing pains as
we on Staff adjust to things but this is absolutely something we
are 100% devoted to and we hope you all are excited about the
prospect! I am leaving this newsletter unlocked for questions
and/or comments but please remember to stay on topic!
If you have any questions specifically in regard to the
Halloween Contest, please visit it's respective newsletter and
comment there.
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