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Interpretation: A World-Building One-Shot Contest

jireh the provider

Video Game Designer
Hello, and sorry for the lack of news. I'm on vacation in England right now and haven't had much contest-judging time recently, but am almost done with my first-draft reviews; I haven't checked with the other judges in a while, but I can do that soon.

Please do not post your entries until the judging is done (which should not take anywhere near as long as the Perspective contest - that was a very special case). It is unfair if some entries garner public followings before the judges have finished ranking them - unfortunately we are human beings and can be biased by the opinions of others, consciously or subconsciously, positively or negatively, and the entries not being public is in part a way of keeping the playing field level. If you would like some feedback on your entry before the judging is posted, you can send your entry to people you trust for private comments.

I'll just hope that you'd probably finish the judging before the end of this year. Or...

Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyat) from our broken archipelago might end up storm chasing you. Just ignore this line.

EDIT: Since you're like halfway, that reassures me that you at least did your promise. Albeit somewhat overdue.
 
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Spiteful Murkrow

Early Game Encounter
Hello, providing the customary monthly bump for December. Could I get some insight as to the status of how the reviews are coming along? Are they expected to be finished before the new year, or should we expect to see them sometime after 2013 is over?
 
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Dragonfree

Just me
I'm almost done - I'm two thirds through rereading the entries again and polishing my reviews, hoping to finish that today, after which I'll finalize the placings. While I might keep tinkering with them further, at that point I'll be ready to post whenever the others are ready.

Psychic is about halfway done. She's neck-deep in exams right now, but they're done on the fifteenth of December, at which time she intends to power on to get the judging done.

Negrek has something like three entries left, has been busy with NaNoWriMo/work/travel/etc. but has instructed me to send the hounds after her if she hasn't sent me her reviews by the fifteenth.

purple_drake and Phoenixsong haven't responded to my last PM about the contest, probably because they haven't actually been on the forums since I sent it. Psychic went to bother purple_drake about it on some social networking service with a weird name yesterday, and I was just about to e-mail Phoenixsong.

So, depending on how the last two stand, we could either have a good chance of getting the judging posted in December or have to wait a bit longer. I'll get back to you when we know more.

EDIT: Phoenixsong is still going to add to and polish some reviews and decide on the rankings, but also expects to be done before the end of December.
 
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Poetry

Dancing Mad
It's kind of scary to think that the publication of results is almost upon us. I don't know how quickly I want them posted; part of me just wants it over and done with so I can finally put it to bed, but at the same time I want to take some time out to prepare myself for the reviews and criticisms and whatnot.

The dread. Eep.
 

Venia Silente

[](int x){return x;}
Poetry: you could always read a random assortment of Youtube comments beforehand and pretend they're aimed at you. I mean, after them, any kind of criticism is better, so that should get the dread out of your system (ie.: "hey, it won't be this bad") :p

Anyway, thanks for update on the progress of reviews.
 

Dragonfree

Just me
purple_drake got her Christmas work schedule and has concluded that she probably won't have enough time in December. Rather than possibly delaying the results for everyone, she has decided to step down from judging this contest. While we will miss her reviews, four judges is still plenty so losing one should not significantly unbalance the contest. The rest of us will do our utmost to get the results up as soon as possible so her resignation won't be in vain.
 
Aw, I hope the holidays aren't too stressful for her...

But anticipating the reviews.
 

Cassafrass1999

A new beginning! <3
Dang it, I am totally gonna lose this... since between the time I wrote the fic I entered and now, I (think anyways) that I have become a totally better writer... my writing is probably appalling now. But oh well, whatcha gonna do? Good luck to all those who entered! ^^;
 

Dragonfree

Just me
Dang it, I am totally gonna lose this... since between the time I wrote the fic I entered and now, I (think anyways) that I have become a totally better writer... my writing is probably appalling now. But oh well, whatcha gonna do? Good luck to all those who entered! ^^;
That's a good thing! Having progressed enough in the space of five months to think your entry was awful is itself something to be proud of. Besides that then even if you place low (which you won't necessarily), you already know you can do much better than that.
 

