Thing the First:  I still have 5 authors who have not signed off on the rules.  If you have not signed by Wednesday at 5:00 CDT YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DRAWER.  I will then go to the randomizer and the numbers and fill those slots.

Thing the Second:  I know we're all good little 'Woodies' and will be watching Children of Earth when it airs in our regions. I know the US and Australia will have them by the end of July.  Canada?  Where are you all in the line up? I know we'll all be buying our DVDs to support the franchise when we can.

That said, I know most of us don't wait for our local networks.

The first prompt will go out on July 10th, which is the last day of Children of Earth on the BBC.  My intention is to make any and all canon sources - the radio plays and CoE  - as fair game material without worrying about labeling spoilers.

So the question is this:  Is there any author who, by the time of the first voting - which will start July 17 - will have had no way of accessing the new material?  I can make files available to anyone who needs them in pretty much any format known to man if that helps.

If such an author exists, I need you to comment before Wednesday at 5:00 CDT, so I can re-write the first few prompts.  (I'm mostly worried about authors at this point, since they are usually the majority of our voting pool and they need to read every story.  Comm watchers who are extremely .avi and spoilerphobic will just have to wait a bit if they want to vote without worrying about spoilers.)

If you're going to be able to see everything you need to see, I do *not* need a comment at this time.

Thing the Third: Round 3.0, the practice round is still in effect.  It will end ... go figure... at Wednesday at 5:00 CDT as we get ready to switch into high gear on Friday.

Thing the Fourth:  I'm still accepting suggestions for themes and added features if you've had any brainstorms recently.

I am currently the victim of the hugest internet!fail in the world.  If you want the details, check out my top LJ post.  But long story short, HOPEFULLY I'll be back on line tomorrow, but if today is any indication, I'm not going to hold my breath.

I have access to my email through my phone, but LJ is really tough to read that way and even tougher to respond through.

So if you're waiting for me to answer a question or something, rest assured, I'm not blowing you off.  I'll be back online asap, or, you know you'll hear about bloodshed at the Chicago Comcast office on the news.  Whichever comes first. :p


Once I'm back on, we'll start talking timelines and things. 

Sorry for the interruption.  Hope to be back around soon.

Okay, so I was asked about what happens if someone defaults (doesn't submit) for round 1.  Can someone who didn't get in, get in?

And I thought, well, that seems fair.  But how to do it?

I think this is one time we'll go 'first come, first served.'

So, if you didn't get into Round 3 and you'd like a shot at it, we'll do this:  When I put up the prompt for 3.01, write for it and send it in.  I will use submissions by people not in the round to fill in for any defaulters in the order they were sent in.  If you were the first non-listed author to send yours in, and one person drops out, yours will be used.  If two people drop out then the first two non-listed authors' stories will get used, etc...

I will let you know if I don't use your story as soon as I can so you can have it back to do what you'd like with it.

Also... if someone should drop out or if I don't get a rules 'signature' before the first challenge goes out, I'll go back to the dice generator thing and get one of the remaining authors to fill in the open spot.


Comments/concerns/questions about these decisions can be left in the comments here.

OH!  And, round 3.00 - the practice round - is open to anyone.  Have fun. :)

Okay, it looks like a few of you would like to play with a practice round.

We'll open it tonight and go until July 10th when round 3.01 will be posted (more on this later).

This is not an anonymous round.  In fact these stories don't even get sent to me.  For this round, you need to post your story at wiad_the_lounge, where your friends, neighbors and competitors can leave you feedback and you can all talk about me the contest.  These stories won't be voted on, they'll be openly discussed in the other comm.  Reviewers:  Please be honest, but don't be cruel.  We know that by now, right?

So... your prompt:

Theme:  Write a story from the perspective of any non-human character.  A weevil, Myfanwy, Mary, some alien you make up entirely.  Any non-human that interacts with the Torchwood team.
Added element: 5 of seven colors of the rainbow must be mentioned.
Word Count: Since these are coming in at random intervals (and won't have to all be read in a short time) 800 words.  You can always go under if you don't need that many.




I'm pretty sure I have a plan for this in real competition, but for now, we are NOT going to spoil anyone.  Anything from any other season is fair game.

Have fun!

After many false starts, the random number generator finally kicked out...




Which means the last slot goes to...

Getting down to it...




Who happens to be...

