Hi,
I don't see in the rules where you have to be registered in these forums to submit for the contest, but I love Pseudopod, so what the heck.
Also, I wanted to throw in a comment or two about the "word killing" issue. That is, there's a lot of advice about writing out there and I think most of it needs to be taken with an attitude of flexibility. Fiction is an art--one of the more important arts, I think. Which means that innovation is crucial, and therefore that strict rules are anathema. If you're stuck or want to put some spin on your writing process, advice from other writers can be great. But there's a danger that some of that stuff might settle in and calcify, which would be unhelpful.
My real point though is that I think that horror fiction is a special case when it comes to eradicating adjectives and adverbs. As a reader, I like horror fiction to be a little bit purple. I don't exactly care what happens in a Lovecraft story. I just want to put my head in that world where all the stones are damp and the caverns are immense and forbidding. And a glance at the first paragraph of the Fall of the House of Usher indicates that florid verbiage might be an important tool in delivering horrifying effects. It at least creates an atmosphere. I don't remember what happens in House of Usher, but I remember it being pretty cool.
But yeah, try to do that in less than five hundred words. Less easy.
Can't wait till March 3 to see the variety of things that get submitted.