Snow whispered out of the sky and settled over the kingdom of Holy Worlds. Winter had finally settled in. With all the holidays behind them people were beginning to become bored and restless with the cold weather. The snow was exciting, of course, but soon it would wear off and there would be nothing to do, nothing to look forward to, except the occasional birthday or technical error. Spring was a long way away.

Galadriel wandered through the Marcher Lord's Hall, her long cape whispering on the stone floor. There was no other sound. The Hall was quiet, and mostly deserted. She glanced at empty desks and turned over the occasional file as she wandered. A bug error here, a promotional certificate there. Near the window one Marcher Lord dozed over a book. Pinned to the wall was a leave of absence notice from another. Galadriel stared over the sleepy kingdom, nestled under a white blanket of snow, and sighed. She missed the laughter and excitement of the parties they sometimes threw, but more than that she wanted to see the kingdom at work again, creating something of value rather than just celebrating a previous creation.

Then the idea struck and a smile played around her lips. Oh, but of course. It was obvious. Suddenly confident, Galadriel left the Hall with a mischievous plan in her mind.

First she went down to the library and determined who were the most well-known published authors in the kingdom, and solicited their aid. For weeks they schemed together on their secret project. An artist was brought onto the project, and word began to leak that a secret was afoot in Holy Worlds...

No one knew what the secret was, who was involved, or when, if ever, it would be released. The secret was well kept, and no one suspected, until the announcement mysteriously appeared as the snow began to fall...

**

Citizens of Holy Worlds!

I, Galadriel, of the White Council of Holy Worlds, have the pleasure and honor of announcing to you... Winter's Writing War. On this day, January 1st, in the year of our lord 2012 I present to you a contest of writing skill! It is our express wish that as many of you partake as are able, and spread word of this contest far and wide! Please find the details below.

Please read through these rules carefully before entering a submission.

This contest is open to all three forums. Participants are allowed up to one (1) entry in each of the following categories: Historical, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi. A first place and second place winner will be chosen in each category. The prizes are as follows:

Science Fiction: First Place: Red Rain, by Aubrey Hansen, and certificate
Science Fiction: Second Place: Red Rain – ebook, by Aubrey Hansen, and certificate
Fantasy: First Place: What Lies in the Dark, by Bethany Faith, and certificate
Fantasy: Second Place: TBA, and certificate
Historical: First Place: The Unseen, by Luke Alistar, and certificate
Historical: Second Place: Offset – ebook, by Luke Alistar, and certificate

As you may have guessed, your judges will be published authors from our member base: Aubrey Hansen, Luke Alistar, and Bethany Faith. They have graciously donated their work as prizes, allowing us to run this contest on a minimal budget. Please thank them for their time and effort by spreading the word about them and their work.

Judges comments will be provided for every entry, time allowing.

Submissions open today, January 1st, and close on January 31st. Winners will be announced February 14th, on St. Valentine's Day.

Rules
Contestant must be a member of one of Holy World's three forums.
Entries must be an original, unpublished short story between 1,000 and 5,000 words.
Entries should be e-mailed to [email protected]
Please include the contest name (Winter's Writing War) in the subject of your submission.

Entry Submission Form:
Your name
Your HW username
Your story's genre
Your story title
Your story's word count

Please use a separate form for each category. You may not enter the same story in more than one category. You may not enter more than one story in a given category. You may enter one story in each category for a total of three (3) entries. The contest administrator (me) reserves the right to change the category of any entry if it is deemed appropriate. Contestants will be informed of any such change.

Communication with the judges about the contest is strictly prohibited. Judging will be done blindly, meaning the judges will not know who the authors of the stories are until after the winners are selected. This will prevent any bias, either in favor or, or against, a contestant. We ask that you respect this and not post the title of your submission anywhere in public until judging is concluded.

Judges decisions are final. Comments are provided as a courtesy, and should be treated as such. You are welcome to talk to the judges afterward about their comments, but as they are all busy being published authors please be aware that they may not have time to discuss your entry with you.

I apologize for the length and detail of this post, but that's how rules are, you know?

A writing challenge! This is going to be so much fun! *Will get working on entries pronto* When's the due date? Or was that in the post and I missed it? *Is very excited*

EDIT: I see it now.

It's here! *Is so excited about this* I always love your stories, Vanya. A Vanya announcement is bound to have a Galadriel story surrounding it!

Closing date is 31st of January, Mae.

Oooh! Sounds fun!

