14 June 2008
Round Six will officially start at 8:00PM EST (I guess that's 20:00 GMT-5). This is to deflect the questions that I know will appear in the Cbox about when the round actually starts. I'm putting the site together piece-by-piece as you're reading this. (:[EDIT] As I'm doing this, a few things may start acting up, so don't worry! It'll all come together before tonight's opening! In the meantime, have a listen to the playlist that Samma put together and take a gander at the Facebook group mentioned previously.[/EDIT]
5 June 2008
Loads of help came in response to my cry for help in the Yahoo! Group. I wanted to resuscitate the Questionnaires section and it is done so! (: I've uploaded new questionnaires answered by DancingChaChaFruit, i found nemo, xoxluurve, CuteButPsycho27, and CK Shorty. Check 'em out.Lots of kudos goes to Julia, one of our new judges, who formatted the interviews that Mika conducted so quickly, allowing me to upload them equally quickly.
4 June 2008
Added an official "Challenges" page. If there's any information missing from there that you'd like to know more about, let me know and I can edit like crazy.We're not accepting any more judge applications. (: Thank you, though! Also, if you'd like to apply to be a graphics specialist, I am still taking applications, but I'm no longer actively seeking them. If there should be a case where I am in need of replacement GSes, then your application will be right there handy. (:
25 May 2008
As you can see, a new layout has been uploaded to the site. This layout was made by our lovely GS vet Leila, who is back with us again this round along with our other lovely GS vet Nic. I will be taking on additional graphics specialists, one of whom will be debuting with the first official layout of Round Six. This current layout is a sneak preview, of sorts, to Round Six's theme. It's meant to hype you up for the new round. Are you hyped yet?There are new buttons in the Links section made by Jamie. In addition, there were a whole mess of new challenges in the Yahoo! Group since I last updated on the front page. (If you've been keeping up in the Yahoo! Group, though, there's only one new challenge.) Also, a new questionnaire is on the way. If I have my way, I'll have it uploaded by tonight. It's actually an old questionnaire that I just now got around to working on.
22 May 2008
And the theme for Round Six is...Fairytales! Although Seven Deadly Sins/Heavenly Virtues was a heavy favorite, I took a suggestion sent up through here and saved it for Round Seven. I thought it was just more fitting. (:
My graphics specialists have confirmed that they do in fact like the Fairytales idea, so it's all set! You'll see how we plan to pull off the theme when the round actually begins.
In other news, I'm still accepting judge and GS applications until June 1st. June 2nd, you'll receive notification of whether you are accepted or not. (If you apply to be a GS, you'll most likely get an acceptance or rejection letter right away. I have no limit on how many GSes should be on the site.)
If you don't think judge is the thing for you, keep hanging around. We'll need a whole new set of staff for the newsletter and editors usually need the same qualifications for judges.
Oh! And thank you for your birthday wishes over Facebook. My day has been fabulous and they just gave me the warm-fuzzies.
11 May 2008
By the way, the deadline for judge applications is June 1st. I didn't realize that I didn't put it up on here earlier.In other news, I've moved all of the winners' graphics to the Yahoo! Group under "Photos". You can view all the beautiful artwork there.
10 May 2008
I finally began to iron out the details of Round Six in preparation for its beginning. As you may see, the dates for Round Six are posted to the left. We have a number of announcements, so read 'em and weep (or jump with joy, whichever takes your fancy).1. Round Six is shorter. It's only going to be seven weeks long, instead of the usual two and a half months. This is mostly for my benefit, since I'll be working about 35 hours a week this summer and won't be able to spend as much time on the site as I used to.
2. There is only going to be 15 categories per round. However, the winter and summer round will feature two different sets of categories. This is so that we can have more of a variety of winners.
3. We need more judges and graphics specialists. Yes, my darlings, I am officially sending out a notice for judges and graphics specialists. Both applications can be found in the Yahoo! Group under "Files". You can find the judges application here. Fill it out and send it to me at skowawards[at]gmail.com. It's recommended that you read the Judge Duties and Responsibilities first, so you'll know what you're getting into.
