#ms2sl summer 2017

[mores2sl]

The final tally...

You raised $3,092.33 for the fight against child cancer. 

Thank you to all of the authors and artists who participated, and to everyone who donated! 

[sohypothetically]

WIP Last Sentence Meme

I was tagged by @seevikifangirl post the last sentence in a WIP, then tag the same number of people as there are words in the sentence to post the last sentence of one of their WIPs.

I’m going to tag a bunch of people. I have no idea if they have WIPS...because I’m a terrible human and am not on Tumblr much these days. If you’ve got nothing, that’s okay.  I think of you. Hence the tag. 

As for my WIP....This is from Courage and Sacrifice, my ms2sl piece. 

(What’s ms2sl?It’s a fundraiser for children’s cancer. You donate, and you get some fics! Check it out at mores2sl.tumblr.com or ms2sl.com!) 

Katniss leaned weakly against the bed and rubbed her eyes. “Jo, why are you calling?”

“Besides checking up on whether my favorite roommate finally did the walk of walk of dames? I need your help. Can you Google how long it’s safe to wear a cock ring with an erection? I’d do it, but I’m over my data usage for this month.”

I tag..... @chele20035 @katnissdoesnotfollowback @mega-aulover @peetaspikelets @finnicklovesannie @hutchhitched @javistg @mtk4fun @shesasurvivor @xerxia31

[serataino]

MS2SL Short Story Excerpt - “White”

I’m writing for the charity collection, MS2SL (for more information, click on the link here). For the first time, I will be contributing an original short story. Like last year’s contribution, Six Weeks, this story will not be available anywhere else except in an upcoming short story collection that I am slowly putting together and that won’t be for a good, long while.

Summary: When Marisol travels to the town of he family’s origin to stay with her aunt, Lucinda, she has low expectations for what she sees as a forced vacation on a backward island. What she discovers instead is the power of origins and first love that changes everything she thinks she knows about herself.

Excerpt: 

The sea was an inimitable shade of blue, an azur color that the murky waters of the Jersey Shore could never achieve. Blue, with a bottom the sandy shade of bone. Bleached bones that had lain too long under the water. 

I pulled up Juni’s swimmers, his legs still stubby and awkward though he was already four years old, and followed him along the shoreline. He raced towards his mother, Lucinda, whose long legs lay on the lounge chair, half-submerged in the water. She lived in a bungalow not one hundred feet from the beach and was well equipped with her umbrella, her chair, a wide-brimmed hat and a mini-tent for her son to retreat to when the sun became unbearable.  I thought of the resorts I’d seen in travel magazines - white beaches crowded with a phalanx of umbrellas and chairs, tanned bodies laying in various poses of enforced relaxation. I glanced down the empty beach framed by rocks and heavy mangroves drooping over pooled water, a riot of brown children racing and building along the sand while adults gossiped under trees or in the sea.

That’s when I first saw him. He stood watching me from under a giant ceiba tree above the beach line. Tall, with skin as dark as wood-bark. Wiry black hair cropped closely to his head. As he descended from the gnarled roots, elegant even in cheap, black swim trunks, his eyes locked onto me, crawled over me like a thousand tiny hands slapping my skin. 

I held a bucket of sand in my trembling hand. It slipped and fell to my feet, splashing soggy sand clumps up and down my legs. The chill startled me and I scrambled on ungainly legs to the water line, his laughter pursuing me until it was swallowed by the water. When my head broke through the surface, he was still watching but his eyes no longer stared at me. I’d become a part of the landscape - the sea and the sun that drowned in his eyes.

[everlarkficquestions]

Masterlist: MS2SL 2017 Collection

This masterlist contains links to stories donated for the 2017 “More Stories to Save Lives” Collection.  You may need to log into AO3 to read some of these stories, and some have remained available only on the MS2SL website.

