Spring 2017 workshop announcement

"By the way....I haven't lost a WS in 7 years....I want someone to be beat me on this WS...that being said....I'm bringing my best....I hope you all bring yours"

7 years???

Holy cow, DKC is like the One Punch Man of workshop writers.

I'll be participating. And 100%, this is all for fun! But competition must certainly play a part. If anything, only to make you a better writer. I have lots to learn. But what I have learned so far, is in large part attributed to you Dru.

I've said this before, but a large part of my writing is simply my interpretation of the best parts of my favorite stories, from a select few of my favorite authors.

d_k_c wrote: By the way....I haven't lost a WS in 7 years....I want someone to be beat me on this WS...that being said....I'm bringing my best....I hope you all bring yours

That sounds a bit much.

Infinity Crisis Part 6 did not win the Spring 2012 workshop and you didn't participate in Fall 2012 either. Still, 4 years is still an impressive time-frame which could be quite intimidating for potential participants. I also found three workshops where the winning story is no longer available...

I just want everyone to remember to vote early and vote often for whomever pays you the most. Please feel free to email me about the later.

lol...njae did his research. I thought that Milani in Dc was after Inf6...So I retract that...not 7 years...but 5

d_k_c wrote: lol...njae did his research. I thought that Milani in Dc was after Inf6...So I retract that...not 7 years...but 5

Milani was in the very first workshop that was officially an SWM workshop. Seems like you winning streak started in 2013 with Supanji, making it 4 years. But I wouldn't be surprised if you made it to 7 years and further.

"I haven't lost in" I believe was the root of the conversation....but it makes no difference. Cause Njae gonna put his best foot forward and take this form me.

I'd hate to be contradicted by a has been

d_k_c wrote: "I haven't lost in" I believe was the root of the conversation....but it makes no difference. Cause Njae gonna put his best foot forward and take this form me.

I'd hate to be contradicted by a has been

Let's just say I have absolutely no positive memory about any workshop I participated in and be done with it.

Just trying to rile you up in a bid to get you to enter.

But if that doesn't work, a sincere plea for you to put something out there...ws or not....will have to do

I appreciate the attempt, but I don't see that happening. While I do break my "I am just a lurker here" rule more often than not lately, I did remove myself as a writer from the site and this step is painfully irreversible.

But hey, at least I share my DAZ results here.

As Simon and Garfunkle used to say, "I can gather all the news I need on the weather report." Change "weather report" to "hit meter" and I am completely content. If 2000 plus folks are reading my stories here I know that at least some of them must be enjoying them or they would not waste their time reading them.

ace191 wrote: As Simon and Garfunkle used to say, "I can gather all the news I need on the weather report." Change "weather report" to "hit meter" and I am completely content. If 2000 plus folks are reading my stories here I know that at least some of them must be enjoying them or they would not waste their time reading them.

Not sure this was directed at me, but I paid a lot of attention to this back in the day. It was very much dependent on the time a story spent in the ticker for example. 2000 is a rather low number, and I did have several stories below that back in the day.

The hit counter is still visible? I remember it being removed from public visiblity together with the list type "classic" view on the stories that I had re-introduced back in 2012.

Yea, I was directing it at you. If you look under stories by author it lists the hits so it is very easy to check your own stories. To some extent, the amount of time the story is in the bank determines the hits as does who the author is and how good the story is. Typically, a month or two after a workshop ends I will have 1500 to 3000 hits on it and then it slowly goes up over town.

Over time.

Last spring, DKC was a little down on the workshop. He had like 15000 words written and had stopped working on it. I told him that I had a great idea for a story and that I had 10000 words written and since he had 15 k I was going to 15k. He went to 20 k so I went to 25k and he went to 35k. It was game on !
And yes I know the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over
(Like trying to beat DKC) and expecting a different outcome. It was a blast. In retrospect, I think if I had written 5k less words and polished the story up better I might have been able to win.
I had about 2600 hits after around 2 months. Let's look at the hit meter now.
5227 Crimson High
5179 Supergirl and Superwoman
4948. 15 minutes of Fame

Just the fact that over 5000 folks have read my story and that I am hanging in
With DKC's story makes me very happy and even though I lose every time, I get a little better. Maybe someday.

I'm not sure if writing an entry as long as possible is the right kind of motivation. Actually it FORCES the hit counter up because the story can't be read in a single setting. Series also benefit from it as older entries get frequently re-hit when a new chapter comes out, at least that's my explanation for my first chapter having the most hits of all my stories, which still pales compared to the many stories who manage more without that boost.

And if memory serves right these three stories you mention all outrank my best workshop entry in terms of hits. Given that this was also my first workshop entry this means it grew for four years and still be overtaken by that. Funny considering that story also won it's contest ... against d_k_c. Trying to repeat that was rather soul-crushing.

Let me tell you about soul crushing. Years ago Argo and I poured our hearts and souls along with our wallets into a major work, TSOS. I was sure that that we were going to win, right up to the moment that I read "Birthright" by LFAN and CF. I knew it would be close (which I think it was) but I also knew that they were going to win which they did.

I almost won by default once, but I think it was DKC who put in an entry just under the deadline.

I may vote dkc if he promises to showcase the costume again on his significant other.

Seriously though, I will read them all first.

ace191 wrote: Let me tell you about soul crushing. Years ago Argo and I poured our hearts and souls along with our wallets into a major work, TSOS. I was sure that that we were going to win, right up to the moment that I read "Birthright" by LFAN and CF. I knew it would be close (which I think it was) but I also knew that they were going to win which they did.

I almost won by default once, but I think it was DKC who put in an entry just under the deadline.

We seem to have different definitions of soul crushing. Reading a rival story and finding it on par or better than your own story, which is then mirrored in the poll results sounds rather fair and motivating to me. For what it's worth, TSOS is the better known story in hindsight.

My experience was quite different and I came to believe that the poll was more like a popularity vote for the authors involved rather than a vote on the stories. When authors can win with stories that are among the worst they produced (not going into detail here, I had more than enough trouble through that already) then it's hard to believe that the quality of the story they entered for the workshop actually mattered. In the end, with neither polls or hit counter being a good benchmark, the written feedback on a story was the most usefull way of determining whether a story was good or not. Unfortunately it's not always provided in helpful quantities.

In my view, the purpose of contests like this should be to get new writers to attempt a story. After all, people can post a story any time they want, contest or not.

In my book, anyone who wins should not be eligible to participate for perhaps three or so subsequent contest cycles. Otherwise, we tend to see the same authors over and over.

After all, those winning authors can write a story for the members any time they want and get positive feedback. And they should, but not during subsequent contests.

Anyway, it's a matter of goals. To develop new writers or to encourage popular contributors to put something more out. Kind of hard to do both as potential new writers are likely to be intimidated when they know a stable of accomplished writers are going to get the votes based on their popularity and talent.

My 2 cents.

Shadar

Boy, I have a completely different take on this. I started writing stories to try to "give back" to authors like Marknew, DKC, CF and LFAN whose stories made my day. My first attempts were not so good but Argo took me under his wing and showed me how to turn a good idea into a good story.

To me, the purpose of the workshops is to inspire authors to produce content for this site that everyone can enjoy. There is no other English site like it in the world that I know of. Fats handles the technical aspects ( which seem to get more difficult every day), the moderators run the boards and the Librarian posts the stories and tags them for future searches. And you cannot beat the price and I would challange you to find a better run site or one with better content for our Genere anywhere in the world.