4. What should the theme be for Round Six? There are a whole lot of new ideas that were tossed out there, so I'm finally putting them to vote. Go to my profile page and vote on the poll located at the top of the page.
5. Got any category ideas? We want 'em! We're adding several new categories to both Round Six and Round Seven, so we'll need all the new ideas we can get!
6. We're setting up a newsletter. The newsletter will be a separate entity from the awardings and will feature original works by the SKoW community. You can submit articles to the newsletter and it will be featured on the site.
7. And thus, we need a whole new set of staff. The newsletter staff will include editors, columnists, and layout designers. For right now, however, I only want to hear from people who will help design the layout of the site and will help actually put the articles on the site as they are finished.
And.. I think that's it. Whew. Long update.
27 April 2008
Just to make it official -- there's a Romance group on Facebook which Louisa (angels and effects) made. It's not a SKoW group, but a lot of us are on there. I'm joined up on there and I'm on the officer list, so if you feel like adding me, go ahead. (: Networking is fabulous. Just make sure you write me a message saying you're from SKoW so I don't get suspicious of you.Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10876053502
22 April 2008
Ho hum. Hasn't been an update in a while, hasn't there? Well to speak plainly, there hasn't been anything to report on here. However, I became really annoyed at looking at the same message over and over again as I check the site every now and then so I decided to clear up this space and put something here.So! What should you do while you anxiously await the next round of SKoW awardings? Here's a couple of suggestions!
1. Challenges - We've put up several new ones since I last updated here, so you should go and check 'em out. All submissions for the Round Six Best Challenge Response category are due on the last day of the nomination period. I already have quite a few here!
2. Suggest An Awards Theme - We would dearly appreciate any and all ideas and any comments on ones that were previously suggested. I do actually listen to you all, you know.
3. Suggest An Award Idea - As in, a category. Not officially asking for these yet, but I appreciate any that are sent in.
4. Read, Read, Read, Read (And Did I Mention Read?!) - We're not all perfect (as much as we self-absorbed writers would like to think we are). Thus, we must read others' works in order that we may steal their original ideas, warp it with our own, and slap a copyright on it. (I kid. Reading is just fun.)
5. Write, Write, Write, Write - So that readers can have something to read apart from shampoo bottle labels. (Lather, Rinse, Repeat!)
16 March 2008
Cue trumpets and wild excitement. We now reveal to you, the Round Five winners of the SKoW awards.Of course, a lot of kudos have to go out at this time of year. Thank you to the Academy -- no. Haha. I kid. Lots and lots of kudos goes out to my lovely judges (Haley, Julia, Kamilah, Katie, Nicole, Joanna, Cherry, Samma, Megs, Lizzie, and Sarah), who have put up with me and my numerous e-mails pestering them for this and that and still managing to be amazing. Plenty of thanks also goes out to Leila and Nic, who have designed beautiful graphics for this round's theme. Also, many thanks to Angeline, who created so many small graphics that make large waves on this site, including the "I'm Nominated!" buttons and banners.
Special thanks goes to Samma, who kindly volunteered a while ago to do our playlist. Also, all the love in the world goes to Maj, who is currently springbreaking right now, for her endless amount of support while I stressed through this round and for helping co-host SKoW Radio. All my gratitude and grovelling goes to Emily this round, for she was the one who kindly stepped up and offered to make the award graphics (and made them in record time!).
And finally (before the imaginary Oscar orchestra plays me off the stage), all my love goes out to all of you out there who participate in this awards site. This site really is the little Award Site That Could and it definitely Couldn't without all of you participating and showing your support. It is all very much appreciated.
If you find anything misspelled or incorrect, let me know and I will handle it as soon as possible. There is one that we already know is misspelled ("Best Love Triangle" - Judges' Pick) and we're getting to work on fixing that.