2017

A Surprise On The Beach By Loveoverpride (non-Everlark)

A Year In Provence By Merciki

Bark And Bite By Hutchabelle

Courage And Sacrifice By Sohypothetically

Deep in the Meadow By Lamenart (unpublished)

Discord and Rhyme By Ally147

Drop Anchor By Titania522

From The Grey By Demona424 (unpublished)

Hometown Blues By Appleblossomgirl

Hush Sweet Summer By Kdlovehg

I Don't Wanna Live Forever By Chele20035

Love In A Time Of Rebellion By Everllarkingjoshifer

Okapi By Hutchabelle

One Night Stand By Diana Flynn (unpublished)

Panem Country Club By Historywriter2007 (unpublished)

Peace By Hutchabelle

Spiral & Collision By Katnissdoesnotfollowback (unpublished)

Strawberry Swing By Javis TG

Summer Of 2017 By Countryside_Abode (unpublished)

The Chosen One By Mega-Aulover (unpublished)

The Exhibition Of Lost Dreams By Florence68

The Wedding Of The Year By MTK4FUN

This Used To Be My Playground By Xerxia

Vermont Summer By Ilovedyouatmidnight

[appleblossomgirl0305]

Hi *peeks out from under rock, waves sheepishly*, I hope you all had wonderful holidays and that your new years are off to a fabulous start!

I just posted my ms2sl 2017 summer edition story “Hometown Blues” over on AO3 - far later than fashionable, but better late than never (that pretty much sums me up lately). 

If you’re in the mood for a little angsty Everlark with musician!Katniss and baker!Peeta, with a side of home and heart repair, please give this story a whirl. 

Summary:

After fleeing her hometown in the wake of a family tragedy, Katniss returns from years on the road to face her past, her memories, and the blue-eyed boy she’d never been able to forget.

Rated M for sexual situations and brief mentions of self-destructive behaviors including drug use, promiscuity and an abandoned suicide attempt.

Notes:

This story was originally posted the ms2sl summer 2017 edition. Many thanks to the ms2sl ladies for all of their work to use stories to battle childhood cancer.

My continued and eternal gratitude to @xerxia31 for being the best beta, banner-maker (see gorgeousness above) and friend a girl could ask for.

She stared at the faded red house, taking in the chipped paint, the moss growing on the roof, the gutter hanging at a rakish angle, it was definitely a bit worse for wear, but still standing, just like her. Her father had built that house with his own hands. She had been born there, as had Prim. She knew with crystalline certainty that they had been happy there. She crammed down the he tumult of emotions that rioted in her heart, look a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other until she reached the front door. She tried and failed to ignore that her father’s old boots still stood propped against the side of the porch.

As she muscled her guitar case and shoulder bag through the front door, Katniss stopped and breathed in deeply, savoring the smell of evergreens and woodsmoke and that indescribable home smell that, even after all these years, made the tension in her shoulders relax. Damn, it was good to be home. And it pissed her off.

continue

[mores2sl]

Rough Page Counts by Story

Sometimes you like to read something quick in line at the grocery store. Sometimes, you like something a little longer. Like during a baseball game that never ends.

Here are the rough page counts by story. These are U.S. letter sized PDF calculations.

Spiral & Collision by Katnissdoesnotfollowback                                                191

[mores2sl]

$2300 and counting!

[mores2sl]

Two more updates...

We have updates!

The Chosen One (@mega-aulover) has been updated. We’ve also added Spiral & Collision, the contribution from @katnissdoesnotfollowback.

The collection is now officially locked. Any changes authors make will have to hold for when they publish to other sites in November.

[mores2sl]

$2200 and counting!

[mores2sl]

We’re live!

[mores2sl]

We’re a couple of days out and working out the kinks!

We need some help beta testing a couple of new reading features. 

You don’t need to test them all! 

If you do a test and it doesn’t work, can you message us the details (what you tried, what browser and what you saw) here on tumblr or via email at morestores2savelives@gmail.com.

Anyone who had access to the last collection can do this... and we’re hoping to get it across a variety of platforms -- browsers/phones. 

