Young Writers Society

Omni wrote:Everyone! It has been a long time coming, but we have finally reached the end of LMS Round VI!

The final week of Blizzard was hard fought, and hard won! First off, please give a huge congratulations to every Warrior who made it to the final week of Blizzard and wrote for it! @BrumalHunter @SilverNight @WeepingWisteria have all been through so much and came out of the raging snowstorm stronger than before.

Congratulations to @WeepingWisteria for getting third place with 15033 words!

Congratulations to @SilverNight for getting second place with 22150 words!

And Congratulations to @BrumalHunter for getting first place with 40076 words!

BrumalHunter is the Last Man Standing of LMS Round VI!

BrumalHunter wrote:The first time I participated in Last Man Standing was during Round II, which took place in 2015 and 2016. My novel was about an Electrike going to school and learning to become a Pokémon battler as part of a team. It was a lot of fun, but it required a lot of work, both in terms of research and in terms of posting. I got distracted during Week 30 and fell out, which was a shame, but my best friend @TinkerTwaggy ended up winning the round while he was visiting me in South Africa, so I have no regrets there!

After that round, Tenyo created Blizzard to shorten the competition's length. With three rounds having passed since I last participated, I decided last year that sure, I would join Round VI and see if I could prove to myself that I have what it takes to survive the original icy hell. I again went with a Pokémon novel, called Pokémon Purgatory, but I learned from my mistakes last time and adapted to the current environment. I specifically crafted a setting that would allow me to not only follow the story yet write as much fluff or rubbish as was required to just keep progressing, but also to make it possible to write the insane amounts required by Blizzard. (I did my due diligence and checked how the previous three Blizzards had went, naturally.) I was determined and ready.

I was the first to submit on Week 1, but even just two weeks later, I was waiting until 21:00 or 22:00 on Sunday night to write my thousand words for the week. I abandoned all pretence of formal submission and just went with spoilers in my posts in the threads. So it continued until Week 38, at which point I switched gears and prepared myself for the madness ahead. I was determined and confident, and as Blizzard commenced, I felt I stood a very good chance of actually succeeding in my goal.

The third week of Blizzard was already a tough one. The progression from 1K to 2.5K to 6K to 13K was manageable, but I expected the fourth week would be around 20K. Unfortunately, the final week got impatient and ate that particular week, so any thoughts of warming up perished with it. I knew, as a result, that I'd likely write a decent amount earlier in the week but leave most of it for the end, yet I didn't — couldn't — expect how the week would ultimately turn out.

I didn't sleep on the final day and wrote for nearly 20 consecutive hours. I had set myself two goals: reach a word total of 100K for my novel, and if possible, submit 40K words by the end and set a new LMS record. I succeeded in both of these, so regardless of whether I would win or lose, I was satisfied. The spoilers below show videos from a rhythm game I play, with thematically appropriate maps and songs; the first spoiler represents how I thought the final week would go, but the second spoiler represents how it actually went.

I ended up winning! I had proven to myself that my determination was enough, for once in my life, to actually complete an important and very demanding task within the deadline. My preparation had paid off, and I possessed the skill to see it through. I've grown immensely from this experience and I will cherish it forever; I will not be doing it again. XD

Thank you to the organisers and other participants for making Last Man Standing: Round VI possible! And thank you especially to TinkerTwaggy for your undying support. I wish the best of luck to all future participants, and as Pokémon Purgatory is still far from done (would you believe me if I told you the first chapter isn't done yet?), you'll probably see me around as a Rogue, still pumping out my weekly thousand words.

It's over. BUT NOT FOR ME! ;D

Spoiler! :

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Spoiler! :

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