By the time this posts, the results for the Thirst Contest will have been posted, though as I write this, it is still several days away. I am writing this completely unaware as to if I will get lucky and win a prize or if that will be another day of bad luck - which, given the way the voting was set up, I suspect the latter.
For the record, had I known going into the contest that the only thing the readers would be able to vote for were the specialty awards and not the traditional top three, I wouldn't have even entered.
Here's a bit about why.
Anyone who reads my stories can pretty much safely say that I tend to write outside the norm. I'm not afraid to make people hate me and I don't write a story for a contest just to go the standard route. For the record, if you don't know what the standard is, it's an E/B HEA romance... typically with minimal to no angst. That's not me. Over the years I've had people call me the queen of angst, and though I will write E/B, they have to earn that HEA if I decide to give it to them. More often than not, I don't even bother.
Once in a rare while one of my contest entries will actually get a popularity award, even though my stories aren't the standard. And when that happens it makes me certain I did something right. I actually impressed people enough that they voted for my Lauren story (Lost But Not Forgotten) or my Julie story (For the Dogs) or my Victoria story (Tenetur Per Sanguine). For me, awards like this are extremely satisfying. And unfortunately, with the way this contest is set up, there's almost no award the readers can vote on that works with either of my two stories.
The two stories I entered into the Thirst Contest were Take It Back and Imprint of Yore, two very opposite stories.
So, let's talk about Take It Back:
A lot of the people that reviewed this story during the contest have asked for me to continue it. I want people to understand, that I wrote a complete story, and I have no intention of continuing it. I gave the E/B lovers a glimpse of potential hope, but in my mind I don't see a continued story ending in anything other than tragedy.
Bella has lost everything. She's been through literal, spiritual, and mental hell. And there's one of two ways to look at it. Either everything she's been through is her fault or it's all Edward's fault. You can pick which way you see it. Either way, there's no potential for an HEA, not in this storyline.
With that being said, maybe if I'm ever feeling especially bitter, I might continue it, but understand the ending I see in my mind is not a pretty one.
In the mean time, I've never been opposed to people taking my fanfics and using them as a starting point for their own - as long as they give me credit for my part in it. So, if somebody wanted to write a continuation ending in an HEA, they could, but it wouldn't be me.
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Then, there's Imprint of Yore:
Of the two, this is the clear underdog, none of the reviews so far have asked for a continuation, and the review count on the contest is disproportionately low. It having the second lowest count of eighteen stories.
And yet, I'm drawn to continue this, I want to see the next section. I want Edward and Jacob to find some sort of happy union. I see rocks and bumps and hills and mountains to climb in my mind. And I want it on paper. I want people to be able to read this story.
So I do intend to continue this. In fact, I see this as at least a trilogy, with rough paralleling to the original Twilight saga. I don't know if it will be a success amongst my readers, but I intend to go with it, anyway.