7 March 2008
There is a very important poll that has been put up on the Yahoo! Group regarding the announcement of the winners and the release of the awards graphics. Here is the poll question as written:There may be a delay in the release of the award graphics. Would you prefer to have the winners and the graphics released at the same time or would you mind a short delay for when the graphics are released?
Discussion over the tagboard is encouraged as I would like to get everyone's opinions about the matter. I also encourage you to e-mail me with your opinion (if it's too long for the tagboard or if you'd rather not post on there). If you're in the Yahoo! Group I would much prefer it if you voted there and then stated your opinion. I like solid numbers rather than who can argue the best.
2 March 2008
Voting has indeed been closed. (: You won't find the voting results anywhere! And Judges' Picks are strictly confidential. Unless you somehow connive your way into getting one of the judges to reveal them.1 March 2008
Last day of SKoW voting is tomorrow! Get your last votes in! I will officially be taking down the voting page at 11:59 PM EST on March 2, 2008.25 February 2008
Added a new game to the Games section! This game is called "Free Rice", which was suggested to us by Kristina. (Snaps for Kristina!) She explains it much better than I, so here goes: "They give you a word and four choices on what it could mean. For every answer you get right, 20 grains of rice are donated to a fund to end world hunger. Not only can your vocabulary increase and make you smarter, but you're doing public good just to play. It think it's important (and it's very addicting). The money for the rice comes from, of course, the advertisments so they encourage people to support their sponsors."It's actually really entertaining. I had to tear myself away from it to produce this update. Check it out! All games are under the "Extras" section.
18 February 2008
I've changed the way you can put in feedback for SKoW Radio. I figured the reason why not many people were giving a lot of feedback was because it took a lot of effort just to live a singular comment. So I decided to do this. I've hosted only the most recent episode on the site itself. All old (and the current) episodes will be archived on the Livejournal. Also on the current episode page, you will find a cbox that is completely separate from the one on the front page. You can use that cbox to leave comments anonymously.Be reminded, you still can't leave song dedications on there. Those will still have to go to the Livejournal entry. However, questions and comments can be quickly left there and you can see what other people are saying. Does that help?
You can click here to view the most recent episode of SKoW Radio.
17 February 2008
So I've received numerous questions this round about our categories, new and old. So I finally decided to clarify specifically what each award is about (even if it seems obvious). I added an "In a Nutshell" bulletin to each category description under the link Categories. If you have any further questions, please check the FAQ first. If it's not there, then feel free to harrass me. (:14 February 2008
Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! You may have noticed the new layout, made by our lovely Nic. Send your love to her! I've also uploaded a new episode of SKoW Radio titled Episode 8 - "Champion With A Side of Soul". This was definitely long in coming. You can go check it out by clicking the link to the left. As always, feedback is always appreciated. (SPOILER: We have a new co-host!)You also may have noticed that FictionPress is currently down because they're doing a large overhaul. Since you won't have access to the FictionPress stories, why not try our other features? (Except, perhaps, Beta Classifieds, which is hosted on FictionPress.) We'll survive through this drought of romance (and on Valentine's Day, of all days!) together!
