Travel to the edge of madness in an unreasonable educational class on job employment, as hosted by the mildly insane, usually unethical, and generally not-so-helpful Dr. Snarg Figarnargadarg. Learn at your own risk. Getting employed and making money is not guaranteed. No refunds given for time spent.

With the next President everything will be absolutely perfect. If not with that one, then surely the one after. And thus the endless cycle of political dissatisfaction continues. That's why writing (or reading) is a much more fun hobby than the bottomless pit that is politics.

To be fair, I wouldn't blame someone for living in the past and pretending the current presidency never happened. And in that past IronPanther would be active still. So maybe Bucky is onto something! Hard to say though. Concussions are serious business, and nobody is more serious about business than IronPanther. 

Go figure this would be one of the few threads I'd click on when looping by a minute, since I normally don't check the forums. I still come by every now and then to read a few stories though, even if I'm not logging in. I can probably proofread/test a few over the weekend.

Oh I had forgotten entirely about this. Wasn't too interested in the story, since I don't really enjoy romance or school focused stuff, but I'm usually open to reading whatever occasionally and would have read through it if it ever got finished. 

In hindsight I probably should have taken Mizal's approach and just planned to paypal some money directly at some point. I contributed a bit towards the Kickstarter due to being empathetic towards his situation, since I was preparing for a similar experience, while also trying to be supportive of him seemingly doing something constructive while recovering. I can respect someone who tries to work through that. I can't respect someone who makes false promises that involve other people's money.

I had a pretty major surgery last fall, with some annoying post-op complications, and unexpected medical bills can add up really quickly even with solid insurance. So I know exactly the kind of financial pressure that can make. My solution was to work a lot of extra hours ahead of time to save additional money, and also setting up some opportunities to have the option to work from home more indefinitely.

Anyway that's one the reasons I haven't been around on this site for quite a while, since there's only so many hours in a day and you can't always do everything you'd like to do depending on life circumstances. It's also why I could feel for Seth's situation at the time.

In general the best way to handle giving money is to never expect anything back and to not give more than you can afford to spare. In that way you don't ever worry about it, and if someone eventually pays you back then it can be a pleasant positive. In the case of a Kickstarter though, you're setting up an obligation to your backers to complete your project no matter how long it takes. Or at the very least give an in-depth look into what you worked on, how much got done, and why you couldn't finish it. While it didn't really impact me, I am disappointed in Seth for all the people who pledged and were expecting something to enjoy out of it.

Remember the goal for most isn't necessarily to win (except for those who made that bet), but to write a solid story by the deadline. It's easy to get caught up in trying to make something as good as possible, to the point that you never complete it. 

It's better to publish something average and live up to your obligation, than to aim for perfection and complete nothing at all. Normally storygames have no deadline and it's fine to take the time you need to finish. But a contest you've entered has a set timetable, and giving up points to enter is a commitment saying you'll do it.

Points are arbitrary and don't mean anything in the grand scheme of life, but the ability to stand by your word and do what you say you'll do is a valuable skill both online and offline. That's why I encourage people to not back out after already entering.

I'm confident that most here can write a solid story that meets the minimum site requires, even over this last weekend from scratch. 3.5K words = a 4/8 story length and I've seen some really decent shorter CYOA stories here. 

I agree email activation would be a good step to add. Having an age limit on registration, I have more mixed feelings on. Most younger kids probably wouldn't contribute much, and are more prone to get their feelings hurt, but that doesn't mean all of them are not interested in sharing their writing and improving it. Though there's probably sites that are a little more kid-friendly, so even if we lost a few registrations, they'll still have other places to accomplish the same thing.

Nice, congrats to both Romulus and Berka! 

This had an amazing turnout and it was great we got so many entries. As usual I had a fun time reading through everything. I enjoyed seeing all the different approaches people took within the tight word count.

Honestly I had a tough time defining edgy. That's probably why mine had everything ranging from a "screamo community band" to poetry at the end, with a bunch of predictable nonsense along the way. It had some variation, but was too busy.

Roughly, I view edgy as breaking the norms of society, sometimes for the sake of it and without reason other than to appear "edgy" to others. It doesn't actually have to be violent or disturbing, but that's the most straightforward way to approach it.

This contest was a creative idea, thanks for hosting it and taking the time to do the edgy mini-reviews for everybody. As anyone who's talked with me knows, I'm probably one of the least edgy people on the site. I do have a sense of humor at least. So of course I had to dive in and give it a try, because it looked like too much fun to sit out for.

I did actually read through all of the stories. Congrats to Breezy for failing the least on this one. Mizal's was probably my favorite of the bunch since I'm a sucker for sci-fi, aside from EndMaster's posts.

Even though I don't post much, I do read the newsletters and enjoy your short stories.

If you're using a keyboard, then holding ctrl + v is an easy way to paste things. And ctrl + c for copying.