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Welcome

2 February 2010

So. Nomination period is done. Give the judges about a week to finish reading nominations. Then give me a couple days to make the voting forms. And the voting period shall begin. :)

22 January 2010

Hooray for updates! This nomination period seems to be dragging. Where is everyone? There is not NEARLY enough quality nominations coming in. My judges are pouting themselves to death. Send in some more nominations! I've extended the nomination period another week (partly for my own sanity as well). GO OUT THERE! READ! COME BACK TO SKOW! SHARE!

I've also announced the prompt winner. (I know, finally, right?) They're linked in the sidebar. Thanks for participating everyone! Hey, do you know what holiday is coming up? Starts with a V, has a movie named after it coming out..

We've got some lovely new "I'm Nominated!" buttons made by our darling Angeline. Check them out! They're beautiful. :)

The nomination page gets updated every 5 days or so. Keep checking back!

4 January 2010

So. Jenina got things done. Here's what she got done:

1. New layout -- This is probably the most obvious update. Look, look, look! This one is made by the ever-wonderful Evie. I explained my vision of the theme to her and she knocked me out with this one. Isn't it a stunner? Send her much, much, much love.

2. Hall of Fame -- We've inducted some new Hall of Famers! Send some congratulations over to RockFan, lovelyhead (for the story Swish), and Vena Cava (for the story Heart Lotion SPF 20), our new inductees to the Hall of Fame! You can see their graphics by going to the Hall of Fame page. They're stunning as well. Cheryl made those beauties. Send her lots of love too! ♥

3. Prompts -- I was a little disappointed with the lack of participation in the prompts, but then I realized it was because I gave too small of a timeframe. I still want it to be a challenge to do, though, so I'm going to extend the time limit from one day to three days. That should give you sufficient amount of time to complete a solid one-shot at the very least. Remember -- these prompts are meant to inspire, not necessarily to produce the best piece of work ever. We're trying to revv you up to get writing. I am extending the deadline for the current prompt until January 7, 2010 at 1:40PM EST (GMT-5). If you had been working on yours but just didn't finish it in time, go ahead and submit it! Or if you're just starting a new one, go do that too!

4. Nominees (wooh!) -- I've put the nominees page up. It's starting to get some stories up on there, mainly in Best Challenge Response. If you have a challenge you're working on and you want to submit it this round, you have until the end of the nomination period to submit it!

5. Other general tomfoolery -- I've been combing through the site updating every page. Still a work-in-progress. If you see anything outdated, don't worry about it. I'll get to it. :) Have a wonderful day!

Oh, and quick note -- classes have started up for me already, so I may not be as quick to update as I have been these past few days. If you have any questions, you may send them to me or you can direct them to the judges. If they're not able to answer, they'll direct the question to me.

1 January 2010

Wow! It seems like only yesterday I began writing 2009 and now I have to get used to writing 2010 as the year. Crazy, isn't it? Anyway, you all are so completely amazing. You've jumped on the nominating immediately! I like it. I love it. I want some more of it. ♥

The purpose of this wasn't really to ramble. It's to tell you of a new feature that we have on the site. It's called Prompts. Here's an excerpt from the information page:

So the challenges aren't doing it for you, huh? You want something shorter and more thrilling? Well then prompts are for you!

Prompts are short, one-day challenges that the site hosts sporadically. In short, we issue a short writing challenge and you have exactly 24 hours to complete it upon its appearance on the site. Once you've completed it, you may submit it for consideration to be the winner.

Excited? I sure am. :) Check it out! It's linked to the right under "Features".

30 December 2009

My final update of the decade, and it's a big one. :)

ROUND NINE HAS BEGUN! Go nominate your silly little hearts out. Take note! There have been some changes, described below.

1. New categories! We dropped Best One-Liner and the "Once Upon A Time" Award. The former was dropped because while the idea was unique, the concept didn't exactly translate as well. We put the idea behind "Once Upon A Time" Award, which awards the first chapter of the story, and melded it with the Hook, Line, and Sinker Award. The subcategories Hook, Line, and Sinker Award is now for Title, Summary, and First Chapter, respectively. Best Universe's title has been changed to Best Original Universe. To replace the two dropped categories, we've added two exciting new ones: Best Drama and Best Tragedy. Look up their descriptions on the Categories page and nominate away!

