A New Contest: Your Input Needed!

[Laurel]

Hi everyone, and hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

For a couple of years, we've been considering replacing the Earth Day contest. We feel there is too much thematic overlap between it and the Nude Day and Summer Lovin' contests, and it tends to be the less popular of the three.

The current contest takes place in April, so we'd like its replacement to take place around the same dates. BUT we need a new theme - something broad enough to generate a nice variety of entries, yet narrow enough to be a challenge.

We're counting on you bright creative minds to put your heads together and come up with something awesome! The AH was instrumental in the creation - from name to theme - of the popular Summer Lovin' contest, so we're excited to see what you can do this time!

Please use this thread for brainstorming of ideas. If you all agree on a single idea, then that's great! If not, we're looking for 4 or 5 ideas - contest name and a one-sentence statement of theme. Once you've decided on these, one of you (PennLady perhaps? She's the Special Contest threadstarter after all, but whoever is good for you all is good for me) should PM me with the entries, then start a poll thread in which we can all vote (public voting option on). After 30 days, we'll close the thread and choose the winner!

Thanks in advance!

 

[LaRascasse]

April Fool's Day based contest? Basically any sort of prank/trickery/one-upmanship.

I see the potential for many categories, H&S in particular.

 

[RejectReality]

The last time this was brainstormed, the strongest consensus was "Spring Flings", which included Earth Day, Mother's Day, the first day of spring, graduation, etc.

Really broad, but there are a lot of specific themes within it as well. I don't know about "challenge", but mentioning all of those events in the contest description would likely create variety and almost certainly increase participation.

 

[SandraMustard]

April Fools? That might run too early because like other themes, it would be over by April and not fill the gap Laurel wants.

How about April Showers? Besides the Pee people going for the golden, lots of us have had sex in the shower and the rain.

 

[RejectReality]

April Fools? That might run too early because like other themes, it would be over by April and not fill the gap Laurel wants.

The contest has typically started in late March and ends in early April. Moving it back a week or so wouldn't muck up the works too much.

It would solve the overlap problem with Nude Day and Summer Lovin', but I don't see it solving the participation problem. It's barely a tick above Nude Day and Earth Day as far as participation from the general populace goes ( Beyond the website pranks that have become a recent tradition )

 

[TxRad]

The last time this was brainstormed, the strongest consensus was "Spring Flings", which included Earth Day, Mother's Day, the first day of spring, graduation, etc.

Really broad, but there are a lot of specific themes within it as well. I don't know about "challenge", but mentioning all of those events in the contest description would likely create variety and almost certainly increase participation.

A very similar idea but more "Spring is in the Air"

Start a new romance, rekindle and old one. Things are turning green and the weather is warming. Time to shake off winter and get outside at the very least.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

A very similar idea but more "Spring is in the Air"

Start a new romance, rekindle and old one. Things are turning green and the weather is warming. Time to shake off winter and get outside at the very least.

Call it APRIL LOVE and you can croon it to PILOT.

 

[Ima_Reader]

I like the Spring Fling idea. Lots of things in spring. Graduations, spring renewal, April showers, mothers' and fathers' days (for the incest crowd), weddings, spring break... lots of possibilities.

 

[JKendallDane]

The last time this was brainstormed, the strongest consensus was "Spring Flings", which included Earth Day, Mother's Day, the first day of spring, graduation, etc.

Really broad, but there are a lot of specific themes within it as well. I don't know about "challenge", but mentioning all of those events in the contest description would likely create variety and almost certainly increase participation.

Add in proms, new yard or pool boy, Easter egg hunts, and April Fools Day as an option and you open up all sorts of doors for the plot bunnies to escape their cages.

 

[Privates1stClass]

I like the Spring Fling idea. Lots of things in spring. Graduations, spring renewal, April showers, mothers' and fathers' days (for the incest crowd), weddings, spring break... lots of possibilities.

I agree with Ima_Reader. Don't forget about Spring Break and getting out of those hot winter clothes.

 

[SandraMustard]

Lots of ideas have sprung up but my muse is whispering that Aussies will not understand writing for a Spring contest during their Fall.

 

[JagFarlane]

While I'll probably be one of the few who will say it, I'll miss the Earth Day competition, it was one I enjoyed.

If you want broad then Spring Fling seems to be the way to go.

 

[RejectReality]

Nah, I liked it too. Nude Day has always been the one that gives me fits with trying to come up with an idea.

Finishing an Earth Day story in time may have been an incredible pain, but that's true for anything I write beyond silly little stroke stuff in this pen name.

