pensnest | Entries tagged with dragon challenge

For five years I ran a Dragon Challenge, which opened for sign-ups on St George's Day (23rd April) and went live on D-Day (6th June).

I signed up for the recent Dragon Big Bang Challenge, which seems to have died an unspectacular death, more's the pity. Absence of deadlines does my writing no favours! But I decided to post the story on D-Day anyway, so here it is.

This is a sequel to Dragon Country (also on AO3). In a world not unlike our own, Lance is an employment agent specialising in showbiz, Chris is a mechanic, JC is a sculptor and Adam Lambert wears dragon-hide boots. (NB Story carries a rape warning.)

Perceptions of Reality focuses more on Chris and JC. As the story begins, JC is preparing for the exhibition of his and Britney's art. Thanks to

chalcopyrite and

brandywine28 for the betas.

Perceptions of Reality.

Please note: this story contains a scene of rape and violence

( Read more... )

Written for

dragonbigbang 2014. With big thanks to my betas,

brandywine28 and

chalcopyrite

If you would like to read the story in one piece, it is up on my website here.

Please note: this story contains a scene of rape and violence.

Dragon-Country-Header

( Read more... )

It's D-Day again, so the stories for the Dragons/Dwarves/Dolphins/Diamonds/Demons challenge are now—or imminently—available.

I've changed things around a bit this time, for two reasons: one, that there were not many entrants this year, and it seemed a bit pointless to insist on the anonymity. Two, I've been rather busy with one thing and another this week and wouldn't have had time to get everything onto my website even if I had managed to finish my own entry before, um, two o'clock this morning.

So if you've written a DDDDD story for this year's challenge, please post it wherever suits you and comment with a link to the story. I'll edit this post as the other stories arrive.

HERE is the "Director's Cut" of the story Tabula Rasa, Lacuna Caeruleus by

ninjetti75.

Strange Brew is a brand new dragon story for this year from

syncalot.

Meddling hits more than one of the prompts, also brand new for this year, by

chalcopyrite.

Read! Enjoy! Send feedback!

My own offerings are several (for values of 'several' that equal 'ten') ficlets up in the CrackSparklePop community on DreamWidth (you don't need a DW account to read or comment). Two each featuring each Nsync and Backstreet boy, but I'll leave you to discover* who turns up where. Can be read in any order.

I An Association with Dolphins
II Sparkle
III Talking it up
IV The Steel Dragon
V Dreamer
VI Someday he'll be taller
VII Water Baby
VIII La Leyenda
IX Bargain
X Aces High

* or if you're desperate to know, you can ask me

I hope you guys will enjoy all the stories again this time round, please leave feedback! And if anyone decides to do a rec post or a commentary on everything, drop me a link. There won't be any more popslash Dragon Challenges from me, but we've had a good run and I'm very proud to have inspired more than a few of you into creating some wonderful stories that would otherwise never have been written.

Yay, Dragons!

It's St George's Day (and Shakespeare's birthday, and my Adorable Niece's birthday—Happy Birthday, Adorable Niece!), so it's time to sign up for the Dragon Challenge once again.

Dragons. Dwarves. Dolphins. Diamonds. Demons.

Your challenge is to write a popslash story using any (or all, if you are very brave) of the above in a literal, metaphorical, figurative or, er, other way. Minimum length just 500 words. Many fine stories have already been produced for this challenge (you can find them all at my website, here), and I hope there will be a few more hatched this year.

Stories will go live on D-Day, which is June 6th. As that is my birthday, and I'm planning to be out for quite a bit of the day, the deadline for submissions is Friday 4th June. So you have plenty of time! Stories will as usual be anonymous for the first week.

Who's for a Dragon Challenge, 2010?

It's just a week until St George's Day, which is of course the day on which I usually launch the Dragon Challenge. This year, I'm thinking Dragons, Dwarves, Dolphins, Diamonds... and Demons.

However, I'm also thinking, are there going to be any participants? After a steady dozen or so for the first three years, last year's Dragon Challenge ended up with just six stories, and since then the number of fresh popslash offerings being posted has dwindled in a most distressing way. Do you, yes, you, want to participate in a Dragon Challenge this year? I still believe firmly that there cannot be too many dragons in popslash, but I'm not going to run a challenge no-one cares about, so. Let me know. Will you write a story?

*

I forgot to go to singing practice yesterday. I'm going to do a duet of The Alto's Lament in our summer revue, but when we got back to the gym, Bun announced that her boyfriend (and his sister, and her boyfriend) would be arriving in forty-five minutes, and could we feed them lunch? I had, to be fair, told Bun's Boyfriend that this would be perfectly fine, but I'd forgotten... Anyway, lunch for seven was managed quite successfully, and then BB did not seem willing to de-snuggle from his Bun, but they had to go to Cardiff so eventually, then went. And I returned to my computer... which FAILED me. I had set it to give me an alarm about the 3pm singing, and it didn't. Still, I should have remembered. I was looking forward to it, after all.

