Theme - "Trick or Treat"

Literal? Metaphorical? This can mean whatever you want it to mean. Have fun! [also, see next post for an Optional Secondary Objective]

Word Limit: 1400.

Submission Deadline: Wednesday, 10/15 by 11:59 PM Pacific.

Voting begins Thursday, 10/16, and goes until Saturday, 10/18 at 11:59 PM Pacific

Submission Guidelines:

- All submissions must be written during the time of the challenge. We don't want a snippet of your doctoral thesis from 1996 being used here.
- One entry per poster. You can submit and then edit if you'd like, but finalizing before submitting is encouraged.
- Spelling and Grammatical errors can be used to great effect when the story, characters, and setting demand it. However, proofreading and spell-checking your writing will probably result in a more positive attitude towards it when people are voting.
- Using the topic as the title of your piece is discouraged. These challenges get a large number of submissions and if entries share the same title, it's difficult for the readers to separate them out come voting time.
- Any writing style is welcome, but remember that most people are probably going to vote for the well written short story over an elementary acrostic poem.
- There are many ways to interpret the theme for this assignment, we are all writers or wannabe writers, so keep that in mind when writing and critiquing others' works.
- Thousands of people read GAF, so if you don't want some masterpiece of yours to be stolen and seen in Hollywood a year from now, don't post it on here.
- Finally, there is a handy word count checker at www.wordcounttool.com. Nobody wants to be a word count nazi, but please keep your submission under the limit.

Voting Guidelines:

- Anyone can vote, even those that do not submit a piece during the thread.
- Three votes per voter. Please denote in your voting your 1st (3 pts), 2nd (2 pts), and 3rd (1 pt) place votes.
- Please read all submissions before voting, it is only fair to those who put in the effort.
- You must vote in order to be eligible to win the challenge. Critiques/comments are encouraged but not required.
- When the voting period ends, votes will be tallied and the winner will get a collective pat on the back and will be in charge of picking a new topic to write about and pick the word length.
- In the event of a tie, the story with the highest number of first place votes will be declared the winner. If they are still tied after this first tiebreaker, the previous challenge winner will decide any further tie-breaking measures (2nd Place votes, Joint Topic Choice, etc.)

Previous Challenges:

#1 - "The Things Unseen" (Winner: beelzebozo)
#2 - "An Unlikely Pair" (Winner: Aaron)
#3 - "weightless, breathless" (Winner: Azih)
#4 - "On the way" (Winner: DumbNameD)
#5 - "The End" (Winner: Cyan)
#6 - "Playing with Fire" (Winner: Aaron)
#7 - "Something Brutal" (Winner: Ronito)
#8 - "Parasite and Host" (Winner: Aaron)
#9 - "The Seasons" (Winner: ivysaur12)
#10 - "Anniversary" (Winner: Memles
#11 - "Comedy" (Winner: Scribble)
#12 - "The Trilogy" (Winner: Aaron)
#13 - "Impossible Thing" (Winner: Cyan)
#14 - "Lost and Found" (Winner: Iceman)
#15 - "Prescient" (Winner: Iceman)

Optional secondary objective: Minimize back story.

Some stories get bogged down by too much back story. The goal here is to use dialogue and brief action and character descriptions to establish the minimum amount of back story required for the reader to understand your world and your plot.

Practice economy: Think about what is absolutely necessary and what the reader can surmise from the dialogue and the action.

Find a way to illustrate character as the plot unfolds: Two challenges ago, Cyan further challenged us to use dialogue to express character. This technique will be helpful in eliminating the exposition usually employed in establishing back story. Instead of telling us what your characters are like or where they come from, find ways to inject information through dialogue and through your action descriptions.

I like the way you think.

ha, back just in time for the next one. i think i may do another in the same series as the last one i did.

and the sub challenge is EXACTLY as i write too :lol

Good secondary objective. Definitely won't be easy.

Got a few ideas on the theme already.

Good theme, though I don't have an idea for it yet. Expect some strong results from this one.

Edit: Have an idea. Lots of vulgar language in it so far though.

Cyan said:

Got a few ideas on the theme already.

Click to expand...

could I borrow one?

I've got an idea. Don't know how well it'll be received, but it'll be fun to write.

must....not...be...cliche....

Well, mine's definately gonna be about hookers and coke.

ronito said:

must....not...be...cliche....

