Tick-Tock Scoreboard -BILL WILLINGHAM IS THE TICK-TOCK KING!

[Chris Opperman]

WHO WILL BE THE TICK TOCK KING?
The Great February 2009 Writing Duel SCOREBOARD
Total Words Written: 414,874

CONTESTANTS (FINAL RANKING):

1st Place - Bill Willingham - Current Points: 136 - Total Words: 154,546 (37.25% of total) - WPD*: 5,520
2nd Place - Matthew Sturges - Current Points: 135 - Total Words: 147,550 (35.57% of total) - WPD*: 5,270
3rd Place - Bill Williams - Current Points: 61 -Total Words: 69,502 (16.75% of total) - WPD*: 2,482
4th Place - Mark Finn - Current Points: 22 - Total Words: 30,563 (7.37% of total) - WPD*: 1,092
5th Place - Chris Roberson - Current Points: 14 - Total Words: 12,713 (3.06% of total) - WPD*: 454

THE BATTLE ROYALE W/CHEESE

This is a Duel of the Quills between the writers of Clockwork Storybook. Betting for money is not allowed, but the winner will receive the satisfaction of a job well done and the knowledge that they have crushed their peers to become the Tick Tock King! They will also receive a prize from lovely Vertigo Comics editor Shelly Bond that will not be a "pair of size 6.5 black platform go-go boots," but something else fabulous which the winner will receive at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con!

The authors have pledged to write 5,000 prose words a day or the equivalent thereof (1 finished comic book script page = 500 prose words) and to post a daily progress report about their success on the Clockwork Storybook blog (http://clockworkstorybook.blogspot.com/).

SCORING

Each day, a progress report is due on the Clockwork Storybook blog on the previous day's progress.

5 Points - 5,000 or more prose words or its comic book script equivalent completed and Progress Report posted
3 Points - 2,500 - 4,999 prose words or its comic book script equivalent completed and Progress Report posted
1 Point - Under 2,500 prose words or its comic book script equivalent completed and Progress Report posted
-2 Points - No Progress Report posted

EXTRA CREDIT: Beginning February 15th, any author who passes the 10,000 word mark and posts their Progress Report will be credited with 10 points!

RULES

1. Since this is an exercise in daily discipline, words in excess of 5,000 cannot be carried forward to the next day. Just because you hit a triple in inning 1 doesn't mean you get to start inning 2 with a guy on 3rd base. By the same logic, words missed in a previous day cannot be made up the next day!

2. However, the WPD count will be equal to the number of prose words or its comic page equivalent divided by the number of days passed. Just like a batting average, the WPD count will not take the results of the inning into consideration. If the posting of a Progress Report is missed, the WPD for that day shall be considered 0 regardless of the number of words actually written that day!

3. In the event of a tie, the winner will be the writer with the highest WPD count.

4. Per Bill Willingham: "In order for the 1 comic book script page to more fairly equal 500 prose words, the comic script page must be finished and ready to send out (either to the publisher, if it's a book we're writing on our own, or to our writing partner, if it's among those pages of an issue we're writing together)."

5. Since Chris Roberson will be starting late, he is exempt from Progress Report penalties until he leaves the starting gate around the 15th.

6. Although I feel that the above is clear, the rules will be adjusted if situations arise that cause that to be necessary.

7. For the avoidance of doubt, the final report, Progress Report XXVIII, is due on Sunday, March 1st, the final day of the contest.

The Winner Will Be Declared on the Morning of March 2, 2009.

Chris Opperman
Tick-Tock Referee

P.S. So...who do you think is going to win? Big Bad Bill Willingham and his Digits of Doom? Mighty Matt Sturges and his Mitts of Mutiny? or the Bodacious Bill Willams and his Will to Succeed? Stay tuned!

[Shawn Pulsifer]

Bill Bill, He's our man! If he can't do it... Matt probably can... ?

YAAAAAAaaaAAAAy BILL!

[Bill Willingham]

Actually, Chris, the clock can't start until Monday, February 2nd, since we will be posting the daily progress each day of the PREVIOUS DAY'S work. Other than that, I like your system. We'll go with that.

I just posted an official handicapping report on the two contestants over at the Clockwork Blog. That should help you folks decide which horse to back.

And since Matt's goals are 2500 and 5, rather than my 2680 and 7, I'm going to adjust mine to his, so that this is a fair race. And then, when I exceed those goals day by day the victory will be even sweeter. Matt's toast.

[Bill Willingham]

Okay, this just in: Bill Williams has joined the February Writing Stunt. Now it's a three-way duel -- shades of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly! Adjust your betting accordingly.

So, now that three out of the five Tick Tock Men are part of this, it begs the question: Where are the other two? Chris? Finn? Time to man up!

[Chris Opperman]

Excellent! Okay, I will withdraw from Team Sturges and become impartial so I can keep score!

