AUGUST 31: MASQUE UPDATE
Against the flood of words and ideas that have come screaming through my inbox, I have only one of my own. Here it is: OMFG!!!!11
There. Much better now, thanks. Where was I? Oh, yes.
One week into the Wordmongers' Masque, and thirteen masked authors have danced through this room with a total of twenty stories. I know at least a few of these people have more stories up their sleeves, and on my dance card there are nine more names. Not to mention Goddess knows how many who have expressed joyful feelings about it, but not yet put on a mask. And, again, we’re only one week in. Two whole weeks left? OMFG!!!!11
If these stories all sucked, it would be truly awful. Luckily, they don’t. I’ve seen some very good ideas here, a nice variety of styles and genres and some very neat characters. I’ve tried to give feedback on stories where I thought I was qualified, but I have to admit that I’ve fallen way behind and probably won’t be able to properly feedback for weeks after the Masque. Just trying to keep proper notes on who is who and submitted what has been enough work for this highly disorganized thing I call a mind.
One thing that really makes me happy here is that a number of these mysterious dancers are fresh voices, people who haven’t noded in ages and people who have never submitted fiction to E2 – or, perhaps, anywhere. This was one of the things I was really hoping to see. Sometimes it seems like New Writeups shows off the same names over and over, and I know that can be intimidating for those who’ve fallen out of the writing habit. Sometimes even our virtual selves need masks.
A couple of reminders and clarifications:
This is a fiction masquerade. I do like poetry, but for this event I’m asking for prose. Hold on to your poetry submissions, please. Who knows, at some point there might be a Poetry Masque. (OMFG, did i just say that out loud?????!!1)
Second, so far only one 1 one noder has made one 1 one guess about a Wordmonger’s identity. This means the odds of your winning a bookmark by simply calling out random names are pretty damn good. Dude, there are prizes and all.
On that note, I’m pretty sure I’m going to add another award to the list. The Best Costume prizes I mentioned will be awarded to the authors with the highest total rep, from all their submissions. I think there should also be an award for the one story with the highest rep. I’m open to suggestions as to what the award should be named.
Finally, you may have noticed that I haven’t chinged any of the submissions. I’m not going to, either, at least until after the Masque. I just felt that since I know who everyone is, it wouldn’t be fair for me to ching anyone unless I chinged every single submission. Problem is, I’m dancing, too, and I feel pretty strongly that I shouldn’t ching my own work, even for a good cause. Not to mention that chinging every story would pretty much fill up Cool User Picks with a constant stream of dates. Nonetheless, I will say that many of these stories are worth chinging.
That’s all for now. Now get out there and dance, damnit! My alter ego has a story to write, and so does yours.