Click to expand...

Wait, is that a rule?

Ok, maybe I don't have any ideas...

RumpledForeskin said:

Well, mine's definately gonna be about hookers and coke.

Click to expand...

:lol

Now I'll be disappointed if it isn't!

i know i'm getting ahead of myself here, but are we going to suspend these writing challenges next month for NaNoWriMo? i don't know if i'll have the time to even try it, but i think it would be cool to get the challenge regulars and everyone else together to view our progress on our works.

That's an good point. It took every available second of my day do push out enough words per day during NaNoWriMo last year... and I still flopped after a week and a half. I intend to go much further this time. At least this time I'll be writing a novel and not a screenplay.

However, these challenges could also provide an outlet for any other kind of creative writing you may want to exercise even while thinking about your novel. I'm personally interested in a bunch of styles of writing, and writing in a screenplay format (certainly I'm in the minority here) and only about one story and set of characters for a month felt a bit stifling.

Maybe we can have really short challenges.. say 500 words or less. I'm sure there are other contributors who aren't going to participate in NaNoWriMo but would still like to take part in the challenges.

(I'm just thinking out loud here)

Mike Works said:

i know i'm getting ahead of myself here, but are we going to suspend these writing challenges next month for NaNoWriMo? i don't know if i'll have the time to even try it, but i think it would be cool to get the challenge regulars and everyone else together to view our progress on our works.

Click to expand...

I was wondering about that too. If this thread wraps up on the 18th, that would give us just enough time to squeeze in one more challenge, with voting finishing on Nov 1st.

Of course, those of us who are doing NaNoWriMo (hopefully that'll be everyone...) might want to use that time to start planning out our novel. I was thinking the 18th or so would be a good time to put up the new NaNo thread, so that people would have a little time to plan ahead if they're into that sort of thing.

I'm definitely in favor of suspending the challenges for November. The new one could go up December 1st, a Monday, or a few days later if people are burned out.

What does everyone else think? Suspend after Challenge #17? Have really short word counts? No change, and to hell with novels anyway?

I dunno. I doubt that I'll be doing NaNoWriMo

Shorter challenges like 500 word vignettes might be good. But if you guys want to suspend them I'm ok with that too.

ronito said:

I dunno. I doubt that I'll be doing NaNoWriMo

Click to expand...

You totally should! It's a lot of fun. And a really good way to get yourself to do a whole lot of writing.

Cyan said:

You totally should! It's a lot of fun. And a really good way to get yourself to do a whole lot of writing.

Click to expand...

We could do both. The larger NaNoWriMo challenge for those who want to attempt it, and smaller weekly challenges for this who either fall off the big task or just don't feel like working on that ambitious of a project just yet.

Cyan said:

You totally should! It's a lot of fun. And a really good way to get yourself to do a whole lot of writing.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I know. I've been playing with the idea, but fact is I still have my other novel that I've already written and is in severe need of editing. So if I can't even bring one novel to a final completion how then can I play with two?

ronito said:

Yeah, I know. I've been playing with the idea, but fact is I still have my other novel that I've already written and is in severe need of editing. So if I can't even bring one novel to a final completion how then can I play with two?

Click to expand...

Well, there's always NaNoEdMo the next month.

Abandoned initial idea, came up with a new one, and writing again. Typical really.

I'm going to be traveling from Monday (10/13) on for a while so I won't be able to moderate the end of the challenge and the voting. Could somebody volunteer to step in?

I'll certainly have my entry in by Sunday.

Anybody have any stories coming?

I decided my ideas for this one sucked. I still have to come up with something.

I've been too busy doing research on my topic to write anything down.

I've started. It's very different from my other entries and will be shorter than the limit by a good chunk.

If no one else is willing to help Ice I'll do it.

Thanks, ronito.

And me too on the word count. Mine is almost certainly going to be well shy of the word limit.

ronito said:

must....not...be...cliche....

Click to expand...

I just scribbled down bits and piece of mine, and it's pretty cliche.
Someone's got to cover that ground though. I'll leave it up to the rest of you to come up with cleverer stories.

My story ideas are all extremely cliched. :lol It'll be interesting to see if I get anything worthwhile to come out.

