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 |  A running blog on a real newbies adventures with the WDC website |
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I became a newbie writer just starting to learn the tools of the trade. Silly me thinking, I could just jump right in, and start swimming, with what I remember of my six grade English. After all what use did a professional computer repair person need of grammar, to fill in blanks, dot “I’s”, or cross his “T’s” with. I was forced into early retirement. Because of Agent Orange encounters from Vietnam, and a bad hernia repair. You cannot learn anything being a mugwump. What is a mugwump you say? It is a person sitting on a fence; with their mug on one side of the fence, and their wump on the other side. One day I received this interesting email from the Newbie Academy Group. They recommend I engage in contest activities. I thought to myself why not! I went to the contest list and found the writer’s cramp contest. At the prompt: here's a new restaurant in town with an interesting theme. What's the theme, how is it expressed, and how's the food? I read this and get all excited. I started thinking of all the Chief Gordon Ramsey shows I had watch with my wife. Out of nowhere pops a memory of a silly menu I had in my funny joke collection. It was a road kill menu for Uncle Roberts fine cuisine dinning. I decided to use my hillbilly name. I and my wife had a moment in our newly married life, when we were teasing a neighbor friend. We started calling our redneck friend Deny-Bob. He called us JoVonna-Bob and Brett-Bob. I decided to call my contest entry “Brett-Bob’s Road Kill Express” to me the whole idea was a joke and after all what a great thing to write about. To me the trick was to keep it rated ‘E’ as this was a requirement of the contest. I had in my mind decided to keep it as a fake road kill diner they would serve real food as fake road kill using the out of season as the excuse to use their specialty dishes for them. When I wrote it as with all my writing I am becoming world famous for run-ons and miss spelling. Part of the problem is MSoffice I blame its terrible spell checker, and the horrible grammar checker, since it cannot even do second grade error correction. Like I told one of the Newbie Academy Ladies I’m a senior citizen writing as a first grader. And even a first grader has trouble reading my work let alone the poor teacher. Beside whom else can I blame? None of us want to point that finger at ourselves. We might get ashamed and do something about it. One of the funnier parts to my story is I didn’t read it had a thousand word limit. I just assumed that they wanted whatever you could produce in a short time. Just like Nanowrimo. It had a twenty four hour dead line. I figured you didn’t need to worry, if it was a rough draft, or a finished work. This was probably my misreading of the contest rules. I’m betting the judge expects to judge finished works by more experienced authors other than newbies. Basically I’m trying to say, I set myself up for failure. But the best part of the story, and funniest is the judge’s comment: “You met that goal with an interesting piece. However, since I'm a vegetarian, it was unhappily a bit unappetizing in both humor and description. Sigh.” I know I thrive on rejection. But my very first contest. When I am trying to fit in, and receive that comment. It was about the funniest thing to happen to me. Being a new writer I understand not everything I write is golden or is going to make me incredibly rich either. I did install the sense of shame. I went visiting my email and asked the kind judge for help with run-ons. She took pity on me and provided a link to myenglishteacher.net. She also recommended a class from WDC’s own recommended school. She also recommended asking for help in my groups forums. The truth is I really don’t see even the kindest writer here, having the time to teach me sixth grade again. Then I realized I don’t need the whole lessen. I just need to learn to recognize what I do in my writing, and fix that issue. As I write I can auto correct instead or totally relearning English. So I went to some of the forums in the Newbie Academy Group. Since I have no life anymore I sometimes expect the same of everyone else. But the sad truth is it’s the week end, and all the nice people are out being nice people. I am going to have to wait until Monday to get my help. My contest entry received eight reviews; of the eight, two actually showed me areas to improve it, and of course one judge’s review. I think the poor lady felt sorry for me and I got the newbie prize of 250 gp with the review or it won third place. I in my vanity like the third place idea; the truth is I’m just guessing. I hope I haven’t offended any one with this story. It is another attempt at a funny story. I don’t have any hard feelings with the judge she was honest, truthful, and even extremely helpful. Some points of interest; only one person didn’t find it funny, the judge. Only the judge and one retired teacher gave me a link. They both gave me really helpful reviews with writing style help. I am still holding on to three reviews of the eight. I still get a laugh every time I read the third email. I just love her closing line: This story is fun, and I still have a silly smirk on my face. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I'm building at "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  Great place to read.I'm docked at "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond"