Rehearsals are going quite nicely, although there are inevitable absences, very noticeable in such a small cast. But we set a new number last night, *and* the cast did a fair job on getting through my medley, which I set last Thursday.

*

I sold a mug. I'd done a handful of random celebrities, and George, the kindly chap in charge at Pots of Art, said he would be happy to display some of them in the window, and someone has bought the Marilyn Monroe mug. And this morning, George rang me up to ask if I might be able to do a Mohammed Ali mug, so I shall have to google for some likely-looking pictures. Hmm. It's a bit intimidating doing mugs to request, I have a greater obligation to get it right. I did manage an Angel of Healing (?) for my Beast, who is going to flit off to Manchester on the Sunday of Camp Sparkle to see a guild-mate, and wanted to give him a mug. Quite a challenge, that was, particularly since I had to start by painting bits white, and it's not that easy to see where you've painted white on a very pale cream mug.

Any more Camp Sparklers wanting a mug done?

Shockingly late in the day, because I've spent a lot of it hastening around hither and thither, desperately trying to be Organised, and quite a lot of the rest stuffing things into envelopes... the Dragon Challenge Author Reveal.

Many thanks to the following—did anyone guess them?

Galatea - Chalcopyrite
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1392.html

Grounded - Raven
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1693.html

JC in the Sky with Diamonds - Solariana
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/882.html

Lights All Faded - Musicboxgirl
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/597.html

Snufflekisses - Pen
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/277.html

Tabula Rasa, Lacuna Caeruleus - Ninjetti
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1049.html

Us of Lesser Gods - Sami B
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1876.html

I'll be putting the author names up on the website tomorrow, and adjust the email link to send feedback to you directly; if I've got your author name wrong, just drop me a comment.

Thank you all for participating. I *think* I'll actually be able to read your stories now!

Okay, a *busy* couple of days during which I have produced poster, tickets, order forms, letters, and many emails, relating to the change of show. Phew. All left to do is post more than 300 letters. Joy.

So Bun and I went off to Milton Keynes to potter about the shops and look at beds—she (naturally) has expressed a desire for a new bed. We were distracted by fabulous hats in John Lewis, really, I wish I had a wedding to go to (so much more fun than a funeral, on the whole). Bun looks good in the 'fascinator' type, a confection of twiny bits and feathers that looks as though it alighted on the head, whereas I like hats of substance, which were definitely Put There.

And we saw a raspberry-pink limo on the way home, which made me yearn all the more for a JC concert to which I may travel in one. But perhaps next time Backstreet are here it will be time for a limo. Really, I must ride in a pink limo. It is necessary.

Dragon Challenge author reveal is tomorrow (probably afternoon, as I shall be spending the morning stuffing envelopes), so if you want to make any guesses as to who wrote what, now is pretty much your last chance. Has anyone had problems with feedback? I managed not to get the DW settings right initially, but they should be working now, so do try again. I was also worried that I'd messed up the reply-from-website arrangements, but have now had a whole three feedbacks sent via email, so presumably that's working. Moar feedback, anyone? Dragon authors await your comments!

A brief update to the Dragon Challenge, which went live yesterday: there's another story:

Us of Lesser Gods
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1876.html

My apologies to anyone who tried to send feedback via the DW community - I'm so used to all my settings on LJ that I hadn't changed these ones to allow commenting by people who aren't registered DW used. Me BAD. (It has been a very busy weekend!)

I had a fun birthday, taking my sister and Adorable Niece into London to see "Mama Mia", which was thoroughly enjoyable (I liked the interaction between the MOTB and her two best friends the most, and the sing/dance-along at the end.) Then out for lunch today at Wagamama's, at which Adorable Niece was fed gigantic ~~worms~~ udun noodles from her mother's dinner while she waited for her own to arrive, and then consumed most of mum's chocolate cake as well as her own dessert. She wishes to be fed there again next time, I think it was a success.

Now, I can catch my breath, and actually *read* the Dragon Stories.

It's D-Day, and I am delighted to announce that the Dragon/Dwarf/Dolphin/Diamond Challenge stories are now live, for your reading pleasure!

This year I have put the stories in two places: on my website, and on a DreamWidth community. If you're sending feedback via the website, all your emails will come to me and I will forward them appropriately. On DW, you can leave comments directly - if you don't have a DreamWidth account, don't worry, you can comment using OpenID, or you can just leave an Anonymous comment, and sign it with your LJ name. (Anyone who hasn't got a DW account and would like one, I have invite codes.)

