The Official Authors' Hangout Winter Holidays 2025 Support Thread

[Voboy]

How many categories do you to write for in the survivor contest

All of 'em.

It used to be a big thing on the writer side, just before I got here. It's still a goal some people have, like climbing all the 8,000m mountains just for the sake of completeness.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

All of them.

Not counting the categories that require extra technology and or cooperation: Illustrated, Audio, Chain, Illustrated Poetry and Poetry with Audio.

Do the story games not require extra tech? I always thought they did. Or do they just not count in general?

 

[BryanRichardson]

Do the story games not require extra tech? I always thought they did. Or do they just not count in general?

I guess they don’t count since I only have a vague idea how they work.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

I guess they don’t count since I only have a vague idea how they work.

Fair enough. I'm with you on that - I tried to look once, thought I saw them requiring a program to be downloaded, and decided I'd try again later.

 

[dreams_in_words]

Submitted. And now we play the waiting game.

 

[SamanthaBehgs]

Submitted. And now we play the waiting game.

May your wait be short and your stars be multitudinous

 

[Aoife_from_Ulster]

Submitted. And now we play the waiting game.

Hopefully your don’t have the wait t8mes 8nhad experienced previously

 

[dreams_in_words]

Also, rhyming is hard. I'm NOT doing ABAB rhymes again.

 

[Voboy]

Also, rhyming is hard. I'm NOT doing ABAB rhymes again.

I love poetry and I have a couple of stories that use it extensively. People really seem to dig that, which I find interesting.

 

[dreams_in_words]

I love poetry and I have a couple of stories that use it extensively. People really seem to dig that, which I find interesting.

I didn't so much hate it. But had to constantly change sentences so I could use a better rhyming word.

My favorite dinosaur came in clutch.

 

[NaughteeDragon]

Nearly there.

It's more serious than a typical Lit story. I predict a bunch of people will hate it, but at least a Christmas story should get some readers...

You gonna give us anything more for a tease. Please?

 

[NaughteeDragon]

I am happy to see my story, Winter Loves Red, has 2100 views and >50 ratings. I wasn’t certain how it would do as it isn’t a standard Leabian Sex story

It's on my TBR list.
I'm sure your win at Halloween is helping. Even though I had a couple if issues with the story, it was a great read and I really enjoyed it.

 

[NaughteeDragon]

A Gift She Wasn't Expecting was submitted about 5 minutes ago. Hopefully it will post in a couple of days. Now I'm just hoping that it gets more traffic than my Halloween stories did. It's T/I, so it at least has that going for it.

 

[Rustyoznail]

Tossed a short Scifi /fantasy story into the mix. Doubt it'll do much, but you never know.

 

[Duleigh]

*Comes up for air*

Finally! A Harmonica for Hanukkah is polished as well as it is going to be so I finally submitted it. I'm currently working on a second entry which I'm pretty sure will make it in time. This second entry features a new (to me) character but most of the rest are characters established in another series that got its start in the Winter Holiday contest.

Most of my major series got their start in a contest. Andi's Dream and Wonderful Wife series both got their start in the Winter Holiday contest, Enchantress and Alan Scarlett got their start in the Geek Pride event.

There's something about these events that get the creative juices flowing!

 

[dreams_in_words]

Yay, publishing date for tomorrow

 

[Duleigh]

 

[NaughteeDragon]

Mine too

 

[MelissaBaby]

I’m about halfway through mine at about 8k words. That’s pretty good for me, I usually end up dashing toward the deadline.

 

[DEFCOM5]

@ChloeTzang and @Duleigh,

After receiving feedback from my beta readers, I have decided not to enter the contest.

It is simply not good enough of a story.

I wanted to thank you for you support and motivation as I wrote something that is unpublishable.

Best of luck to the contestants.

 

[dreams_in_words]

I’m about halfway through mine at about 8k words. That’s pretty good for me, I usually end up dashing toward the deadline.

Dashing towards stuff during the winter is a holiday tradition. Whether it's black Friday sales, getting to airport terminals on time (as seen in the historical documentary Home Alone), or dashing thru the snow in a one horse open sleigh.

Also, Home Alone would have made for a great sex parody for a holiday story. They already had established the "Wet Bandits". Hope no one uses that idea....

 

[Duleigh]

@ChloeTzang and @Duleigh,

After receiving feedback from my beta readers, I have decided not to enter the contest.

It is simply not good enough of a story.

I wanted to thank you for you support and motivation as I wrote something that is unpublishable.

