The Official Authors' Hangout Summer Lovin' 2024 Contest Support Thread

[Jorunn]

How long are your two parts?

I'd STRONGLY encourage you to submit as one story, precisely because of questions like the one you're asking. This is a contest. Scoring matters. The more variables you impose on the scoring, the less evident it'll be how you're doing.

Posting as two separate entries gains you nothing, and probably loses a lot.

On a quiet night in the North Atlantic.

Astor, I've got this great idea to improve my company. I would like to split it into two pieces. What do you think?

Nonsense, Guggenhiem. Your idea is as silly as splitting the Titanic into two pieces, and hoping she will still float.

 

[OffNSFW]

My story went and grew another act. I guess I'm not ready to leave these two characters.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I had two characters starting to enjoy a summer, so kept writing. It got horribly long and would never be finished in time, but some of the end scenes would make a good summery story.

Cue characters going on and on, finally having sex, but not the type of sex that fits the story. I now have about a third of about four different stories, and not sure I can paste anything together over the next week...

 

[nicksouth]

Hey folks, very new here. Submitted my first work and it happened to line up with the context theme. Around 12,000 words. Hopefully it will get accepted

Definitely hoping to create more stories in the near future and good luck to all in the contest.

-Nick

 

[Voboy]

Hey folks, very new here. Submitted my first work and it happened to line up with the context theme. Around 12,000 words. Hopefully it will get accepted

Definitely hoping to create more stories in the near future and good luck to all in the contest.

-Nick

Mine's been done awhile, but I've got to sweep it for continuity and I'll do that once I'm done traveling today. Hope to get it uploaded by Tuesday.

 

[SimonDoom]

Over half way done with mine. I hope to submit it around the time the contest opens, which will be unusual for me. Usually I sneak it in close to the deadline.

 

[Morevinila]

Still battling with mine but things have started getting hot. I'm still concerned about the slow beginning though but can't figure how to prune it without losing important explanatory details.

 

[Jorunn]

Submitted my Romance story this morning, 'Where the Strong Winds Blow'. A tale of a Windmill, a Painting, a Girl, and a Pearl. Set in the Netherlands.

 

[riverboy]

Submitted my Romance story this morning, 'Where the Strong Winds Blow'. A tale of a Windmill, a Painting, a Girl, and a Pearl. Set in the Netherlands.

After watching dozens and dozens of hours of the Olympics, I'm convinced many of the world's most beautiful women live in the Netherlands.

 

[Jorunn]

After watching dozens and dozens of hours of the Olympics, I'm convinced many of the world's most beautiful women live in the Netherlands.

I visited the Netherlands this past spring, and agree 100%. My visit inspired to write this story with a really hot FMC. After watching the Olympics, I even changed the name of one of my female characters to Femke, after track star Femke Bol. Every time I saw Femke on the television, she was smiling, which added to her incredible natural beauty.

 

[yowser]

I've gone and created a pretty good mess for myself. I had a (fine) idea for a tale involving characters from a loosely connected (non-chaptered) series I have going. But, for the second time in a contest/challenge (and second time this year) doing THAT story necessitated doing a prequel story to set up the plot I had for my initial story. I suppose I could have managed a great long epic that combined the two, but the one-two punch really required two tales.

So, while almost done with the first idea, I had to brainstorm the prequel, which I have almost finished. I just might pull it all off.

It is a bit alarming how much contest deadlines drive my demented life.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Dammit! Where'd the time go?

I was happily in July, then I look up and it's mid August. I refuse to cut another story short to meet a deadline, so I'll keep plugging away and it'll be done when it's done.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

I refuse to cut another story short to meet a deadline, so I'll keep plugging away and it'll be done when it's done.

That 's always been my philosophy too; I've even missed the last three events in a row saying that!

Fortunately, I'm at 24K words on this one and just have three sections to write. I'm hoping to have it done by this weekend.

 

[nicksouth]

View attachment 2376005

Mine's been done awhile, but I've got to sweep it for continuity and I'll do that once I'm done traveling today. Hope to get it uploaded by Tuesday.

Nice! Mine went to Pending today with a publish date of 8/16 so I assume that means it's accepted ? Definitely not expecting many votes but it is a start !

 

[Voboy]

Nice! Mine went to Pending today with a publish date of 8/16 so I assume that means it's accepted ? Definitely not expecting many votes but it is a start !

Pending means it's being looked at. When it's in the queue for publication, it'll have a NEW tag and a posting date.

 

[nicksouth]

Pending means it's being looked at. When it's in the queue for publication, it'll have a NEW tag and a posting date.

Yeah it does show NEW and 8/16 as the date (it's in the Pending tab)

 

[Voboy]

Yeah it does show NEW and 8/16 as the date (it's in the Pending tab)

Then you're good to go! It's been accepted.

I just started looking mine over. I'm glad this thread gets bumped; it helps keep me from being lazy.

 

[MyBareTorso]

Yeah it does show NEW and 8/16 as the date (it's in the Pending tab)

You're in! Congratulations and best of luck! Comps are always a good way to up your views, and hopefully get some new readers.

 

[OffNSFW]

Dammit! Where'd the time go?

I was happily in July, then I look up and it's mid August. I refuse to cut another story short to meet a deadline, so I'll keep plugging away and it'll be done when it's done.

Oh fuck, I thought I had so much time, and the contest opens in a few days.

I, uh. Need to write faster.

 

[Voyeurkenneth]

Yeah it does show NEW and 8/16 as the date (it's in the Pending tab)

Nice. Just don't get tempted to edit it. It'll get pushed back into the review queue.

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

Mine has been accepted also, and is scheduled for the 16th. So, uh, now I no longer need support, so I hereby support all of you! Write, edit, finish, submit!

Actually, that's more like hectoring than supporting.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I might manage this...
Competition entries submitted near the end of the window have less time to get down votes, right?And this is straight vanilla sex so might actually get 25 votes, not that I think it'll be prizewinning stuff.

My last entry was submitted on the first day for Valentine's and scored pretty well, but never got above 23 votes, because Gay Male readers rarely vote or comment. I think my one I/T story has more votes than all the rest of my 60-odd stories put together!

 

[SimonDoom]

I might manage this...
Competition entries submitted near the end of the window have less time to get down votes, right?And this is straight vanilla sex so might actually get 25 votes, not that I think it'll be prizewinning stuff.

My last entry was submitted on the first day for Valentine's and scored pretty well, but never got above 23 votes, because Gay Male readers rarely vote or comment. I think my one I/T story has more votes than all the rest of my 60-odd stories put together!

My limited experience with timing contest posts is that it's difficult to forecast what will happen based on when you post a story. However, for last year's Halloween contest, I posted a story right near the last day that I could, and by the day of the award announcement and immediately after a few sweeps its score was 4.92, and I placed third. Then it immediately got downvoted to under 4.6, and now almost a year later it's at 4.61, but I've still got that blue "w" next to it. So, make of that what you will. Ideally, I'd rather post early in the contest period to get more views and votes, but I'm often scrambling to get the story done so that doesn't often work.

 

[Voboy]

Submitted.

 

[Duleigh]

My story went and grew another act. I guess I'm not ready to leave these two characters.

I LOVE when that happens! Andi's Dream started as 3 stories, it's now published in 4 novels and #5 is halfway done!