2011 Writing Contest:
With the hope of raising more awareness and learning from others’ experiences with UC, I thought it would be great to start off 2011 with an I Have UC writing contest.
The Current Leaders:
1st: Charis’s story with over 307 pageviews: The Light at the end of the tunnel
2nd: Recently Diagnosed’s story with over 262 pageviews: New to UC and Having Concerns about Diet and Recovery
3rd: Dani’s story with 221 pageviews: Can I stop a Flare without Taking Meds?
Rules:
1. Submit through the Colitis Venting Area, OR through an email directly to me (ihaveuc@ihaveuc.com) your colitis story.
- Ideas for stories are a summary of your colitis experiences so far
- A specific story about maybe an event that happened to you related to UC
- Drug or medication stories
- Of course, your story of getting better, whether that was through medications, diet, or surgery are always great for others to read
- The Skies the limit I guess, just as long as the story is about you and is related to ulcerative colitis
- A great hospital experience, a bad hospital experience, a great doctor experience
- “The first time I…” type stories are usually very helpful for others to read, and usually those type of stories are easy to remember and write about
2. You may submit multiple stories, as long as the stories are not the same as your previous one(s). Each story will have a chance to win the prize.
3. All stories are reviewed prior to going on the site, and in the past year 99% of the stories sent in have been of unbelievable quality, so no need to worry about getting a grammar teacher to review anything, none of us are PhD’s in English(at least I don’t think so, well maybe a few of you..)
4. Make sure to write more than just one or two lines. I think the stories that have received the most comments are stories which the other UC’ers who read them can get a feel for who the person is who is sharing etc… I used to absolutely hate when teachers in middle and highschool told me to write “X” amount of words for paper assignments, so do what you like here. Its not hard to write a few hundred words though, for example, so far this is 320 words long already.
5. Make sure to include your email address when filling out the Colitis Venting Area form. I will need a way to reply to you, especially if you are the winner of the contest. If you want to add pictures to your story, please email them to ihaveuc@ihaveuc.com and I will try to include them with your story.
6. Feel free to hide your real name if you like, simply make up a “screen name” like “Colitis Joe” for example. I won’t publish anyone’s last names or other private information like phone numbers, addresses etc… even if you submit it in your story, so no need to do that.
7. I(Adam) am excluded from this contest entirely.
8. To be included in the contest stories must be submitted between January 1, 2011 and September 30, 2011. All previous stories from 2010 or 2009 are excluded from this contest.
Who Will Be The Winner?
The winner is the person who writes the story which ends up having the most “Unique Visitors” that come to the web page where your story is listed.
Here is an example of how this works:
- Each story has its own unique website address (ex. feb162019ihaveuc.mystagingwebsite.com/there-is-hope/)
- I can run a report to see how many unique people visit all of the websites pages
- If 50 people visit that page while the contest is running but two are “returning visitors”
- Then only 48 people would be considered “unique visitors” which is what this contest is all about
This contest will run all the way from January 1, 2011 until the end of September 2011. So, the people who have already submitted their stories and included an email address (which there are several) are already entered.
The Grand Prize
The winner with the most “unique visitors” will get a $250 that can be used to travel to the Las Vegas Half Marathon on December 4th(I did it last year for the first time, and during the race I knew for sure I would be going every year, it was so much fun, I’m sure anyone would enjoy it.).
If for any reason the winner does not want to go to the half marathon in Vegas, then either a cashier’s check or amazon gift certificate will be awarded, it’s up to the winner. If the winner wants to go to Vegas, you better let me take you out to my favorite dinner place at least one night!
***If you have any questions, please write them below in a comment, and I will respond to you so everyone else can see as well. I will update the results as to how the contest is going regularly here, and sometimes on the facebook page as well.
Get Started By Submitting Your Story Here
Good Luck to everyone, may we all learn alot from other UC experiences this year!!
I started site shortly after being diagnosed in October of 2008 with severe pancolitis (when my whole colon was inflamed).
For me, it was a very rough start with severe symptoms. Getting bounced from medication to medication was not easy or too helpful. But, I did meet another UC’er, changes several parts of my diet, and of course the rest is history.
Leave a comment, ask a question, take advantage of our past experiences here, use the search boxes, they are your friends to0:)
I’ve written 2 different ulcerative colitis ebooks, you can check them out here.
And, the Free eNewsletter, which has important updates can be joined here.