CS Open - what have we learned?

Ugh. This week blows. Someone I love almost died - actually did die for a couple of seconds, we lost ANOTHER house - the third one and our favorite yet, and the CS Open was a hot mess.

It was a great idea. It really was. And I'm sure those people who received their scores got some useful feedback. I've read several posts by such people who have no idea why everyone else is in a huff.

It seems that many people followed directions and submitted their scenes, got the "Congratulations!" page that told you it was submitted correctly, and then received no feedback whatsoever.

At least I know why my shit was rejected. It bullshit, but it's a reason. There are a loooot of people who got no explanation at all. As an added bonus, the response from the contest runners was downright insulting to everyone who entered. No apologies, just a bunch of reasons why it's all our fault and they ran out of time, which is also somehow all our fault.

So if you paid, entered and submitted properly and received nothing in return, you're not alone. The only credit I can give them right now is that they did indeed refund my $12 pretty quickly, almost instantaneously. But that makes me wonder. How is it that they had enough people around to refund my money in ten minutes but didn't have enough readers to get the job done in the first place?

THIS JUST IN: Apparently a lot of people who submitted correctly received their scores this morning, a day after round two began. None of these people received the 93 or above necessary to move to round 2. Coincidence? I dunno. Vanilla Chunk has a different perspective.

I love how their primary excuse was "There was just not enough time."

Whose fault was that? Hey, CS, you guys created the deadlines and hired the readers. You knew how many entries you'd have two days before the prompt went out. You also set the second round deadline, a date you could have pushed back when you realized how poorly you had planned.

And then, of course, the team was nice enough to send us all the round 2 prompt and get indignant when people were confused as to whether or not they were supposed to submit an entry. Well, gee, the instructions were so fucking clear this whole time, how on earth could anyone be confused? They've yet to issue one word of apology to all the people they fucked over. Nothing but attitude.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a Clusterfuck. For me this is definitely the nail in the coffin on Creative Screenwriting. I heard there's some other magazine with better articles and not so much bullshit and disorganization. I think I'll try that one for a while.