So I was thinking about the challenge for November.

i was thinking that maybe what we should do is have a collective GAF NaNoWriMo. It could be like a mass writing project. Rules could be set up, a theme selected, characters decided upon and then we write. Each taking a certain section, perhaps 500 words at a time. And see what the creative writing crew can do. Just a thought.

I might have time for this...

ronito said:

So I was thinking about the challenge for November.

i was thinking that maybe what we should do is have a collective GAF NaNoWriMo. It could be like a mass writing project. Rules could be set up, a theme selected, characters decided upon and then we write. Each taking a certain section, perhaps 500 words at a time. And see what the creative writing crew can do. Just a thought.

Click to expand...

I'm all for it. That sounds really fun.

ronito said:

So I was thinking about the challenge for November.

i was thinking that maybe what we should do is have a collective GAF NaNoWriMo. It could be like a mass writing project. Rules could be set up, a theme selected, characters decided upon and then we write. Each taking a certain section, perhaps 500 words at a time. And see what the creative writing crew can do. Just a thought.

Click to expand...

Having done this sort of thing before, the best thing would be to set up a setting, a few significant characters, and some sort of event for those characters to react to. The writers would be free to follow their own little plots from it and make up additional characters. If you try to get more than a couple people trying to write parts of the same story, it'll fall apart very quickly no matter how well you organize it before hand. The range of writing here is just too diverse to fit into one story.

I'd be willing to add to this, but it would have to be set up and discussed before Nov hits. Planning this sort of thing is usually a drawn out process.

Great idea, ronito. I'm definitely up for that. I'm not paying too much mind to the structure and plot of my NaNoWriMo novel, so I'd be willing to do a Writing Challenge like that.

But yeah, if everyone writes their little piece to form one story, then it'd end up being a bit disjointed due to the all the different styles. I agree with Aaron's proposal. Maybe someone here could write one short story (Or maybe we can use one of the winning challenges from the past) for other writers to branch away from, and then everyone else (and the original writer), can write the continuation/'what-if' scenarios/prequels/spin-offs (such as focusing on a really minor character in the original story). That way, people can go in whatever direction they want, but there's still that original story tying all the different stories together.

Sort of like a spider brainstorm map of stories.

I don't like the idea of someone writing the first story because it'll lock it into a certain style. I think it should be put together as a group, where we agree on a setting, a few characters, and an event that works like a more directed version of the themes we use in these challenges.

Let's say its a small town in some remote area, like high up in the hills with mountains. What sort of people would live there? Say there's an old mayor, a retired soldier, a single mother, etc... though we'd flesh these people out a little bit. Maybe once the setting was set, each writer would come up with a fully realized character to throw into the pot. It's a relatively peaceful town, but then something happens... like an alien invasion or a murder or a sudden virus outbreak. Each character is going to have their own reaction, and such their own story to tell. We could submit vague plotlines of what our main character will do, just how they'll react, to they can feed the background of other people's stories.

Man, researching MFA grad schools has gotten me all stressed out. I didn't even make the minimum requirements for some of the schools I was really hoping to apply to. *sigh* Makes me wonder sometimes, though thanks to these challenges, I feel a little more apt to try for an MFA again, which is something I was inching towards giving up on.

And I agree with Aaron. Well, not all of it, but most of it. A general setting, knowledge of who the major players would be, a few major plot points to work towards: These would all make things much easier when we get ready to sit down and write. Though, I don't think the change in style would bother me that much.

I'm all for the collective idea primarily because I'd like to get some creative writing in, but there's no way I'd be able to get time to write anything close to a novel with thesis deadlines and major assignments and all that jazz.

i'm personally going to be doing my own NaNoWriMo (until school becomes to demanding), but i'll be interested to see what you guys come up with if you do this collective thing

Aaron said:

I don't like the idea of someone writing the first story because it'll lock it into a certain style. I think it should be put together as a group, where we agree on a setting, a few characters, and an event that works like a more directed version of the themes we use in these challenges.

Let's say its a small town in some remote area, like high up in the hills with mountains. What sort of people would live there? Say there's an old mayor, a retired soldier, a single mother, etc... though we'd flesh these people out a little bit. Maybe once the setting was set, each writer would come up with a fully realized character to throw into the pot. It's a relatively peaceful town, but then something happens... like an alien invasion or a murder or a sudden virus outbreak. Each character is going to have their own reaction, and such their own story to tell. We could submit vague plotlines of what our main character will do, just how they'll react, to they can feed the background of other people's stories.