Day 1 Starts Tomorrow: Progress Report I due 2/2/09.

This will be really fun. :)

Chris

[Ian Westhoff]

Looking forward to daily reports on all this. I feel bad if I choose one writer over the other so I am cheering for everyone.

What happens if all three writers each day make their total? Do all three get a prize at the end if they all cross the finish line at the same time?

[Chris Opperman]

Good point!!!! I'll add a rule so that in the result of a tie, the writer with the highest total WPD average wins.

Chris

[Bill Willingham]

Them is some pretty good rules, Chris, so we (Sturges, Williams and I) accept them in toto and will abide by your refereeing.

However, a little bird told me that Chris Roberson, though he can't chime in with the rest of us starting tomorrow, may be able to participate in the back two weeks of the month long contest. But get this: he intends to write enough in those two weeks to skunk us all for our total month's output anyway. If anyone can do it, Chris can.

So Shelly may have to come up with two prizes -- one for those of us in it for the entire month (faithfully posting daily) and one for the guy who ends up with the largest total word count by Feb 28th (as posted on March 1st), regardless of the total number of days in competition.

Now all that's left is to hear from Mysterious Mark Finn. Donde esta la Finn? (He said, in only the finest broken Spanish)

[Chris Opperman]

Excellent!!! I've added Chris and Mark Finn to the list. 10,000 words of prose in a day is truly a Godly amount, so starting February 15th, I'll add a rule that whenever a writer goes over 10,000 words in the 2nd half of the month, they'll be credited w/10 points. So if it looks like Chris is going to start rushing towards the head of the pack, the other authors have an equal opportunity to pick up the pace and keep him behind. Also, in the interim, I'll exempt Chris Roberson for progress report penalties until he leaves the starting gate.

Chris

[Bill Willingham]

Oops! One more rule I thought of, Chris, that needs to be incorporated into the contest.

In order for the 1 comic book script page to more fairly equal 500 prose words, the comic script page must be finished and ready to send out (either to the publisher, if it's a book we're writing on our own, or to our writing partner, if it's among those pages of an issue we're writing together).

The prose stuff just needs to be the raw word count. We assume we'll each take some time to tinker and polish in the days and weeks following this slugfest. But the comic pages need to be a finished and ready to go comics pages to be counted.

I think that makes the two tasks more equal to each other.

And of course, like all Clockwork battles, we are each on the honor system. What you post as having done we will all assume you have indeed done. If we can't trust each other then life has no meaning (beyond watching Sweet Smell of Success at least once a year -- and the occasional perfect taco).

[Chris Opperman]

Got it! :)

Chris

[Chris Opperman]

Mark Finn is in!

Chris

[Radek Koncewicz]

Heh, this is like those crazy 3-day novel contests. All we need now are updates detailing the joys of warmed-up lasagna!

From what I remember, though, Just Another Ranker and Down the Misterly River took a bit longer than you anticipated, Bill, so the pressure's on!

[Fcc]

Hum, this is going to be interesting...

Shall we start some organized cheering teams? :-P

[Michelle Ho]

Hmm... I'd cheer, but I'm too sick to think about it =P

I'll just wave my hands wildly from the sidelines =)

[Bill Williams]

So, our contest is starting on SuperBowl Sunday, a drunken national holiday? I guess I'll have to struggle to remain sober and do some work today then. Here are the projects on the que...

PROSE
Skittlebones- A medieval zombie short story set in the world outlined in The Clockwork Bride.
Sangre- A novel about the folks that live in that little medieval world. Its a Chicago- style turf war with swords.
The Blind Eye- A second Alan Adam novel that's been idling for a while.

(WEB)COMICS
The Merry Widow- A new webcomic pitch/ project set in the near future with a woman looking for revenge.
Haven- A new webcomic pitch with a family of grifters try to cheat each other out of a big prize.
SideChicks Season Two- A family member looks for a missing bodyguard, her friends tell the story of her last heroic day.

As you can see, I need to finish a few things to get them out of my head.

For those of you not familiar with my work as a writer/ artist, it can be found here...

SideChicks- http://www.graphicsmash.com/comics/sidechicks.php
The Clockwork Bride- http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=5287
The Killer Outfit- http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=2330
Tokyo Pop & Other Quinn Stories- http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=2329

I may paste in a bit of work in progress. And I may have to translate webcomic script pages into the standard format just to keep things fair.

Bill
(no, the other one)

[Cindy McShane]

I like SideChicks a lot. Coool - Wowio works for Canadians now...

[Bill Willingham]

So Mark Finn only completed three words yesterday?

Typo alert, Chris.

[Chris Opperman]

Haha, I'll fix the comma. Sorry, Bill (and Mark). :)

Chris

[Shane Guy]

Good luck with the caffeine-crazed, masochistic, month-long writing frenzy. It's like the good ol' CWSB days, heh.