Also, we have graphics, designed by our very own BushMaid!

Bushy! They are totally awesome! *Gasps* Oh my! So pretty.

Ooo, a contest! Pretty.
God bless,
Joel ><>.

Ooh! This will be fun!
I needed something like this, too. I haven't been writing much. Oops.

I did that blog post on this that you asked me to do, Katie. It is now live.

Ah, thanks. I sort of forgot about that.

*claps hands* Oh yes oh yes oh yes!! Oh I hope I have time to enter this contest!!!

*chuckles * As I recall, it was left for me to remember. So you're good.

I have a quick question. Am I allowed to submit a story I wrote for another contest a while back?

(If you're a judge don't read the following question... it might give away my entry, if I use the story I'm thinking of. )

Also, can the story be Christmas-themed?

As long as it wasn't an HW story I think that's fine...

That's fine too, as long as it fits into one of the categories.

Okay, great!

*goes to polish story before submitting it*

Can you clarify "unpublished"? (As I mentioned in the "American Poets" thread in General Discussion, as far as the copyright law and a potential traditional publisher are concerned, something I've posted on my blog is "published", but that's not what we usually mean.)

And: 5,000 words? Sigh. My most presentable, most suitable piece (which I've been meaning to thoroughly revise anyway, probably expanding it to turn throw-away concepts into foreshadowing) is over 6,000. Sigh ...

The winning pieces will go on the blog. So I think unpublished in this sense means not previously appearing on HW, or in any publication that would prohibit its appearance on the web. (Yeah, I'm sort of making this up as I go along...)

The judges were the ones who picked the word limit based on what they thought was long enough read. So learn the art of brevity. (You're not the first one to lament that you tend to write long short stories.)

Nice art, BushMaid.

I'll see if I have time with the Team PYP program to whip one up.

Sure! By all means you may participate. That's why we put it on the blog, to reach people who might not be as active on the forum.

Yep yep, Lady Pilgrim! that was Katie's hope in having me announce it. That we would catch the attention of HWer who may not visit the forum as often, but read the blog.

That would be fine. .doc, .rtf, and .txt are all suitable attatchments. I have problems with .docx, which newer versions of MSWord use and it would be better to avoid .odt as well.

Marvelous!
Marvelous idea!

I shall certainly do this!

Will there be limitations on the reading level? Can it be scary?

Mine will be very strange I expect.

Haha! That keeps coming up too. Ask your brother about it, he's the other one with a scary story. There's not a limit, but keep in mind that excessive scariness could turn off your judges. By all means, write a scary story, but don't be gratuitous about it.

Well if Bethany Faith and Luke Alistar are judges...

I have a question. Could the story be geared towards children? More of a knights-in-shining-armour type of story, and slightly silly?
I'm not sure if that's what I want to do yet, but it's one idea I'm considering.

By all means! If there's no reading limit going up than there's no reading limit going down either.

I'll certainly try to enter! I love contests

After the contest will a thread be made where we can read all the submissions if the authors post them?

*Is hopefully going to enter*

~ZA

That's a neat idea, Mira.

I think it'd be nice. Either way, I'll probably end up posting mine in short stories, but I'd love to read everyone's submissions.

~ZA

The winning entries will be posted on the blog. I like the idea of creating a thread for people to post them on, if they want.

Since a thread like that might get cluttered, perhaps authors could just post stories with [Contest Entry] in the title after the contest is over, to let readers know that the story was entered in the contest.

That is a good idea, Jon. They can post them in the short story section, in Fireside then.

Exactly.

I think Jonathan's idea is solid.

I agree with Jonathan too. ( I don't know if whether I agree or not matters, but I thought I'd mention it. ) Hurray! I hope lots of people post their stories!

~ZA

How is everyone's entry coming?

If you've sent in an entry and didn't get a reply from me, please let me know here so I can look into it. I will confirm the reception of all entries.

I finished the first draft of one entry. Now it just needs to be revised.

Mine is coming very slowly; I might not finish in time.

But, but, MARK! You have to finish! For Philli? Phill wants to read an entry from Mark.

Thank you.


Everyone keeps saying that.

I struggle with both writing and having the time to write -- so deadlines are never good for me.

Yes, but, this is Philli we're talking about... the one who's always begging you to write? Come on, just this once? I mean, there's a prize involved! Now's a really good time to humor me and write something!

You're not the only one.

I am writing! It just probably won't be done in time.