Cassafrass1999

A new beginning! <3
That's a good thing! Having progressed enough in the space of five months to think your entry was awful is itself something to be proud of. Besides that then even if you place low (which you won't necessarily), you already know you can do much better than that.

Aw, well thank you for the very encouraging words! It means a lot to me. And hey, it isn't all about winning anyways... the thrill of seeing how much I have progressed in my writing from then and now is plenty as a reward. :3
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Early Game Encounter
Happy 2014 everyone, giving the customary bump of the month to ask about progress with reviewing and hope that this upcoming year will be as productive writing-wise as the last year has been for everybody~
 
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Dragonfree

Just me
Happy new year to everyone! Apologies for not managing to get the judging up before the end of December after all - we were all optimistic that we'd make it before Christmas, but as it turned out everyone needed a bit more time than expected. I just received Phoenixsong's rankings and reviews a few hours ago. Negrek was unsure when she'd manage to have Internet access, but sounded like that was the biggest obstacle remaining for her. I haven't heard from Psychic in a bit; I will be contacting her for details once she's on. I'll be ready to post pretty much whenever Negrek and Psychic's judgings are in, though I'll of course have to be on and finish formatting all the posts and so on. So stay tuned.

Now would probably be a good time for anyone besides Poetry who doesn't want their entry posted with the reviews to tell me about it.
 

The Teller

King of Half-Truths
I wanted feedback for my entry, so I took it to friends not on this site. The catch? They're not Pokemon fans, so I modified the entry to remove all traces of Pokemon-related stuff and instead added in generic fake names and locations and fantasy stuff. Oddly enough, some of it works better than when I used Pokemon-specific words.
 

Venia Silente

[](int x){return x;}
Is there any win, loss or catch-22 when having one's entry be posted "automatically" along with the reviews or not? (I don't think there is, but it's never a bad idea to ask) And anyway, I'm okay with my entry being posted alongside the reviews.

Teller: huh. Good to hear you got this kind of input!
 

Dragonfree

Just me
Well, the only thing it changes is whether the entry appears in the post with the reviews or not. If you don't want that for any reason, you can ask for it not to be. People who have been following the contest would probably like to be able to actually read your entry and not just the judges' thoughts on it, but it's your writing and we're not going to post it if you don't want us to. You can also post your entry yourself (with or without edits) wherever you want as soon as the results are out, regardless of whether it was also posted with the contest reviews.

I've already received Negrek's reviews, and Psychic has one and a half entry left to finish hers.
 
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Venia Silente

[](int x){return x;}
Any news on Psychic's reviews? Can we expect a Habemus Reviemums announcement for, say end of month? Might be nice to not break the psychological fourth season barrier, I guess.
 

Dragonfree

Just me
She's working on her final review. Unfortunately it's for starliteevee's story, which is by far the longest entry in the contest in terms of word count, so I don't know exactly how long it should take but I hope she'll be done within the week because I'm going to Florida this Friday.
 

Starlight Aurate

Just a fallen star
I'm really really sorry about this >_< I originally entered this contest because I saw that there weren't many contestants and thought hey, why not add a bit of competition? Unfortunately, I ran away with my idea and turned it into what would have been better off as a chapter fic x_X I truly appreciate the work you guys put into all this, and I cannot say enough how grateful I am that you guys were willing to do this. I really should've put a limit on myself and realized that it was way too much. To add to that, I feel like my writing has gotten better since I wrote this, and looking back on what I've written, I just feel ashamed about it. I know that this contest would be over and announced if it wasn't for me, and I don't even know if I really added anything worthwhile to this. My apologies to the other contestants and to the judges for having to bear with me and my lack of self-restraint.

So above all, thank you so much for your patience with me, and sorry about my crazy-long entry >_<
 
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