10 February 2008
New challenge up on the Yahoo! Group titled Challenge #23 - So Many Songs, But I'm Feeling So Lonely!. Also, new questionnaire up for the author pixy-dizzy. I should get another questionnaire and a new episode of SKoW Radio up sometime this week. It was really windy today and I lost power for most of the day (a tree fell on a power line), so I wasn't able to get that much done. Keep voting, everybody!6 February 2008
The category of Best Non-Romance has been opened for voting. (: Also, I've uploaded a new challenge to the Yahoo! Group titled Challenge #22 - Things That Really Do Go Bump In The Night. This challenge was written by our very own judge Megs. Kudos, Megs! ♥3 February 2008
SECOND UDPATE: I added a new challenge to the Yahoo! Group titled Challenge #21 - Soups Are For Bowls, Not Football in lieu of the Super Bowl being today (and I, being an intense football fan, both American football and soccer, will of course be watching).3 February 2008
The author jmarit17 has requested for her stories, which are currently nominated in several stories, to be taken down from the voting page -- a request which I have honored. Her stories will still appear on the "View Results" page, but I have made it so that you are unable to vote for her anymore. Her reasons are described in the following e-mail to me:Hey :)
I was really happy to be nominated, though of course there were a couple catagories i was confused about :P But none the less, i love your guys site and go there to find things to read since i don't have a lot of time to search through FP for fics... but after reading the side bar chat thing, and seeing my story mentioned... i really don't want my fics up there. Especially if people think it's just because my fics are more known that it happens to be leading in a catagory. In truth, it's only kinda known because i have a lot of people who read my fanfiction . net stories and so they also read my FP ones. It really isn't my fault but since that's how people see it, like it's unfair or something, I really don't even wanna have anything to do with it.
Thanks. I'm gonna go vote now :P
P.S. You're guys' site is really great and not biased at all. It isn't your guys fault who's fics are popular or well-written and who's isn't. Thanks for taking the time to even start a site and everything and don't listen to the somewhat rude comments people seem to be leaving. Though i'm sure you're not anyways :P
Thanks again.
-Kellie.
Penname: Jmarit17.
Please. If you are criticizing the site, criticize the site. I only ask you to respect the authors who are nominated and to refrain from calling out a specific one. Also, if you wish to criticize the site, I ask that you provide suggestions to fix what you think is wrong about the site. If you have a problem with the judgement of the specific judge, we've always given you leave to notify said judge and argue your case (hence, the "Contact Us" page). If you don't agree, well. It's not like we're forcing you to participate, yeah?
(Whew, this was a long note.) This site was made for the entertainment of Romance lovers out there, so let's stick to that. Agreed?
2 February 2008
Voting for Best Chemistry has now commenced. (: Voting for Best Non-Romance is still pending, but we'll get back to you on that!1 February 2008
VOTING HAS BEGUN! That's right, loves. I'm finally done. Although I was a bit rushed when I put it all together, so if you find any mistakes whatsoever, let me know and I'll rush to fix it. (: Happy voting!1 February 2008
I know, I know. You're thinking, "WHERE'S THE VOTING PAGE?!" Frankly, I don't have it done yet. It's taking much longer than I had originally planned. I'll have it done by the end of the night, but in the meantime, I've added some of the Best Chemistry nominees (there are more to come, and yes, the category is still delayed for voting) which you can read while you wait.To put it simply, I'm a bit frazzled and short on time (and patience). So if you have any questions, put them in the tagboard and hopefully one of the SKoW staff will be hanging around to answer your question. If not, then you'll just have to wait until I finish. See you in a bit!
31 January 2008
Voting will commence tomorrow at 7:00pm EST. There have been a couple of issues with communication and thus Best Chemistry and Best Non-Romance (Complete)'s voting will be delayed, but all other categories will be open for voting at 7:00pm EST, to be sure. Thanks for all the nominations, you all! You've been absolutely fabulous. (:27 January 2008
The categories of Most Memorable (Complete and Incomplete), the "Hook, Line, and Sinker" Award, Best Slash (Complete), and Best M-Rated (Incomplete) have now been closed for nominations. Tomorrow's the last day to nominate stories and submit challenge responses! Get nominating, lovelies. (:26 January 2008
25 January 2008
The category of Best Breakout Author has now been closed for nominations. Only three days left until the nomination period closes! Get your last nominations in. Focus on the following categories: Best Love Triangle (Complete), Best Non-Romance (Complete and Incomplete), Best One-Liner, Best Slash (Complete and Incomplete), and "Hook, Line, and Sinker" Award.22 January 2008
The category of Best Awkward Moment has now been closed for nominations. Take note that I won't be too present this upcoming week since I'm starting a whole new batch of classes and I definitely need the sleep that I've been giving up for the site since school started.20 January 2008
The category of Best Villain has now been closed for nominations.19 January 2008
Aha! I've spent this rather snowy day here in Carolina working on Beta Classifieds, a new feature sponsored by SKoW.The Beta Classifieds is a forum on FictionPress where you can volunteer to be a beta-reader, request a beta-reader, and everything in between. The link to the forum is to the left.
