The Official Authors' Hangout Valentine's Day 2018 Support Thread

ChloeTzang said:

That's what I said a couple of competitions ago and I got Sammi Woo in 20 minutes before the deadline after some marathon writing binge or something. LOL.

Good luck Puckit.

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And Sammi Woo worked for you, right? I got a Summer Luvin' contest entry in right before the deadline and it has been a good story for me.

I usually target a date before the contest closes, but early enough that I can run over if I have too. The opening date doesn't really count for much.

I haven't even started mine, because I've been wrapping up other things. I did just eliminate a huge time drain from my daily routine, but it's still a long story I have in mind. That's going to put it in the danger zone so far as finishing it this year goes.

NotWise said:

And Sammi Woo worked for you, right? I got a Summer Luvin' contest entry in right before the deadline and it has been a good story for me.

I usually target a date before the contest closes, but early enough that I can run over if I have too. The opening date doesn't really count for much.

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Sammi? I didn't get nearly as many views on that story in Group Sex as I'd hoped for and I do think it was one of my better stories. Should've put it into First Time I think.

My two for Valentines Day are going into First Time - there's a couple of categories they'd fit into but I seem to get the most views in First Time and the readers that've picked me up there follow me into the other categories.

I'm getting excited about this one. I haven't submitted a story for a contest since my first story, 13 months ago, and that was a rush job. Probably my worst story.

For my Valentine's Day story, I've written the first paragraph, and the last paragraph. It's the rest I've got to work on. I'm determined to get it in, but I've got to finish another story first.

ChloeTzang said:

Sammi? I didn't get nearly as many views on that story in Group Sex as I'd hoped for and I do think it was one of my better stories.

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Yeah, I have some category regrets, too. But if you thought it was one of your better stories then it worked one way or another.

I'm thinking of trying this, but I have a novice level question.

Ogg reiterated the importance of proper submission, specifically the plea to properly fill in the Notes Section. I went in search under the Welcome Authors post, but the following was about all I could find on the subject;

- Author must copy and paste the phrase "WINTER HOLIDAYS CONTEST 2017" in the "Notes" field of the submission. You can submit any time from now on, so long as you put this message in the NOTES field. We will not post the contest stories until the contest start date. Please do not forget to put this EXACT phrase IN THE NOTES FIELD - NOT the description field or anywhere else. In fact, we recommend that you COPY & PASTE it into the NOTES field to avoid typos. If it is not in the NOTES field – or if it's typoed - we cannot easily find your story and it may not be approved in a timely manner to be entered into the contest!!

I am assuming that the proper note for the Valentine contest would be; "VALENTINE'S DAY CONTEST 2018"

Is this assumption correct? Should the note also include the quotation marks?
****

Also, to be honest, I'm not real sure if this story conforms well enough to fit in a Valentine's Day contest. However, it is about love found...but it's really offbeat from what I usually write. It's a satirical take on homophobia which takes the protagonists on a roller coaster ride from hate to love in about 3500 words...a real quick ride. I didn't write it specifically with this contest in mind, but last night after I wrote it the idea of submitting it came to me. If it helps, I would use tags such as these; humor, homophobia, first time gay, gay love, etc. (the theme of traditional romance would not apply. But the themes of Valentine's Day, Cupid, Cupid's arrow and True Love would.)

PS: This is also my first ever "first person" attempt...so I don't know what got into me last night with contests and such adventure Plus, I haven't read it over again today, so this may all be moot

The note question should be easy...any thoughts on the suitability of the story I'll have leave to you guys. Thanks for any input.

The "Kickoff" thread for this contest hasn't launched yet. Ogg likes to start these support threads a fair distance in advance, to help people think about the upcoming contest and brainstorm ideas.

Shortly before the submission period begins, Laurel will replace the Winter contest thread with the Valentine's thread, and it will contain the proper phrase, which you've surmised correctly, if it follows custom, and doesn't need the quote marks.

RejectReality said:

The "Kickoff" thread for this contest hasn't launched yet. Ogg likes to start these support threads a fair distance in advance, to help people think about the upcoming contest and brainstorm ideas.

Shortly before the submission period begins, Laurel will replace the Winter contest thread with the Valentine's thread, and it will contain the proper phrase, which you've surmised correctly, if it follows custom, and doesn't need the quote marks.

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Thank you! I'll keep an eye out for it.

Next newbie question... how does this work exactly. Does it collect votes from the time it’s posted until it closes or is there a specific voting period after all the submissions are collected?

Thanks!

Nobody knows for certain when the official voting ends. Your votes start counting from the moment it posts, but when they stop counting is a mystery. It's not specific to the story or author, but rather an unknown time that Laurel considers the voting closed for all stories in the contest.

We're fairly certain that at least a few days after the end of the submission period, the votes are still counting, in order for the last minute stories to have time to collect votes.

RejectReality said:

Nobody knows for certain when the official voting ends.

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That seems to obfuscate things a little. The contest sweeps (when the site removes votes that fail an unknown test of validity) continue into the night before the winners are announced, and the final ranks reflect the last, post-sweep, scores.

So while it's true that we don't know exactly when the voting is cut off, it appears to be just hours before the winners are announced.

NotWise said:

That seems to obfuscate things a little. The contest sweeps (when the site removes votes that fail an unknown test of validity) continue into the night before the winners are announced, and the final ranks reflect the last, post-sweep, scores.

So while it's true that we don't know exactly when the voting is cut off, it appears to be just hours before the winners are announced.

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That's the general expectation, but the votes are most likely time-stamped in the database. So the database queries could easily single out a specific time range, ignoring the votes that happen after a certain time.

