If you travel on ADISC, you might already know me, as I hang over there and am the Stories mod on that site. (It’s the natural outgrowth of spending 38 years as an English and Creative Writing teacher; I couldn’t stop myself from volunteering.) But I’ve been lurking and reading things here though I don’t know how many incarnations of this board, so I thought it was probably time to change that status. Thanks for providing a site like this, a serious place for serious writers to put work out there. I love the fact that most of the “major players” here have often attested that, whether their personal affinities are AB or DL or AR or whatever, the primary consideration for them is always the quality of the writing.
I’ve read stories here in categories I never would have expected to enjoy simply because I saw that someone whose opinions I have come to respect has written something positive about them. (Or has, for that matter, written them.) And, of course, this is the one place where I can find stories that are almost always of a high quality, simply because so many of you will call them out if they are not and give specific advice about how to fix them. No “great story” crap when it clearly isn’t, as one finds elsewhere (yes, even at ADISC: drives me nuts). I admire that about this site. It is the kind of culture I’m trying to build over there, but we don’t have as many strong writers as there are here, so it’s slow going.
I could list favorite stories, but I’m not sure there would be much point. My tastes are about the same as yours, as I can see by the comments on the boards in forums throughout this site. I do have a question, though: you guys used to have a Story of the Year. Why did you stop?
Welcome, I’m glad to see someone putting this kind of effort into their introduction. As someone unfamiliar with you you’ve shown a lot of promise on that alone.
As for Story of the Year, from what I’ve gathered it was cut due to low turnout and the fact that Elizabeth handled most of the organization for the contests before her departure. The recent Halloween contest had an incredible turnout, though, so it seems that contests are going to come back for the near future. It looks like we’ve hit a second wind since this past year.
TheOneWhoSees pretty much hit the nail on the head. A big part of why the contests stopped was because of Elizabeth’s departure plus the low participation in the short story ones. There was supposed to be a 2016 Story of the Year (and a Valentine’s themed short story one) but those had to be put on the back burner this year because of the migration from SMF to vBulletin and the few minor fires I’m still putting out related to that.
The fact we now have 3 mods to help manage things will actually improve the chances of future contests happening, but I also have a few things I want to put in place to make things easier for all the staff in future contests.
Welcome. Glad you finally decided to join more actively. We don’t bite (or at least we try to refrain from it), except for lousy writers who refuse to improve. You seem like the sort who will fit right in here.
Oooooooo. A fellow educator. Well, welcome to the place where we don’t have to worry about the parents being disappointed that little Johnny doesn’t live up to their expectations.
Now, let’s get the delurking welcome pack ready for you…
Steel, unisex jockstrap (supersized to fit over diapers if need be) - Check
Hardhat (orange with flame stickers on the side) - Check
Seventeen one-pound bags of chocolate-coated coffee beans (for those late night writing sessions) - One, two, three… sixteen seventeen, check
One 2000-page grammar book (to smack around writers that just. Won’t. LEARN!) - Check
and finally, a special pass to allow you to skip the 288th story you were planning on reading (because we don’t have stories that are two gross. (Homophones FTW)) - Check
Now, enjoy your stay and remember to tip your waiter.
[QUOTE=gummybear;67785]Oooooooo.
and finally, a special pass to allow you to skip the 288th story you were planning on reading (because we don’t have stories that are two gross. (Homophones FTW)) - Check
:D[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Vearynope;67763]'Cause none of us can get a whole story out in less than two…
ZING!
Seriously though, welcome.[/QUOTE]
Hey now, I managed to crank it up to get one out for the Halloween contest in a month. Of course, that was little more than an extended vignette, with little in the way of plot, but still yet!