Only half as many stories this year, but never mind, I know you will find something to enjoy. Here they are:

Galatea (with illustrations!)
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1392.html

Grounded
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1693.html

JC in the Sky with Diamonds
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/882.html

Lights All Faded
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/597.html

Snufflekisses
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/277.html

Tabula Rasa, Lacuna Caeruleus
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1049.html

As usual, I'd like to encourage anyone who wants to review any or all of the stories to comment here with a link to your journal—a separate matter from feedback, of course!

A big thank-you to all the contributing authors. The challenge remains anonymous for a week, so see if you can guess who wrote what! I suspect it shouldn't be too hard to identify authorship; the original sign-up post is here, and as you'll see, we had some drop-outs.

It's D-Day, and I am delighted to announce that the Dragon/Dwarf/Dolphin/Diamond Challenge stories are now live, for your reading pleasure!

This year I have put the stories in two places: on my website, and on a DreamWidth community. If you're sending feedback via the website, all your emails will come to me and I will forward them appropriately. On DW, you can leave comments directly - if you don't have a DreamWidth account, don't worry, you can comment using OpenID, or you can just leave an Anonymous comment, and sign it with your LJ name. (Anyone who hasn't got a DW account and would like one, I have invite codes.)

Only half as many stories this year, but never mind, I know you will find something to enjoy. Here they are:

Galatea (with illustrations!)
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1392.html

Grounded
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1693.html

JC in the Sky with Diamonds
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/882.html

Lights All Faded
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/597.html

Snufflekisses
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/277.html

Tabula Rasa, Lacuna Caeruleus
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1049.html

Us of Lesser Gods
http://crack-sparkle-pop.dreamwidth.org/1876.html

As usual, I'd like to encourage anyone who wants to review any or all of the stories to comment here with a link to your journal—a separate matter from feedback, of course!

A big thank-you to all the contributing authors. The challenge remains anonymous for a week, so see if you can guess who wrote what! I suspect it shouldn't be too hard to identify authorship; the original sign-up post is here, and as you'll see, we had some drop-outs.

A quick note about the Dragon Challenge - I managed to get my car locked in the car park last night and had to walk into town to collect it this morning (sigh!). So I'm a bit late getting to the stories. My plan is to get them up on the website and community, and I'll let each of you know where your link is so that you can check your story looks as it should.

If anyone has belatedly decided to write a Dragon/Dwarf/Dolphin/Diamond story that I don't know about, please send it to me asap!

For those of you who are not writing - fresh stories tomorrow!

It's St George's Day (and Shakespeare's birthday, and my Adorable Niece's birthday), so it's time to sign up for the Dragon Challenge once again.

There can never be too many dragons, is my firm belief. So here is another chance for you to write a popslash story involving at least one of our boys (or, indeed, one of the girls) and a Dragon. And, because I have been adding Ds, this year you can run with Dragon, Dwarf, Dolphin and/or Diamond.

Inspiration in there somewhere, surely?

Use any or all of the D prompts, which can be interpreted as metaphorical, literal, figurative, whatever. Just to remind you, in previous years the challenge has brought stories featuring actual dragons, dragon ornaments, songs about dragons, dragon tattoos, dragon drinks, 'chasing the dragon', dragon nicknames, dragon T-shirts... Dwarves and Dolphins have tended to be taken a bit more literally, but there's some scope in Diamonds, I feel sure. Incidentally, if you would like to have a look through previous offerings, the index page is here.

Dragon Challenge stories *will* go live on June 6th, which is D-Day. What could be more appropriate? This year I will be taking my sister and niece out to the theatre on that very day, as a triple birthday celebration (though in their cases, rather belated), so the deadline for fic submissions will be June 4th, to give me time to get everything up tidily.

Please sign up if you think you can write a DDDD fic—that way I can send you reminders and let you know what format to submit your story in. Just drop me a comment below, including your preferred email address (or you can send me a private message if you don't want your email address on display).

Stories will be anonymous for the first week, because I like anonymous challenges.

Do feel free to pimp this challenge far and wide!

And don't forget to sign up. You know there can never be too many dragons.

And now, in the final flourish, the author names have been revealed. Go to The Dragon Challenge Index to see whether you guessed correctly who wrote what!

BTW, not all the authors were explicit about author names and websites, so if I have your information down wrong, or have omitted a link to your website, please let me know. I was too ~~inefficient~~ busy to prod you in advance.

( Mine )

I would just like to say that I hope everyone appreciates feedback in whatever form it may have come. I did specifically ask that people who posted comments/recs to their own LJ let me have a link, so that all the authors could find their way to it. I'm in the privileged position of seeing *all* the feedback that comes via email, because of the way I set it up - but other authors will no doubt feel as I do, that it can be very interesting and helpful to see what a reader likes in the other stories too.

