Lisa writes:

Yay! Great stuff. It’s always fun to do these challenges. Congrats to everyone who made it this time and to those who gave it a shot, even if they fell short. Hope to see you all in the next challenge!

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Lance Winslow writes:

When did it end, I thought it was going until the 15th, I am very upset. I have several articles written with just editing to do? Wow, I almost feel tricked. What happened?

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Lisa writes:

It ended the 10th :/

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Lance Winslow writes:

This is just terrible I tell you, I wanted a leather coaster. I am so bummed, very very very upset. When is the next challenge and will they have leather coasters? Can I buy some, I need a few? This is totally terrible.

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Blaine Moore writes:

Congrats everybody!

I just checked and my certificate is now available. :)

Out of curiosity, how many articles did you need to write to be in the top 100 submitters?

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Marc, Product Marketing Manager writes:

Blaine,

That magic number was 114.

April 13, 2010 at 8:46 AM

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Blaine Moore writes:

Ahh, I figured I’d need around 120 or so and wasn’t too far off the mark, but got too busy the last 2 days so I think I was only around 107 or 110. Doubt I made the cut off. :)

Oh well, May 1st is right around the corner, I’ll aim for 200 articles in 100 days this time since I will have more than 30 days to actually do it this time, heheh.

April 13, 2010 at 9:02 AM

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Mark writes:

Congratulations to everyone else who also achieved the 100 articles!

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Ray writes:

And to those of us that tried but didn’t, Congratulations for giving it your best shot (I think I was 2 or 3 articles short – not too bad considering I had about 20 left to write in 2 days or so) and we’ll get ‘em next time!

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Lance Winslow writes:

I believe there should be a Grace Period, I feel Foreclosed On! I am going to call OBAMA to pass legislation granting us more time and free prizes even though I failed to send in my articles on time. I feel duped by the Rank, Managed Brokers, and all those people who submitted their articles on time! There should be a Grace Period and a moratorium on closing the contest on-time and we should be able to re-negotiate the total that was needed eventhough we all voluntarily entered this contest, as that would be fair for all of us who feel entitled to PRIZES! Gimme a prize.

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Connie Ragen Green writes:

Another successful challenge – congratulations to all who participated.

Lance – calm down, dude, it’s only a leather coaster.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Well, I am going to call my Congressman, I want more transperancy, more regulation, and less pay for the executives. I want the government to intervene and break up the EzineArticles Monopoly which is now the largest and greatest in Rank of all the big firms. I want to be bailed out, and receive stimulus, and I want a deduction on my taxes for all the damage done to my personal character. Let’s see what else do I want? Okay so, what about cruelty to animals> were any animals abused in making those leather coasters? The ones with the cool EzineArticles logo? The deserve basic human rights.

And in the Constitution we are all created equally, and I want an AWARD for merely participating, I want to be happy, and therefore, I am writing a letter to the Obama Administration about this matter!

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Meggin McIntosh writes:

woo-hoo! Third mug coming my way and now…even a coaster. Hope we get more EzineArticles pads of paper, too, soon. Love those!!

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Lance Winslow writes:

Congratulations Meggin! One thing I noticed is the about 1/2 of 1% of all the authors at EzineArticles controls ALL the wealth and prizes here. That seems a little bit unfair, this huge gap between winners and losers. We should be sharing the wealth a little bit, and distributing some of these prizes to those who did not perform, follow the rules, or submit the right number of articles on time. Healthy Prizes ought to be a right of all authors. Just because of my irresponsibility to get my articles in on time is no reason, I shouldn’t be amongst the 1/2 of 1 % of these wealthy prize winners. You know what I am saying, And – I think you do!

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Andrew writes:

All,

This was my 1st ever challenge!
It was the 1st I’ve ever completed!

I’d only written 2 articles before this. I’m no writer, I even had extra English at school. I work full time on for somebody else too.

To those that didn’t complete it. Why not? Ask yourself, why is this important to you. Come up with 100 reasons. Then the motivation to continue is easy. It only has to be your reason.

This is how I did it.

1. Set yourself a deadline before the actually deadline. Stick to it. This allows for submission – checking, grammar, headline changes etc. It helps if you read the rule. Some of my articles were below the 400 word limit. So I’ve done over 100. – lol

2. If you know your niche or topic area of interest – stick to it. I’m the most published on EzineArticles for my niche/topic area. That became another mini goal for me, after I checked out the other authors.

3. Set yourself a target of doing X per day. Mine was 2. This changes as ‘stuff’ comes up. I moved countries during this period. No laptop, no internet. So I know it can be done. You’ll have off days too.

4.Find all the templates on EzineArticles . Complete one article for each. Sign up to the RSS for new ones.

5. Forums – there are forums for your topic/niche. All questions asked become an article too. Yahoo Answers was pretty useful as well.

6. Blogs. If other people write a blog that you like. ‘Copy’ the style. i.e. 7 most popular books on Amazon etc. – this then also allowed me to contact all the authors of the books. If you have your own blog. How do people find it. What questions are they asking to find your blog. Questions = Articles.

Finally I used my topic area to overcome my initial reaction. I though this would be easyish until I started writing. I couldn’t. In the back of my mind I’d set myself an impossible task. Quickly using my topic area. This was overcome and I was full steam ahead. – Article to follow :)

Once done, take a well earned rest! Yet using all the above allows you to keep writing. Rinse and Repeat.

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Blaine Moore writes:

I recommend Andrew’s comment to be pulled out and put in as a blog post.

In fact, Andrew, you should copy your post into an article for the blogging category. :)

Great advice.

