Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Flash Challenge #10

This is topic Flash Challenge #10 in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
http://www.hatrack.com/ubb/writers/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=002079

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Thanks to Kathleen for allowing us to post these notices on Hatrack.

Flash Challenge #10 is now Open for submissions. You must be registered at Liberty Hall to participate, view the rules, and receive your trigger.

If you are registered, go here: FLash #10 Rules and Trigger

To register, start here: http://www.munsil.net/phpBB2/index.php
then, click on "register" in the upper right corner.

How Liberty Hall’s Flash Challenges Work:

To participate, registration at Liberty Hall is required. If you cannot see the Flash Challenge forums, either you are not registered or you have not logged in. Please register or log in.

Challenges start on Friday mornings and end on Monday mornings. Actual start and finish times might vary each weekend, depending on the Moderator. There will be an announcement made on Liberty Hall when the Flash Challenge is OPEN. You are free to start once we post the announcement.

How to take up the challenge:

1. Ensure you have at least 1.5 hours to do the challenge.
2. Read these rules and the formatting guidelines.
3. Send a request for your Flash Trigger to the given email address.
4. Check your email immediately for the trigger. (see Troubleshooting if you have problems)
5. Begin writing your original story inspired by the trigger. Flash is usually 1000 words or less. You may write more than 1000 words, but others may hold this against you during voting. We will accept any length story. Please write a brand new story, do not edit or rework a story you’ve already written.
6. Email your titled story back to the “reply-to” email address before time runs out. The time limit is noted in your trigger email. It is usually 1.5 hours, but it may be less.

What happens next?

We post all stories anonymously on Monday morning. Your story will be in one of several groups.

On Monday and Tuesday, each group critiques and votes on the stories. We also open up the Guessing Frenzy. You are encouraged to comment in the group(s) that DO NOT contain your entry. However, you may comment in any group. Critiques and comments are open through Friday.

Best of the Best Flash voting starts and ends Wednesday! The Overall Winner of Best Flash chooses the next trigger. This is your chance to get even with all those evil people who forced you to stretch your mind in earlier Flash Challenges. Please begin to consider your trigger if you are a finalist in the Vote Off.

Thursday, we open the “Reveal Thyself” board, and you may optionally reveal which story you wrote.

Friday, all topics are locked and the next Flash Challenge Begins.

Troubleshooting

If you do not receive your flash trigger within 5-10 minutes of request:

1. Check your email; you may need to manually force a send/receive.
2. If you manually forced a send/receive and you still do not have your trigger, contact a moderator or administrator immediately.

Good luck to you all! Please be offended by HSO if things screw up. If it is a wonderful and liberating experience please thank your fellow Hatrackers for providing it. The Challenges would be fairly boring if just a few people joined in!

mikemunsil

[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited June 03, 2005).]

Posted by HSO (Member # 2056) on :

quote:
Please be offended by HSO if things screw up

I'm not moderating this one, nor am I doing anything that will screw this one up. But feel free to be offended anyway -- I'm sure I can say or do something offensive over the next week. It comes fairly easy for me.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Thanks, HSO!

LOL You should all know that it is possible that I have screwed up the surveys and that you may not like them the way they are this time. To which I say, THIS IS A TEST!

Everyone here may not realize it, but HSO is the only person at Hatrack to have his very own Professional Registered Offendee club, of which I am proud to be RPO#1.

Actually, it was reading one of HSO's stories here (the spider one, published now, I believe) that gave me the courage of my convictions and allowed me to believe that I could also begin to learn how to write, for which I thank him.

Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :

We have 11 entries already.

Posted by Gwalchmai (Member # 1807) on :

Waaah! I got one in! At only the fifth time of asking!

Well, kind of anyway. There might be some problems with my entry. For some reason in the main computer room at my uni hotmail is often unavailable. Unforunately it is the only computer room open past ten in the evening. Anyway, I received the trigger through my hotmail account, then when I went to send back my story, I couldn't get into hotmail so I had to send it from another email address. However, when I sent it I then received the trigger so I then sent my story again in response to the trigger. Hope I've not caused too much trouble, I'm sorry if I have, and I think I'll stop using hotmail for these challenges from now on.

But I did manage to write a semi-lucid story on time.

[This message has been edited by Gwalchmai (edited June 03, 2005).]

Posted by Robyn_Hood (Member # 2083) on :

I've got too much on the go right now, so for the first time since I picked the trigger, I won't be flashing.

That said, I will continue to brag that I've sent off another sub! Finally I have re-worked one of my Flashes and it is off to it's first market -- hopefully not to be rejected.

Good luck to everyone who flashes this weekend, hopefully I'll have time to read a few of them next week.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Okay. Robyn_Hoold isn't flashing. That means we men have a better chance to win Best of the Best. So far, the score is women 8, men 1. We can do better than that!

We have 13 entries so far.

Posted by Dandelion (Member # 2582) on :

I just turned mine in - first flash! Wow, that was fun!

Lisa

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Glad you enjoyed it. Different, huh?

Every time I go to flash, I have to nerve myself up, as I am afraid that my imagination will fail me. And every time, I stare at the screen for a bit and finally write 1 sentence out of sheer desperation, and then it just flows form there.

Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :

oh, that's how it is for me, too. this last time, the desperation phase lasted a good half hour. as much as anything else, i think it's practice trusting that something will come to you.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

There's no such thing as 90 uninterrupted minutes at my house.

Posted by Minister (Member # 2213) on :

At least 18 entries in so far.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

I'm totally different when it comes to writing flash. I think of an event that ties the words together, or a reason for the situation in the photo and then start to back-fill the story. Usually the details come on the fly and I go back to change them several times. For this one, I stared at the words for 5 minutes with nothing and still managed to write it in under half an hour.

