August 15, 2006 Though this will most likely be a slow-going round (and probably the last at the Breathless Awards), I will keep the site open and, RL-permitting, would like to hand out fic-of-the-month banners... this way, I get to randomly award stories I feel are deserving, which would make me feel good, but it would also take the pressure off that comes with establishing dates, judging, making multiple banners/announcements, etc etc. So, after this round, (in which I am still notifying past winners of their nominations), look for fic-of-the-month listings/awards. August 3, 2006 Sorry for the long delay between rounds, but RL has its way of making things difficult, especially since I'm moving into a new apartment and the process is exhausting. However, I have finally decided to make round 5 a Best of the Best round, meaning no new nominations will be accepted, as the nominees will be comprised of all four previous round winners and runnerups. Also, after round 5, the Breathless Awards will be put on an indefinite hiatus, until I have officially decided whether or not RL will allow me to continue maintaining the site. Tentative dates have been posted on the dates page, and are subject to change. Again, thank you all for your patience with me. April 25, 2006 All the awards have been completed and posted. Hope you guys like them! Also, sorry about the blank tagboard... I think I'm going to switch to cbox or some other tagboard site, because tag-world keeps deleting all my posts! Oh, and I'm still deciding about round 5 (it's finals week right now - dundunduuuun) I'll need some time to wind down after this week is over, so I hope to have round 5 dates posted sometime in early May. April 12, 2006 Winners for round 4 have been posted, and the awards are in the making. Also, I have decided to put the site on a temporary hiatus due to RL issues, hoping that things will calm down once I finish up this semester. I'll announce Round 5 dates some time in early May, and the round will probably extend over the whole summer. Also, it will more likely than not be the last round of The Breathless Awards, but I will decide that when I announce the round 5 dates. Oh, and one more thing I need to address... In case anyone's wondering why there are only 2 winners for the Chosen award instead of 4 (for short and long), it's because rules weren't followed and many of the stories nominated in the Chosen category weren't complete and (unfortunately) had to be disqualified. March 27, 2006 Nominations are now closed, and winners will be announced in a couple weeks. Thank you to everyone who nominated stories, and again I apologize for the delay and appreciate your patience with me. February 18, 2006 I am so sorry for going MIA! Real life's been incredibly chaotic lately. Between school, work, and family crisis, I've found it incredibly difficult to keep up on the awards site. However, I have posted the nominees, and I will see this round through to the end, though the dates will be extended. I apologize for having to do this, but it's just been too hard lately to keep up on it, and though I will finish Round 4, I cannot say for certain that there will be a Round 5 at the Breathless Awards. As it stands now, Round 4 will most likely be the last, though I will know for sure once judging gets closer. Again, I'm really sorry about not responding to emails or updating the site all this time! I'm trying to get back on track and tie up all the loose ends, and I'll also try to make it a point to post a few more updates and let you all know what's going on. In the mean time, please keep the nominations coming, and thank you for all those who have helped make the Breathless Awards a success thus far. January 8, 2005 Again, congratulations to all the winners, and I'm glad everybody likes their awards! I think I'm improving as far as computer graphics go (well hopefully, lol), and I always put in a lot of work to try to make the awards as pretty and presentable as possible (to the extent of my ability, that is.) For those that didn't win, I ask that you please not take it personally. I am also a fanfiction author, and have lost far more times than I have won any awards. I've also been known to be disappointed when I don't win, but I've come to realize that just because a story didn't win an award doesn't mean it's not good. As in the past, there were many great stories nominated this round, so there was some stiff competition. I want to clarify that there is no voting at this awards site aside from The Readers' Choice poll I established for this round only. 5 or 6 judges (myself included) are each assigned to one or two categories, and scores each fiction in their category(ies) on a 40 point system. And like last time, most of the scores were very close this round. (If anyone's interested in how the scores are broken down, send me an email and I'll be happy to