Discussion: Q3 Volume 43

@haganenoedward Hey, at least you submitted! Great Job!

I'm in. Went with the ending that allowed me to finish. (ouch!)

Have fun.

In with 35 minutes to spare.  I spent a month on a different story, the best world-building I've ever done for a short story, but I couldn't find the through line, so I punted with a week to go and wrote something short from scratch.  Two drafts, only critiqued by my wife this afternoon.  I like it, but we'll see.  I may have my Q4 finishing the other story and my Q1 properly polishing this one.

I'm in! Loved writing this one, we'll see how it fares 😃 Good luck to everyone! 🤞🌟✨

I’m in tooooo. First one in a while (pregnancy… new baby… took a bit to get back in to it). It’s an idea I’ve been working on for ages, and ah it felt fantastic to finally finish it and even better to hit submit! Good luck everyone, and have fun working on your stories for the next quarter 😁

Posted by: @bon

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I’m in tooooo. First one in a while (pregnancy… new baby… took a bit to get back in to it). It’s an idea I’ve been working on for ages, and ah it felt fantastic to finally finish it and even better to hit submit! Good luck everyone, and have fun working on your stories for the next quarter 😁

Congrats on the baby.  

Good luck on your submission.

Congrats to everyone who entered. And an extra drink of your choice to everyone who ground it out to finish before the door closed.

This story actually started as an elevator pitch for a chronicle based on the world it's written in (Shout out to Quad Cities Author Connect: and thank you, Dave Hankins). I had a two and a half hour root canal on the day of that meeting, but the elevator pitch intrigued me.

Originally written in second person for a more dramatic, five minute IRL presentation, I switched it to third person and it grew like The Blob, consuming more and more time. It ended as a novelette at 1:05am last night.

The reason for this note is the method of creation; I pantsed it. For the tea sipping pinky wavers, that means it was discovery written (Beg pardon of the tea sipping pinky wavers who plot or outline; we cool?) Yeah, this one took two months of stop/start, back and forth, kill the side story, reinforce the new idea, eat five hundred words of poop idea writing. Sometimes, it was like sliding down a banister embedded with glass, and I don't ever want to do it again.

Don't write by the seat of your pants! It might be engrossing to jump into a world of your creation and splash around in the emotions, colors, sounds and inventions. And... ooh, that character is cute and should have more lineage... and this idea is more robust than an Italian roast, so it needs reinforcing. Okay! It was fun playing around in my head. My brain, my playground.

I will only point out that pantsing takes more time than I believe an author should devote to a short story (novelette).

Nonetheless, good luck with this quarter's entries.

Have fun.

Didn't get time to post last night but, I'm in for Q3, finally! 

I ended up submitting a literal short story at 2087 words that I'd submitted (and got rejected from) the Calendar of Fools Missed-Fits anthology a few months ago. I did revise it a little for language and flow.

I had been writing a new story the past few months, but I ran out of time to finish revisions and get some feedback on it. So that's going to be my Q4 entry.

And when are the results due for the third quarter?

I need to get started on my 4th quarter story as well. 

Posted by: @lambenttyto

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And when are the results due for the third quarter?

I need to get started on my 4th quarter story as well. 

Last few years 3rd quarter dates:

Sep 22, 2025

Aug 23, 2024

Sep 14, 2023

@gideonpsmith That seems both super far away and super close at the same time. Though, in reality, if I had my next story written, I'd only be feeling one of those.

@annmarieinlr tbh with a month variability in the announcement it feels too nebulous to me to have any impct that said, the only dates that really matter are the quarterly deadlines for getting in!

Posted by: @annmarieinlr

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@gideonpsmith That seems both super far away and super close at the same time. Though, in reality, if I had my next story written, I'd only be feeling one of those.

Same feeling for me.

Posted by: @annmarieinlr

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@gideonpsmith That seems both super far away and super close at the same time.

Just like the deadline for Q4. 

I actually expected the estimated time of the results would be a bit closer or after the deadline (guess I forgot when it was last year 😀 ). But being nervous about my current short story AND twitching at the same time... It's gonna be interesting 😀 

Posted by: @gideonpsmith

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Posted by: @lambenttyto

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And when are the results due for the third quarter?

I need to get started on my 4th quarter story as well. 

 

Last few years 3rd quarter dates:

Sep 22, 2025

Aug 23, 2024

Sep 14, 2023

I think I'm done. I've just about finished my story for Q4. I just need to go over it one more time to make sure everything is perfect. I think it's an excellent story, but I doubt it has winning potential. It's very "different," shall I say? I feel that the competition really only likes very cinematic-style writing and heavy internalization of character, two things that in recent years have kind of become a little boring for me. 

I wrote a fairy tale which was rejected last year. I don't think there's much room for out-of-the-box expectations. But I what do I know, I've never actually read any of the recent volumes! All I can do is write what I enjoy, and submit it. I write for the love of the stories I'm working on, never for the purpose of submitting, but hey, two birds with one stone, right?

Would any finalists be interested in checking out my story, see what you think? It's pretty short. I think eight pages?

For references about what to expect, I've gotten two HMs and a Silver HM in the past.