Click to expand...

I actually really like this idea. Perhaps what we could do is each of the winners for the next two challenges one come up with a theme the other the setting that is agreed on by everyone. The runners up to the next challenges come up with the characters.

I also think in order to avoid confusion and for quality's sake we should have sign ups. I'd say ideally one should have to participate in either this challenge or the next to participate in the GAFNaNoWriMo, at least that way we know they can write and have written to deadline.

Mike Works said:

i'm personally going to be doing my own NaNoWriMo (until school becomes to demanding), but i'll be interested to see what you guys come up with if you do this collective thing

Click to expand...

Likewise. I'm not going to have that kind of time.

How long would each of these stories would be? Is this GAF project like a regular Writing Challenge (1000 - 2000 word stories), but the stories happen to be linked together?

Well, I figure I'll throw my hat into the ring for this one. So here goes...

Word count: 1019

Paranoid.

Paranoid they call me. Not crazy, not to them. Just stand there, smile, act like its all okay.

I see him in my sleep, but never his face. I look to the floor and see the shadow looming over me, some tall lanky creature with a fine hat. My body’s always frozen in fear, too filled with terror to turn around and face this thing. But I know what he’s doing. I know he’s smiling.

My girlfriend seemed worried about me for the longest time. The things I’d write to her, tell her while she sat at my side. Just a bad dream she said.

But it feels like he’s real. The same feeling I got when I’d stay up late watching horror movies on Halloween when I was just a child. That same fear that once the lights go out, he’s standing there… smiling.

I was invited to a party, close friends and a lot of other people I don’t know. An excuse to dress up and get drunk, but all I did was sit in the corner watching my girlfriend have fun chatting up her friends. She was wearing a mask. All I could see of her was what her voice inferred.

Some of her friends turn and cast glances at me, smiling and laughing, but kindness and joy is devoid in their eyes. Judging me, telling me I don’t belong without having to whisper a word. I’d tell her this, but she’d just smile and laugh at me, say that I’m being paranoid.

Just like it is every year. The same smiling fools, the same drunken inane babble, recollections of other times they did stupid things while under the influence of this holiday.

I think up an excuse in my head. It aches from trying to sit here and process what’s going on, so I latch onto that. Go to her, tell her I’m feeling ill, and tell her we need to leave, to go home.

She seems to have had enough of my sulking, she tells me to just leave, that she’ll get a ride home herself.

I grab her by the arm and drag her into one of the bedrooms, fury masking my paranoia. I tell her that I know what her friends think of me, what my own friends think of me even, they don’t want me here, and she’s done nothing but side with them. I know what she’s going to say…

“You’re being paranoid.”

No, I’m not.

I rip her mask off, and see the anger in her eyes. She’s judging me just like they did, giving me that same look. The one I trusted most, the betrayal I feel is immense.

I see the shadow growing over me.

She tries to cool the situation, tries to make light of it. She looks around, and picks up a bowl of candy that was sitting on the dresser, only a few bits of chocolate left in it after the children have all had their share.

“Here… have some candy and calm down.”

It’s a trick… and I’ve had enough. I grab the large glass bowl from out of her hands, tossing all the candy to the floor as I swing it like a cudgel. This isn’t a game, this isn’t a trick.

Feel the screaming in the back of my skull, the sounds of a billion children crying out, twisted to sound like some cruel form of laughter. I can’t tell her this, because she’ll say the same thing. She’ll say that I’m just paranoid.

I grab her by the throat and push her to the edge of the bed. She’s trying to scream, making strange coughing noises instead, some half gasps of words begging for me to stop. The shadow covers us both and I lift the bowl up in the air. I see my tears falling onto her face. Why am I doing this?

I close my eyes, and I can feel that the glass doesn’t even give on the first blow. I still hear the laughter, that horrible tortured laughter. I want it to stop, so I lift the bowl into the air again.

I don’t feel any struggle from her now. No more cries for help, nothing. I open my eyes and see the top of her head turned into a pulp, her eyes still staring at me, still judging me, even after this. Her face is smiling at me.

No one comes to save her. The cackling fools don’t notice me when I leave the room. I look at them… they all just sit around, doing nothing, saying nothing. They just stand there… smiling.