share.) Also, I wanted to apologize for the consistent geocities bandwith issues. Unfortunately, I'm kind of broke right now and don't have enough money to upgrade my account. But for future reference, if you are having trouble claiming an award/nominating/etc due to issues with the site, send me an email notifying me of the problem, and I'll do my best to fix it when I can (eg personally sending you your award, allowing you to send me a nomination via email if the form isn't working, etc etc.) I start classes again at my university tomorrow, so things are going to start to get more hectic for me, but I will try to answer you as quickly as I can. January 7, 2005 Winners for round 3 have been posted, and round 4 will begin January 14. January 4, 2005 My wonderful, hardworking judges have all finished with their categories early (*hugs them*), so winners will now be posted on January 13, and Round 4 dates have been announced. The Readers' Choice poll will still be open through this Friday, January 6, so please submit your votes! December 18, 2005 Nominations are now closed, and judging will begin tomorrow. If you get a chance, please go vote for the Reader's Choice Award. December 17, 2005 I added a bunch more nominees, and nominations end tomorrow! Also, I've actually been very lenient with the rules, since a few nomination forms have been filled out incorrectly and I still accepted them. The URL sent in the nomination forms must be a direct link to a the story (and the story must be posted on a permanent archive, and livejournals are fine too) However, since I didn't clearly state this in the rules, I've let it slide and have done a lot of searching for stories as a result. Next round I'll alter the rules a bit again to include this. Anyway, thanks again to everyone for sending in nominations. I'm glad everyone is enjoying the site! December 4, 2005 Added a few more nominees. Also, I decided that next round I will most likely be eliminating the Best Ficlet, short, long, and saga categories, and stick with my original ten, since it seems the "length" categories aren't picking up many nominations. However, for those that are currently nominated in those categories, if they still end up receiving sufficient nominations then awards will still be given out accordingly. If not, then I will not carry the nominees over to next round, since those categories will be eliminated. However, if that is the case, I will most likely establish a "reader's choice" category for those stories nominated under categories with insufficient nominations. But I'll determine that when the end of the round draws closer. Anyway, keep those nominations coming, and I'm glad everyone likes the new layout! December 2, 2005 I altered the layout a little bit. The site has been the same for over two rounds and I felt it was time for a change. Also, A few more nominees have been added. However, there are still insufficient nominations for The Hush, Dead Things, Best Long, Short, Ficlet, and Saga Awards! So please send those nominations in asap, since the round ends December 18. And I'm still looking for a couple new judges, so if anyone is interested in volunteering please let me know. November 13, 2005 A few more nominees have been added. Also, I completely forgot to mention that The Breathless Awards is now listed at BTVS Awards Central! It lists current round dates and descriptions of BTVS fanfic awards sites, so go check it out when you get a chance :) November 12, 2005 I posted a new nomination form, and I'm hoping it will work better than the last one. I apologize to everyone for the inconvenience, and it sucks that some of the nominations weren't received because of some unforeseen problem with the forms. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the new ones actually work! (Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any problems or comments) November 2, 2005 9 nominations have been added. November 1, 2005 The last two winners for round 2 have been posted. November 1, 2005 Nominations are open for round 3, so send in those forms! Also, I posted two more awards. Again, I apologize for the delay. The last two winners (for the Something Blue Award) will hopefully be posted by tomorrow at the latest. October 28, 2005 Hey everyone! I apologize for this, but the winners for the Dead Things and Something Blue categories might not get posted on time, because I have seemingly lost contact with one of my judges. However, I will do what I can to have those awards posted by Sunday, and all other winners will be posted today. You may start noticing some changes at this site in the near future, so don't be surprised, lol. I plan on giving it a makeover. Also, I added some new categories and tweaked the rules a bit, so go ahead and start nominating for round 3! And for those that didn't win this round, please don't be discouraged. Every round so far I've truly been