2. New judges! Congratulations to Vanessa, Sarah, Candice, and Ellie! They have been welcomed graciously into the SKoW staff. Send them some love. They deserve it. ♥

3. New theme! It's Futuristic, to celebrate the beginning of a new decade. Think Wall-E and Eve. Yeah. That.

4. New layout (?) Not quite yet. This will come soon. Keep a watch out!

5. New affiliate! Say hello to Juliet at A Drop of Romeo. She's our new affiliate! Go to the Links section and check it out. :)

That's it! At least, I think that's it. The delay was due to my lack of internet connection, my lack of acess to my laptop, various distractions, etc. etc. Point is: it's starting now. So you should just nominate and forget about it. :)

Happy new year, everyone! Hope you've had a wonderful decade -- here's more to come! Don't forget -- nominate, nominate, nominate! (nom nom nom?)

20 October 2009

It's time! I need some judges! I have about three (or maybe more?) spots to fill. Interested in being a judge? Firstly, I must ask that you read the Judge Duties and Responsibilities. They outline exactly what you'll be doing for three months should you be chosen to be a judge.

Next, you must fill out a judge application! You shouldn't stress too much about it, but give it some thought. Don't just fill it out on a whim. Here's the application, in .doc format and in .txt format. Follow the instructions outlined in the application itself. Best of luck to all you applicants!

The deadline for judge applications is November 27. Decisions should come out around December 12. No particular significance in these dates. I just like setting deadlines for myself. I may extend the deadlines if you request them to be so. :)

29 September 2009

So wow. It has been an incredibly long time since I've updated this site. I am deeply sorry for that, lovelies. Listening to Carol, Julia, and Le Meg's dulcet tones on Ask the Author inspired me to do work, however, so here I am!

Speaking of Ask the Author -- the new segment is out, featuring the lovely Le Meg. You may have read some of her stories (The Ghost Stone, Diamonds and Dust) before, so you'll know that she has a fountain of writers' knowledge to impart. It's an hour and a half of writing goodness. Particularly good to listen to while you're doing other work -- very calming sounds, but won't put you to sleep. Check it out by clicking the Ask The Author link under "Features". While you're there, we have our next featured author up on the page: the milk bottle. Send in your questions! Any questions concerning Ask The Author should go to skowinterviews[at]gmail.com.

This new layout is courtesy of our lovely graphics specialist Nic. No particular theme in general. I just thought it was pretty and I was getting tired of the brightness of the last layout. You all know I get tired of layouts so often. :) Send much kudos to NIc!

Keep on the lookout for a feature on our site called Writers' Resources. We're expanding our writers' resources section on the site to be more helpful to you as writers. If you have any ideas for this section, feel free to drop a line on the Cbox or send me an e-mail. I am always reading the Cbox despite the fact that I may not always respond. If I do miss any messages, my judges usually are able to respond accordingly or will notify me of anything that needs to be brought to my attention.

Here are some concepts I have planned for Writers' Resources: adopt-a-plot, character survey, tutorials, adopt-a-scene, character naming, read-this-book, links to useful "technical" sites, and writing exercises. I won't expand on these concepts quite yet, but it's pretty easy to guess what they are. If you have any ideas to add to this, please let us know! Some of the judges and I will be running this section and it should come available Round 9.

Finally, I have begun the process of processing judges and themes for Round 9. In about a week, I will be releasing the judge application. I have released the tentative dates for Round 9. Please consider both of these if you are considering applying for Round 9. Just a note to keep in mind! :) Goodness, this has been a long update. Let's end this. ♥

Oh wait! One last thing. SKoW needs your creativity again. We need more ideas for themes and categories for Round 9. So. Either post in the Yahoo! Group with your ideas or post in the forum about them. There are specific threads for them. Themes are here and categories are here. Feel free to react to any of the current categories. I live for your feedback. Go, SKoW-ers, go!

Past Updates

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