Monday, January 20, 2014

2014 Pledge Challenge

The 2014 Pledge Challenge will run until the end of January. Join in the fun!

Readers, pledges and authors are all welcome! Write a story (or two), comment, or perhaps you've some spare change and are willing to pledge a small amount per story.

Read about the Challenge in more detail here.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

HASA news - Birthdays, Challenges, Stories

Story Pledge Challenge
Why not take part in the January 2014 Story Pledge Challenge? Join in the fun: write a story or put up a pledge, or perhaps even both.

Following the course of the second Hobbit movie, the theme for this year is Sun, Shadow and Smaug. Bilbo journeys from the sunny slopes of the Misty Mountains into the deep shadows of Mirkwood, emerging from them to continue to the desolation of the Dragon. Gone are the certainties of the civilized Shire, evil lurks beneath the branches of the trees, and every step brings him closer to Smaug...
The Challenge: Write a story that is connected in some way with The Hobbit - the book or the movies - and that uses one or more of the three themes of the challenge - sun, shadow, Smaug - and post it on HASA. It can be anything you like as long as it ties in to something that happens or is mentioned or must have occurred given the events of the book or the movie. Of course there are some rules to the Challenge.

For authors:

  • Your story must be a new story, never having appeared for the general public on any other web site
  • Your story must be 500 words or more in length (combining drabbles is fine, length allowances made for poetry)
  • Your story is posted exclusively to HASA in January while the Challenge runs

For those readers who want to pledge a donation:

  • The pledge is per completed story posted to the Challenge - you can't specify that you'll only donate for an Elf story or one with Gollum in it, for example.
  • A minimum of $1.00 per story
  • No minimum on the total amount you're willing to pledge

Enter a story in the Challenge here.

The Story Pledge Challenge in the Forums: General discussion

Keep an eye out for the Entries and Pledges forums!

January Birthdays
Is your birthday in January, and would you like a drabble about your favourite character or topic? You can request it here.

Not sure what the birthday cards are about? Have a look at some stories written for previous requests.

December Stories
All writers love feedback. It is the lembas and miruvor that sustains us as we write our story, and leaving a few words about a story you read is always a nice thing to do, whether the story is new or old.

Every fifteen minutes HASA highlights a story chosen at random from the Reviewed and General stories in the archive. Read the currently featured story on our front page.

Many talented writers are publishing every day. In December:

---15 General Stories were published or updated.
---no Beta Stories were updated.
(Please note, you need to be logged in to view beta stories.)

Thank you for reading at HASA. Enjoy!