Just out of curiosity :)
I really think that I will be up for the challenge next time!
It's been going on since like November. Me, specifically, I don't know, I probably spent around 12 hours writing my 4 stories, unless I wrote 5 stories and can't remember one of them, and usually around 15 minutes reading each of the 200+ stories.
4 hours trying to write a first round story.
probably more than 56 hours beating myself up for not getting it done after telling people that I was going to, grrr.... I'm mad at me still.
I honestly think I agonized over the prompts longer than anything else. Once I sat to work on my stories they were usually done within a day.
I spent a long time on the one which actually won: more than I spent on the other two combined, I think. It was also comprised of about as many words as the other two combined.
The amount of reading the first few weeks was probably the thing I underestimated the most. It's a lot of fucking stories!
Oh man...I'm pretty sure adding it all up would make me sad.
Honestly, between reading and writing WAR stories and working a full time job, I haven't had much time to do much other reading or writing really. Be prepared to stay busy. The load does lighten up once we reach the halfway point. Which is like after two-three months of battles.
The huge time commitment is why i like to take weekends off from the LR. I just need some space...
As for the writing part, it really depends. Some prompts inspire the perfect story right away, while others probably won't inspire anything and you'll spend a lot of time agonizing over it.
But I work a full time job and juggle hobbies and housework and all that and I've managed my stints in WAR just fine.
I made an attempt to get on the WAR train, just for the ride, maybe read and score some of the stories, but when it came thundering down the tracks I got scared and crawled under a bush where I'm still hiding. Which is to say, I tried to get the hang of it, got confused, and gave up. Seems like a cool contest though.
I got knocked out in Round 3 and kept on top of reading and voting up to Round 5 - all of the time spent writing and reading was invaluable as far as my own development as a writer went. Some seriously talented writers brought their A games every week.
All in? I couldn't even add the hours up because the first round when eveything was a 2500 word count? Just thinking about it, 15 minutes per story for reading and notes x 63 stories is already like a million minutes.