, a safe port for bloggers to connect. |
| Contest Design and Discussion Judging You have built your contest page you have your contest setup, your rules, and prizes set up. Now we need to get ready to be able to do two things from a judging pool and take donations. This is where you need a group created. Now the create a group function is account specific you need an upgraded account to create and host a group. It also becomes your contest bank it will except the donations if you use it's item number. Just in case I haven't mentioned this earlier you will want to create a forum for your contest as well. You just copy and paste your static page used to create the contest with into the forum body. Now I will not duplicate the very excellent work the Story Mistress has done in writing.com 101 on creating a group. I would have two writing.com pages open on your browser and then go to your upper right hand corner and click on writing.com 101. Now find groups and the first link under groups is the one you want. just go through it step by step and you now have a group created. Now you should create your forum just do it the same way you just did the group. Now back to our static contest creation page. The reason for the group page is it is a bank and you add your judges to it and allow them to disperse the funds and order the badges using the contest funds. That is if you have extra judges. Now I know some of these are a repeat from last weeks article. I did discuss the contest side of them now I am going to show the judging side of these.  You may edit your stories at any time before the deadline. However, they may be judged at any point after the contest deadline, so there are no guarantees that any changes you make after the deadline will be considered by the judges. (Now on the judging side in your Group, you can put your requirements in the group body or the group letter of welcome it sends out when you add a person to the group. In these instructions you set the judging date say between the first and the fifteenth of each month you run your contest. Your goal is to award your prizes and announce the winners of the contest. You want to make a big deal of this because you will attract people to the contest that way.) The judges are solely responsible for determining the winners and eligibility of entries. The judge's decision on all such matters is final. (You are running a competition between writers. You want the best work to win this is not a popularity contest or only your friends win. This is an honest contest only the best piece will win I use judges so I don't judge it myself that way I can always be fair about it. I recommend the same thing. So now you need judges I recommend you use contest central they have a judging pool you can ask other people to help out with the judging.) There must be at least two (2) eligible entries to award first place. There must be at least four (4) eligible entries to award first and second place. There must be at least six (6) entries in order for all three places to be given out. This is a contest, not a "win by default" situation. If there are fewer than two entries in any given round, a consolation prize will be awarded. Honorable mentions (and the prizes for such) may be given at the judges' discretion. (Now you make sure your judges see this in your judging rules in the group body or welcome letter as well. This part is important because it helps them and you decide if you should do more advertizing and continue the round into the next month this is most important point to consider.) The other point to consider is the prompt too challenging for the other writers. This can be determined by the response you get. at this point lets say you have two entries and you really want more. You change the prompt now what do you do with those two entries? Remember the authors work hard on them for this event. Now you can carry them over or award the first prize to one and honorable mention to the second one. Or you can carry over the old prompt in the group body for the judges to see and also the new prompt and there you go. let the judges decide. This way the first two stories have an even chance to win as well as new stories do for the new prompt. Also they now have three chances to win instead of only one. {center}{image:1974613}{image:1974615}{/center} (My line spacer.) {center}{size:5}{c:indigo}{b}{dropnote:"JUDGES"}{/b}{/c}{/size} (The