Teitho Memories

It took me a while to decide to enter "Teitho" and the "Family" challenge was the first one I entered. I used a story, which had been lurking unpublished on my hard drive as I was sure I couldn't write a story in 30 days especially for the contest. I didn't place, but had fun taking part. I continued to enter occasionally, always with previously written stories. I think the first time I placed was with "Star of Hope" in the "As Time goes by" challenge.

My first win was with "Shadows of Memory" in "Dark Places". That was part a half- finished story I'd begun and then abandoned a couple of years before. The rest of the story was reworked for the "Accidents" challenge!

The next contest was "24" and an idea jumped into my head, which I didn't intend to write down, but my friend Raksha encouraged me and edited for me and I won the contest!

Now my Teitho writing is my main source of storytelling. I read the "Temeraire" novels and yearned to write about a lovable dragon. The next Teitho challenge was "Strange Encounters", just perfect to introduce one! The story almost didn't get written, though, as my computer broke down. A friend rigged me up an old one on which I wrote the story on and then I e mailed it from her house. After Teitho was over, I was reluctant to part with the dragon, Súlion, and eventually my Teitho story turned into a novel! Then, I created a character ,Tahir, the Ambassador from "Harad" for the "24" challenge and he has taken a life of his own and appeared in many more of my stories!

For the final MEFA contest,(sadly now defunct) almost all my stories that placed began life at Teitho.

I now try to take part each month, though I'm not always inspired. I think "Smells" was the hardest challenge to date.

Long may "Teitho" continue! I love reading the stories each month(especially the Aragorn ones). I hope others might be inspired to share their memories to celebrate 100 Teitho contests.

- Linda Hoyland

As for my Teitho memories . . . well, I haven't been around nearly as long or as consistently, but I've had a lot of fun with it. My first entry ("The Silver Queeen" for the "Once Upon a Time" challenge) was only the second story I'd written in LotR fandom, and honestly I'm still surprised at how well it went over. Then I wrote for the "Leavetaking" challenge the next month where my story placed second, but, more importantly, a story that I'd betaed for placed third. :)

I guess it was around that time that I started the "All Things Teitho" comm on FFN to bring together all the entries I could find. I know not everybody cross-posts to FFN, but I thought it'd be good to have as a reference (plus, it can get a little scary in The Pit, and we ought to stick together;). I think I lost some followers during the Great Inbox Spam of 2013, though. Sorry about that!

Then I took a loooong break, first to focus on a long!fic, then to write for another fandom, and finally just to survive undergrad. I kept reading, though. I almost came back for the "Price of Freedom" challenge a year after "Leavetaking," but my idea snowballed into a monster that I'm *still* working on (this was four years ago).

I'd just about given up on fanfic, but I was bored in class one day and was browsing through my old bookmarks when I saw the "Jewels" challenge and got a bunny. I figured, "oh, I'll write *just this once* and then I'll stop and focus on schoolwork." Five months and five stories later, here we are. *blushes*

Teitho is addictive! I love the challenge of writing to the prompt, even if I sometimes take a little, shall we say, latitude with how I apply it. And I *really* love reading what the other authors come up with.

- MP Brennan

I entered my first Teitho story on a bet. I was living in Germany at the time, ataying at the home of my friend Nina who is an avid Tolkien fan and has written some stories herself that are posted on FFN. She challenged me to write for Teitho, curious to know how well I would do because it was completely anonymous and no one would know that I had written something until after the voting.

At that time, Teitho did not reveal the names of the authors until after the voting was in. I still don't like that we are told who the authors are when the stories are posted even if we don't know who wrote what. I would prefer it to be completely anonymous again. It's less prejudicial that way.

But I digress.... So, the first story I entered was "Once Upon a Blizzard" for the "Once Upon a Time" challenge, in which I placed second. The next one I entered was "Broken" for the "Five Ingredients: Your Recipe" challenge, where I placed first. Since then I've entered other stories, though not on a consistent basis, as I'm usually very busy working on my next multichapter story for Stories of Arda, but every once in a while a challenge comes along that is irresistable and I will stop long enough to write something. Whether I place or not, it's always fun.

Even if I don't write I do try to remember to vote. I've enjoyed reading other people's stories and seeing how they interpret the prompts. I look forward to writing more stories for Teitho in the future.

- Fiondil

Aside from the prompts here at OAA, Teitho was my first tentative foray into the LOTR fandom. I still remember the sweating palms and, yes, I admit it, the scream I let out when I hit "send" and submitted "The Mariner's Son" for the "The Sea, The Sea" challenge in 2008 (so I'm really a noob compared with most folks here). I've been there and back again several times with Teitho, as real life and other writing projects allowed, and hopefully I can stay "back again" and be more consistent about reading and even submitting. I've missed participating in the last couple years.

I'm very grateful to the mods for keeping Teitho running. Aragorn fic is getting harder and harder to find these days, sadly, but there's always stories to look forward to with Teitho each month.

- cairistiona

I haven't known about Teitho for long and came across it quite by chance. It is the one place I can always come to read non slash, non Mary Sue stories about all my favorite characters. The only challenge I've taken part in is Capture, and though I didn't win anything it was a lot of fun. All month I'm looking forward to when a new topic will come out and when the voting for the old one will open.

Cheers

-AmazingWriter123