I know if it was me, considering the flurry of last minute, highly suspicious votes that always come in on the last day before the announcement, I'd cut it off at midnight the day before so all that noise was irrelevant.

RejectReality said:

That's the general expectation, but the votes are most likely time-stamped in the database. So the database queries could easily single out a specific time range, ignoring the votes that happen after a certain time.

I know if it was me, considering the flurry of last minute, highly suspicious votes that always come in on the last day before the announcement, I'd cut it off at midnight the day before so all that noise was irrelevant.

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I haven't done it, but Pilot stayed up and watched the last sweep on last year's VDay contest. The final ranking after the last sweep (wee hours of the morning) was pretty much the only time that the #2 story was in the standings. That's the only time the final count could have been made.

We had a similar result in the Summer Luvin' contest. The final vote was clearly made after the last sweep and just before the results where announced. Otherwise, a story with something like 27 votes could not have rocketed out of nowhere, taken first place, and then disappeared into nowhere again.

I haven't been here forever and I haven't watched every contest, but in what I've seen the votes are counted in the final hour, so to speak.

There's only so much you can see from a user perspective. Nothing you can see about anybody else's story is current because of all the different update schedules on the different pages.

There have been plenty of cases in the past where the visible scores of the top 3 don't mesh up with the order of the announced win, so far as you can tell. Reports later have often borne out why, because the author's list showed a higher score than anybody else could see at that time, and then was immediately bombed down lower.

Even watching something live doesn't give you more than a general idea of what happened. I tracked many of the contests daily for a couple of years, from opening day until closing moments, including a follow-up after the announcement, and then a final check after enough time had passed for everything to update. I've seen as much as anybody on this side of the Great Oz curtain can, and all I can give you is general ranges of probability.

Here's one of them. The previous and next links work to scroll through this contest, but the "Home" it links to no longer links to these contest tracks, as it did in the past.

http://www.darkniciad.com/hotlink_pics/earth_day_2011_z.htm

RejectReality said:

There's only so much you can see from a user perspective

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I'm going to stick with the idea that the decision is made in the final hours. Everything I've seen is consistent that way.

Like I said, it probably is, but there are enough inconsistencies to make that conclusion questionable.

For most people, all that matters is even if you get your contest story in at 11:59:59 on the very last day, you'll still have at least several days to accumulate votes, and possibly as much as the full week.

Well that’s clear as mud! Thanks for the info though.

JennaMonroe said:

Well that’s clear as mud!

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Intentionally, perhaps. It’s a crude way to keep too many people from gaming the system: make sure “the system” is opaque.

Gaming happens anyway, but perhaps it could be worse.

As I've said so many times before, you don't put in an expensive security system, and then post the schematics for it on a billboard in front of the place.

Kinda defeats the purpose.

JennaMonroe said:

Next newbie question... how does this work exactly. Does it collect votes from the time it’s posted until it closes or is there a specific voting period after all the submissions are collected?

Thanks!

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Um, okay. The first thing you should know about contributing to one of these contests is that you'll be much better off if you don't try to track the voting with abated breath. I haven't been around as long as some of the old hands, but long enough (under a variety of names) that I can tell you the final tally will in no way, shape, form, or fashion match anything that has gone before.

As a general rule, when I post something to one of these contests, I specifically force my attention on to my next efforts and don't look back until the winners are announced to congratulate them (or in a couple of cases find out I placed).

Instead, I would strongly suggest viewing the contest as a way to get your writing in front of eyes that might not otherwise see it... and focus on putting your best into it. The best you can do, not necessarily better than someone else. That gets into so much subjectivity there's not much point stressing over it.

Tell the story you have to tell to the best of your abilities and let the chips fall where they may while you hone your art. Just do it with the festive spirit of the latest holiday happening being celebrated. (Or anti-the holiday if you're good enough to pull it off.)

Now, where is that little winged diaper wearing bastard. Shoot me in the ass with an arrow. I got your arrow right here you little shit...

Laurel has fired the starting gun!

The official contest announcement is here:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1467856

oggbashan said:

Laurel has fired the starting gun!

The official contest announcement is here:

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1467856

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Great. Thanks Ogg. Motivation to keep madly writing. I'm in the midst of insane death. Never written a military battle scene before and I'm finding it rather different. And I'm still researching my Apache stuff. I'll have to go back and listen to that Apache movie. My books are British and the slang is so different.

ChloeTzang said:

Great. Thanks Ogg. Motivation to keep madly writing. I'm in the midst of insane death. Never written a military battle scene before and I'm finding it rather different. And I'm still researching my Apache stuff. I'll have to go back and listen to that Apache movie. My books are British and the slang is so different.

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Huh. What war?

Voboy said:

Huh. What war?

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Afghanistan, 2007. "Fields of Gold". Coming soon to a Valentines Day competition near you. It's a bit dramatic and whenever I read my last scene I just start crying, but the sex is hot and the battle scenes are something else. I'm struggling with the military terminology but it's getting there. My SO thinks it's waaaay to dramatic but he says he was there and he's biased so he's leaving me to it.

ChloeTzang said:

Afghanistan, 2007. "Fields of Gold". Coming soon to a Valentines Day competition near you. It's a bit dramatic and whenever I read my last scene I just start crying, but the sex is hot and the battle scenes are something else. I'm struggling with the military terminology but it's getting there. My SO thinks it's waaaay to dramatic but he says he was there and he's biased so he's leaving me to it.

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Nice.

Post your problematic terms, if you don’t want to ask your SO; lots of us spent time in Big Green. Just remember: rifle barrels get very hot after firing, so think twice if your characters try to insert them anywhere.

Good luck! Mine is far lower-impact, perhaps too much so.