dr_phil_physics | Putting You On Notice

For obvious reasons that will become clear, I cannot get you any details. But if you submitted a story to the Writers of the Future 4th Quarter contest that closed at midnight on September 30th, be advised that you're only competing for two prizes.

Because I've got a lock on one of the three.

Sure, I was a Published Finalist Not A Winner in WOTF Volume XXIV. But I still have eligibility. And Published Finalists have come back to win the contest -- Eric James Stone was one. I met him at the WOTF workshop in California back in 2008.

Joni Labaqui from WOTF thinks I may have the longest continuous streak of entries -- from 30 June 2002 to present. Twelve years plus two quarters.

Yup. This should be magic number 50.

Even being in the hospital last year, I managed to find a story that I hadn't sent in one quarter and then wrote a 17,000 word story on my Amazon Kindle Fire HD with a stylus for the next quarter.

Which brings us to 30 September 2014. After a weekend of exam grading and company, I finally got to my story around 11pm. Deadline is midnight, but midnight PDT, so I had time. I usually give myself a deadline of midnight ET, but like I said, I had a late start. Pleasant surprise... I found that the story I had started in the beginning of the month was actually pretty far along. In better shape than I remembered.

I had fired up ZEPPELIN, the big Toshiba Windows 7 laptop I had inherited from Wendy, for readability reasons. Not because I was enthused with writing in Microsoft Word 2010. Two hours later, about 1am EDT, I had a good solid 3000 words, had read it, reread it aloud, turned it into an RTF file and submitted it.

That was Tuesday night. Wednesday evening I printed it out and read it again. No typos. Huh, a clean story? Left it out for Mrs. Dr. Phil to read. Yeah, I know that defeats the purpose of having a first reader, to give them the story AFTER it ships. (evil-grin) Thursday night, she read it. I hear a voice from the bedroom.

"You have a winner."

"Did you find any typos?"

"No."

"Really?" "Really."

Unheard of. Mrs. Dr. Phil was still raving about the story Friday night. A perfect story, first draft.

Yes, yes, I know. It doesn't matter if my wife, my mother or my mother-in-law love my stories. They like my writing. They aren't buying it.

But a clean, moving story? I will do my happy dance... in my head, 'cause with my leg, I ain't dancin' anywhere anytime soon. (dancing-fool-grin) Because if WOTF takes leave of their senses and doesn't take it for Volume XXXI, someone else will. ****

Now I tried to post this taunt on the WOTF Forum, so the writers there could have a little fun with it. But alas, the forum ate the post. I should remember to always do Select All | Copy before hitting Submit on that site -- it has happened before. So I shall crow to the world here -- By Grabthar's Hammer I SHALL be in WOTF Volume XXXI !

Or not. We'll see. (grin)

But there's nothing like feeling like you got one... Back to writing...

Dr. Phil

**** - I have terrible luck with contests. Remember, I've not won WOTF in 49 previous attempts. I can just see it now... getting a second Published Finalist. I think someone has done that before, I don't remember. Wonder if anyone has ever had three Published Finalists? (idle-speculation-grin)