 

[MSTarot]

I've enjoyed the Earthday contest but then I use it as a protest contest. I write stories that protest the things that are being done around the earth without thought for the next generation who has to live here.


Spring Cleaning Contest ---- take a story you already have posted and clean it up reedit it and resubmit. Make those changes you always wanted to make but never seem to get around to doing.


Picture's Worth a Thousand Words---- a contest based in the Illustrated category.

Deflowering Virgins---- you have to enter a story in a category you have never entered. (For the people that play the Survivor contest one you've not entered yet this year)

Best ideas I can give at the moment. I would love to see a Steam Punk Day contest. Now that one wold take a bit of research and thought.

 

[patientlee]

Nah, I liked it too. Nude Day has always been the one that gives me fits with trying to come up with an idea.

Finishing an Earth Day story in time may have been an incredible pain, but that's true for anything I write beyond silly little stroke stuff in this pen name.

I agree. Nude Day isn't fun. Nude and sex kinda go hand in hand, so it's hard to be clever. I think Earth Day is easier, therefore more fun. (But I like science shit.)

Spring fling has a lot of possibilities. Primary election day's in there too (fucking his/her way into office. it could happen!). There's something for everyone. Adult easter egg hunt. Rabbit vibrators. Yeah. I like that idea.

And that way, earth day still fits, science shit and all.

 

[patientlee]

Best ideas I can give at the moment. I would love to see a Steam Punk Day contest. Now that one wold take a bit of research and thought.

I have no idea what that is. I could look it up, but your explanation will be more fun to read.

 

[AirRichard101]

Ms. Lee. Is your butterfly different?

 

[lovecraft68]

April Fools would be a good one.

 

[MSTarot]

I have no idea what that is. I could look it up, but your explanation will be more fun to read.

It's a mixture of 1800s costume play, with What if? thinking.

The new Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr. has a bit of it.

League of Extraordinary Gentleman is even more so.

What if? What if the novels of Jules Verne had been made possible in the 1800s. We went to the moon. The bottom of the sea, the center of the earth... in Victorian times.

What technologies would have been needed. How, given what they had back then, would they have used to make that happen?

It's all gears and sprockets and steam power. Electricity was in it's infancy and mysterious. The first vibrators were made as healing devices at about that time.

It's all corsets and gas lighting. the first horseless carriages are just coming into play.

There are a few novels out there about it that are very good and a lot that are very bad. It just seems like it would be something fun to play with.

Zeppelin cruse lines "We have fully electric state rooms."


MST

 

[patientlee]

Ms. Lee. Is your butterfly different?

Yes. Yes, it is. Painted by one of my former students, a tattoo artist. When he did my husband's tattoo, he said that when people ask how he got started, he always says that I encouraged his art (as part of the story). My family had him paint my butterfly for my birthday. Thanks for noticing.

 

[DesEsseintes]

Amateur
Porn
Reluctant/Forced
Interracial
Lovin' Wives

Seems broad enough to me.

 

[Handley_Page]

A very similar idea but more "Spring is in the Air"

Start a new romance, rekindle and old one. Things are turning green and the weather is warming. Time to shake off winter and get outside at the very least.

I like this one

 

[49greg]

Right now I think the Spring Fling or a similar name would be a great way to go. Earth day is in the Northern Hemisphere spring, so anyone wanting to write about Earth Day could still fit that in. And it opens up some of the other ideas posted, such as April Fools.

The only problem I can think of about Spring Fling is that it so inclusive that any number of themes can be included in it. Everything from earth day, to nudity (isn't it a relief to not have to spend five minutes bundling up before going out the door just to get the mail,) to being outdoors to just about anything.

Having said that, I loved the idea of a Steam Punk contest. Not as a writer, but as a reader. I think I would have even less of a chance of finishing a steam punk story before the contest dealine than I have of any other.

 

[49greg]

Or

How about a Historical Erotica story contest. That could cover most categories in Lit, just in a historical setting. Cave men using the club to court women, A lonely Neanterthal or Denesovian (spelling?) man or woman finding the Cro-Magnon mate of choice. Regency romance, Revolutionary war, Russian Revolution epic, Napoleonic wars, Depression era, etc, etc, etc.

 

[xelliebabex]

I weighed in in the last unofficial debate about this asking for something that lent itself to a purposeful international flair. Admittedly world tourism day isn't until September but something similar maybe, like a Club Med Contest

Having said that I am finally used to writing all things in the wrong seasons so Spring fling works for me too. Being that my birthday is April Fools day I am have been on the receiving end of many many practical jokes I am not so keen on that one