The Contest Challenge

Thank you, Choco - Just Puppy Puppy Puppy! I try!

Lisa Noe, technically I mean do "catch-up" entries. Catching up is when you are behind. If you missed a few months, you do catch-up entries so you can finish your year. However, though you aren't "behind" for your year, you are behind if you want the giant celebration for those who have done every single month since "The Contest Challenge"  started.

I consider working backwards to be when you want to finish sooner. You started in June, but are excited about finishing (or know you will be too busy later), so since you can't see the future and know what contests I will be posting for future months, you work backwards, doing the May before the June you started, then the April before that one so that when you do the upcoming March you will be finished instead of having to wait until the May entry is complete. You've done a whole year, but instead of working forwards the whole time, at some point you worked backwards to get all 12 months done sooner.

Anyway, technically, it's not what I meant for you to do, so never mind. You don't need to work backwards so much as do catch-up entries. Small difference, but whatever. It's my own vocabulary I made up and apparently can't keep straight.

To do catch up entries, you don't have to work in any particular order. Look for the months you haven't yet completed (for you it's February 2017 - June 2018) in the dropnotes titled "Previously Highlighted Contests" and the year you are working on. Find the correct month and pick an open contest. For the older months, of course, many of the contests aren't open anymore. Also, sometimes I highlight contests that are only open once or a few times a year. For the ones only open occasionally, just keep an eye out for them. Though if it's getting close to next January (unless you think you can do all of them this month), I'll supply you with some contests (usually ones that didn't any/many entries in "The Contest Challenge"  when I highlighted them--I always feel bad for them) to do in their place.

I just created a list of contests for someone to use in place of the closed/defunct ones because she's finishing the whole challenge this month. Here's that list if you want to do those months first. I don't care what contest you post for which month with nothing available. But she lists the months with currently nothing to enter and I list contests to use for those months. "The Dialogue 500 -- MARCH 2018 + notes on defunct months"  .

If you are just super motivated and think you can do it, you are welcome to try and do everything this month. I'm keeping a list of everything I'm handing out just in case someone else finishes before the end of January. But in no way should you feel pressured to do so. At this point, I'm just encouraging folks to work towards finishing NEXT January. That way you have plenty of time to do it without stressing and if you are doing "I Write," they two work perfectly together.

To do a catch-up entry, you can work in any order since i know there's no hurry and sometimes a contest isn't open this month so sometimes a prompt just doesn't speak to you so you are waiting a month. No sweat. Doing catch-up and backwards entries are exactly the same. As I started to explain above, but got off track, as happens when I talk, type, etc., pick a contest from the correct year of the Previously Highlighted Contests dropnotes from a month you are missing. Enter as you normally would using the CURRENT month's prompt! Then post in our forum as you normally do, but also include the month and year you are catching up when posting the title. That way I know what to give you credit for. If you forget how to post an entry, just look at the examples just above the forum.

Any questions about my long and unnecessarily complicated answer? Just do February 2017 - June 2018 and tell me which month you are posting and next January (or this one if you can finish before January 31) you will get tons of fun surprises!

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The Contest Challenge  (13+) Join by entering a contest a month for 12 months--Win Badges! Catching up is allowed! #2109126 by Schnujo