3rd Annual Terrifying Tales Contest

Autumn leaves crunching

Shrieking spirits chill the bones

Souls seek, refuge breaks

Once again I call forth the Wombats to gather around the campfire. Sacrifices must be made to appease those that walk in penumbral darkness. The Stygian witches have come to claim their due…

Issued forthwith a contest of the quill:

3^rd Annual Terrifying Tales

Deadline: All Hallow’s eve

Wombats are called on to hold back the evil machinations of sock puppets and other nefarious elements by submitting. In order to protect the identities of our valiant members, entries are to be anonymous. ALL entries are to be sent to the contest administrator for posting.  Participants in this rite can find a complete listing of rules below.

Abandon all hope ye who dare to enter the Wisdom.

Contest guidelines and rules were borrowed heavily from the Writin' Wombats First Quasi-Semi-Annual First Paragraph Competition- thank you Ken for sharing your format!

The Ten Official Rules

1. The grand prize will be a Writin' Wombat Terrifying Tales Medal and all the Trader Joe's autumn stickers I can wheedle for the next month. Second prize will be...there is no second place, there can be only ONE! Alright… alright… I hear whimpering- second place gets a Wombat silver medal. Third place gets, does anyone still care? Gets a Wombat bronze medal, but NO stickers!

2. The contest will start on Friday October 16th and end on Saturday October 31st. No votes will be accepted during this period. On November 1^st, votes, via email to vividlyalive, will be accepted during the hours (0:00 - 23:59). The winners will be announced on Dia de los Muertos, November 2^nd . Votes will be submitted via ballot. The ballot will be posted in this Gather article site, watch for it.

3. Links to entries will be posted in the Gather group site, Terrifying Tales. General discussion will be in the then-current Writin' Wombat forum which can be found here: Writin' Wombats

Entrants are allowed NO edits to their entry. Formatting issues can be addressed.

4. In order to be qualified to vote, you must be a Gather member at the start of the contest and have at least 25 Gather Points.

5. Anyone submitting an excessively long entry will be ridiculed publicly. Complaints will be ignored, so don’t bother.

6. Each person will vote 10 times, with one vote of 10, one vote of 9, etc. This means you will have one vote of 1 and an infinite number of zero votes. Mathematicians, statisticians and other nit-picking worldly philosophers are ineligible.

7. The winners will be selected based on the total score. In case of tie, the prize will be decided by coin toss, done by my assistant. It is recommended you don't vote for your own entry. You'll feel soiled if you vote for yourself. If caught, the administrator (me) will pretend the spam filter ate your email and your votes will be ignored.

8. Sock puppets, astroturf voters and other nabobs of negativity will be disqualified from voting based solely on the discretion of the administrator.

9. The top five scores will be published by the administrator, but voters' names will be secret. Results will be available for audit by select mature Wombatians.

10. The rules may or may not change in a maddening manner at the whim of the administrator.

10. Submissions must be the original work of the submitter. It is the sincere hope of the administrator that serious entries that are part of a current or future project will be entered and that frivolous entries and their authors be mocked incessantly and mercilessly. How this might be officially enforced is unknown and probably impossible. IN deference to the standing rule, Wanda has official sanction to enter any damn thing she wants, but is required to submit something. No guts, no glory. Be bold and mighty forces with come to your aid. Insert other motivational words of wisdom here. Others wishing special treatment can make a polite formal request prior to being denied.

10. If in the event of no submissions, I will brand you all dullards and sulk in the corner until the whim moves me or I'm compelled by Ken's twirling or an endorphin induced haze as result of too much chocolate makes me forget temporarily. Additionally, I’ll tell those damn Stygian witches where to find you!

10. Anyone disagreeing with the rules and rulings of the administrator is completely free to create his or her own damn contest. The administrator will not vote but will be allowed to make rude comments and make unhelpful suggestions.