“Does it drive you crazy when someone doesn’t get what you’re saying and your itchy fingers want to type out a comment explaining what the reader is missing?”
More than I thought it would, expecially since a couple readers have misinterpreted a detail in a way which in their minds reflects inaccurately on my character. Nothing bad enough for the moderator to yank, but enough to annoy me that I'll have to wait at least a week to respond.
“How many of you out there who haven’t had any of their stories put up are screaming at the screen, waiting for them to pop up?”
It took a while, but the first one showed. That, plus the estimated schedule Steve posted, have made me more patient for the rest.
“Do you think you put less effort into one or more of your stories because you knew you had three chances with this contest?”
Not intentionally. My procrastination had more of an impact on quality than the 3-story allowance.
"If you could, would you take back your story and tweak it more?”
I would take back one and restore it to a longer format where it fits more comfortably, and submit new flash piece now that I've had some better ideas. I'm still comfortable about the others, but they haven't been posted yet.
“Have the comments really affected how you view your story?”
Yeah, it made it a lot easter to see that some "hints" were obvious only to me, and that I squeezed a huge story into a format where it really didn't belong. Plus, the whole misinterpretation thing that I mentioned for the first question.
“While writing your story, did you know you were putting information that could be confusing or unwelcome by the readers and smiled when people confirmed your thoughts?”
No, I wouldn't have done that unless my intention was to leave some major aspect open to interpretation, and I wasn't adventurous enough to try that in this contest.
“Who is bringing what to the coming out party?”
I should probably bring DVD of a certain Alex Proyas film, for reasons I'll make more apparent in a week.
“What is your preferred story length?”
I have a growing collection of what I like to call "novel stubs," but I think I'd do well in the 4-5k range, or for flash, around 700 words or so.
“Anyone here already published in other venues?”
None that anyone's heard of, but a decade ago my high school literary magazine picked a couple of my short stories, and in college I had two articles (nonfiction) in my college engineering magazine (and even got paid, barely)
"Did any of your stories come from a longer version that was written out or at least thought out in your head?"
All 3 were intitially written in longer form. One was written specifically for the contest, and pared down by 60 words or so to fit the limit. Another was adapted from a 1000-word draft I threw together a month before. And the other was an edited scene from a longer prologue to and even longer novel I haven't finished yet.
"How hard did you find it to limit yourself to 300 words?"
It was tough since I was starting with much bigger ideas and trying to only pick out the most essential parts of them, and obviously hardest on the ones that started out longer. But I also enjoyed being forced to rip out the deadwood and make each story more compelling, even if some health (and treasured) green wood went with it.
"How much detail do you guys want from the authors when they are revealed? Are you deeply curious how they came up with the story and what their intentions are?"
If varies with how much I cared about each story I read, or how interesting the discussion got. Also, I joined the forum for this contest and don't "know" many other posters yet, but as I learn I become acquainted with the more interesting or prolific posters, I'm curious if they wrote and what.
