It is our great pleasure to welcome Marie Rebelle to the Eroticon blog today to talk about her exciting new writing project.
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In about a month’s time, the entries will open for the renewed Smut Marathon.
The Smut Marathon? I hear you asking. What is that?
Let me to tell you…
The ‘Old’ Smut Marathon
Some years ago – I think 2012 was the first year – Alison Tyler came up with the Smut Marathon. It was a writing contest where she gave a couple of assignments to writers and in each round the writer or writers with the lowest number of votes were knocked out if the marathon. I participated in 2013 and in 2014, but after that Alison stopped with the marathon.
The Dutch Marathon
I liked the idea of the Smut Marathon so much that I asked Alison whether I could copy the formula for the Dutch sex blogging community. She immediately agreed. I used Alison’s formula as a base, but changed the rules some to structure the writing marathon more. The 2014 edition of the Dutch marathon was more or less a try-out, which worked so well that I structured the rules some more for the 2015 and 2016 editions. In 2017 I even introduced a jury, which worked incredibly well.
The Dutch writing marathon stopped in November 2017.
Rekindling the Smut Marathon
When I decided to stop with the Dutch writing marathon, I once again contacted Alison Tyler, this time to ask permission to rekindle her Smut Marathon. She thanked me for asking and immediately gave her permission. I started a new website and also started planning for the 2018 edition of the Smut Marathon 2.0
There was a lot to think about – the rounds, the assignments, the writers, the rules, the jury and also: sponsors! Thankfully I have the four years of experience with the Dutch writing marathon which I can now implement in the new Smut Marathon. Behind the scenes I have been very busy in the last few months, getting ready for the start of the Smut Marathon.
The Smut Marathon In Short
There are two main elements to the Smut Marathon: writers and readers. Without these two, the Smut Marathon cannot exist. We need writers to write the stories, but we also need the readers to read those stories and vote for their favorites. Apart from the readers, we need the jury members to read all the entries and judge them.
The Smut Marathon consists of ten rounds that run over the course of 10-11 months. For each round the writers get a different assignment, starting out with short pieces in the first rounds and gradually getting the task to write longer pieces. They might be asked to write a piece where dialogue is central or they get an assignment to write an erotic sci fi story. It is up to the jury and the readers to decide whether a writer has succeeded in fulfilling an assignment. Writers are not to tell the public anything about the assignments or disclose which story they have written.
Each round, except round 1 and 2 has a fixed number of writers. Those you can find back on the rules page. No writers will be knocked out of the marathon in rounds 1, 3 and 5. From round 1 to round 6 we work with a classification and as from round 7 the writers with the lowest score drop out of the race.
Fun and Instructive
My own experience with the Smut Marathon is that you learn a lot about your own writing and learn how to improve it. But, most of all, it’s fun to do. It’s fun to get an assignment, interpret it and surprise yourself with the story you write. It teaches you to think out of the box, to step out of your comfort zone and write a story you might never have written otherwise.
To support writers in developing their writing, the Smut Marathon site has lots of tips & tricks you can use, whether it is for your blog posts or the stories you will write for the Smut Marathon.
Come on, watch this space and sign up for the writing competition of 2018! Entries open on 15 December 2017.
~ Marie Rebelle
