Well, that time of year has come around again and time for another contest. What the heck you are saying? I was dying last year? How is it I am still alive. Well, let's just say I have a pocket miracle upon me.
The theme for this contest is to write ANY love story that must include a lgbtq main or secondary character and anyone else. That depends on the point of view. This story must be totally new and never published anywhere else. AI assistance in creating it is allowed, however, editing and proofing it is still the author's responsibility. Minimum wordage is 5,000 words. Multiple entries are allowed with only 1 win per person.
Preferably, since I know for certain, that this is my absolute last contest, I would like to see an entry that has school teens trying to find a romance. Hey, just a wish story for a proper send off you know! Whatever plot that you enter is fine by me though :)
The prizes are as follows: 1st Place: 2 x $200, 2nd Place:2 x $100, 3rd Place: 3 x $50. That is the most that I can afford for the winnings of this contest. Prizes will be paid out on June 3, 2025. They will be paid by paypal. The contest runs from right this very minute until May 31, 2025.
Sorry, no time for fancy tables and pictures this last time. I have too much on my plate atm, but I still wanted to give back to the community that means so much to me. SO get those computers clacking away if you want to win.
ps: I will advance the winnings to Rasufelle so that the contest winnings will be payable in the event that I vanish in an untimely manner.
Sephrena Lynn Miller
BigCloset TopShelf
Ascension
Comments
Count me in
dear heart!
Love, Andrea Lena
Me in
Writing it already; if I had realised this was coming up, I would have entered 'Black and White'. Never mind.
Another Potential!??!
I'm down! Just figuring the outing on what to write! I've been considering pulling one of my other outlines I've not published out for a long while!
Thank You Cyclist for being our First Entrant into the Contest!
I read your story and like what I see! :) Job Well done!!!
Sephrena
Personally, I'm not a fan of "romance"
I know I'm going to get pilloried for being a Grinch, but I have come to dislike what counts as "romance" in our society.
It seems to be mainly people trying to act out their prescribed roles in some play or other called "romance," without having any real idea of what the other person is underneath the method acting, and in most cases not even knowing who they themselves are underneath. And this is hyped, over and over, as "true love." Unfortunately, after the curtain comes down, eventually the actors can't keep up playing their false selves, and the whole thing starts to unravel.
I don't so much mind the idea of stories which are, in effect, emotional sugar plums (i.e., empty calories), but the way that this is presented and propagandized as (a) this is what "love" really is, and (b) getting this sort of "love" is what life is all about.
And with that, I'll grump off the scene and let you all get back to writing and enjoying your summer romances.
Romance
Almost everything I write is what I term 'romance', as I do my best to show how life perhaps should and could be. I push friendship, family, love (both agape and Eros) as what can make us better at being human. On the way, I throw the real world at it. It doesn't always work, or last, and I have killed off a lot of characters, but an end to loneliness is the heart and soul of my work.
In the end, even when I write the awful stuff, it is still a sort of wish fulfilment fantasy. I don't avoid the nasties, but that hope of an end to loneliness is the key. It isn't always delivered via your conventional drama concept, as I have several characters whose needs are met through sublimation, such as John, my autistic birdwatcher.
Fiction is, in the end, fantasy. It's wish fulfilment. I don't write simple 'then I woke up and I was a [wish granted]' and I don't actually like that sort of tale, but I don't claim moral superiority there. And I still write romance.
Writing romance ...
... has never come easy for me. I did write one story I'd consider romantic, but most of the time I get close to anything romantic, it involves a lot of confusion and mixed feelings, and not much of what I usually consider standard romance. I've sorta got an idea floating in my head about a boy trying to figure out what it means to be attracted to someone else who's trying to figure out their gender, but I'm not certain if that really falls under lgbt or not. Maybe being gender-questioning might? I'm not sure.
I'll see what I can do
I'll try to come up with something. I do love a good love story.
*big hugs*
Amethyst
Don't take me too seriously. I'm just kitten around. :3