Five ... Five Chilly Winter Stories! Mwahahahahhahaha!

Quote by verbal
Saw an EXCELLENT radio play of It's a Wonderful Life last night. It kinda kicked me into the Christmas spirit.

How can you see a radio play? Your eyes can see beyond the infrared? 😜

Quote by verbal
So wait, is the comp exactly 1000 words? No more, no less? Does that include the title!?

It does not include the title but, yes, exactly 1000 words. Which is why I am currently freaking out that I might have to dump an entire paragraph that I have serious problems with. I might be able to get away with a rewrite of it but still, that's almost guaranteed to throw my 1000 words out of whack.

It's morning. Welcome to all. Coffee is hot and strong. Teas are Russian Caravan and Red Rose. Hot water is ready for other steamy goodness like hot chocolate or our selection of homemade coffee-based beverages.

Still in a holding pattern on my comp entry but should be imminent.

Later.

Three cellos, drums, and one of the most magnificent voices in rock. What a combo when Apocalyptica teams with Dutch singer Simone Simons of the band Epica.

Quote by Brad_Naylor

Hi Ape Man, I have one waiting mods approval at the moment. I wasn’t going to enter this comp as I’ve always done so badly in the past. I don’t yet have what it takes to keep up with the proper writers on here. But after they published my Christmas ghost story I thought I would give it a cheeky go. I didn’t have a problem with the 1,000 words as I wrote it on the fly with any number of possible endings. The only thing was, on MS Word it came up at exactly 1,000 words, but once I submitted it on the edit page it came up two words short. I did leave a comment for the mods in the appropriate box saying that I could easily add another two words if needed. That was yesterday and it’s still awaiting approval so I don’t know if my MS Word is wrong or the text editor on SS. I guess I’ll find out if and when it is approved or not.

It's the SS editor. There's been some discussion in the comp thread. Mods know and take it into account.

Quote by JamesPBear

Can we rely on the website word count equalling that of our own word processors? They don't always, in my experience.

Look upthread. The word count bug has been discussed already.

Quote by Molly

As Mendalla said, we know about it but we have ways of checking. As long as you have 1000 it will go through.

So, exactly 1000 words. How do you play it? Write long and edit like mad? Come up short and pad? Shoot for the mark on the first try?

Mine went as high as 1055 before I went to work on the editing. That was my plan all along. Write what the story requires, then figure out how to whittle it down. And it has worked, but the process is a bit frustrating. Tweak here. Oops, down to 993 words. Add a short sentence there. Oops, up to 1002 words. Pull a couple adjectives. Yay. Except two lines down there's a missing preposition. Put it in and we are back to 1001.🙁

Anyone else approach it differently?

And that makes three! Mine is close. Maybe even this evening (EST). We shall see when I look at it again later today. Might start doing some reading of the others today.

Quote by gillianleeza
I'm glad the week is over. Zoom funerals are somehow more depressing than in-person services.

Yeah, I have never been to one but even Zoom church services aren't very inspiring, I find. A woman at work lost her father recently but I never heard any details about arrangements. She's the same age as me and we've been at the company about the same length of time (I started a bit earlier) so I would go if we had some details. Usually our mutual boss shares the information.

Good Sunday morning!

Much writing happened last night so my comp entry is now "simmering". I'll probably take a look this afternoon or evening. It is at the requisite 1000 words so I am a bit worried that if I have to make edits now, I'll send up spending an hour just tweaking things back into shape.

Putting on a pot of Ethiopia Yirgacheffe coffee. Teas are Irish Breakfast and Blackberry. Hot water is on for the coffee drinks and hot chocolate (and other teas).

Less than two weeks to go, folks. Glad to see we are up to three entries (I'll let Molly post the link for the third, but it's Ping so I am eager to read it).

Mine draws near. I'm kind of dancing around the thousand words. Right now I'm a bit under, but next edit could push me over again. The story is done, the editing is not. 😕 Maybe by Monday or Tuesday. 🙄

Quote by CuriousAnnie
My competition story should be with you shortly, once it gets through the approval process.

Yay! Watching for it!

And someone else crawled out of the woodwork with a comp entry. Yay, Ping!

https://www.storiesspace.com/stories/humor/i-am-woman-hear-me-rorschach

Quote by verbal

Talia's back is out so I am helping her all day.

I seem to recall it going the other way sometimes, so seems fair enough. And congrats to your daughter both on her 20th and on making manager.

Had a nice meal with some other senior managers at lunch. Not much business happened, it was mostly just a seasonal get-together with lots of socializing.

Comp entry is hovering around 600-ish words and I think 400 is enough to stick the landing, but I will probably shoot past the 1000 and then edit back, which is how I usually handle length limits.

