Let's see. Not my best team finish (losing in semis, as opposed to losing in the finals) and at 3-5, this was my second worst individual finish......but I'm overall still feeling kind of positive about things.

During the nine weeks that composed my eight matches (including the off week before the playoffs), I wrote something like 10-12 reviews and used six of them in the contest. I'd actually say that of all the years I've been part of this, this one might have had the most reviewers consistently cranking out new material, which made things really fun and unpredictable.

Of the two weeks where I used older reviews, one of them (Parasite Eve) had never been judged and I'd wanted to use it in some sort of contest for a long time, just because it was done in a more experimental style and I wanted to see how it'd be critiqued. Winning over Zipp with it was a pleasant bonus.

One thing I think I'll do for the future is keep tabs on reviews I do that I really like, but didn't use in a contest for the next TT. One negative to using brand new reviews on a near week-by-week basis is that burn-out does set in. With my last review (Mazes of Fate), I wasn't perfectly happy with it, but couldn't find a quick fix for the issue I had and just didn't feel ambitious enough to work at making it better. Also, as noted by at least one judge, there was a bit of grammatical sloppiness in some of my reviews and that's the sort of thing that falls through the crack when I'm working to get something finished during the waning hours before deadline. I think things could work out better for me if I enter the contest with 3-4 reviews that (in theory) are new to the judges, but have been up on the site for a while, which would give me time to legit take the time on 3-6 more reviews, so my new stuff would be a bit more polished.

Overall, I had fun. With the way the three judges all seemed to have their own distinct things they were looking for, I felt like I had my reviews analyzed by some very different points of view that looked at things from angles I might not have even considered, which is very useful to me as a writer.

Most recent blog posts from Rob Hamilton...
Back to the Erdtree The latest in my really infrequent blogs An update on gaming

Feedback
	jerec - August 31, 2009 (03:18 PM) I was surprised at your record. I voted you nearly every week, too. It was those other judges who were just trying to keep you down!
	woodhouse - September 01, 2009 (04:24 PM) One thing I think I'll do for the future is keep tabs on reviews I do that I really like, but didn't use in a contest for the next TT. I'm doing that, too. In fact, I already saved a nice text file to hold the future list. Now let's see if I remember to put anything in there.
	zippdementia - September 04, 2009 (01:47 AM) It was a pleasure losing to you, even if I sobbed into a pillow for hours afterward.
	overdrive - September 04, 2009 (01:27 PM) Jerec Sadly, though, your verdict I shall forever remember the most is where you picked Suskie over me. If you'd done the right thing and picked me, I would have beat Suskie 2-1, which would have meant two things. 1. I would have finished 4-4 (team would have still lost). .500 is better than .375. 2. After all the jovial trash talking by Suskie about my cowardice in ducking him during the regular season, I would have had a glorious rebuttal about how I took on True not just for team strategy, but for his own good. Instead, I have a losing record and have to keep my mouth shut for the next year. I am seething with all the rage of a million hells at this turn of events.