Also, I've just discovered to my horror that I managed to forward

turps33's feedback to the wrong email address. I *fail*. All the participating authors have received feedback via email, so if you haven't had any forwarded to you, please let me know and I will re-send, with added grovelling.

It was such a weird day yesterday. No imminent deadlines, nothing urgent to do (well, ironing and housework can always wait, can't they?), with the result that I did *nothing* of any consequence. :-( Oh, except I started knitting a carrier bag with plastic carrier bags. Not sure how it's going to work out, but it seems like a fun idea.

Dragon Challenge: in case you missed it yesterday, the stories are now available for your reading pleasure, twelve brand new sparkly stories, right here.

Do send feedback! All the feedback links come to me, and I forward your posts appropriately - didn't have time to get smart and figure out a more direct way of doing this. (If there's any problem with the system, do let me know.)
Or, if you post with your reactions to the stories, let me know. I'll collect the links here and the authors can find their way to whatever you have to say.

Here are comments from

puszysty.
Here are comments from

solariana
Here are comments from

joshysleo

phaballa has recced some of the stories on the

popsoundboard community here.

*FANFARE*

I am delighted to announce that the Dragons, Dwarves and Dolphins Challenge stories are now available for your reading pleasure.

Caveat lector.

The Index is here.

A big thank-you to all the participating authors:

catviret,

chalcopyrite,

cocoalatte,

joshysleo,

llamabitchyo,

ninjetti75,

pensnest,

phaballa,

syncalot and

turps33. The astute among you will realise that two of the above went beyond the call of duty and produced two stories each, as we have a total of twelve.

Please send feedback!

If you decide to give your reactions to any or all of the stories in your own LJ, do post a link here so that the participating authors can be sure of seeing what you say.

The email links *all* come to me, so don't assume that you know who the author is when you get my name at the top of the email, hah! I will forward all feedback as appropriate, and the author names will be revealed in a week's time.

ENJOY.

NB: If you checked this out on June 6th, note that an extra story has been added to the list!

Right! It's Saint George's Day. I'm late getting to this entry because (a) I spent most of the day visiting my Pa in Lincoln, and (b) when I got to teh internetz I was distracted by a soft-pornish description of how fondling the breasts of complete strangers is liberating and important. To which I say, ~~fuck that~~ no.

Anyway. I hereby announce the third Dragon Challenge, this year with added Dwarves and Dolphins. It was a close call, and thank you to all who answered the poll: I originally felt that Diamonds would be the obvious next D to add to the list (and wish I'd thought of Demons, too), but

trumpeterofdoom's lyrical comment about Kevin turning into a dolphin and abandoning his wife and progeny to go swim in the Pacific has persuaded me that Dolphins it must be. Somebody has to write that, you hear?

So, your challenge is to produce a popslash story of 500 words or more, with one or more Dragons, Dwarves and/or Dolphins, whether literal, figurative, metaphorical or something else. If you'd like to seek out inspiration from previous submissions (or just enjoy a Jolly Good Read), the Dragon Challenge Index will lead you to them.

Stories will need to be submitted by June 5th at the latest, and will go live on D-Day, 6th June 2008. If you'd like to participate, please sign up and let me have an email address so that I can send you Appropriate Reminders, and bits of necessary information when it comes to submitting your story.

Oh, and I will be updating the Dragon Challenge header - just haven't had time so far! Excuse the eyewatering colours, 'tis only for today.

Do sign up! There should be more dragons, and more dwarves. And we have canon dolphins, so there should definitely be more of those!

D-Day (Dragons and Dwarves) Challenge author names are now up, go here to see who wrote what. Feedback links now go direct to the author in question, and I'm sure they'll be glad to hear from you. Also, Tales of Light and Darkness now has four parts, not two!

My thanks again to everyone who participated in this year's challenge - it has brought out some wonderful stories, and I'm very happy about this! Incidentally, in case I decide to do this again next year, any comments on what worked and what didn't would be very welcome. Also, if there are any formatting problems, or I've forgotten to add a link, or got your name wrong, etc, let me know, okay?

( As for my story... )

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Pen's Nest

penned in another moment of madness

Entries tagged with dragon challenge

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Dragon Country, part 2

Dragon Country, part 1

The Dragon Challenge Stories!

Dragon Challenge!

The Dragon Challenge

Dragon Challenge - the authors revealed!

Dragon Challenge - the authors revealed!

Dragon Challenge notes

more dragonishness

more dragonishness

Dragon Challenge 2009

Dragon Challenge!

Dragon Challenge

Dragon Challenge 2009

D-Day Challenge 2008: The Author Reveal

dragons, cont

It's D-Day, and you know what that means!

D-Day Challenge 2008

The Dragon Challenge Author Reveal