impressed by the amount of talent that gets nominated. October 9, 2005 Dates for round 3 have been announced. Since judging will fall during the Christmas holidays next round, I've made the judging period extra long. Also, I'll most likely be remodeling the site over the Christmas break, so I'll need extra time to do that as well. Anyway, the judging for this round seems to be coming along rather well. Winners will be posted by the end of this month. October 1, 2005 Round 2 is now closed. Judging lasts until October 22, and winners will be announced shortly after that. September 28, 2005 I updated the judges page. I am still looking for one more judge if possible, so please contact me if you are interested. Also, there are only 3 days left to nominate, so get those nominations in! September 18, 2005 I added a few more nominees. We still need at least one more nominee in the Fool For Love category, and also I am still in need of more judges! So please contact me asap if you are interested in helping. Thanks! September 9, 2005 I added a bunch more nominees. We're up to 47 nominations now and counting. The FFL Award, however, still has no nominations. Also, we are still in need of more judges, so any volunteers to help would be much appreciated. Currently, I am also working on making some new awards as well as coming up with a slightly different design for the site. I design and maintain the site as well as the awards myself, and I am not all that computer savvy so it's a bit difficult for me. I taught myself html and I'm still learning a bit, so if there's a few errors on the site I am working on fixing them, please bear with me, lol. Thankfully, I at least have a brother who happens to be majoring in computer engineering and can help me when I get really stuck. (Whew!) Anyway, I was very pleased with how smoothly the first round went, and so far round 2 seems to be looking good at the moment. Now if only I could get a few more judges... September 5, 2005 I added 4 more nominees, and also added another pretty black and white code on the codes page... August 31, 2005 I added a few more nominees... August 25, 2005 There is now a judges' page, some new codes, and we have our first nominees for Round 2. August 21, 2005 So round two is officially under way, and I'm also trying to make a few changes to the site... I deleted a few codes, and I'll be adding some new, improved ones. Also, I'm working on a judges' page as well as judges' codes, which should hopefully be finished within the next few days. August 19, 2005 Well, though the next round doesn't officially start until Sunday, I will start accepting nominations for round two now. In all, I felt round one went fairly smoothly, and I really hope everyone is happy with their awards! However, the only problem on my end was a severe lack of judges, which made this month incredibly hectic. Also, as it stands right now, I currently don't even have any judges for round two. So if anyone is interested in judging one or two categories for the second round, please Email Me. The only rule for judges is that you cannot have one of your own stories nominated in the category(ies) which you are judging. Thanks, everyone! :-) August 17, 2005 By some miracle, I managed to finish all the awards a few days early, so I am posting the winners today. (Yay!) There were some amazing stories nominated! I read through and thoroughly enjoyed every single one, and I'm really not just saying that either. It was very difficult to judge, so there are ties in some categories. I also made a special "nominated in round one" banner, located on the awards page, for those stories that didn't win. And if you didn't win, just know that there was some really tough competition, and simply not winning an award doesn't mean you're not a good writer. So please keep on writing and sharing your talents with us, and keep nominating! August 16, 2005 Round 2 dates have been announced, so get those nominations ready! August 1, 2005 Hey guys! Wow, my life has been incredibly hectic lately! So much so, in fact, that I completely forgot that judging starts today! Actually, I seem to be so disoriented that I somehow lost a day and thought today was still July 31. *Shakes head at self* Sorry I didn't post the one-day reminder because of that, but nominations for round one are now officially closed. Winners will be announced August 20. (Or, if by some miracle everything gets finished early, maybe sooner.) Good luck everyone! July 29, 2005 Ok guys, there's just two days left to nominate in round one. So if you haven't yet, get those nominations to me ASAP July 25, 2005 This is just a reminder that there's now less than a week left to nominate! The latest I will accept nomination forms is July 31, because judging begins August 1. July 21, 2005 Alright, I decided to take the following blurb off my categories page (because it really kind of