This one took some work.  I'm now at the point where it's kicking out whole groups of numbers I don't need.  Either numbers no one chose or numbers *already chosen*.  Hence the extra lines of numbers with no circles.




From this we get the illustrious...

Got three useful numbers this time.



Which brings on board...

From round 4, we get the lovely...

Roll #3 of the dice gave us three more authors...



Who are...

Okay I needed 15 more numbers, and it only kicked out 3 useful ones. :)



But those three give us...

Okay, so Invisible_Lift pointed me at a nifty little number generator.  I told it how many numbers I needed and it kicked them out.  Thing is, it also kicked out some I didn't need.  This is draw #1.  I told it to give me 20 numbers between 1 and 100.  Only 5 of them were numbers authors chose.  I circled them in red, obviously.





So, with this roll, we welcome aboard:

Okay a few notes as I work on the number draws and corresponding drawers...

First of all, if your number is called, please make sure you've read the rules carefully and signed the rules page.  I can't post your story until you've done that.  Thanks.

Next, I'd like to introduce our first two authors for the round.  The lovely and talented invisible_lift and allfireburns - the winners of rounds 1 and 2.  Both have accepted their invitations to return and defend their titles.

Okay, I am home today as originally planned. Which means the drawer lottery will be done at 1:00 and shortly thereafter I will put up the list of authors for round 3.

Meaning, you have 2 HOURS to sign up if you haven't yet.

Now or never. Or at least not 'till round 4. ;)


The numbers claimed for the lottery thus far are:


2, 6, 8, 9, 13, 11, 17, 18, 19, 22, 27, 28, 29, 36, 37, 42, 48, 51, 53, 55, 69, 72, 73, 75, 77, 80, 81, 84, 87, 88, 96, 97 and 100


That's 33 of you. Anyone else?

Okay... half way through making our plans for tomorrow my friend disappeared off-line.

So, I guess we have no plans, at least for tomorrow.

Which means that I'll post the list of authors tomorrow afternoon as planned.

Hopefully she won't email me tonight and try to confirm for tomorrow.  That would get awkward. ;)

Last round, during the sign ups, I tossed out a practice prompt that people then had a chance to write and post at wiad_the_lounge for dissection by your peers, to help pass the time until we actually got going.

Is there any interest in that for this round?  Let's say that if I get ten people interested, I'll toss up a prompt to play with. :)  If you just want to wait for the official first challenge, that's cool too.

Okay, this is essentially a repost (with a tad bit of tweaking) of the rules as posted in the profile (in fact once I'm sure I haven't muddled things worse, I'll be replacing the ones in the profile with these).  I figure while we're waiting for the lottery, we can get some 'business' out of the way.

In round 2 we had our first 'rule violation' that had to be dealt with.  So this time I want to get everyone to read the rules and respond below with a comment that says... they read the rules.  Now, we got through two rounds with exactly one major problem, so I'm not anticipating anything, but *just in case*, I want to know that everyone playing is well aware of the rules before we go in.  Feel free to ask questions or for clarification of the rules in this post too.

So how does this work?
Each week a challenge prompt will be given. Prompts will lend themselves to all pairings and gen writing. For example there might be a three word challenge wherein the writers must all get the words green, key and lumpy into their fic. Thinking outside the box for the challenges is encouraged! In this case the 'key' could be a reference to musical pitch or the 'key ingredient' in an alien recipe.

A word limit will also be given. At least in the beginning, when many people are writing, no story will be allowed to exceed 1000 words. People have to be able to write in a short time frame and then people will need to be able to read all the submissions in a reasonable amount of time in order to vote. Writers may come as far under the maximum as they like. If you can do your best work in 50 words, then that's fine.

Deadlines for making submissions will be given in each challenge post. If it's not stated, all times are Central Standard Time (Chicago).  (GMT - 6)

Once all submissions are sent to the moderator, they will be posted anonymously and in random order. Writers and the public at large will then vote for the story they like the best and the one they like the least. The story with the most positive votes will win for the week and the writer will get immunity from elimination for the next challenge until we are down to five writers. At that point, no one will get immunity. The writer with the most negative votes will be shown to a drawer in the Hub morgue and will be out of the current round of competition. They're welcome to come back for the next round if they like, however. We'll continue through until there is only one writer not in a drawer.

Rules for Writers
1. Stories must fit under the word limit. I'll be tossing them into Word to format, so that's the word-counter I'll be using. You might want to give yourself a few words lee-way if you're using another counter. I don't know how it works, but I've put the *same* text through three different word counters at one point and gotten different results for all three.