[This message has been edited by Spaceman (edited June 04, 2005).]

Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :

ah, and you thought not having an uninterrupted 90 minutes would be a problem. glad it worked out.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

and after your critiques, you'll wonder why you didn;t go back and spend 60 monre minutes polishing it!

Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :

What I would give to have an extra hour to go over it. Usually I spend at most 15 min comming up with ideas, and pick the one that appeals to me most. Some go good and I have time for review, and like this week, I had a few minutes to get it sent in time.

Always I have new ideas that I probably would have never thought up on my own.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

Every stupid thing I did in that 90 minutes, I will just tell myself, "I meant to do that!"

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

That's something else I can do differently for flash, I can edit as I write, going back and inserting and changing on the fly. I approach flash with a totally different mindset than I do with longer works. We'll know how effective that approach is in a few days.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

We have 23 now.

Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :

I went long again this week, and wrote in a totally new genre for me. Hope it works.

Posted by ParanoidRook on :

I registered saturday morning and still waiting for activation.

*slaps mike around with an imaginary glove*

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Did you read the publicly visible instructions on my website on how to do so? The ones that say to send me an email introducing yourself so that I would know you are not just another spammer?

[Deleted some more pungent comments in deference to Kathleen and the others here.]

[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited June 05, 2005).]

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

I just checked my email for about the 20th time since Saturday morning and still see no email regarding your registration attempt.

This is what is on my board.

quote:
To participate, registration at Liberty Hall is required. If you cannot see the Flash Challenge forums, either you are not registered or you have not logged in. Please register or log in.
I am getting tired of admitting people only after several attempts at verifying that their interest is genuine and aligned to our goals, so:
If you are registering at Liberty Hall, email me and let me know who you are and what your interest in Liberty Hall is. If you don't, you'll receive the following message:
I don't know you or I don't recognize you. Thus, you are unlikely to get in. What is your interest in Liberty Hall? What other forums do you frequent? Is there someone who can vouch for you?
You have 3 days to reply.

If you attempted registration under a name other than the one you are registered under here, then I won't recognize you. I check the new Hatrack and Notebored and Scrawl registrations daily just to make sure I recognize new folks if they apply. I'm doing my part. Please do yours.

There is a pending registration from someone I do not recognize, so I will now delete it. If you are still interested, please re-register and this time let me know who you are. If you did that earlier, then it is possible that there was a software glitch somewhere. That has happened before.

'nuf said.

[This message has been edited by mikemunsil (edited June 05, 2005).]

Posted by goatboy (Member # 2062) on :

I'm going to try to flash this evening. I don't know if it will help against the girls though. They're pretty tough competition.

Posted by Lanius (Member # 2482) on :

Were the flashes limited to 60 minutes at one point or have they always been 90 minutes?

Posted by HSO (Member # 2056) on :

The first one was 60 minutes. On the second, we gave 90 minutes because there were bonuses to consider, and worries about email, etc. Since then, we've only had 90 minute challenges. But watch out. The day is coming when we'll do a 45 minute challenge... well... it could happen.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

90 minutes has been kind of a standard for us because it allows for email turnaround times and issues, but 45 minutes is interesting. That would give about 30 minutes, which is what I took to write last time. Of course, what I wrote wasn't that coherent, so...

Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :

I like 90 minutes! Usually I finish in 45-60 but I really like having the buffer; it keeps me from panicking.

Posted by Void (Member # 2567) on :

45 minutes?? Good gosh! Some of us are synaptically challenged, ya know.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Well, I have one-of-a-kind event waiting in the wings for 4th of July weekend to take the place of the regular flash challenge. Wait and see. It won't be 90 minutes. It won't even be 45 minutes!

Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :

uh-oh.
I seem to remember some discussion of a 15-minute challenge once. . . I think that was just to give the guys a head start, though.

Posted by ParanoidRook on :

Seems like a waste of time to be honest, I come on sporadically. Thanks though.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Perhaps another time PR. You'll still be welcome, just follow the guidance when registering, please.

Challenges like these are not for everybody, that is true. *shrugs* I struggle with them myself. Still, enough people seem to enjoy them that it is worth my time and the other FlashMods time to continue them.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Beth

15 minutes? you want 15 minutes?

I think not! *evil grin*

Just wait until Friday, July 1st. I am gonna trip you up.

Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :

I'm always up for a challenge. Bring it on.

Posted by xarius (Member # 2168) on :

Well, due to a massive houseload of company, I won't be flashing this time around. I do look forward to seeing what everyone wrote though. Ya'll have fun. Good luck.

Posted by ParanoidRook on :

Ah sorry, I'm just venting out my frustration. I need a vacation.

I'll send ya an email soon.

Posted by Void (Member # 2567) on :

I believe Mike has been possessed by an evil duck. Exorcism, any one?

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Too much Bunnahabhain will do that to you.

We ended up with 33 entries. Thank you all!

The reading/commenting/voting period is now open.

Good luck, men. Let's win another one. You wimmen don't need luck, you have skill. *sigh*

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

Okay, I'm confused. In one place it says that if you are in group A, you critique group B. At the top of the forum for group B, it says if you are in this group, please critique.

So which is it? If I'm in group A, do I critique group A or group B?

Thanks

Posted by HSO (Member # 2056) on :

Spaceman, your question really belongs on Liberty Hall -- not here. Try there.

Posted by mikemunsil (Member # 2109) on :

Ah, well, HSO wasn't moderator prime on this one, I was. So there's bound to be errors. Blame him. I will!

The answer is at Liberty Hall.