Iron Pen
- Thread starter Valka D'Ur
- Start date
Yes, but not immediately.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
NO.
Iron Pen is NOT a game. It's intended to produce short stories or poems written on a very tight schedule, with the competition aspect as an incentive (competitions are more exciting, generally, which is why NaNoWriMo uses the word "contest" on its website. Like NaNoWriMo, the real objective is to encourage people to write, to challenge the participants, and to provide constructive feedback so they can improve their skills.
If there is interest in having a Civ theme, I don't mind scheduling one. But if you want to write Civ stories in general, I suggest you either write and post them here in A&E (as long as they're done as real stories and don't beat the reader over the head with game mechanics and rules, as some of the more amateur D&D fiction does), or talk to the moderators of the relevant Civ subforums as to whether or not they will allow Civ stories.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
I regularly ask Valka, and she always responds affirmatively.
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
I'd be interested in trying my hand if this ever gets revived.
Terxpahseyton
Nobody
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2006
- Messages
- 10,759
So am I
But honestly, I have no faith in it happening
But honestly, I have no faith in it happening
Okay, I'll be honest. The last time this was tried, I was pretty pissed off at the participants. Neither of them took it seriously enough to the point where they even tried to follow the minimum word count rules, and I wasn't too impressed at the minimal effort to interpret the theme. This is a contest, yes. But it's also a genuine effort to help people practice the craft of writing, and it won't work if people don't give at least the minimum effort.
I had a blast running this at the other site years ago because people really put a lot of work into it - the contestants, and those who read the stories, offered critiques, and voted. Everyone who took part enjoyed it, but it's one of those things where people need to give it a good effort or there's no point. One of the goals is to give people practice in writing to a specific word count (can go over by a small margin, but not under) and a theme that they can interpret however they want, but it's got to be the focus of the story.
So how about this: We can get this going again if there's a commitment from at least four people who have the time and willingness over the next 2-3 weeks. I need at least one extra person/week who is able to step in at the last minute in case one of the official competitors has to drop out for some reason. I'm not going to run a contest with only one person because the other person backed out for some reason - been there, done that years ago, and it was a pain for everyone - including the person who actually was willing to be a last minute backup contestant in a situation of "Help, Iron Pen X just quit and the contest starts in 45 minutes; do you have time to write a story over the next 2 days so I don't have to cancel this round and disappoint the other person who didn't quit?"
Some people prefer using the weekend for their 48 hours, and others might prefer weekdays. If you're willing to commit to this and have a preference for weekends or weekdays, please PM me and let me know (part of the contest is to preserve the competitors' anonymity so only they and myself know who wrote what until it's over). I can't guarantee to be able to match people with their preferences, but will try.
I had planned to do NaNoWriMo this month but RL got in the way. So I have the time to do this. We can start as early as this weekend or maybe Monday if enough people are interested.
I had a blast running this at the other site years ago because people really put a lot of work into it - the contestants, and those who read the stories, offered critiques, and voted. Everyone who took part enjoyed it, but it's one of those things where people need to give it a good effort or there's no point. One of the goals is to give people practice in writing to a specific word count (can go over by a small margin, but not under) and a theme that they can interpret however they want, but it's got to be the focus of the story.
So how about this: We can get this going again if there's a commitment from at least four people who have the time and willingness over the next 2-3 weeks. I need at least one extra person/week who is able to step in at the last minute in case one of the official competitors has to drop out for some reason. I'm not going to run a contest with only one person because the other person backed out for some reason - been there, done that years ago, and it was a pain for everyone - including the person who actually was willing to be a last minute backup contestant in a situation of "Help, Iron Pen X just quit and the contest starts in 45 minutes; do you have time to write a story over the next 2 days so I don't have to cancel this round and disappoint the other person who didn't quit?"
Some people prefer using the weekend for their 48 hours, and others might prefer weekdays. If you're willing to commit to this and have a preference for weekends or weekdays, please PM me and let me know (part of the contest is to preserve the competitors' anonymity so only they and myself know who wrote what until it's over). I can't guarantee to be able to match people with their preferences, but will try.
I had planned to do NaNoWriMo this month but RL got in the way. So I have the time to do this. We can start as early as this weekend or maybe Monday if enough people are interested.
Thank you, CivCube. 
Two people have PM'd me, and it looks like a Monday/Tuesday start is doable. A third person who could possibly commit to next week would be appreciated as well, in case Murphy's Law happens to anyone.
Two people have PM'd me, and it looks like a Monday/Tuesday start is doable. A third person who could possibly commit to next week would be appreciated as well, in case Murphy's Law happens to anyone.
I've been asked if this is still going ahead, given the technical things that have been going on over the past few days.
Due to the very slow loading times and the fact that the forum has been on and off today, I honestly am not confident of doing Iron Pen this week. I'd like to postpone it until next week - give the admins time to get everything straightened out so it doesn't take minutes just to load a page and so there's no risk of starting a competition and having it interrupted halfway through if they need to take the forum offline again.
Sorry, but this week just isn't a good time. Assuming the technical issues get ironed out, we'll definitely do this next week.
Thanks for your patience, and let's hope things get back to normal ASAP.
Due to the very slow loading times and the fact that the forum has been on and off today, I honestly am not confident of doing Iron Pen this week. I'd like to postpone it until next week - give the admins time to get everything straightened out so it doesn't take minutes just to load a page and so there's no risk of starting a competition and having it interrupted halfway through if they need to take the forum offline again.
Sorry, but this week just isn't a good time. Assuming the technical issues get ironed out, we'll definitely do this next week.
Thanks for your patience, and let's hope things get back to normal ASAP.
Okay, folks, the forum is back (albeit a little laggy at the moment). Assuming it's still functioning by tomorrow evening, the next Iron Pen competition will commence on Tuesday, August 4, probably in the evening (will try to post the OP by 10 p.m Eastern/midnight MDT). At that time the two contestants will learn the secret theme they are to incorporate into their stories.
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
It's 10:23 PM eastern time. Has something happened?
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