17 January 2008
New buttons for those of you nominated! want to show, not tell, your readers that you're nominated? Angeline has made several new buttons themed for Round Five for your use. You can put these on your personal blogs, websites, wherever. These are hosted on imageshack, so feel free to direct link.They are located under the new "Nominated?" link on the navigation.
14 January 2008
[QUICK EDIT] The category of Amazing Wordsmith has now been closed for nominations. Thank you! [/QUICK EDIT]I've uploaded a new questionnaire after much delay (which was partly my fault), but here it is! This one was filled out by a certain authoress named Myrika, who has won numerous awards here at SKoW and is up for a couple more this round. While no one can really be the ultimate expert on how you should go about writing your story, it wouldn't hurt to have someone else's opinion, wouldn't it?
Here's a link to her questionnaire, along with a questionnaire filled out by Emma (Dillusional) quite a while ago.
http://skow.endless-romance.net/questionnaires.php
I do warn you that Myrika answered her questions quite thoroughly (so much so that I think she's written a novel just answering the questions!), which delighted me to no ends. She even answered them in parts (I think at one point it went from Part A to Part J). Enjoy!
13 January 2008
The category of Best Love Triangle (Incomplete) has now been closed for nominations.9 January 2008
The categories of Best Kiss and Quirkiest Chapter Name have now been closed for nominations.8 January 2008
It's around three in the morning here. Goodness. Anyways, the category Best Het (Incomplete) has now been closed for nominations. Yay! Keep nominating. (:In my school, we have four classes per semester and we have finals after each semester is over. Well. I'll be having my first set of finals on Friday, and then next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Safe to say, I'll be very stressed out for the next oh, week or so, and my time on the computer will be limited. So if you sent me an e-mail, it may be a day or two until I reply (which is unusually slow for me, I know). Anyways, after that I have about a half-a-week break and I'll get right back into the swing of things. Ta, loves!
Also, shoutouts go towards the following categories which are lacking nominations: Punk'd Award, Best One-liner, Best Awkward Moment, Best Villain. These are all new categories, so support your favorites and nominate!
5 January 2008
You know what I realized? I haven't been putting 2008 at the end of these updates..Anyways. I've put up new restrictions on the categories of Amazing Wordsmith and Best Breakout Author. They are very, very specific, so if you're looking to nominate an author for either category, please go read the new restrictions on the Categories page. (My judges were generally going by these guidelines while they were choosing nominees, so I thought I'd make them official rules now.)
4 January 2008
The category of Best One-Shot has been closed for nominations. Great job, everybody!Somebody (I don't think they left a name) had suggested in the tagboard that we start a forum and I said I would think about it to see what I could do with it to make it different from the Yahoo! Group. So I thought, what about a Beta Classifieds? Or. Well. You all can probably come up with a better name than I can.
Basically, those who wish to beta for others can post threads on here stating their name, what fiction they prefer the most, their critiquing style, and their e-mail address. It's like a Classified, almost! And you, the writer, can contact the betas of your choice to request his or her beta services.
What do you think? Good idea, yes, no? Do you think you'd be interested in requesting for a beta? Do you think you'd be interested in being a beta? Let me know in the tagboard or in the Yahoo! Group (I'll post this same exact message on the Yahoo! Group, so you can reply on there).