I grab another of them, scream at the others to react as I take this poor slob and throw him to the ground. I start ripping at his face, pressing my thumbs into his eye sockets. He doesn’t say anything, he just smiles. The rest of them just laugh, a terrible unison laugh. I wonder why none of the blood gets on me, but that’s because the man isn’t there on the floor. The room is empty, save for me, and the tall shadow hunching over me. I can’t dare look at him, but I know he’s grinning like an idiot.

I look at my hands… there should be so much blood, but there isn’t. Even when I show them all this thing that haunts me, I fail. I want to rip at them, make them see, bash in their faces so they can’t smile.

I feel… like my eyes are being pulled open, forcefully.

“Rise and shine,” it says.

The distorted voice starts to take on a familiar tone.

“Honey? Wake up!”

I open my eyes, and I’m sitting in my bed again, and my girlfriend sits next to me, her brain matter still very much inside of her beautiful skull.

Just a dream… again. It still felt so real, felt so good… like none of it was a bad thing. I’d tell her about it… but I know she’d just say the same thing. She’d say that I’m just being paranoid.

Sunday and there's only one entry?

Seems like we're all going to be late betties.

I have a story in progress, but honestly I'm not at all inspired by it. What I've written of it so far doesn't even feel worth posting.

I'm going to have to finish this story on the plane. And given that I'll be in the air for about 12 hours it shouldn't be a problem. I'll likely post it on the 15th. I'm liking my story so far. Lots of possibilities.

Damn it, my ideas suck and just keep sucking.

I keep coming back to this one idea, and then thinking, "Damn! That really sucks!"

I had to cut over a thousand words to get it down to length. That's not including several ideas that I didn't even bothering trying to include.

Witchery Electric
word count: 1,399

There was little warmth or courtesy from the palace servants. The graduates of Weston Academy were herded into the grand theater like cattle before an abattoir. Nearly all were treaters; adjusting their luminous eye liner and directing their fairies, with plain Amanda the Tricker clutching her wand at the back of the line. Then red curtain rose to reveal their audience.

The seats were sparsely occupied by old officials in their grey hair and archaic robes, while the Prince sat off to one side, decked out in his black leather jacket and sunglasses, surrounded by his usual gang of cronies. In the center of it all was a wide dais occupied by a small throne of gleaming crystal. On that throne rested the Queen herself, trapped within an elegant dress of silver and white, hand sewn though she was a treater herself.

"Congratulations to you all on your recent graduation," the Queen spoke with a slight cough in her throat, as if troubled by a lingering cold. "Now you must display the talent that is the future of our great nation."

The first girl was called, red-faced and shaking as she fumbled her way through typical illusions of blooming flowers and unicorns racing across the stage. So the performances passed, and the crowd showered the treater in perfunctory applause until the next was called. The Queen remained silent and thoughtful throughout, only nodding and smiling as they passed.

Amanda felt a twitch of anxiety to realize she stood alone, while the final treater was busily waving her arms as fountains, full of colorful fish reaching for the heavens. She ended with great whale smashing through the roof to escape on a journey to the moon. Yet before the final name was called, the Queen spoke, "The evening has come on what has been a trying day for all. So we will retire, and resume in the morning."

"What?" Amanda muttered to herself in disbelief. There was no one left but her. Surely they could spare ten more minutes? She almost raised her voice in protest when the curtain fell.

A few girls snickered as they glanced in her direction, but most were too tired to mock. Amanda lowered her head, only to notice a message scrawled on the floor, "Return here at the stroke of midnight."

Though when she blinked, it was gone.

*

"Is anybody here?" Amanda whispered as she entered the darkened theater as instructed, wondering if it was just one of the treaters playing a joke on her.

There was no response. Though as she glanced over the grand hall, she noticed that where the Queen's throne should have been was an electric scooter, with the usual treater touches stripped away to leave a plain body of white and steel.

"This palaces floats above the sea. Do they ride this thing through the halls?" Amanda muttered before reaching out to touch it, to be sure it was real and not just another illusion.

"Turn... the... key...," a woman's voice whispered.

Certain this was a prank, Amanda did as she was told, seating herself on the worn cushion, and giving the machine's small engine a good rev until it was puttering happily.

"Yes, that's much better," came the clear sound of the Queen's voice from the bike's small radio. "We tricked him into giving our battery a good charge for the graduation ceremonies, but we never thought he'd be cruel enough to switch us off!"