title and drop down menu on my judges) {suser:bonniemarie} (My first Judge.) {user:rhondat} {My second Judge.) {user:}{/dropnote}{/center} Example: {center}{size:5}{c:indigo}{b}{dropnote:"WINNERS"}{/b}{/c}{/size} {Size:4.5}{b}Round 1{/b}{/size} {size:3.5}{b}1st Place: {suser:coelacanth} 2nd Place: 3rd Place: Honorable Mention {suser:jimminycritic}{/b}{/size} {Size:4.5}{b}Round 2{/b}{/size} {size:3.5}{b}1st Place: {suser:} 2nd Place: {suser:} 3rd Place: {suser:} Honorable Mention {suser:}{/dropnote}{/b}} Example: (indent}The interesting thing about keeping you winners in a drop down is it leaves your page uncluttered and looks very nice. I do the same for judges and donors. Once you have a few rounds done you can then start a Hall of Fame for the winners or a Winners circle that you create on a different static page and just put a link to it. Example {item:1962252} "Invalid Item" This will leave you a lot of your room to grow your donors list and even create a judging hall of fame for your past judges for each round as well. {center}{size:5}{c:green}{b}{dropnote:"DONORS"}{/b}{/c}{/size} {e:Star}{suser:charlieabney} 35k MB awarded {e:check3} {e:Star}{suser:sisrandez} 10k {e:Star}{suser:elle} 30k {e:Star}{suser:huntersmoon} 47k MB awarded {e:check3} {e:Star}{suser:}{/b}{/size}{/dropnote}{/center} Example: Now the last part of any contest is the prompt. If your planning on changing it all the time make the prompt big and set every thing for it. Then leave the rest so you can just come in and edit the prompt text and nothing else. Or Change your colors or other aspects of it. It's all yours have fun with it. Next is a piece I added to it a challenge I changed the rules without having to change the page. I found this is a quick fix and a great way to extend my contest! The new challenge : How many of you could write a short short about one of these dragons? Let's say from 300 to 2500 words you pick the genre you pick the story subject. And to boot if I like your story I'll mail you the Badge or Awardicon or heck even both just to be friendly. Are you up for the Challenge? I will not judge until May 1st so you have until the end of April to send in your story. 1st Bizarre Prompt: You have a Dragon in the family tell us all about it: Now Go Write it! Brett |
| How did you make your first dollar? Baby-sitting, paper route or..... Have fun with this. Lets see my first dollar I found a twenty and a five dollar bill buried in some guys freshly tilled new shrubbery patch. I believe he was growing it as a fence. The money looked like it had been dug up and buried in the dirt. So I took it cleaned it off and went on over to the mall that was across the street and promptly spent it after all ten year old don't have much thought when they find money laying around. After that I liked having money to spend. One of my neighbors had this old black and white TV it had a weird screen I saw inside it had exploded a filer capacitor. I took it, fixed it, and brought it back working. The lady paid me $35.00 for fixing it. After that whenever one of the neighborhood's TV broke they called me over first. There was only one TV I couldn't fix fast. It needed a new turner. I found one at the local DI and traded for it. By the time I had it working again they had bought a new color TV and told me to keep it. After that I took electronics in high school. I have staid in the repair industry ever since. Now days I look back and think about how I could wall paper the bathroom with factory certifications on doing warranty work on all the top name brands in the industry. I hold over 30 certificates from HP to Toshiba. Those are just the printer and computers ones. I did copiers and fax machines as well as all the old SCSI scanners. I even did tape back up, and DAT drives with zip drives. I even fixed a few Sysco routers. Doesn't take rocket science to board swap lol. I had a lot of fun with doing call center repair work as well. I remember a poor distressed lady called me and told me her computer was broke and she had to write a letter to the newspaper. I quickly figured out the problem. She was missing the autoexec.bat file. I showed where to find a back up copy and now it works. She started typing and a cussing and typing then cussing some more. I couldn't figure out why she was so upset with me. So to distract her from the issue at hand. I asked her why did she want to write a letter to the newspaper? She replied,"My husband has got a new job with the post office in Miami Florida. I want to move over there with him. I have two weeks to sell this house and the newspaper has listed it in the obituaries!" I found that extremely funny she didn't find it very funny though. I asked her since the newspaper killed her house would she be interested in playing a joke on the newspaper she perked right up. I asked if her letter was done. She said yes. I told her to select print now instead of a printer select Faxworks. She did it used her modem which had it's own phone line. I had her find the newspaper's fax number. She put it in and soon it reported the fax was sent without errors. I told her to now print the letter out, and go to their office. When she gets to the ad manager to make sure to ask him if he got her fax. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Here it is Sunday all ready another week gone by. I am progressing in my SAJ training I went from board updating to crediting and board updating lol. I find I belong to The Paper Doll Gang, Showering Acts of Joy, The Newbie Academy, The Talent Pond, Blog City, Contest Central, Roots and Wings, and P.E.N.C.I.L. Out of these groups the ones that are reviewing groups are: P.E.N.C.I.L Showering Acts of Joy The Paper Doll Gang The Newbie Academy The Talent Pond I am a member of these because I either participate or help Judge: Roots and Wings Contest Central The Art of Critism I do a little blogging with the Blog City prompts and I mostly just read The Talent Pond blogs. Most of their blog prompts don't interest me. I do a few Blog reviews for The Blog City Welcoming Committee. I do a lot of reviewing for Pencil, PDG, and SAJ. I think the leader of The Talent Pond has been very ill so participation tapered off. I had a lot of fun talking with Jeff but I wasn't going anywhere with it. When I got invited to the PDG and went through their new member training camp. Talk about a fun learning experience. The Dolls took me in answered all my questions, and never passed me off to someone else. They helped out as much as I would let them. I'm now a junior office with them. Saj invited me to join them as a reviewer. I offered to help out and they are now training me to be an officer with then as well. About the same time as I joined SAJ. I was accepted into P.E.N.C.I.L. So far I have done two books. I have done a couple of chapter reviews for SAJ Showers that are Pencil quality. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Prompt: Do you feel obligated to finish all the books you start reading? Why? If I'm buying the book yes I do. I want my money's worth but if it is bad then I'll never buy that author again. I have been collecting both a paper book library as well as a video library. Why I do this beats me I like to collect books and video's I like! What I'm really hoping is that as they age they might actually become valuable one day and I can pass it down from generation to generation. That was my dream but with the kids now days. "Oh dad why do you collect all this junk just throw it away it has no value and just takes up space!" Reminds me of my father who threw away my tube collection. I had a working set of all the really old vacuum tubes from #1 to all the current TV tubes. I wrote a letter to curator of the Smithsonian that I had these and was willing to allow them to display them. My father got on a rampage and threw them all away and busted everyone of them just so I couldn't ever bring them back. He got an offer in the mail from the museum offering to buy the whole collection and the spares I had for around 50,000 dollars. I was only twelve years old at the time. Of course guess who had to tell them I no longer had the collection. Mom made dad do it just to rub his nose in it. Of course he threw away all my comics and old sci-fi mags as well. He did tell me before he died that he stopped the rampages after the museum incident He felt so bad not listening to me that those really were worth some money. After all that money would have paid for college for all of his kids and a new car. If nothing else in life I learned never ever let my temper rule me into doing the stupid things my father did. |
| Prompt: Which Muppet character do you most identify with? Kermit? Oscar? Gonzo? Statler? Waldorf? Beaker? Elmo? Zoe? Miss Piggy? I feel like I am the closet to Oscar the Grouch. Some days I feel I live in a garbage can of my own making. And by darn I make em good too! As life goes on I am practically ready for it to end. No one likes to life with constant pain. That pain management cannot control unless I want to spend all my days living in a different world higher then a kite. I chose to survive and learn how to become a writer that can enthrall millions, and cause people to both, laugh and cry at the same time! Yes that right I'm going to write the error codes for Microsoft windows operating systems. As they say yea though I walk through the halls of Microsoft. I will feel no peer pressure. For I am the meanest programmer in the valley. If you don't believe me, just ask my wife. If you don't believe that, then how about a nerd with a laptop? No? Well humm, how about a geek with a tablet? Okay, okay, how about an old man with three desktops and only one working key board and a wireless mouse? Oops, you found me out lol, until next prompt. |
