The First Official SeeD Story Competition!

After a small conversation with Cspace, I have officially decided to hold the first ever SeeD Literature Contest!

This contest will be very general, in saying that all entries can be any type of literature that you wish. It can range from a short poem about family to a 30-page novel about a child who lost their parent in 9/11. I'll list some guidelines further down, but not right here.

Obviously, we're going to need some judges. People can apply in this topic to be a judge, just ask me and I'll give a yay or a nay. I'm hoping that we can get at least five judges. Please note - judges can submit pieces, but you can't be involved in the judging of your own piece, to avoid favoritism.

Stories will be judged as follows...

20 points - Enjoyability
15 points - Description
10 points - Creativity/Uniqueness
5 points - Conventions (Spelling and grammer.)

Also, if your story is unfinished, don't worry. Just try to insert a "TO BE CONTINUED" somewhere and submit.

Here are the guidelines for this contest...

Minimum length will be 50 words for a poem and 300 words for anything else. This rule is in place to make sure that we don't get any... Unnecessary entries, that really wouldn't stand a chance.
The maximum length of a story will be 30,000 words. This is to avoid stories that will take about a day or two to read.
Stories can be about all topics, except clearly inappropriate ones. Cussing can be used, but not in excess; only include it if you really want a character to emphasize a point.
You can write about anything, but please, don't write a report about some famous person. Try to stay along the lines of fiction, or at least creative writing.
Each person is limited to one entry. We'd probably get an absolute deluge of entries if there was no limit.
Please be careful with your spelling and grammer. A very messy story will definitely get lower marks than one with perfect spelling and grammer.
All stories must be original. (You can parody a well-known one, or do a take on it, but nothing to similar, or you will be disqualified.)
No foul play. Bribes, threats, blackmail, etc. to any judge is an automatic disqualification and a warning. Depending on the severity, a suspension could be handed out.

If your story does not follow all of these rules, and you still want to submit it, please state, with your entry, why it should be allowed to be entered in the contest.

At the moment, the reward will be an article about your victory on the CurvedSpace and SeeD homepages and an announcement, both with links to the winning story. This may change at any time, and remember, we're working on it. Other possible rewards may include a candlelight dinner with Star Jedi. (No, not really, that's likely illegal in one way or another.)

If anyone has anything to add, please feel free to post here. I'm quite sure that I've missed something, and some input can't hurt.

When you are finished with an entry, please send it to me either via PM or email. (My email address is Hyperfried@gmail.com) If you catch me on MSN, don't hesitate to send it through that, either.

For now, the deadline for submitting entries is Saturday, May 14th at 9PM EST. (Eastern Standard Time, -5 from GMT)

Start writing, people, and have some good ol' fun!