Some nice person at work put some homemade cappuccino and latte mixes in the cupboard. And even better, the label includes the recipe. Yay! So, there's jars of both on the counter next to the hot chocolate mix.

Along with that yummy news, I've got a fresh pot of Nicaraguan dark roast from Las Chicas brewing. Teas are Assam and Duke of Earl (Earl Grey with vanilla). Hot water is ready for hot chocolate, other teas, or the new coffee-based mixes.

Got to travel out of town for a meeting this afternoon. At least the freezing rain is gone so the drive should be safe.

Later, alligators.

Weather where I live:

So I've got some nice hot coffee, tea, and hot chocolate to warm things up and maybe melt a bit of that ice. Coffee is a Costa Rican dark roast. Teas are Russian Caravan and Red Rose. And there's hot water on for other teas and hot chocolate.

My comp entry is making tentative progress. I have the basic idea laid out. Just need to flesh things out.

Later, alligators.

I know. You're all wondering what constitutes an "approachable" literary journal. Well, the definition used in this article is a high acceptance rate (over 50% for some of these). Many lean to shorter works like flash, micro, and poetry. But there's several taking regular length fiction and creative non-fiction as well.

https://authorspublish.com/22-approachable-journals/

Quote by OpheliaTusk

Ooooh neat Thanks for sharing this here!

It's a bit of a local tradition I took over from another member who is scarce these days. Glad you like it. I am actually just about to post another one. 😊

Buddha's Blend tea

Quote by OpheliaTusk

Question - I wrote the story, it says exactly 1000 words on my document but when I copy it into the submission box it is over 1000 and I am confused how that happened? Is there some glitch? or is it including the title and authors note into the word count as well? And if so, does our exact word count include the authors note and all that too, or is it just the story itself?

That's a known bug in this software and has been around since the migration last year. If your word processor is saying 1000, then you are probably good. The mods know about the problem. I have at least one "1000 word" story on the site that shows as 1002 words.

It beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere I go.

Good morning! Coffee is a nice Jamaican Blue Mountain. Teas are Christmas Tea (really) and Scottish Breakfast. Hot water is on for other hot bevvies.

This comp is proving challenging. Just can't get a story going even the pictures are definitely inspiring. Not giving up, though.

Starting to look very festive around here. grabs a Santa and a snowman

So here:

https://www.storiesspace.com/forum/site-announcements-and-members-feedback/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-competition

Quote by JamesPBear
And … where did the comp photos go? I looked this morning, and didn't see them. Wondering if it's my browser or some glitch on the site. Thoughts?

For some reason they aren't on the comp page. You have to go to Molly's post. I pointed it out to her in PM.

Coffee is technically beyond mine, too, so I just watched a YouTube video.😁 Hey, it's how my son learned to cook fancy gourmet food.

So, anyhow,.coffee is on I used Gil's hot water to fill up the tea pots with Irish Breakfast and Christmas Tea (a chai-ish blend from my local shop). Put on another kettle for other teas and hot chocolate.

Goo morning, Inspirations.

Damn, looks like we lost Epicellie. Her posts are all showing "Unknown User" now. She was a nice young lady and was becoming quite an active new member. Too bad. Hope it was just life intervening and not a bad experience on here.

Oh well, I am still here. Put on some herbal tea and decaf for those needing caffeine-free hot bevvies for bedtime.

Yawns

So if you pop over to my profile, I am now featuring the three stories of mine that have taken first, second, or third place awards in competitions.

The Goddess Dances (First in Cheers to Ten Years Flash in 2020)

Lonely Reverie (Third in Dream On in 2022)

The Berry Girl (Third in Summer Word Bank in 2020)

And these are, indeed, three of my best works on this site. So have a look if you have not read them before.

https://www.storiesspace.com/profile/Mendalla

Quote by Daisy

I haven't logged on for a long time, and it's a whole new site! I have no idea what's going on, ha ha!

I wanted to be re-order the stories showing on my profile page, but can't seem to find any way to do this (or understand it, at least). Is this still being updated, or is it just my perpetual dimness, please?

To change the three stories (max) on your profile page:

• Go to your profile

• Click the Edit Profile button

• Find the Featured Stories section

• Click the Edit link at the far right across from "Featured Stories"

• It now shows three story positions, Story 1, Story 2, Story 3

• For each story choose "Specific Story" in the first dropdown, then use the second dropdown to choose the story you want in that position.

• Once you have all three set the way you want, click Save

• Click Back to Profile at the top to return to viewing your profile so you can make sure you got things the way you want

First Aid Kit are a perfect group to cover pretty much anything McVie wrote, but that is just gorgeous. And it looks like they just did it in a dressing room or something.