What inspired you to Blog? I like to keep all the funny stuff I find that either have happen to me or I see around me. My idea being to write a story using the funny part. I basically use my blog for comic relief. Some times I find a lot of amusing things. The other thing I do with it was I would once a week on Sunday or Monday tell about my week. I do that as part of my WDC goals I made with the Story Mistress. I ran across the most funniest doing reviewing so my blog is more about reviewing. About some of the reviews I got and some of the mistakes I have made as well. I know I am a bad newbie writer. I work on improving every day But you really have to laugh at some of the reviews I have gotten. Even the Story Master has one on a place holder that I found really funny. His point was people will review anything. I have reviews and ratings on my pictures for my contest page. It does get really amusing that good writers have time to review and rate graphics. I record a lot of humor, jokes, and funny happenings here. So when your looking for amusement start past the last three weeks and enjoy laughing with me as I learned about this website and all the nice people online here. |
The Newbie Corner Contest Design and Discussion Almost all contests use just one picture then add the rest around it. The components of a good contest page all have these components: 1). Main Graphic 2). Heading or title of contest 3). Contest description 4). Contest objectives and conditions 5). Contest Rules with starting date and ending date 6). Prizes 7). Judging 8). Will you get a review with your entry or not 9). Donations (group setup for donation bank) 10). Your contest prompt 11). Last minute instructions 12). Well what are you waiting for lets get this entry written! In my Article "Playing with Graphics" I showed you the first four components. As promised we will now discuss rules. {center}{size:5}{c:red}{b}THE RULES{/b}{/c}{/size}{/center} Example: THE RULES {e:crown}{size:3.5}{b}Only one entry per person, per round. Starting April 1st, 2014. (Notice I started my rules with the number of entries allowed. This is important for stories and to help out judges. I also included the start date. Now I also used a emoticon to set it apart. I enhanced the text size and I added bold to it, but I didn't color it. The reason is my page already has a lot of color the black bold actually off sets the page.) Example: Only one entry per person, per round. Starting April 1st, 2014.{e:crown} The deadline for entries is the last day of April the 30 @ 11:59PM WDC time. (I now set both my deadline for entries and the closing date. I also set the ending time as midnight. I use WDC time, it makes more sense to use the site time then my mountain standard time.) Example: The deadline for entries is the last day of April the 30 @ 11:59PM WDC time.{e:crown} Anything 300 to 2500 words or less is acceptable. (The idea here is to set the smallest size entry you will accept to maximum you want to read through to judge or expect your judges to wade through.) Example: Anything 300 to 2500 words or less is acceptable.{e:crown} We will except poetry max 40 lines please. (Next if you except poetry or not and the poem length you will except.) Example: We will except poetry max 40 lines please.{e:crown} Please include a word or line count at the beginning or end of your story. (where you want them to show the prompt and word count at.) Example: Please include a word or line count at the beginning or end of your story.{e:crown} This is Fantasy/Horror/Humor/ fiction18+ rating or lower please, cross genre is very welcome. Please keep all titles and {indent}descriptions 13+. (I used this line to tell everyone what genre I was accepting entries for and the rating we needed things set to.) Example: This is Fantasy/Horror/Humor/ fiction18+ rating or lower please, cross genre is very welcome. Please keep all titles and descriptions 13+.{e:crown} Post your entry as a bitem link in the forum below. Example: {bitem:1973531} looks like:"Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor (Next show everyone what the entry form should be this way we don't have the entries posted in the forum and they get ignored or skipped. In my example use your own contest id number. As much as I like free advertising this part wouldn't look good if you used my contest.)Example: Post your entry as a bitem link in the forum below. Example: {bitem:1973531} looks like:
{e:Crown} I would like new items only (i.e. must have been created between the opening and closing dates of the current round), but I will except old entry's as long as they match the prompt. (This part is what are you willing to accept old, new, other contest winners, and so on. This is up to you after all it is your contest.) Example: I would like new items only (i.e. must have been created between the opening and closing dates of the current round), but I will except old entry's as long as they match the prompt.{e:crown} You may edit your stories at any time before the deadline. However, they may be judged at any point after the contest deadline, so there are no guarantees that any changes you make after the deadline will be considered by the judges. (This is one of the most important parts to any contest. We as writers are always reviewing our work and polishing it up. You have to set a deadline on this or risk hurt feelings if they edit it after the judge reviewed it.) Example: You may edit your stories at any time before the deadline. However, they may be judged at any point after the contest deadline, so there are no guarantees that any changes you make after the deadline will be considered by the judges.{e:crown} You may edit your stories at any time before the deadline. However, they may be judged at any point after the contest deadline, so there are no guarantees that any changes you make after the deadline will be considered by the judges. (Here you are stating that judging is final no arguments or second chances etc... This stops hard feelings because if they posted an entry then they agree with your rules.) Example: You may edit your stories at any time before the deadline. However, they may be judged at any point after the contest deadline, so there are no guarantees that any changes you make after the deadline will be considered by the judges.{e:crown} There must be at least two (2) eligible entries to award first place. There must be at least four (4) eligible entries to award first and second place. There must be at least six (6) entries in order for all three places to be given out. This is a contest, not a "win by default" situation. If there are fewer than two entries in any given round, a consolation prize will be awarded. Honorable mentions (and the prizes for such) may be given at the judges' discretion. (This is the single most important part of every contest you set the rules for prize awarding for you and your judges. This way you don't get one entry winners the other way to do this is extend the round.) Example: There must be at least two (2) eligible entries to award first place. There must be at least four (4) eligible entries to award first and second place. There must be at least six (6) entries in order for all three places to be given out. This is a contest, not a "win by default" situation. If there are fewer than two entries in any given round, a consolation prize will be awarded. Honorable mentions (and the prizes for such) may be given at the judges' discretion.{/b}{/size} I ended my size and bold here because I may want different in the prizes. {{indent} Now we get to the part everyone like the prizes! Now what prizes you offer is up to you. I will give you a bunch of examples this way you can pick and choose what is best for you. {center}{size:5}{b}{c:red}PRIZES{/c} ~ {c:violet}PRIZES{/c} ~ {c:red}PRIZES{/c}{/b}{/size}{/center} Example: PRIZES ~ PRIZES ~ PRIZES There are my Prizes I use in my contest: {center}{size:4.5}{b}1ST PLACE:{/b}{/size} {size:3.5}{b} 25K Awardicon sent and or Mailed to you An appropriate Merit Badge sent and or Mailed to you. Along with 10,000 GPs.{/b}{/size} (Now lets show how expensive this is. The Awardicon is 25k plus to mail it is another 25k. The Merit badge is 10k and 25k to send it, and the nice sum of 10k gps. The grand total is 95k for first place. Example: 1ST PLACE: 25K Awardicon sent and or mailed to you An appropriate Merit Badge sent and or Mailed to you. Along with 10,000 GPs. {center}{size:4.5}{b}2ND PLACE:{/b}{/size} {size:3.5}{b}10K Awardicon sent and or mailed to you. An appropriate Merit Badge sent and or mailed to you. 5,000 GPs.{/b}{/size}{/center} (Lets look at second place totals. 10k Awardicon plus 25k to mail it. 10k merit badge plus 25k to mail it, and 5k gps. For a grand total of 75k gps.) Example: 2ND PLACE: 10K Awardicon sent and or mailed to you. An appropriate Merit Badge sent and or mailed to you. 5,000 GPs. {center}{size:4.5}{b}3RD PLACE:{/b}{/size} {size:3.5}{b}10K Awardicon mailed to you OR appropriate Merit Badge mailed to you OR 10,000 GPs your choice you have to let us know what you prefer (judges' choice unless specified in entry post.) (Lets take a look at this pay out it is either 25k or 10k depending on choice. My contest could pay out 195 gps total or 180 gps depending on choices. Now I want you to notice that I uses the center command on the title and I closed it at the last line of the prize category. and it centered the whole category thus proving you don't need it every line. Example: 3RD PLACE: 10K Awardicon mailed to you OR appropriate Merit Badge mailed to you OR 10,000 GPs your choice you have to let us know what you prefer (judges' choice unless specified in entry post.) {center}{size:4.5}{b}HONORABLE MENTIONS: (OPTIONAL){/b}{/size} {size:3.5}{b}5,000 GPs (Judges will decide on these if any.){/b}{size}{/center} ((indent}}This last piece is optional at times you will get entries that are good. But not good enough to place this way you can still reward them to keep them trying. Example: HONORABLE MENTIONS: (OPTIONAL) 5,000 GPs (Judges will decide on these if any.) Lets take a look at this next set of prizes Darleen has set hers up different then the standard