Well then. I decided to skip today's Daily Writing exercise as I am moderating that subreddit now along with another two.
Today we are choosing for a Reader's Choice Award. The way that we want this to work is that every week someone is chosen by the previous winner for a single piece of work. This work that is chosen will be from the week thereafter the winner is chosen so that the new prompts will be judged on so everything is fairly current and it gives every member a week to write something and be picked.
We, the moderators, are only interfering this first time so that the first winner cannot be rigged by friends of users voting for them. The only other time that we will interfere is if the winner is not able or does not want to choose.
Something else that we think would work well is that the winner will be able to choose the prompt for the seventh day. We will still be having a theme for every week but the actual prompt will be given by the winner. This helps in capping the week for us as the seventh day does not help some of us who have OCD. We may or may not go with opposite prompts for the 6 days so it is nice to have that option without a bastard at the beginning or end of the week to ruin it all.
Another idea that we are throwing around is having it so that the winner can showcase another piece of writing that they have completed or are working on. In this respect there are two things going on. The first being that the winner will be chosen for a snippet of their personal writing style. Basically, it is just an appetizer before the main course. The second thing is that the subreddit will work as an open workshop or writing group for that winner for a week.
I hope it works well. If nothing else, I hope that it is good incentive to keep writing for everyone.
For other news and what not.
So I went back to the Times Union page for the short story contest and I was surprised. After reading and re-reading about five times the shock subsided. Apparently the theme was changed slightly without any information being given out. The change is not much and really does not affect my story in any way. It is just the fact that the theme was changed from a setting to a set in stone intro line.
I would have hoped for some sort of announcement or the like to be sent out but I realized that is just plain silly. This is coming from a newspaper and at the core it is an announcement. There is no sign up sheet. There is no email listing you can put yourself on. This is a matter of being responsible and checking back to make sure nothing else has changed. I am preparing myself to do just this from now on.