Best of luck to the contestants.

What is "Good enough of a story?"

I'm sure that War and Peace was not Leo Tolstoy's first attempt. I'm sure he released something that people clearly said "It's not War and Peace."

I know for a fact that Lord of the Rings was not J R R Tolkiens second release.

Two people said something you didn't like about the story... So what? I want to tell you a secret: You're not going to win if you don't try, and you'll never be a winner if you first learn to quit.

Every single reader here has published a story that was probably a bad idea to release. For me it was Professional Photographer and Flying Monkey. Professional Photographer was a HORRIBLE story. But the feedback I got! It actually told me where to improve my stories. And many people like the story. You're not going to find people who like it if you leave it on your hard drive. Most of us are here to pick up followers (because it's fun). You don't pick up followers by hiding your work.

Tell you what - finish it up. Tell your beta to concentrate on spelling and grammar and tell them "Let me make the creative decisions" (Because that's YOUR job, not theirs) and go ahead and publish it. If for any reason the reaction from the readers causes you to lose your home or your car, I'll refund your entry fee.

 

[DEFCOM5]

What is "Good enough of a story?"

@Duleigh,
If the first beta reader tells you that the story does not work and the second tells you that they wanted to stop reading halfway through the store but forced themselves to finish, the story is not good enough

Two people said something you didn't like about the story... So what? I want to tell you a secret: You're not going to win if you don't try, and you'll never be a winner if you first learn to quit.

I respect the two readers opinions. I have not any illusion that I could win a writing concept. One thing I learned in my life is that I am not a winner. And it is not because I quit.

Every single reader here has published a story that was probably a bad idea to release. For me it was Professional Photographer and Flying Monkey. Professional Photographer was a HORRIBLE story. But the feedback I got! It actually told me where to improve my stories. And many people like the story. You're not going to find people who like it if you leave it on your hard drive. Most of us are here to pick up followers (because it's fun). You don't pick up followers by hiding your work.

I hear you but I doubt I would get followers if I publish things that the readers will drop halfway through the story or before that. The thing is that I really thought that the story was great. I love my MCs. But my eyes were opened. It a pile of smelling dung (my own words, not their. The opposite. My beta readers were gentle).

Tell you what - finish it up. Tell your beta to concentrate on spelling and grammar and tell them "Let me make the creative decisions" (Because that's YOUR job, not theirs) and go ahead and publish it. If for any reason the reaction from the readers causes you to lose your home or your car, I'll refund your entry fee.

They offered to do the spelling / grammar if I wanted to publish.
I cannot publish what I think will be poorly received at best and hated at worst. Probably ignored or 1 bombed just for fun.

I really appreciate you trying to remotivate me. I really do.

But right now I am hurting and I need to take a step back and regroup and decide if I can/want to do this. I need to think that people might want to read what I write. Right not, I do not believe it.

I do not want to highjack this thread or go "Poor DEFCOM5, let's prop him up". This is not a drama. This is a first world problem.

I felt that I owed you and @ChloeTzang an explanation because you were so supportive. I really appreciated your efforts.

Again, best of luck to all the contestants!

 

[ChloeTzang]

But right now I am hurting and I need to take a step back and regroup and decide if I can/want to do this. I need to think that people might want to read what I write. Right not, I do not believe it.

I do not want to highjack this thread or go "Poor DEFCOM5, let's prop him up". This is not a drama. This is a first world problem.

I felt that I owed you and @ChloeTzang an explanation because you were so supportive. I really appreciated your efforts.

Again, best of luck to all the contestants!

Dude, you are overthinking. I have submitted some crap in my time. It's still there and people are still reading ir. Poor souls. LOL

I treat everything here on LIT as writing exercises and the readers are my personal guinea pigs. Or victims. LOL (not really, but thinking like that makes it easier to post anything). The only way you get better is to write and put it out there, take the slings and arrows of outraged comments, and do it again. It's a good way to prepare yourself for Amazon. LOL. Personally I'd say you put the work in, it was something you wanted to write, put it in and just start work on the next one! And you still have a week or so to do some editing and tweaking - heck, I'm still writing mine.

 

[Rustyoznail]

@DEFCOM5, sit back, take a deep breath, and hit submit. It's all a learning experience. Most of us aren't great writers and just do this for fun.

Take my entry - https://literotica.com/s/an-aussie-christmas-layover

Will it rank in the top ten? Doubt it. Was it fun to write? Yep. If other people like it, great.