Attached Link: February/March Writer's Forum Challenge!

Alone In The DarkHave you ever cried yourself to sleep with memories of your long lost love? Or how about those times you were paralyzed with fear, listening to the Monster Under Your Bed? These are just a couple of things that happen when you're Alone In The Dark!

Your entries do not need to be true stories. They don't even need to be stories! Poetry, prose, even essays are welcome! - - - - - -

Submission Guidelines

• Your story/poem must be based the montly challenge theme: "Alone In The Dark"

• Tell us your story in 1000 words or less.

• Ignore the 5 line limit on the box when you upload - that limit is only for "image contests."

• Double space between paragraphs.

• Type directly in the upload box or copy/paste from Notepad (or similar editing program).

• IMPORTANT: Copy/Pasting from complex word processing programs, such as MS Word, can change certain characters.

• If you use MS Word: Copy/Paste from Word into Notepad, then Copy/Paste into the contest upload box.

• Do not insert html formating

Image Submission

• You may use your own image but must supply a matching thumbnail with your entry.

• Before uploading your text: right click on the following images and save to your hard drive.

• Rename the image: thumb.jpg or main.jpg

Thumbnail:

contest image created by Yacomo

Use this image as your thumbnail image

Full Image:

Use this as your Full Image

Contest Rules:

• Challenge Theme - Enter Contest Theme: "Alone In The Dark".

• Contest begins February 15, 2009 - and - ends March 16, 2009 at midnight Renderosity server time.
  (Entries MUST be timestamped by the contest ending date and time.)

• All members and moderators can enter - except for challenge managers

• No sexual or extreme violence - stories/poems/images must be suitable for all audiences and abide by Renderosity's Terms of Service.

• Only one story/poem [either poem or short story] per member allowed (this includes member clones - that is, even if you have multiple accounts, only one entry per PERSON).

• By uploading your story/poem you are agreeing that this is your original work.

• Authors will remain the intellectual property holder of their entries.- - - - - -

Judging / Voting:

• Judging will begin at the close of the contest.
• Voting will take place within this month's challenge page.
• To vote ... click on the story or poem that you like, and vote for your favotie, using the voting button under that specific story or poem.
• Voting is open to all Renderosity members.
• Duplicate or clone votes will be disqualified.
• Voting will begin March 16, and will close on March 20 - NOON - Renderosity time.
• First place winner picks the theme for the next month, subject to approval with the challenge manager(s).
• Announcement of winners will be in the Writer's Forum, and within the Challenge page.- - - - - -

Voting Rules

• The winners will be posted the day after the close of voting.
• First place winner will be the one with the most points. Second and Third place accordingly.
• All voting will be Anonymous, as will the posting of the entries.- - - - - -

Artists grant permission to Renderosity for the use of submitted stories/poems/images for an undetermined period of time. This is strictly for posting within the contest archives. The Artist will remain the intellectual property holder.

All Entries are copyrighted, and cannot be copied, reprinted, or linked to, without written permission of the author/artist. 

Very nice!  I was just wishing for a bit more from the Writer's Forum, and here you are with a challenge.  Or a contest.  Or a challenge ... I'm not quite sure which it is.

I might be the only person who regularly posts in the Writer's Gallery who knows there IS a Forum!  It would be nice if you could post something out in the gallery so those people who are writing on a regular basis could participate.  I'm sure some of them would if they knew there was something going on.

The rules for posting are a bit complicated.  I studied hard and think I figured it out, but it's rather inaccessible.  The whole thumbnail/image thing is a bit much.  It's a writer's challenge (or contest) ... what's up with the image thing?

So.  There you have it.  I'm thrilled there's something going on, but would hope for better exposure and an easier way for people to participate. 

Thanks for setting this up!

Tara

The system is set up so that it won't post your entry without an image.  Which....well, while I think it's dumb, lol, I'm not a programmer, so I can't really do much about it.

