Oops! Picture Story Challenge 2013

Congrats to all the winners in the Oops challenge 2013. There were some very thought provoking and imaginative stories this time around. I'm very proud to see my story in 6th place runner up. I want to give a hardy thanks to those who voted, and all the fantastic comments I received on it. (Babysitting Surprise).

Jools, don't you dare retire from writing.

Flopsy, Febs, and all the admins: Thank you once again for putting together another great challenge.

Pat aka Bendover

Congratulations to all the participants of the contest and a big handshake to all the winners and runners up.

This was my first contest and i thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of writing to a set of pictures. i didn't realise that you could comment on the stories whilst the competition was on otherwise i would have made some comments on the stories i liked. At least i will know for the next one.

I would just like to say thank you very much for all the people who voted for my story. I was away for a bit with limited Internet access and only just got back to discover the results. It came as a very pleasant surprise to see that Earning her Stripes did so well. In all honesty I have to say that there were quite a few better stories that mine in the challenge and everyone who entered or took the time to read and vote deserves credit for their efforts.

I read most of the stories and commented on most of the ones I read and I have to say there were some exceptionally imaginitive and well-written stories this time. I'm glad I didn't submit one this time because the few ideas I had were quite prosaic and I didn't really have the time to fully flesh them out. I'd rather not submit a story for competition if it's not something I can really feel good about from a quality standpoint.

Congratulations to the winners and the runners-up. Good jobs!

As I was discussing with another author, while I'm reading them I feel like I'm underwater each time I look at the long list I still face, but now as the thank you notes for the comments I left continue to pop, I'm spending time actually returning to the stories to remind myself of the plot and style and I found a few new authors to follow. It's also fun to get pop ups pouring in and all these conversations going. What a great community!
Congratulations to all readers and writers.

I must say I think this was a most successful challenge, especially as I ended up in the top three this time I'm trying not to let it go to my head, though, (you better believe it!) as what these challenges really teach us is how differently we judge and appreciate stories. I am sure there is a thesis in literary sociology hidden in the statistics and comments of the various challenges.

As others have already pointed out, the greatest asset of the challenges is probably that they help build the feeling of a real community by focusing the discussion for a while. And, of course, they create a big opportunity for discovering new authors.

OK Alef...I am sure you are waiting for someone to bite....so I will be the sucker.

Jools and I agree, you and the other winners are in a class of your own.

I am considering asking the admins to set up a Division 2 for Jools, myself and 4 others (TBD) where we will have a fighting chance of being placed amongst the winners as there will only be six participants in our division, and six places given.

Another option I am considering is to outsource the writing of my next challenge entry to Rollin.

I've just had a look at the list of all ten challenges up till now. I noticed this: except for the poetry challenge 2011 and through the keyhole challenge 2012
Rollin is always in the list of winners. CONGRATULATIONS!

Sorry dear gail, you are not a contender, since your story has 34 comments!

And it's not the winning I care about at all! I just like to bask in the thousands of adulatory comments!

Don't feel too bad Jools. My story challenge entry "only" got 16 comments, which, as far as I can tell, is the fewest number of comments of any of the 72 entries. (I can only assume that readers were rendered so speechless by my talents that they couldn't think of anything more that needed to be said!) Yeah, that's what it was.

Shouldn't I win some sort of ribbon for that honor? Like a razzie, or a rotten tomato, or like the guy chosen last in the NFL draft?