Oh, and speaking of hopefully not stale stories, the ape is now officially in the comp. 1000 words was a bit of a challenge but I wrestled things into shape.

https://www.storiesspace.com/stories/fantasy/what-lies-hidden-in-the-snow

Ignore the title that's in the link, by the way. The real title is in my sig.

Putting on a pot of coffee and pots of Duke of Earl and English Breakfast teas. Kettle is ready if you're hankering for hot chocolate, other teas, or one of our homemade coffee drink mixes.

Later.

Quote by verbal
am lukewarm on Titanic and most of the rest.

I like everything from Terminator to The Abyss, though I have a couple riders on that last one. Titanic and Avatar I am meh on. Beautifully made movies but slim and cliched in the plot department. Like George Lucas, James Cameron really needs a good writer on board. His own scripts and stories are a bit stale.

Quote by Mendalla
My comp story might be ready to go.

Submitted to the queue. Hopefully will be up in the morning if not overnight.

See ya, folks.

Quote by CuriousAnnie
Morning all, I know better that to complain about our cold snap, its 'only' about 21 degrees C, though expecting closer to 30 leading up to Christmas Day.

Rub it in, why dontcha? Going up to a "balmy" 8C over the next two days, then plummeting to -7 for Christmas. And there's a snowstorm involved.

My comp story might be ready to go. Just doing final read throughs and edits tonight. Then I'll do a pass at reading the rest.

Quote by AnnaMayZing
I'm back! Hope you didn't miss me too much.

What? You were gone? 😉

Welcome back. I take it you were in Germany? Did you know Nightwish was touring Germany last week on the European leg of the tour that should have happened in 2020? And Floor is also back in Germany on her own next year when she tours her new solo album (Paragon, due out March 24, 2023).

Quote by JamesPBear
It's also what one reviewer called a "bladder busting" 3 hours and 12 minutes!

I have been to some very long movies in theater (including the original) but my bladder was more robust in those days. I guess if I don't buy a drink the size of a bucket (or however big they are making them these days), I could pull it off, though.

Quote by JamesPBear
My sister went to see it with someone and was shocked at how violent the movie was. None of that shows in the trailers, but it is, apparently, much more violent than the original.

This is, after all, the guy who made the two best Terminator movies and Aliens which are not exactly pacifist movies so this is not really a problem for me. I actually consider T2 : Judgement Day to be his best movie. The original Avatar was, until the final battle, one of his less violent movies, though, (still more violent than Titanic) so I can see why some might react that way if this one is more vintage Cameron.

Quote by verbal
I'm also trying to fit in a stealth afternoon matinee of Avatar 2 this week. I am weirdly psyched.

I would be interested to hear a review. I loved the worldbuilding and visuals in the original and there was some good acting but found the story itself a bit meh.

Quote by JamesPBear

And my comp entry is posted. It took several days of mulling it over, a couple of days to write, then several more days to edit it to the exact length! And my thanks to Molly for her most excellent guidance – as always!

You can find it here: Cold

A polar bear wrote a story called "Cold"? Yeesh, could this get any more cliched? 🤣

Good morning! How's things? Comp entry is written but I decided to give it one more pass before I click submit. Today.

Coffee is a dark roast Nicaraguan from Las Chicas del Cafe (Coffee Chicks in English). Teas are Assam and Lemon. Kettle is boiled for other hot beverages. What are you drinking these days?☕

Quote by Brad_Naylor

Well, my comp entry was accepted today as it was. I'm quite pleased about that. No edits needed. That's the first story I've written with an exact word count. Are these usual rules?

There's often maximums and sometimes minimums but exact number is fairly rare in my experience. For instance, the 10th anniversary comps in the fall of 2020 had 3 comps, each with a different range of lengths.

Quote by JamesPBear

Thank you The Count!

Have you seen Snuffy anywhere?

Mwahahaha! I heard that he and Big Bird are out at a party. One, one crazy disco dance floor!

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