The voting period for Literotica's Halloween Contest is over and they've announced the winners. I didn't place, but to be honest I wasn't expecting to. Both my entrants, "Snuff/Skin Flick" and "Chad's Challenge", are Bad End stories and generally it's the longer (sometimes very long!) stories with heart-warming endings that finish in the top 3.
One thing that did disappoint me was that I only managed to enter two stories. The story I had originally planned to be a third entrant had an ending that was fine for a horror tale, but wouldn't work for erotica. I had an alternate planned, but was not able to finish that in time.
Overall I liked the idea of using October as a short story challenge month. November is normally the month for NaNoWriMo - where aspiring (and some grizzled!) writers attempt to blast out a 50K novel in a single month. NaNoWriMo doesn't work for me as I write out all my first drafts longhand and it's not easy to keep track of the word count that way. What I might do for future years is to instead use Literotica's Halloween Contest as a challenge to see how many short stories I can blast out in that three week period. At least I've set a low bar there with only two entrants to beat!
Update time.
Currently I'm finishing off the two stories that didn't make the deadline. One will likely end up being a mini-serial going out this month or next. The other will be posted as soon as it's done. There's a chance that one will kick up an online shitstorm, which might be fun. :D
"Sandwiched by Scyllas" is moving again. I did the usual thing I do with stories that have derailed - start typing up the 2nd drafts early until I pick the thread back up again.
I want get these out of the way ASAP, so I can get on with the major task of finishing Succubus Summoning 201 and preparing it as an ebook to go out as soon as eXcessica has a spare slot. I have some novel and novella ideas I'm keen to get on with, but I need to really get the second arc of that serial wrapped up satisfactorily first. (This year would have likely been far more productive if I'd got those last two chapters finished this time last year!)
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Are there plans for a 301 arc after you jump back on the wagon?
ReplyDeleteI hope so. People like the characters and I like writing them. It's a case of picking the threads back up again. The mistake I made with SS201 was trying to plot it like a thriller novel and being so terrified of running it down the wrong path everything froze up. When I get it running again it will more likely be as a series where I only have a rough idea of where it will end up. (As SS101 was).
DeleteHydra, on the note of the halloween contest I'm wondering what you made of the other entries, if you've read / glanced at any of them yet.
ReplyDeletePerhaps my expectations are skewed, but each year I keep hoping for spooky sexy stories, but the actual turnout is cookie-cutter cuckold crap here, usual horror bit there, gangbangs with werewolves yonder out the back. That is to say, usual literotica with blazing pumpkins glued on top. Bit like a halloween party at the retirement home - everyone's the same, telling the same old stories, but wears a paper party hat, which makes me sad face :(.
Eager to hear your take on it / the halloween contests in general.
I haven't had a chance yet. Sometimes I might check out the odd succubus/monster girl story if they look interesting.
DeleteScary stories is only one of the themes. Vanilla porn stories with a Halloween backdrop are totally on theme for the contest. If you're after the spooky ones I'd go straight to the new Erotic Horror list during the contest and stick to those. They're still going to variable in quality, but that's how Literotica has always been. Everyone has to start somewhere :)
Personally I wish Bad End erotic horror stories had a chance of placing and that the scoring wasn't skewed so heavily in favour of the super long (sometimes novel-length) stories, but I'm more than a little biased on that ;). Anyone can submit, anyone can vote - I think Lit works well with that model.
My story didn't do too bad by the end of it, ended with 4.76 rating once but didn't come close to winning since it had a mostly bad ending before the cliffhanger. Out of my 15 posted stories I've only been told once that a person wished it had been romantic. (thankfully! haha)
DeleteI need to work on my detail but I'd say I'm right on track for steadily improving. Hitting that writers block does put a halt on everything though. After drilling out that 73 page story I just don't know what to write next.
Keep doing what ever you do to get out of your block man, I look forward to the next story!