The experiment (part 2)

Hey folks

About a week ago I started an experiment with the designer website 99designs.com. I wanted to update you all on the progress.

If what happened can be called progress.

Initially there were some designs coming in for my business card that looked promising. They were well thought-out and showed some creativity. The first phase of the contest lasted about three days and about 7 people participated. The designs were varied. Two of the designers created work that seemed to fit well with what I had requested (a sci-fi business card). The other five either ignored my requests completely or just slapped some generic images/colours onto a card and called it a day. I spoke with a few of them and requested changes. Most of them were done and the cards looked somewhat better. (However... the amount of people who insist on putting an extra e at the end of my first name or start spelling my last name wrong when before they had it correct... yikes.)

The contest entry phase ended... and I wasn't blown away by any of the designs. They were 'ok' but not suitable to my writing/style at all.

I contacted 99designs customer support (These guys are actually on the ball! Helpful advice and fast answers!) and asked them what to do. They offered to extend my contest and I did.

A few of the designers stuck around and have been making changes/submitting new designs.

Another designer - one of them who did not stick around - told me he would no longer waste time on this contest (He actually had one of the best designs but got butthurt when I rated his last half-hearted attempt to spell my name correctly with a 2-star). All right. He hadn't spent a lot of time on the contest in the first place (his design was the most creative of them but needed an hour or two more of detail work) and apparently expected to just get a 270 euros prize by doing half an hour's work. (???)

Another designer yet has been working round the clock on the contest. He has submitted thirty designs and made every change I asked. He's not the best (sadly) but I can tell he's making an effort. He's available online most of the day and actively communicates with me to let me know what he's doing. This guy gets 5 stars on worth ethic but unfortunately only 3 stars for design concepts.

These two examples just about sum up my experience with 99designs. There are those designers who want to make a quick buck and don't intend to 'waste time' beyond half an hour's work and those who put in a congratulatory amount of effort but just don't have the skills (yet) to create a good design.

I'm not sure who deserves the prize money at this point. I'd love to have a design I really like for almost 300 euros but none of the ones submitted is it.

At the same time my second contest for a book cover is trudging along... not at all. The only cover submitted is a terror that quite frankly fits on a creepy 80's horror film but not a story about friendship and starlight. Like what! The main character (a headstrong little girl) looks like she's some sort of psycho escaped from Cthulu's army. I'm going to have nightmares of her tonight.

So far WriteBot doesn't like the 99designs experiment very much. WriteBot would like to have a lovely sci-fi business card but isn't sure it will still be possible until the end of the month (when there's ComicCon). But WriteBot refuses to just obtain a mediocre design. WriteBot wants the BEST business card.

I guess WriteBot will have to wait a while longer to start handing out cards...

All that being said... I think 99designs isn't a great place if you want quality work. A lot of the designers don't want to put in the amount of work required to complete a good design (even when ten hours of work could get them about 270 euros - which is quite a lot more than most people make in a day) and think they can make a quick buck by putting something together in photoshop and throwing it out there as a design. It's a bit disappointing... but I guess people want to find shortcuts everywhere.

WriteBot out!

[Chapter 3] of [Book I likely won't finish]

All right. Tomorrow is a long wait and Chapter 2-2 isn't really a full chapter so here you go: chapter three. And now I really need to get back to working on this or I won't have a chapter 4 to show tomorrow.

Riz ended up at Mel's place anyway, but they didn't have sex. One reason was Ekko, who refused to tell them where they were from and what a leshen was until they agreed he could stay at the police office fort he night. The other was that Riz felt particularly stubborn about the events of the night. She knew what she'd seen, but Mel didn't seem to believe any of it, and that was fine, but it also meant she was in no mood to have sex or talk about their relationship (which Mel often tried after they had sex).

The next morning Riz was even grumpier than the day before (sleeping on a narrow couch will do that to you, but then again, it was her own fault), and only managed to put on fresh clothes when they came in the office (separately) at 6 AM. The clothes she'd kept in the office were too small and her chest (grown considerably since she'd started here) strained against the cloth until she left it open under her uniform jacket. It wasn't standard, it wasn't proper etiquette, but if she wanted a straightjacket, she'd go straight to Huber and tell him all about last night's campfire experience.

At the office, Ekko waited, and Deputy Hailey, a bear-like guy in his thirties, made a grimace at her as she arrived.

"Where'd you pick up that brat?" he said.

Ekko bared his teeth at him, and Riz shrugged. "Dark forest, north of Blackwater."

Hailey lifted an eyebrow, then seemed to think better of it. "Yeah, not gonna ask what you were doin' in a dark forest north of BW."

He left. Riz stared at Ekko and he stared back defiantely.

"Time to go," she said.

"No," he said.

"I have work to do, and this isn't a kindergarten. I'm gonna take you straight to school, or straight to your parents. Your choice."

He too, was wearing clothes that didn't fit, and it looked like one of the deputy guys had lent them to him.

"I'm not goin' anywhere."

"Wasn't a question," she said as she turned to make her way into the corridor, down into the parking lot to her car.

Ekko followed sullenly.

"Did you manage to get anything on camera?" she asked when he'd caught up to her and they were walking side by side.

"All white," he said. "I shouldn't'a used f."

"Hm," she said. Bummer.

At the door to the outside, she stopped, because he stopped.

"What?"

"I can help," he said.

"Help with what?"

"The leshen."

"You've said that word twice and I still don't know what it means," she said. She should've googled it, but in the (relative) safety of Mel's apartment she hadn't felt like unpacking all the crazy she'd seen. She really should have, though, then perhaps she would've slept better that night.

"I'll show you if you let me stay."

"Let you stay where? This isn't kindergarten. It's a police office." What else could she add? Ah, the adult card. "Your parents will be worried."

