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Fall 2007 Contest

 
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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Sat Sep 08, 2007 7:57 am    Post subject: Fall 2007 Contest Reply with quote

Greetings!

The new contest is ready to go and the theme is Pumpkins.

Scotty

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Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up.
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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Sat Oct 06, 2007 12:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Greets, Peeps!

We are a little more than half-way through the writing period for this quarter's contest. How many here are going to enter? The deadline to enter is the last day of October at midnight GMT (in England). The contest is on for fall 2007!


Special note: I desperately need to recode the website and with all that's happening and running the contest, it's hard to find time to do the coding. So, there is the strong possibility I will not hold a contest for winter 2007-2008. And I have a nice theme picked out for winter too. Confused

If I do skip this winter, the contest will be back March 1st 2008. This is the normal schedule:
Code:
            Normal Schedule             
+--------+--------------------+---------+
|Quarter |Write               |Judge    |
+--------+--------------------+---------+
|Spring  |March & April       |May      |
|Summer  |June & July         |August   |
|Fall    |September & October |November |
|Winter  |December & January  |February |
+--------+--------------------+---------+


For anyone thinking of sitting out the fall quarter and jumping back in this winter... Sad

Scotty

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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 11:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Prizes


I've been procrastinating.

I had a stone in mind for 2007, but I've done very little to procure any. Then someone told me the location I was counting on produced the wrong color of stone, so I came up with an alternate plan to use a different stone and different theme for 2007. I didn't act on that plan either.

Friday and Saturday I attended a writer's mini-conference in Manitou Springs. I had some free time at lunch on Friday and wandered the downtown area... well two stores anyway. One was a rock shop called The Claim Jumper. They had my primary choice stone sorted into trays according to the mine it came from. One tray had the most amazing color, really stunning. Perfect! Unfortunately, the pieces they had were just chips and very few were larger than a thumbnail. They also wanted $50 (US) per ounce, which seemed a bit steep for raw stones.

Fired up I knew I needed to get my stones! The sooner the better. I resolved to call the local mine and see if the rumors were untrue, see if they had any stones in the color I wanted. If they didn't I resolved to grab my pack come Monday and make climb to The Sentinel (rock formation) and procure some of my own secondary choice stones. The Claim Jumper had some specimens of my secondary choice for $20, $30, even $40 each, but they looked like garbage compared to what I have in my junk box--and I know there are much better specimens on that mountainside.

I got off the phone with the Bad Boys mine a bit ago and they do occasionally run into "my" color. In fact she said they just opened a new vein of that color, so I'm heading up to the mine on Monday at about noon to see if they have the shade I covet, size I envision, and if we can come to an agreement. I'll take $80 with me for three stones, but I also need to have one face cut and polished. I know a guy here in town who would cut them for cheap (I need to do spring, summer, and fall).

If the Bad Boys have the stones, I will have them in hand and possibly cut by Monday evening. If not then I'll head up to the Sentinel Tuesday morning, rock breaking tools in hand. If that fails I'll go back to The Claim Jumper and pick up some "chips". At any rate, I'll have the stones by Wednesday afternoon. As soon as I have something I'll post photos.


So why am I saying all this? Motivation.

If I can get my primary choice of stone in the color I envision, it will definitely arrest the attention of all who lay their gaze upon it. Much more spectacular than the gold ore from 2006. In 2008 I'll do something else.

So if you were thinking of entering the contest, now would be a good time to start writing. There are almost exactly ten days until the entry deadline. Ten days to come up with a winning idea, then write and perfect your story. I have decided to NOT hold a contest for winter. So this quarter is the last chance you'll have for awhile. It will be 131 days before I even announce the theme for the next contest.

You could wait until I post my photos to decide if you want to enter the contest this quarter, but if I don't post anything until Wednesday then you'll have only seven days of brain-wracking frenetic activity to try to produce a winning entry. I think you'll get better results if you give yourself ten days.


Virmir will get a trophy with this years stone for spring, and Renee Carter Hall (Poetigress) will get one for summer. Brass plaque engraving will take a week or three, but I hope to be able to mail out their trophies by mid-November at the latest. I have the wood backs (claro walnut) cut and partly sanded. I should get the first coat of finish applied tonight. The winner for fall will have their trophy mailed out early in December after the results are in.


I think next year I'll try to have the rocks in hand and announced (with photos) and trophies finished, before the close of the spring contest.

Scotty

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Virmir
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Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 107

PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh, wow! I had no idea there were trophies and stuff involved. That's so cool!

I did write a little something for this quarter, but it needs some serious re-tooling before it's presentable, so I'm 50/50 on whether I'll be able to get it done in time. Depends how this next weekend goes. Smile

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Virmir's Stories
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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 5:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I Have the Rocks!

Why a rock? Because to want to be an author you pretty much have to have rocks in your head. So as a contest prize I feel authors deserve a rock. However, if your writing is terrific enough to win a contest, then you deserve a terrific rock as a prize.

Announcing (very late) the award theme for 2007: The Blue Sky Award.

Blue skies are for dreamers. And who is more of a dreamer than an author of fiction? And what better rock to embody the blue sky than turquoise--the holy stone, the thread that connects the sky, earth, and sea.


I have my stones... cut and polished too. Monday afternoon I drove to the the Bad Boy's Mine in Cripple Creek and met with the mine owner David Graham. He didn't have as big a pieces in blue as I'd like (his mine produces a lot of green, including mint green and something he calls sea foam), but they were bigger than the chips at that rock shop. So we pawed through a collection of rough stones in a tray and a bucket, then touched promising pieces to a diamond wheel to get an idea of the colors within. After going through about two-dozen stones I had three I liked and we flattened one face on each and polished them. The color isn't ideal, but it's close. Also note that this photo was taken indoors under artificial light and they look greener in the photo than they do in reality. {edit: I've diddled the color on the photo and it looks better} See the stones Left to right: spring, summer, fall. The scale is in inches. The distortion is due to the craptastic quality of the macro lens and cheap digital camera.

David's mine produces some of the hardest turquoise in the USA and he does not "stabilize" (inject them with a plastic resin) or color his stones. These are 100% natural, as they came from the earth. The September 2001 issue of Rock and Gem magazine had an article about David's mine (Cripple Creek Turquoise: There's gold in that there turquoise! by Bob Jones). A very tiny percentage of his stones have yellow gold inclusions within the turquoise itself, not just the matrix. This is the only mine in the world producing such stones. Plenty of his stones do have either yellow gold or gold tellurides in the matrix. I did inspect these three stones under magnification and the middle stone has what looks like two tiny grains of telluride on the backside. Very tiny grains. More about turquoise and judging quality.


I will order the little brass name plates Tuesday. {edit: I'm using a different service this year and they are done already; I have the name plates now and it's only Wednesday}

Scotty

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Kantaro wrote:
Almost real enough to be considered non-fiction, if it weren't made up.
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ScottyDM
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Joined: 12 Feb 2005
Posts: 1142
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA

PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 6:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Contest Results!

The Pumpkin Patch by Vixyy Fox won with a total score of 4.46

Children Shouldn’t Play by Virmir had a total score of 3.80

Under the Shadows of Orange Sentinels by Vaperfox had a total score of 3.56

Thanks to all the authors for some really great stories and thanks to all those who read and scored the stories.

I'll will be working on a whole new site design during the winter 2007 - 2008 quarter, so there will be no contest for this quarter. Anyone who wishes to be on the site beta test team (maybe in February) go to the contact me page and send me an e-mail. The new site is on a different URL and I won't be posting the test URL except to e-mail.

Thanks again, and the next contest starts March 1st.

Scotty

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