Finish-a-thon 2011 Sign Ups!

[kerravonsen]

Sign-ups are CLOSED!

I had intended to open the sign-ups two weeks ago, but I've been distracted by my involvement with the au_bigbang. Because it's taken me all day to fix things up, I've extended the intended sign-up time to a bit under two weeks rather than under a week.

Announcing... finish-a-thon 2011! Yes, we're doing it again.

Remember all those poor, neglected plot bunnies that have been starving from lack of attention, because all those ficathons kept on having higher priority? The stories you wish you could finish, if only you could find the time? Well, fear not, the finish-a-thon is coming to the rescue!

The finish-a-thon is a ficathon, with all the ficathon-like things like deadlines and fellow volunteers to encourage you, but with this ficathon, you write your own ideas. But since part of the encouragement of a ficathon is writing things for other people, what we're going to do, is vote for which story ideas people should write.

I have set up a website to facilitate the ficathon, including a handy-dandy sign-up form which should make entering all the information easier.

PLEASE let me know if you have any problems.

• Rules and FAQ
• Sign-up form

Dates
Sign-ups end:
Australia : Saturday 16th April 2011, 8am
Rest of World (GMT) : 15th April 2011, 10pm

Stories due:
Australia : 25th June 2011, 10am
Rest of World (GMT) : 24th June 2011, midnight

(more detailed date information is in the Rules and FAQ page)

Note that you can edit your sign-up information as much as you want until the sign-up deadline, at which point editing will be disabled.

Comments

[anr]

Unable to sign up -- keeps telling me my login is locked. :(

[kerravonsen]

Try again, I think I've fixed it.

[anr]

Thanks, but now I'm getting the error: Error: login failed, perhaps you need to turn on cookies?

ETA: never mind! It finally let me go through. All done!

[sivanshemesh.livejournal.com]

I can't get in my page, i tried via LJ icon and it locked me...

Help...

*Hugs*

Sivan

[kerravonsen]

My fault, I made a mistake in the configuration. Try again.

[kerravonsen]

Er, you ARE aware that you're banned from participating this year, because you dropped out last year without contacting me?

[lin4gondor.livejournal.com]

Yay, a new Finishathon! The last one helped me a lot, but I think I need another one to make some more progress. ;-)

I have successfully begun the sign up process. I have a few questions about the form.

- Do we provide a url to the story we are entering in the description so folks can check it out, or is the url only for a bunny sequel?

- In the description do we just describe the story, or do you want more info like how many chapters are completed, what our idea is for possible finishing, that sort of thing? I recall we did something like that last year.

I plan to edit my form properly in the next few days once I decide which stories to put in the poll.

Thanks!

[lin4gondor.livejournal.com]

Just checking -- when I click the edit button to update my info, it recognizes me and that I am in editing mode, but it gives me a cleared form, with none of my previously entered stuff. If I want to edit what I have already entered, do I need to input all the info again from scratch?

Thanks again!

[kerravonsen]

No.
Go to your author page http://www.katspace.org/fiction/ficathons/finish-a-thon/2011/author/Linaewen/ and click on the edit button THERE.

ETA: Oh dear, you're right! Wait a bit while I debug the problem.

[kerravonsen]

Fixed now!

[lin4gondor.livejournal.com]

Thanks muchly!

[kerravonsen]

If you've already written part of the story, sure, provide a URL.

Some people like to put in extra info like that, but you don't have to. The idea is to provide people information to help them decide what to vote for; how complete the story is could be part of that.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Aw, I don't think I can do it this year. Although there's a couple of weeks to ponder... I will so ponder. Maybe if I put up the minimum and they're all my shorter ideas...

[kerravonsen]

In the unlikely event that I participate, that's what I would do.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

...I'll give it a shot, if I can come up with 3 very short ideas (and you're cool with this possibly pushing the completion of your help_japan stories *g*).

[kerravonsen]

I'm cool; I don't really care how long they take so long as you keep me informed how it's going so that I know you haven't forgotten me.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

The sign-up page won't let me sign up! It keeps saying "no_identity_server" when I try to use my LJ username to sign in.

[kerravonsen]

Probably due to the DDoSing of LJ; LJ is very very slow at the moment. Do you have a Dreamwidth account? You could use that to log in too - my site accepts OpenId; I just gave instructions for LJ because one needs to be on LJ anyway to participate in the polls.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Hmm, okay; the site itself is behaving normally for me, but I guess something like that might be different.

I don't have a DW account (honestly, I have way too much to keep track of online already, I just can't be bothered); and I don't think I have an OpenID, either... if I do, it's been a long time since I used it.

[kerravonsen]

I noticed that crossposting from DW to LJ is REEEEEAAAALLLYYYY SLOOOOOW this morning, so that's why I figured that the LJ OpenID server is not behaving.

Two options I can think of:
1) Wait and see if LJ gets better.
2) I could send you a DreamWidth invite, just so you could have a DreamWidth ID, and you could use that.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

I'm using my Yahoo account. However, I got it all filled out and hit "Save Page" and.... it's not doing it. Hmmm. Perhaps I should try again later.

[kerravonsen]

Oh dear. I have no idea what's wrong and no time at the moment to debug it.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

No worries, I'll try again later tonight and see if it's working then.

[estirose.livejournal.com]

*squees hugely*

[kerravonsen]

8-)

[estirose.livejournal.com]

Thank you for doing this again this year.

[lassarina]

Ooof. I'd sign up, but the thing I think this would be most helpful for still has 100K to go, and I don't think I'm good for 2 months of NaNoWriMo amid ficathons I already signed up for.

What a great idea, though! (here via onedeadbunny post.)

[kerravonsen]

We account for epics! If the story is an epic, you can pledge to write 10,000 words of it, rather than finishing it. Not as much pressure as NaNoWriMo here.

[lassarina]

--ooooh. Tempting. *ponders* Well, question, then: the story currently has ~10K posted, ~126K total written, and any new writing is after that 116K difference. How would that work (since I wouldn't want to post out of order)?

I mean, one thing I can think of is posting 10K more (2 chapters) and screencapping the wordcount feature for the document but I don't know if that would count.

[kerravonsen]

We'll take your word for it on the word count. I think in your case, since it would be part of an epic and something from the middle of it, where you don't want to be posting what you've written out of order, a 1000-word extract of the newly written stuff would do.

Don't forget you would have to put up at least two other bunnies/stories for people to vote on, and they might not vote for the epic.

[alara-r.livejournal.com]

I love this ficathon. My problem with WIPs is huge; it's really almost irresponsible of me to ever start a new fic when I have so many WIPs.

[kerravonsen]

You are the Queen of Epics. 8-)

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

I have been so wrapped up in the care for my autistic son the past years that I want to kick myself to pick up writing for myself. If that is ok with you!

[kerravonsen]

Why would I mind if you signed up?

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

I failed to finish my first finishaton two years ago with one of the bunnies I submitted for this year. I think this will help to finalise a story that I am writing for a very dear friend. If that one gets the most votes that is! LOL

But seriously, I am tickled to participate and it's been a while since I felt that way, so thank you!

[kerravonsen]

For goodness' sake, you weren't anywhere near being blacklisted! I have you listed as "partially complete" so you did even better than the "gold star for trying" people. And the only people who get blacklisted are those who don't contact me.

If I come across as a tyrant, it's because I don't want people signing up if they don't care whether they finish.

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely not a tyrant and I was just making sure I could use that story again. :) No worries!