"No they won't." His eyes darkened. "Don't look at me like that. It's not like they neglect me or some shit. They think I'm at a friend's."

"Hm."

"I can help you with this case."

"Oh yeah? And what case is that, if you're so smart?"

"The leshen case!" he snapped.

"Still don't know what that is."

He made a noise somewhere between angry dog and angry cat, but more dog, and pulled his phone out of male-deputy Guile's pocket. In a few swipes he got what he wanted and held it up to Riz's nose.

"This is a leshen."

Riz stared at it. It was a drawing of a man-beast, a greyish-dark skinned man up to the neck, on which the white skull of an elk sat, and from the skull protruded red antlers. It was exactly what she'd seen, or thought she'd seen, on the road the night before. The two visions were uncannily alike when she layered them on top of each other before her inner eye.

Then her eyes caught something else on the bottom of the picture - like a signature.

"It says Witcher III fanart" she said, suddenly annoyed that he was wasting her time.

"So what?"

"So it's not real."

"You saw it yesterday!"

"I saw a person on the road" she said. "It was Mel."

It had to have been, didn't it? Mel had left her car and came down to collect them in the incline after she'd seen Riz's car stopped close-by. Whatever else she'd seen had to have been something pathological. Anger about the reports, about people like Henny Pipers, driving hands-unfree with their phones, had set her off, and she'd imagined whatever horns or antlers or dark mist. It must've been. Mel hadn't seen it and she'd arrived only a moment after Riz's flashlight went off.

Riz glanced at Mel at her desk, then away again.

What was she thinking about changelings? She'd known Mel about half a year now and there never were any sightings of strange creatures before last week. Besides, if Mel was a leshen, then she was hiding those antlers pretty well. Likely in her cleavage.

Riz sighed. "I'm not buying it."

"But it's right here!" He thrust out the phone towards her.

"I see an image drawn by a fan of something mythical creature out of a fantasy realm -"

"It's not fantasy, it's folklore of [eastern Europe]."

"Uh-huh," she said.

"Your name is Clarisse Hunter, isn't it?"

"Riz," she said, unsure in the next moment why she was telling him anything about her.

"Ok, then, Riz," he said. "I can help you find out where the creature is, what it likes, what it does -"

"You're a gamer."

At this, he pulled himself up straight (about chin-height compared to Riz) and, his eyes burning like (not devil's) embers, he declared, "I'm not a gamer. I'm a scientist."

Riz managed to stop a snort before it left her nostrils, with difficulty, and only because she didn't want to hurt the boy's sense of pride in whatever science class he achieved good grades in school.

"That's good," she said instead. "The world needs more scientists." She opened the door they'd been standing in front of and gestured outside. "Now, however, Einstein, you better get back to your studies."

[Chapter 2-2] of [Book I'll likely not finish]

Here's the third chapter of this venture. It's actually more like part two of chapter two however... and yes. I do know I'm going a bit overboard with Cthulu jokes! But that's what editing is for - right? :)

PS: as this is the second part of chapter two it's a bit shorter (sorry!) but I'll have the real chapter three up by tomorrow morning!

"I - I don't understan -"

The boy beside her moved first. His phone went up and there was a sudden flash as he pressed the trigger button, and then he gasped as if he'd been wounded. His terror brought her back to herself and finally her gun was out. Had the creature noticed the flash of light? Riz killed her flashlight. What had she thought coming here alone? What did she know Cthulu was capable of? All she'd heard about him was fiction and this? This creature? What if it was a ghost and she couldn't wound it?

"What should we do!" the boy whispered. His voice was harsh and terrified and HOW SHE HATED CHILDREN. Why had he come out here? He wasn't any smarter than she and now he expected her to solve it! How could she protect this brat if she didn't even know what she was up against? She could barely see anything ahead, her eyes still trying to adapt, and he thought she could do something to protect them?

"Officer!" he whimpered.

"Quiet!" she snapped back. Protocol. Remember protocol. The innocent behind you, the gun in front. "Don't speak and follow me! Quickly!"

If she could go around the road she might be able to get a better look at it, and they'd have a better chance to get in their car, but if it spotted them...? Then what? Where was it, even? Her sight was coming back somewhat, but the thing she'd seen was gone, the road empty, except.

"Riz?"

Tension drained out of her like a rushing waterfall and she was suddenly inexplicably tired.

"You followed me."

"Of course I followed you!" Mel exclaimed. "Gee, you look like you've seen a ghost."

Riz chuckled. A ghost, huh.

"Haven't you seen anything when you came down here?"

"A lot of trees. Who's that?"

Riz turned to see the boy staring at Mel (well, her lips, anyway). "That's uh -"

"Ekko," he said, half mutinous, half enthralled by Mel.

Riz scowled at him, almost jealously (she caught herself just in time) then turned back to the road, to her car. "And you didn't see anything when you arrived?"

"No." Her brow creased. "Was there anything I was supposed to see?"

An apparition, a ghost. Cthulu's grand grand-kid. An apparition in the dark, shrouded by mist, with antlers on top of its head.

"What did the witnesses say the yeti looked like?"

"Uh," said Mel. "Tall, like a man, dark fog surrounding it. It wears a mask of bone, like the skull of a moose, or an elk, but Riz - Do you believe in this crap?"

What was she to believe? A moment ago she would've bet her life (or at least Ekko's life) that there'd been something supernatural on the road, but now, with Mel there, it was difficult to concive such a notion, difficult to say she'd spotted bigfoot with a straight face.

"I need sleep" she said instead, and walked past Mel to check on her car. It was undisturbed, but in the darkness around her, Ekko's words echoed when he spoke.

"It's not the Yeti," he said, as if annoyed. "It's a leshen."