Use this word counter if you have any doubt: http://www.promojunkie.com/word-counter.php. ; It isn't matching my Word count, but it tends to count higher.  Which means that if you're within bounds on this site, you'll be in great shape by the time I get it into my counter.  Make sense?  If I see that your story seems to have a significant word count problem I'll try to send it back to you, but as we go on I'll be going back to work and that means getting stories, formatting them and posting as soon as I walk in the door.  So if you're worried about the count, give me some time to check it and get back to you.

Stories that do not fit the word limit at the end of the submission period will not be posted and the author will be drawered.

Headers and titles do not count against your word count.

2. Stories must clearly reflect the prompt in some way. Again, thinking outside the box is encouraged, but please don't be so vague as to appear to have not followed the prompt.

3. Stories must be emailed to writerinadrawer@gmail.com with your user name and challenge number as the  subject line (i.e.Smallwaldo, Challenge #5) so that my filter will catch them all. They also need to be in by the time and date listed in each challenge. The moderator will not 'chase down' authors.

4. Stories must come pre-formatted. If you need to show italics or other html formatting, you need to have coded that in before you email it. My copy/paste will not preserve the formatting of the story you send. Please make sure the < /i> type tags are showing.

5. Stories should include the following header information and only this information:
Title:
Warnings:
Pairing/s: (if any)
Rating:
Summary:

Spoilers will be dealt with as the time line for both airdates of Children of Earth and our own schedule get nailed down.  If necessary, a spoiler line can be added to the headers.

What do we warn for? Descriptions of rape, extreme violence, child abuse or sexual acts that might be viewed as 'extreme'. We don't 'warn' for slash (or het for that matter), the pairings will make that quite clear. Warnings for things like M'preg are not necessary either, especially as they can spoil the plot of the story.

6. Self-beta or find a beta who won't be voting. Remember, anonymity is the name of the game. The moderator, in the interest of fairness, will not beta entries.

7. Challenge specific rules will be listed in the challenge post. Be sure to take note of them.

8. This may seem obvious, but, do not post your story anywhere else until the challenge has closed. Once we've voted and the winner and drawer-inhabitant have been announced, your stories are yours to do what you please with.

9. Encourage your friends to vote. Do not encourage your friends to vote for your story.
Okay: Hey friendslist! The next batch of stories is up at </a></strong></a>writerinadrawer. Please go read and vote!
Not Okay: Hey friendslist! The next batch of stories is up at </a></strong></a>writerinadrawer. There's a fabulous little Myfanwy/Weevil story I'm sure you'll love!"

10. The nitpicky stuff. In general, anything goes. Any rating, any pairing any genre including AUs. Crossovers; however, are not acceptable. This is a Torchwood community. The only exception to this is using characters and canon from Doctor Who. RPS/RPF is not allowed here either. We're focusing on the characters and events of the Torchwood series.

11. When the deadline arrives, if your story has not been received, you will be drawered.  There are no skips or passes at Writer in a Drawer.

Rules for Voting
1. Unless there is a hard and fast reason to not read a story (i.e. there's a warning for rape and you have personal reasons for not going there) read all submissions before you vote.

2. Vote for the winning story that is a.) the best written and b.) most clearly utilizes the challenge prompt in a clever and engaging way.  When you vote for stories that will potentially put their writer in a drawer, give clear, concrete reasons for voting a story down.

3. Do not vote for or against a story simply because it is/is not of a certain pairing. This isn't a 'Which relationship is most popular?' contest. Bad characterization is certainly a reason for voting against a story, but please don't vote against a piece just because the central character is someone who is not your favorite.

When you vote you'll need to give a brief justification of your vote.

Okay: I vote for [insert story here] as best story because the characterization of Jack was spot on and the dialogue sounded like it came right out of the show.

I vote for [insert story here] as the one that puts a writer in a drawer because it clearly ignores the canon from "Cyberwoman", without establishing in any way that the story is an AU.

Not Okay: I vote for [insert story here] as best story because Eugene/Mary is just the cutest pairing ever.

I vote for [insert story here] to put a writer in a drawer because who could possibly think that Owen would hook up with Bilis?

Feedback can be as detailed as you like, but must have at least one solid reason for voting the story up or down.