1. Login with your normal login and password to https://beta.ms2sl.com.

2. Go to “Read stories” on the right reading pane or under the “Me” section on the phone. 

Now here’s the test cases.

a/ Download a MOBI and try it.

b/ Down an EPUB and try it.

c/ When you open a story, it fills the reading area. It should adapt to the reading device -- browsers and phones.

d/ When you close a story using the "Close" button, it keeps your place and goes back to it when you re-open the story once again. It should do this CROSS DEVICE. (So if you read on a laptop and then hit “Close”, then open it on your phone, it should hold your place like a bookmark.) 

e/ Open a story and turn the page a few times. Leave the web site without clicking the "Close" button. Go back into the story and you will be where you left off. (This is not cross device behavior, so it will only work on the device where you were formerly reading.)

f/ Open a story, turn the page a few times, the close it with the "Close" button. Open it again, turn the page a few times, and leave the web site without clicking the "Close" button. Open the story from a different browser or device. The new browser/device should show where you were when you clicked "Close", but does not show the changes after that.

g/  Open a story and turn the page a few times. Then click the first button in the tool bar which looks a "rewind all the way" icon. This should take you back to the beginning of the story, no matter how far into it you are.

h/ Open a story and close it with the new "Finish" button. On the list of stories, instead of the orange "Reading" for that story, you should see a new gray "Finished" header. Open the story again and close with with "Close". It should now be back to the orange "Reading" header. Viewed pictures are always now gray "Viewed" on the story list.

We should also have a PDF download option available. If anyone requested that (I can’t recall who really liked that feature) can you let me know if you wanted the PDF size to be anything specific? We’re defaulting to 8 1/2′ x 11″, but I have a feeling that’s not what you wanted. 

[sohypothetically]

We believe we have a fix to the iPhone viewing issue. We've promoted it so it is live.

What you need to know:

1. Summer Collection is now on TOP. We managed to work that in,so summer is now the fist collection you see. This should stop the need to scroll all the way down the screen to see the new stuff.

2. 2016's collection is still visible. Just scroll.

3. iPhone viewing should be stabilized through the browser.

We're not testing on real iPhones... we use simulators. If someone can please try it out when they get a chance?

[mores2sl]

The deadline is fast approaching -- info for Contributors!

We're about 24 hours from our deadline to submit stories and artwork for this round of mS2SL. 

For those of you who've never done this before, you will need to upload your contribution to the ms2sl.com site before midnight (your local time) tomorrow. Here's how the whole process works.

1. Login with your ms2sl.com username and password.

2. Go to My Contributions. 

3. Upload your story/artwork by clicking the small "pencil" icon. Please remember to name it. We can't have it in the collection if it is untitled.

4. Ratings are visible now, so you may want to include that. (they'll show up under the story to the right of Title/Author). 

5. Once uploaded, have a glass of wine or something. Have one for us as well.

6. We'll let you know when you can preview via an email. 

7. Check out your submission and make sure it looks they way you want it.

8. Make changes by uploading like you did above. Or, email us and let us know that there's a problem. We'll work with you to correct it.

That’s it! 

For those of you who have already submitted, feel free to drink for the rest of us. ;) You are amazing for getting your art completed so soon.

[mores2sl]

iPhone 6 bug update...

We’re still working on it. That’s the best I can offer.

If you’re not sure how to download, go to the Read stories option (either through “Me” on mobile, or through the nav bar on the right of the browser). 

Once you get to the collection (which may involve a lot of scrolling) you’ll see three buttons for download formats.

I chose PDF. My phone downloaded it and let it open right up. Not sure if that will work on the iPhone, but it does on Android. 

We’ll work on the collection scrolling thing next. Frankly, that one doesn’t scare me like this one does. 

I apologize for the inconvenience.

[mores2sl]

Are you ready?

We’re calling ALL CREATIVES! 

And we mean...ALL.

Got a story? A poem? Fanart? Art? Well, get ready to share! We here at the More team are asking you to volunteer. 

Here’s what you need to know:

1. Submissions will be due 8/10/2017.

2. This round focuses on complete works. That means that your story must be a complete work in it's entirety. It can be part of a previously unfinished piece! You’ll just need to supply the thing as one unit in order to publish in the collection.

3. Any pairing, any rating, any fandom, and original works are being accepted!

4. Our theme is "Summer Lovin'".

5. To sign up, visit ms2sl.com. Create an account if you don’t have one, and click on “Become a contributor”. 

(For more info, visit https://ms2sl.com.)