set I was using. If you want to see them as designed go here "Invalid Item" by A Guest Visitor First Place (Worth 60k) (Choice of ONE Combo OR Bankroll upon winning)  Combo A: 25k awardicon + physical awardicon Combo B : 10k Awardicon + Physical Awardicon + 15k GPs Combo C: 10k MB + Physical MB + 15k GPs Combo D 10k Awardicon + 10k MB + Either a matching Physical Awardicon or Physical MB + 5k GPs Bankroll: 50k GPs**All combos and the Bank Roll for 1st Place now include a Dark Dreamscapes Group Badge and a home in "Dark Dreamscapes Winners Gallery" Second Place (Worth 45k) (Choice of ONE Combo OR Bankroll upon winning) Combo A: 10k Awardicon + matching Physical Awardicon Combo B: 10k MB + matching physical MB Combo C: 10k Awardicon+ 10k Badge + 15k Bankroll: 35k in GPs**All combos and the Bank Roll for 2nd Place now include a Dark Dreamscapes Group Badge and a home in "Dark Dreamscapes Winners Gallery" Third place (Worth 30k) (Choice of ONE Combo OR Bankroll upon winning) Combo A: 10k Awardicon + 10k Combo B: 10k MB + 10k Bankroll: 20k GPs**All combos and the Bank Roll for 3rd Place now include a Dark Dreamscapes Group Badge and a home in "Dark Dreamscapes Winners Gallery" Honorable Mention Honorable Mention in the "Dark Dreamscapes Winners Gallery"Honorable mentions are at judges discretion Notice how she is controlling the prize costs her max is 135k but she is offering a placement in a hall of fame as well in lieu of GPs. Now lets say you want to run a contest you don't have a bankroll to help you out. A lot or writers join contests for reviews of their work as well as the GP or prizes. You know we all have one gift every writer appreciates. The gift of reviewing. I have seen some contests just offer reviews starting with 10 reviews first place, five reviews second place and 3 reviews third place. With 1 review for honorable mention. If you decided to do this make sure to allow yourself enough time to complete those reviews. And never offer what you cannot do. These are only recommendations not something set in stone please feel free to take and modify as needed. Next week is judging and the rest. Brett ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
The Newbie Corner Playing With Graphics We all see these awesome pictures in contests, Newsletters, group pages, lotteries, and activities. I know the burning questions are how do they do it? The one thing to keep in mind is to play with pictures is you have to have an upgraded account.Some of it is a simple thing to play with. Some of it not so simple. Allow me to tell you my graphic miss adventures. First off pictures other than ones you have taken, can be, and most likely are copyrighted. Those are not free to use. I find most of my graphic picture on Google I search for free clip art and the subject I need for instance space ship. Now some sites even if they give it away free they put their tag or site name all over it kind of marking it all up and making it not useful. Now sure we could get a graphics design program like Gimp or Paint and edit them out. If you do then you just violated the copyright so I just avoid those graphics. Lets say we find a good one. Now just how do we insert this graphic into our page. First we have size limitations on this website the Story Master has wisely set the picture size to 400 by 400. If you mouse over the graphic you want it will show you the size. Also the physical size in kb is set to100 that WDC allows. Again that information is shown in the mouse over. Okay our pic is 137 by 390 and is 47kb in size now what. Simple you right click on it and select save image as. You then put it in your picture storage area and name it something like Spaceship. if it doesn't already have a name Now I go to my port and I can store it in my port or leave it on my hard drive. Lets say I need it in my port because I will reuse it now and then. I do create and select image and fill out the form. Writing.Com 101 has a great help article on how to do this. Now I select the graphic from your picture storage and hit save and view done. The hardest part is done. Next we go to our port and create a static item. If you have trouble with this go to Writing.com 101 in the top right corner of your screen and bring it up and find creating static items. Now that we have that part done and sitting in the body. We inject the picture into the page the command is {image:1981658} (This is an old steam tractor.) Now we have placement controls we can use on it {center}{/center} Example: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Did you know {left} {/left} {right} {/right} will work as well with pictures and text. No not use any justification with pictures it doesn't end well. However you can use it on the text to pull it all to one side or the other opposite. Did you know you can scale the picture. The command is {image:1981658-50%} the number can be from 1 to 100. Example: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Now if you want to play with bigger