4. Writers still not in a drawer You may vote. You may not vote for yourself as best or worst.

5. Writers in a drawer are absolutely encouraged to continue voting from your new home.

6. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT discuss your vote with anyone until after voting has ended.  If there is evidence that votes were discussed and that either/both parties' votes were swayed, or there seems to be some kind of collusion, the votes WILL NOT COUNT.  If the author/s of said comments are still writing, they will be drawered.  (To show that you've read the rules carefully, please put the following phrase in your comment - The WIAD moderator sleeps in Myfanway's nest.)

Now, you might think, "But if there's a given problem with a story, won't everyone pick up on it?"  Sure.  But as an example, a story that seemed to go great guns at the beginning and then peter off might get the following comments:

1. Seemed like the led in to a longer story. Lacked resolution.
2. Didn't seem to go anywhere for me and the ending was a bit weak.
3. This one just doesn't work for me. The concept of [story details] isn't bad at all, but it doesn't go anywhere.

I think we can all see that all of these make the same general point.  The story in question needed a stronger ending in order to be highly successful.  But the particular way this is expressed is unique.  Even saying that someone's grammar and punctuation is weak can be said in a thousand different ways. 

We write and vote anonymously so that no one's voting or writing is influenced by another person.  That really is the core of making this challenge work.  So please, keep your votes and opinions to yourself until after the results are posted.  After that, of course you're free to discuss whatever you'd like.

7. Voting end times and dates will be posted in each story-post.



Okay, those are our rules and regs.  Please leave a comment below to let me know you've read and understood them. (Alternatively, that you read them and have a question/comment/concern.  Let's get those cleared up now.)

So I had this brilliant plan to do the writer lottery on Friday afternoon, because I had nothing going on and if I aimed for like 1:00 in my time zone, I'd hit most major time zones still being awake. (1:00 p.m. here is 7:00 p.m. in the UK... sorry Australia, I can't make it work for EVERYONE...)

 Good plan, right?

Now I have something going on.  Probably.  I had this insane idea to make a Facebook page under my legal name to find an old friend from Junior High and High School.  Didn't find Erin, but the girl I was best friends from 4th grade through college found me.  And she wants to get together. 

On Friday afternoon.

So... about that lottery...

Poll #1420614 Lottery
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

When should Waldo run the spot-lottery for WIAD?

I'll take answers until about noon (CDT) tomorrow, when I'll have to decide if tomorrow is out or if I'm doing it then.


So also?  Consider this your reminder if you still haven't signed up and plan to.

Okay, as we get sign ups underway, I'd like to give anyone and everyone a chance to suggest a prompts.

As you may or may not know, prompts at Writer in a Drawer have three parts:

• the primary challenge
• the added element
• the word count

Now, I have the word count under control.  That gets determined by how many writers we have for the round and the type of challenge (some just need more/less words to be successful)

They can be themes for the story (like the first two examples) or a writing style prompt (like the last example or a 4+1/5 Times story...)

Here are a couple of examples of past prompts:

Theme: Being Innovative - something gets used for a purpose other than it was intended for.  A t-shirt used as a bandage, a CD used as a bookmark...
Added Element:  a hand gesture or signal

Theme: Lockdown!  The hub has gone into lockdown.  Who's in there?  Why?  What do they do in there?  It's all up to you.
Added Element: an animal. 

Theme:  This week's challenge is to write the same story from two different points of view. 
Added feature: a grooming product (soap, shampoo, a toothbrush, etc...)

Need more examples?  Want to see what we've done before?  Check the "Challenge post" tag.

Because I think mix and match is fun, I've got separate screened threads below for Themes and Added Elements.  Have fun!

We've hit 25 sign ups (not including our champions), so we'll definitely be going with the lottery.  This is not in any way meant to discourage sign ups!  Invisible_lift has pointed me to a very handy computerized number generator, so just because you sign up first or last or whatever, your chances of getting a spot are all the same.

The following numbers have been claimed:

6, 8, 9, 13, 17, 18, 27, 28, 36, 42, 48, 51, 53, 55, 69, 72, 73, 75, 80, 81, 84, 87, 88, 97 and 100

BOTH of our champions will be returning!  I am so geeked about that.  So we'll have a total of 22 writers once we get underway.

Remember, I will be tossing the numbers into the Bingo machine at 1:00 p.m. CDT one week from today (June 26).  So get yourself signed up over here, if you haven't yet.