Thanks for the tip :)  I'll post about it in the gallery, too :)

Thanks, Jen - I've commented on your post in the gallery and given it a little rah-rah  :)

Thanks, auntietk :)  OH, and I should note, I'm going to try to edit this into the header in the gallery :)

Although I have done my share of crying alone in the dark, and certainly waited for the monster under my bed to go to sleep, I'll share something else.

Alone In The Dark

One night, all of my kids were out. I decided to wait up in the living room. I lay down on the couch with a book and fell asleep. While I was asleep the power went out. I have a very large bed. I don't often lay on the couch and never sleep there.

Some time after the power went off, a neighbor came home. The slamming door woke me up I rolled over to turn on the bedside lamp. CRASH!!

I landed on the floor. I was very dioriented. The first thing I did. Not reach for the light, not assess the amount of damage, not even call out to see if the kids had come in. I very quickly scanned the totally dark living room to see if anyone had noticed my fall from grace!

I sat there a minute and realized how foolish that was, to see who noticed me falling off my couch in a completely darkened room. I began to laugh. I was laughing so hard I couldn't get off the floor!

Then I began laughing harder. I wondered what the neighbors or my children would think. What's she doing in there in the dark, laughing like a maniac? This made me laugh so hard I was afraid I would embarass myself further. I was still laughing so hard I couldn't get up.

In walked the kids! There were tears pouring down my face, and I still could not stop. One turned to the other and said, " I guess we didn't need to worry about Mom being afraid to be alone in the dark". I just made it to the batrhroom! It took almost an hour to explain the hysterics. We ate ice cream in the dark so it wouldn't melt.

After that when ever anyone was feeling down, someone would say, " Do I need to turn off the lights and get the ice cream?".

The header link is great!  :)

Ummm ... as long as we're talking about the header ... I've been thinking about a couple of things.  (You can tell me to piss off if you want to!)  :)

It would be great to have banners for the Writer's Gallery and Forum, like the ones we have in Photography.  Not every gallery has them, but they add a bit of ... I don't know ... legitimacy or something ... to the page.  A little something extra.  Polish, perhaps.  In Photography they just open a page where we can submit banners once every year or so, and people submit not more than three each, and they get put into a random rotation.  I'd make some, and I'm sure other people would, as well. 

One more thing, as long as I'm here running off at the mouth:  Could we get rid of the link that takes you to the Writer's Information Library?  The stuff there is so old you can't even link to most of it any more.

Okay.  I think that's everything that's been on my mind.

Thanks for listening!

:)

Tara

:)  Actually, lol, I was thinking about that :)  I might have another challenge, an ongoing one, for banners for the writer's forum.  I was actually going to post in a few days to get some feedback :)

With the info library...would you rather I updated it or got rid of it?  I can find a few other resources to maybe change in there :)

Let me know, I'm totally open :)

Updating or deleting the Library, either way, would be fine.  Having that feature with meaningful links would be great, but if it's not going to get used or maintained, it's probably better to get rid of it. 

I like the idea of having a list of contest/challenge winners, but you'd actually have to HAVE a challenge every month in order for that to make sense!  (I would love to see a monthly challenge!) 

Like this month's, though, you'd have to advertise it.  I don't know what caused the disconnect between the Gallery and the Forum, but the people who post in the Gallery don't appear to know there's a Forum, and the people who play in the Forum don't post work.  Weirdest damned thing I ever saw.  I play in the Photography Forum a lot, and I know every single person there from out in the Gallery.

I love the banner-sized link to this month's challenge.  Now you just have to get people used to LOOKING up there!  I don't think anyone really does.  Even the way the Photography Gallery's header is set up, a lot of people don't use it and don't know it's there, because they don't look.  I've got no easy answers, just a lot of opinions!  LOL!

Well I was just going through the contests index and saw this contest!  This is the first time that I have been here.

I have done some writing in my time and even have a few things copyrighted.  I have written poems, short stories and songs.

I'm glad the "image" thing was cleared up and seeing the topic of the contest reminds me of an incident that I can use as an entry - I just have to think of an image to create to go with it.