pictures you will need a premium account. Since I don't have one I will not mess with large pictures. Besides you can be very creative with small pictures and even smaller pictures. A lot of people will use these small pictures to create flower pieces they use as page breaks. They are like 37 by 400. Me I add real nice pictures together to stretch out to 400 and shrink them down to 37 or less. Now I have half a page page break Next I made a second bar the same way Now I put the two together like this {center}{image:1973846}{image:1973847}{/center}. Example: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** What I'm showing you here is the start of a contest form if copy the pieces over you will have the start of a page. To do a contest page design I first create a static page. I create a contest title: {Size:5}{center}{c:blue}{b}YOUR CONTEST TITLE HERE!{/b}{/c}{/center}{/size} Example: Off The Wall: Bomber Verses Gremlin {Size:3.5}{b}“Gremlin an imaginary mischievous sprite regarded as responsible for an unexplained problem or fault, especially a mechanical or electronic one. From the 1940s, originally as RAF slang, and perhaps suggested by goblin.”{/b}{/size} Example: “Gremlin an imaginary mischievous sprite regarded as responsible for an unexplained problem or fault, especially a mechanical or electronic one. From the 1940s, originally as RAF slang, and perhaps suggested by goblin.” {image:1973455}{size:5}{c:red}{b}Verses{/b}{/c}{/size}{image:1973458}{image:1973471} Example: ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Verses ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** At this point you decide what your restrictions are or what you want your contest to be about and you set up your text on it here. Example: My Idea for this contest is to write a story based on: 1). The B-24 bomber and one of the two gremlins pictured above. 2). It must be based on a real WWII bombing mission or raid. 3). It can involve real people 4). The details of the B-24 must stay within the design limits of the airplane. 5). Here are three websites that can help you keep it real: http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/ploesti.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-24_Liberator http://acepilots.com/planes/b24.html 6). I give you full author’s privilege on the gremlins and the characters. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Next week we will go into prizes and what to offer and what not to offer. I will also discuss rules and judging. Brett ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Prompt: What five (5) colors best represent your personality? 1). My favorite color is dark blue.When I'm in my color I'm at my most happiest times and I feel the most happiest. 2). My next favorite color is white It is just cooler to wear during the hot summers than dark colors. 3). Next favorite color is green the nice soft green grass I have to mow every two weeks. Well I don't I just make one of my sons do it. While I watch. 4). I love red especially on some one elses car. I always slow down and let them pass me. So I can wait and wave back to them as the highway patrol pull them over. After all they don't call bright red "Hello officer red" for nothing! 5). The last favorite color is violet mostly because my wife loves it and it is the color that puts her in her color. So she puts up with my blue I adore her in purple lol. How many of you remember the old poem: Roses are red, Violets are blue. Sugar is sweet, And so are you! Do you remember any different variations to it? PS Thank you for your replies yesterday I tried to reply back but the reply kept giving me errors. |
| Your Five Favorite Toys As A Child. You know my most favorite toy was a screw driver and pair of pliers. I could take apart my toy Tonka trucks, and then put them back together again. The ones that I couldn't figure out how to put back together again. I used the miscellaneous pieces to make a play spaceship control panel. I would spend hours exploring our solar system using that control panel. The many adventures I would have with my brothers. We would bring down our bicycles and tip them upside down. Using the front wheel as the space ship steering wheel. When we wanted our ship to go faster. We would use the pedals as if they were the ships drive engines. We would go crank up the pedals until the tire was spinning as fast as we could force it to. What fun we had exploring and riding around the neighborhood on our bikes throwing crab apples or small green apples at each other. We liked to pretend the crab apples were our space gun bullets. We would use the cap guns we got for birthdays or Christmas and shot up all the caps we bought that day shooting each other. We did more playing with simple things than we did with expensive toys. I believe my parents made sure they never got us expensive toys because I would tear them up. Which at the time was probably very true. |
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