3 January 2008
The categories of Best MC Portrayal and Best Supporting Character have now been filled, and are closed for nominations.1 January 2008
First update of the new year! The category of Most Creative Plot (Complete) has been closed, meaning that the entire category has now been closed for nominations. Keep nominating, loves!31 December 2007
[EDIT] Spread the love! Here are some categories feeling the neglect. They've all had five or less nominations submitted. Here we go! Best one-Liner, Punk'd Award, Best Villain, Best Challenge Response, Quirkiest Chapter Name, Best Non-Romance, Best Awkward Moment, Best Supporting Character, and Best Kiss. [/EDIT]Happy New Year's Eve! Hope you're all doing well. I've finished putting up the new layout, made by our lovely graphics specialist Leila. Send some love to her!
I've also put up a new episode of SKoW Radio titled "Episode 7 - 'All for the Sake of Entertainment'". It features me and Anna, and our new segment titled "Great Debaters". Check it out at the link to the left!
Again, if you spot any errors, don't hesitate to point them out, no matter how slight they may be!
29 December 2007
New challenge uploaded to the Yahoo! Group: "Challenge #19 - Don't Say Macbeth!" This one was written by Joanna, another one of our judges. (: Also, the category of Most Creative Plot (Incomplete) has been filled. Nominations have been closed for that category!28 December 2007
Second update today. (: I've added two new challenges to the Yahoo! Group: "Challenge #17 - The Uncliche" and "Challenge #18 - And it All Falls Down". They were made by our judges Cherry and Julia, respectively. Check 'em out while you're nominating. (:And speaking of nominations, I forgot to tell you this yesterday in all my excitement. You'll only be able to submit three nominations a day per category. So that means. Well. you can submit (23x3) nominations a day (you can do the calculations there).
28 December 2007
And as the clock strikes midnight, the nomination period begins...HAPPY SECOND BIRTHDAY, SKOW! Goodness, has it really been that long..?
If you've been living under a rock -- or just haven't visited the site since last August -- you've missed out on a lot of things.
Here's a brief list:
That's brief. There's more. Check the past updates on here and on the old SKoW site (which now serves as just an archive) to see what went on!
24 December 2007
Merry Christmas to you all who celebrate it! And a Happy Holidays to everyone else who doesn't! I've been working on some last minute renovations on the site, and here are the fruits of some of my labor -- song requests have returned for the SKoW playlist!Song dedications will still go to the SKoW Radio, but song requests shall now go to the SKoW playlist. Just go to the music page under "Extras" for more information and a link towards the request page.
Samma was very kind in volunteering to take care of the playlist in addition to her judging duties. Send her mucho love! ♥
16 December 2007
Jenina's back and she's better than ever -- hey la, hey la, Jenina's back! (Sing to the tune of "My Boyfriend's Back" -- you'll get it!) I finally got a new computer today, "for Christmas" of course, but after much wheedling on my part, I was able to open it early. I don't have any of my old files and programs yet (I'm working on that!). It might take me a good week or so before I can get everything back up.This does mean that I will be able to update things faster, be more available, aaaand, I'll be able to get SKoW Radio back up and running by next week! (Hopefully.) Keep your fingers crossed, loves! ♥
13 December 2007
Welcome to the site! As you see, the updates page has been cleared. You may see the old updates at the freewebs site if you so wish. The old freewebs site will now just serve as an archive site rather than an actual functioning site.Many thanks to Nic, who put up with my perfectionist tendencies and put together such a lovely layout. She also designed the corresponding banner on the freewebs site to point you this way. Send her some love! (Oh, and a very happy [belated] birthday to our lovely Nic, whose birthday I had just recently discovered [I was supposed to upload this layout to the site about a week ago, but I've had to make numerous changes since then] to be December 3rd.)
We've switched everything to PHP so everything is much more easily accessible and won't open inside iframes (I really despised iframes -- I spent many hours grumbling over them yet trying to work with them at the same time). Iframes are convenient, but they just won't work for a site like ours.
Again, I still don't have access to my laptop (and I most likely won't until after Christmas), so updates on here won't be frequent. The best source for updates would be the Yahoo! Group. You can find the link to the Yahoo! Group under "Subscribe". The link to the C2 Community is also there.
If you see any broken links, please report them immediately. Thanks!