Paula’s Comments (group member since Oct 28, 2015)

Paula’s comments from the Science Fiction Microstory Contest group.

Very good catch there, Andy L.--on my story anyhow. "Can he/she really stop time?"--yep, I knew those (the question and the gender ambiguity) were the weak points. Again, good catching. And I see you did some super catching on some other of our stories. Thank you indeed.

A beautifully written story wonderfully embedded in its setting, Jeremy. Your best tales are remarkable, and this is one. Great job.
And great jobs, Richard and Andy, too.
Concgrats to all!

I ain't saying it.

Congratulations very much, Jeremy! Richard, Andy, too.
---Oh dear--I do hope that Andy G's votes will not be discounted. Has this happened before (I think it did, one time) that someone's votes were sent but for some reason did not arrive or did not get counted? Would an extra voting day help?
One good thing--here, we know the voting is honest, if perhaps idiosyncratically complex. And honest vote counting, we in the US are discovering, is definitely to be appreciated.

wtf, trope?

We don't really know which themes and parameter/s will be difficult. Sometimes the simplest theme and no parameters is difficult. And sometimes using very specific parameters---a cat, piano keys, green chop suey, three fingernails, whatever---limits people's imaginations, and sometimes not. ---The constitutional crisis just went onto high, here, and nobody even noticed, Andy.--

Yes, a very good story, Jon. Looking forward to your next one!

Okay, Andy has now made this a mini-challenge; but long ago, when I came down with chicken pox as a kid, I woke screaming from a fever nightmare of mutants chasing me across the hot dry sands of Mars. A year or so before, I'd seen the 1950 film Rocketship-XM.
---Which, btw, was written by Dalton Trumbo and made an early reference to the full destuctive horrors of nuclear war.--

Hope you are over the worst of the pneumonia, Carrie. It takes awhile to get over that; don't push yourself. Agreed, this month's stories are a boost!
J.J.---under a fan, really? Glad it worked.

Agreed, Marianne, a genealogy expedition beats the flu any time. Yes, glad you're better; and 103.6 for a flu should've got the doctor to at least phone back---but of course as medical coverage gets worse and worse. . .
Glad you got that piece in under the wire, Jon!

Yes, well, as good a group of stories as we've come up with here yet, I think, and that's awfully good.

Feel better, Marianne.

What a great deal of work and kindness you went to on that, Heather! For Thaddeus, but also those links should be helpful for all of us. --and thanks to Andy (L. and G.) for the salvage work too.

Well, Heather and Richard, I agree with you in principle re the "winning" story, but note that we did get agreement this year that te only differential would be the inclusion of the "winning" stories as well as the authors' choice of 3 stories each; last year, you'll recall, for some reason those having a winning story had twice as many stories as did others in the anthology, which was absurd. I suppose we could ask persons with a "winning" story to include it *rather than* one of his/her other stories, but then what happens for those who don't even like their winning story but prefer, rather, the nonwinning story it would have to replace?
lol! Listen, Richard, you're quite right but why not include at least one of your pieces anyhow? A couple of them are among the very best last year!

Baseline--words max is 750/story; 3 stories/author, all from the 2015 monthly contests (can have slight changes, but the 750 words max is firm.
I bet you can look through the 2 or 3 pages of postings in the Anthology and Anthology [some word] ONLY threads and find the two posts (only), both by Sharon, that give the specifics of formatting, deadlines, etc., a hell of a lot faster than I can go back and find them for you, and then cut and paste them here for you, Richard---and others who may be worried about finding those posts. They're longer than most other posts on the thread and they're separated by only one or two post/s between them, and they're by Sharon. I bet you'll find them swiftly!
Good luck. Remember, you have 10 days still--to April 30--to get them in. You have some good stories there and we want them in so we can read them!!!

In case anyone missed it on the anthology logistics thread, please note--the deadline for sending your 2015 contest story/ies (up to 3 plus any of yours that won one of the monthly contests) IS EXTENDED to April 30. See Sharon's posts on the Anthology Logistics thread for the details.

My recollection of vol. is that finding people whose email/contact info had changed, reminding people of deadline/ new deadline, and so on took an awful lot of time and work---so we'll see, there's time yet.

OH good--Sharon and Andy.
I contacted Elana Gomel, and have just contacted Andy McKell and Helen Doran Wu via LI; I gave them your contact info, Sharon. Both want to send their stories, yes. And I left message with Garry H, too. Tried to reach Tom Huber--couldn't find him on LI, does anyone know how to reach him; I remember at least one 2015 story of his very well.

Sharon posted a list of participants in the 2015 monthly contests (8th post above this one). I'm wondering which of these persons have NOT YET been contacted about the contest; perhaps we could all share the task of trying to find and inform those persons.

Cool, Jack!!