detracts...) but I'll re-post it here, so that way the issue is still being addressed: "Something else has also been brought to my attention... I discovered that the FFL Awards also has many categories of the same name. (They're all named after various BTVS episodes.) Even though I know the FFL Awards has been there a bit longer than me, I actually was completely unaware of their category names when I first started this site. So hopefully, no one will think I copied them, because that isn't the case at all. I just wanted to create named awards rather than merely calling them 'best AU' or 'best WIP', and I'm a bit bummed because here I thought I was being all cute and original, lol. Oh, well... since I already have most of the awards pre-made for this round, I'll keep the names as is, and hopefully that won't be a problem. I can always change the award names for next round, however, if need be." July 18, 2005 Thanks to everyone for sending in the nominations! The categories have filled up rather nicely, and now every category has at least two nominees! *Does Snoopy dance* July 16, 2005 Added 6 more nominees, and the categories are finally starting to fill up! I'm very happy about that. However, the Fool For Love and Something Blue awards still need at least one more nominee before I can judge them. So, I think what I'll do is keep all the dates the same and if those two categories still don't have more nominees by the time judging starts, then I'll hand out the awards for all the other categories and keep the nominees as is for the SB and FFL Awards in Round 2 (so that way they'll be given extra time to accumulate more nominees, and all the other categories can still be judged on time.) July 14, 2005 I finally finished all the awards. Whew! LOL. I put a lot of work into them, so I hope you guys like them! Anyway, I also posted on the categories page about how the FFL Awards has a lot of the same award names as me... It wasn't intentional, I swear! If people want me to, I can change the award names for next round, but since I'm already done with them, they're staying as is for round one. July 12, 2005 I posted a few more codes. Also, I added a few more nominees today... And yay, we finally have at least one nominee per category! Huge thanks to everyone who's been nominating. Keep 'em coming, guys! July 10, 2005 I changed the layout a bit... so what do you guys think? I'm still hoping to make it a little better, so bear with me. Also, it's looking like it might be necessary to push the round dates back a bit, since we don't have enough nominees yet. I'll make that decision by the end of the week. July 2, 2005 Ok, so now we have a total of 5 authors nominated, and 11 nominations... which is pretty good, but I'm still hoping to get a minimum of 3 nominations per category, and I'll probably have to extend the round until I reach that number, but we'll see how it goes. So please help spread the word about the site! Or, better yet, nominate a fic! That'd be awesome :-) June 25, 2005 There seems to be a bit of a lull in the nominations right now. Hopefully, they start to pick up again and I can reach my goal of having at least 3 nominees in each category. Though it is the First Round, so I don't expect the site to grow overnight (though it would be nice, lol...) Also, I did have to remove two of the nominees from the list for the time being, because I never received a response to the nomination email. And I want to be sure when an author is nominated that I have the correct email address, so the award will be going to the right person if they win. So if either of the authors return my email, at least before judging starts, then their stories will be re-added to the list of nominees. Anyway, hopefully all is alright with everyone, and again good luck to all the nominees! June 22, 2005 I starting working on the awards, though I still have a long way to go. I posted the (mostly) finished ones so you can get an idea of how they'll look... I'm trying to make them as nice as possible, but I'm not exactly a master of PaintShopPro, lol. But hopefully they're turning out okay... Oh, and in addition to the winner and runner-up awards, I'll also be making one award of participation for the authors who don't win. It will basically say something along the lines of: "nominated in the 1st round of the Breathless Awards". So that way, no one will walk away empty handed. June 14, 2005 Added a few more nominees today. I'm very happy because it seems like the nominations are starting to pick up a bit, though I would like to have at least 3 people nominated in every category. So keep 'em coming guys! :-) June 13, 2005 We have our very first nominee, so the first round of the Breathless Awards is now officially under way! I also decided on the time span for this round, so you'll find the official dates posted on the Dates page. Anyway, keep those nominations coming! :)