Contest January-February Short Story Contest Voting and Reading Thread

I don't have a problem badmouthing my own work because I kind of undermine myself everyday. If anything you might be able to sniff out my piece from my critiques by looking for the one with the least praise.

I tend to overanalyze and second guess my own work far too often. That's part of the reason I am a slow writing. I've had a WHF Inquisitor novella that's been sitting in limbo 70% complete and untouched for years now. Bob was advising me and proofreading my work, now he's gone. I guess I should finish it for his sake.

Once it bothered me that I had a skink with a megaphone and everyone said that was too modern for a Lizardman to use, even though non-electric megaphones have existed since ancient times (it's just shouting into a cone). But I couldn't say anything since it was my piece.

If I really get stuck critiquing my own piece I can cherry pick bits and pieces from other people's critiques of my pieces since I am usually one of the last ones to post critiques. Most of the critiques of my piece said it was predictable. I didn't actually think that was a problem, but I included it in passing.

I don't normally read the critiques (other than the critiques of my piece) until I make a first draft at least of my critiques. That way my reviews aren't swayed by others' critiques. My votes are occasionally swayed by others' reviews. If I'm on the fence between two pieces I often consider the reviews.

Since I am the only one that doesn't treat the pieces as anonymous, I guess I could say I have a bias towards first-time entrants, but not a huge bias. My biggest bias is actual for playing by the rules creatively. Just a tiny bit of Jazz for flavor, but not too much Jazz.

That said, I have tried my hand at metaphorical Jazz. Short and Scaly on the Streets seems to do well. My Westhammer pieces and Skink Chief McBragg, not so much. Other people than me have written Westhammer pieces, but if you see Skink Chief McBragg, it's almost certainly me, or someone impersonating me.

Once or twice, Bob and I tried to impersonate each other...good times.

Bob and I got into this too. I'm not a fan of haikus. Maybe they sound better in Japanese, but I always though English haikus never sounded very good. Though maybe I have haiku PTSD.

When I was in the sixth grade, they had my class try to teach a bunch of first graders how to write haikus. Though most first graders cannot grasp what a "syllable" is, good luck coaching a first grader to write a haiku. Being the Boy Scout I was, I wouldn't just write it for her.

In hindsight, my class were all guinea pigs for a social experiment. There were a lot of adult student teachers from the university present.

I only just now put together that maybe this is why I don't like haikus. I guess if that's the most traumatic thing that happened in my childhood, I lived a pretty blessed life.

 

but you must admit it was really close... and i won over other 4 CD stories