There are ~3700 people in this contest split into 100 groups. I didn't know it was that big.

So, there are at least 36 people in my group. The top 15 stories get points - 15 for 1st, 14 for 2nd, and so on. The second round is automatic participation for everyone, so the points in the first and second round get added together, and the top 5 scores move onto the third round.

I placed 6th! 10 points!

I'm already happy with the story on its own, but this is extremely validating. I wonder how I would have done if I'd hit the prompts harder, or differently.

I took a risk using the early 90s for historical fiction... and my references to it were a little hazy. And the point of view made it so it could have just been a story told from the present. Out of the seven stories posted in the forum, the latest was the 1920s. The waterfall was the location for maybe a third of the story, so even though the crux of the story took place there, I probably got docked for that. The hard-boiled egg was fine, I think, though there is discussion of a fried egg in the first part of the story. There's a reason we switch to hard-boiled!

I don't know. I'll find out when the feedback shows up sometime today or tomorrow. I'm not as anxious about receiving that as I got about hearing back about the dang points.

So, yeah. 10 points! This gives me a fighting chance at the third round. Second round prompts come at 11pm tomorrow, and we'll just see what happens. I had Dan give me a practice prompt a few days ago. I tried to work on it but got all stuck and couldn't motivate myself to work on it. Hopefully that was just a case of not being able to focus while waiting for the results, and not having the external motivation.

I was trying to use a character I'd already come up with though. Maybe the thing to learn is that having an existing thing to work from doesn't mean success. That's helpful to know before I go into the next round.

I keep practicing. I've been giving my body a little break from the desk because I am definitely feeling the two months I've been sitting here. Has it been so long? It really has. And I have things to show for it. A bunch of notes on a d&d game. This story. That fairy tale. 400 terrible words about a vampire. 7000 words of a sexy story Dan and I have been trading off.

That last one is a whole thing on its own. We're on another level, and navigating it well.