A couple of people have asked me what’s up with the ol’ Cyberspace Open. The short answer is that we’re in the waiting period while the judges wade through all the entries. You may have noticed by now that I’m rarely satisfied with the short answer.

The long answer is that last time the judges were a bit overwhelmed, and didn’t hit their deadlines. Being the clever humans they are, they allowed themselves more time for judging this spring. Round two of the contest goes from 5pm May 22 to 9am May 23. Or something like that.

Of course the added judging time gives me extra time as well, to go back over my entry and find more things I could have done better. Hopefully most of the other entrants are in the same boat. Time will tell.

I misreported about the contest format a while ago; while last fall there were three rounds, this time there are only two. In round two the remaining 100 contestants will have overnight to construct a dazzling scene. The top three of those scenes will be produced and put on the Interwebs for voting. To vote, one must subscribe to the contest sponsor’s mailing list, or something like that. If it matters, I’ll get back to you on that.

In previous years there was a third round with the top ten contestants, giving them 90 minutes to produce a masterpiece. I suspect that the quality of those entries was suspect, and that they went with the two-round format to have a better product to put on YouTube. Can’t say as I blame them.

Anyway, I’m continuing to cross fingers and toes and wait (mostly) patiently for the results. Will the judges like my work, or will they trip up on the parts I want to make better? Will they roll their eyes and say, “Vampires? Again?” (There are also four cash prizes for genre submissions, awarded based on round one entries. Unfortunately I expect that two-thirds of the entrants did some urban fantasy/horror thing, so the competition will be pretty fierce.)

I’ll probably be in Prague when my score comes out, but don’t worry, kids, I’ll be sure to let you know right away.