"Your majesty? Where are you?" Amanda questioned with eyes wide as she glanced about the darkened theater, all the time thinking, 'Please don't tell me you're the scooter...'

"We are in this scooter," the Queen clarified primly. "It's a long story that we don't have time for, but our rotten, ungrateful son has murdered us and taken over. We managed to bind our soul to this bike, but being a treater there's not much we can do."

Amanda frowned as she quickly leapt from the seat, feeling this situation was uncomfortable for a whole assortment of reasons. "I'm not sure what I can do."

"We need to get to the top of this palace and perform the succession ceremony before this weak battery runs out," the Queen insisted peevishly as the tiny speaker squawked with static. "We realize you're terribly unqualified for this position, but only a tricker can do this. So you'll just have to do."

"Maybe if you were a better queen you wouldn't be in this mess," Amanda muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" the Queen pressed.

"Nothing," the girl answered with a bland smile.

"Fine. There's no time to argue. Hop on and we'll be off," the Queen declared, having clearly overheard, but deciding against raising the issue in her present circumstances.

Amanda bowed to her queen's command, though in that moment the doors of the theater were thrown open, and a group of men charged in bearing electric lanterns, reflected off the Prince's dark glasses. He reached over and grabbed a firm hold of Amanda's arm. "Where you think you going, girlie?"

"Hands off, creep," Amanda warned before snapping her fingers, and causing his glasses to shatter in a hundred pieces. The Prince staggered back in pain as his gang rushed forward.

The tricker felt a surge of panic when the scooter's electric engine roared like an enraged housecat. The bike leapt from the dais to tear down the center aisle, only to spin around before hitting the stage, and charging straight at the pack, and sending the thugs scattering in all directions. Then it hit the lip of the dais like a ramp, sailing over the head of the cursing Prince, and out the door still hanging open. Amanda caught her breath to raise her wand and slam the door closed behind them, fusing the brass handles into one barring mass.

"Lovely effort dear, but that theater has six exits. That won't delay them long," the Queen mildly chided while zipping down the narrow halls as quick as this scooter could manage. "Save your strength for what's ahead."

"What is ahead?" Amanda questioned, since she kept glancing back, expecting signs of pursuit.

"Stairs," the Queen warned, indicating the wide spiral steps that occupied one of the palace's many spires.

Amanda took a deep breath and slashed at the air with her wand. Thanks to the witching hour, the force of her blow knocked every stair flat, forming a ramp that the scooter ascended with no more than a few bumps. Something she was forced to do for the next set and the next, until the tricker's arm was worn and heavy from the effort, leaving her gasping for air.

They had reached the summit, however, and before them lay the ancient and ornate doors of the Sky Chamber, where queens had received their honor for more than ten centuries. Standing before that door was an enraged Prince and his furious followers, armed with switchblades and bats.

"You're not getting through, mother! The reign of the witches is over! Now the mitches will rule!" the Prince declared as his gang raised their fists in agreement.

"Mitches?" Amanda repeated with a frown.

"Male empowerment gibberish," the scooter Queen grumbled in time to the sputtering of her engine. "Hold on."

Amanda grabbed a firm hold of the handlebars just as the Queen charged for her murderous son. The thugs attempted to bar their path, but with her wand in her teeth, the girl made their own bats smack them in the head, leaving them stumbling and clearing the way. The cowardly Prince dove to the floor as they struck the door head on. With a creek the front axle snapped, but the door tumbled open, allowing both scooter and tricker inside.

The glass dome overhead allowed the stars to peer down upon Amanda dragging the broken scooter to the shallow pool at the center at the center of the room, while the door barred by her wand shook and threatened to burst open. The bike hit the water with a splash and a sigh, releasing the grey spirit of the Queen. She smiled as Amanda stepped in after her, saying in a solemn voice, "Let my grace pass to you."

"I'm not sure it'll be enough," Amanda muttered as her wand finally snapped, and the Prince witnessed the stars above flare at the crowning of a new Queen.

I pretty much have nothing. I'll try to blast something out of the two cliched ideas, but it'll be a rough one.

Well, got... something to write about. No idea if it'll be any good, or if I'll even have time tomorrow to write it. Wasted way too much time in the PoliGAF thread when I should have been working.