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Monday, May 24, 2010

Storyblogging Carnival LIX

NOTE: This is a re-post of an old post, so I can't guarantee the links.

Welcome to the fifty-ninth Storyblogging Carnival. This edition includes nine stories from eight authors.

Recently, I've been getting a lot of submissions from the Blog Carnival submission form. This is good, since it increases the number of submissions, but there are some drawbacks. First, because there's no filtering, I sometimes get submissions that don't even resemble stories, and I wonder whether the submitter even read what the Storyblogging Carnival is all about. (There's a description in our page on the site.) These are rejected, with an e-mail to the author explaining why and what we're looking for in the Storyblogging Carnival. The second drawback is that there doesn't seem to be any way to explain what we want in our carnival submissions, and there's no entry on the form for some of those things. I have a fairly lengthy list, including some things other carnivals don't look for: aside from author, post title and URL, and blog name and URL, we want a word count, a rating for adult content, and a blurb describing the story. These are important, but I'm willing to let the first slide, since it's easy enough for the host to perform a wordcount (although not all of them do). I'll even let slide the second, since the host is ultimately responsible for the rating anyway (although, admittedly, I myself sometimes only skim the entries when I don't have much time to work on the carnival, which makes it hard to be sure about the rating). However, what I'm not willing to let slide anymore is the blurb. The carnival entry form does have a section for a description of the post, and it seems to me that if you want to have people read your story, you have to at least tell them what it is about. I used to write the description myself for the one or two stories that lacked it, but this time we had six entries with no blurb for the story. I e-mailed the authors to ask for their blurbs. Those who got back to me are in this carnival, and those who didn't are not. This will be the new policy whenever I host from now on.


Shoeless
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

A man's new habit proves dismaying to friends.

Size Matters
by Jeremiah Lewis of Fringe
A 50 word brief story rated PG.

What's a few extra inches?

100 words on Horbgorble
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 100 word brief story rated G.

"The word of the week was Horbgorble. I thought it was something mispelled so I thought someone hearing it would definetely get the wrong end of the stick!"

Proving his religion — Dr. Tundra and the Noodly Norsemen
by Mark A. Rayner of The Skwib
A 350 word brief story rated PG-13.

Dr. Tundra proves scientifically that it is a lack of Vikings, not pirates, that causes global warming.

For Safe Keeping
by Rocket Barber of The Rocketman's Change For A Dollar
A 457 word brief story rated PG

A perspective on a sunrise.

Hunting Cows by Moonlight
by Chris Dolley of Author Chris Dolley's Page
A 618 word excerpt from a book rated PG.

"'Hunting Cows by Moonlight' is a self-contained and true story from my book, Nous Sommes Anglais - chronicling eight months in the life of a man who moved to France with one wife, two cats, two horses and a large puppy. Everyone except the horses feature in this story of animals turning their owner's lives upside down."

Secret Shopper
by Madeleine Begun Kane of Mad Kane's Humor Blog
A 704 word brief story rated PG.

Mad Kane tells the story of a rather unusual shopping expedition with her mom.

NaNoWriMo: The Path to Enlightenment?
by Laura Young of Dragon Slayer's Guide to Life
A 940 word brief story rated G.

How writing her live autobiography is changing one woman's life.

Where the Boys Are, Part II (The Beginning)
by Postmodern Sass of Postmodern Sass
The final 1,200 words of a 2,100 word short story rated PG.

Thanksgiving in Napa with a family of vegans and baby rock stars.

This concludes the fifty-ninth Storyblogging Carnival.

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

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