Quote by WriterGirl
Buttercup purred when I told her about it
If the cat likes it, it's a go.😊 Maybe I should get one. I'd probably get a black cat and call it something metal like Nightwish (my favorite rock band right now).
I am now caught up on reading and commenting and my own entry is in, so some new stories would be nice. How's it going folks?
Dropped The Berry Girl for now so I can highlight Sketching Snowflakes, my entry in the current Picture a Thousand Words comp.
First off, for verbs:
And we are now at six stories with, it appears, a seventh in the queue.
Quote by Ceebees
Looking forward to reading the other entries now. I always like to get my story submitted before reading the others.
I have a mixed approach. Usually, I try to refrain from reading before my own entry is done but sometimes there's an entry that just screams "read me" or I am not sure if I am entering so I start reading earlier.
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 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 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.
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?