April 12, 2010 at 8:13 PM

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Elisabeth Kuhn writes:

Congratulations, Andrew! I was wondering where all those EFT articles were coming from all of a sudden. I noticed them about a day before you appeared in your rightful spot on the “most published author page” for EFT — #1!

So that explains it. Great goal! And great articles too.

I ran out of time before I could write the last handful to make up for the shor ones :( But I won’t next time around!

April 13, 2010 at 4:50 PM

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Lance Winslow writes:

I second that Blaine! Excellent work Andrew, and I read some of your articles, very good indeed, I learned something in each one. I was really hoping that more folks that failed to take the initiative would back me up in protest, so we could all get Free Prizes for not putting in the effort that you did Andrew. I was hoping for hope, and some spare change, or free prizes. I guess I’ll have to go to work and write more articles in the next challenge, as Obama did not return one email plea for help to make EzineArticles give me a free prize anyway. Heck with all my lobbying time wasted to get MY stimulus, I could have done as you did Andrew. Way to go.

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Tina writes:

I’m extremely pleased to get the certificate. Congratulations to everyone else who also achieved the challenge! I will always keep writing here.

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Andrew writes:

Thanks for the above comments. Here’s the irony why didn’t I just think of putting that as an article as well?

Thanks for the great advice. I’ve just submitted it.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Great points Andrew and Blaine, and really isn’t that what EzineArticles is all about sharing information with the reader, relevant information to questions, problems, or “How To” articles? It’s a perfect fit. Andrew, I thank you very much, I learned a lot today by reading your articles, and from your great positive attitude. Onward and Upward!

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Pallavi writes:

Hi,
I was just wondering if we can have a 30 articles in 30 days contest with a min. word limit of at least 250 words per article? I dont think I can finish these 100 articles in 100 days contests.
Pallavi

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Pallavi writes:

Lance,
You could write an article about the stress you faced when you arent able to complete the HAHD contest. Hahaha :) Sorry was just pulling your leg in good humor :-)

I couldnt complete the contest too. But there’s always a next time.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Pallavi, that is funny, but indeed, yes, very creative idea, you are right actually. Because think about it, learning from our lessons and passing on this information may help someone else too. Thanks, I will do that! Good idea, give me a couple of days to formulate a very good article about stress, deadlines, timelines, workloads, and Prize Money!

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Marte writes:

Lance – thanks for the humor!

I couldn’t finish this one, either, so I’m with you. I think we need a bail-out. Too bad Obama didn’t answer you.

On the other hand, the mini-challenge at the end was fun and I did manage to catch up and do that one, even though I got behind about 10 days into it.

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Blaine Moore writes:

I actually only had about 4 articles I think into the challenge when the 30 day mini challenge started.

That’s what got me off my butt and submitting…I got the 100+ articles in about 25 days, only actually writing 4-5 days per week.

April 13, 2010 at 7:04 AM

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Keith writes:

I found the challenge an inspiration to get doing what I have known for a long time that I should be doing – writing articles. No idea how many I wrote, probably over 150 qualifiers.

Now, when does the next challenge start?

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Marc, Product Marketing Manager writes:

The next challenge begins Saturday, May 1st.

April 13, 2010 at 8:12 AM

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Keith writes:

Noted in my diary! Thanks.

April 13, 2010 at 8:16 AM

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King writes:

I just checked and can see only the 1st and 2nd HAHD printable “Certificate of Completion” on my Author’s Area home page, but CAN’T see the 3rd. And yes, I submitted total of 107 or more articles before the deadline. And yes, they were all 400+ words.

Can you check it out for me?

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King writes:

I just noticed an email today from support which said only 99 of my articles were 400+ words. I have just opened them all now and rechecked just to be sure I didn’t make any mistake. And sure enough – I saw exactly 104 articles that are 400+ words and submitted BEFORE the deadline (all have been approved, by the way). There are 2 more not yet approved which are also 400+ words, so that should bring the total submitted BEFORE the deadline to 106. Of course there are a few submitted way back in the beginning of the contest that were also 400+ words.

Perhaps there’s a mistake somewhere?

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Marc, Product Marketing Manager writes:

We’ll look into this further and contact you privately via Member Support.

April 13, 2010 at 9:27 AM

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Penny, Managing Editor writes:

King,

Please log in to your account and you will see the updates made for this challenge. You have met all requirements.

April 13, 2010 at 11:41 AM

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King writes:

Indeed, THANKS A LOT, I just logged in and can see that the corrections have been made. It now feels good to log in and see that I qualified for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd HAHD contests. This goes to show that it can only get better.

Well done to the team at EzineArticles and for the other authors who completed this contest. I look forward to writing/submitting more articles!

April 13, 2010 at 5:55 PM

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Chris Duncan writes:

Where would the certificate be? I ended up doing 32 for the mini-challenge. One remained in the problem category, so I wrote an extra one. There is one that was submitted on 4/10, but it hasn’t been approved yet.

Thank you,
cd :O)

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CD Rates Blog writes:

727! — That’s amazing. Whoever that was, way to go.

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Kevin Graham writes:

One great challenge, a cool leather coaster, 250 + articles and lots of lessons along the way. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Very empowering! Let The Vision Empower You!

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Patrick Logan writes:

Greeitngs…

<<>>

Well, I don’t see this… am I missing somthing?

Patrick

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Patrick Logan writes:

I dont see the Certificates of Completion on my page… am I missing somthing?

Patrick

April 13, 2010 at 4:51 PM

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Lance Winslow writes:

For those of us who failed, and found President Obama unwilling to make things right allowing 1/2 of 1% to have all the prizes – well, can we buy our own prizes? I want to buy some coasters. I think they are cool and I really need one while I sit and type with my iced tea! Coffee in the morning.

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Patrick Logan writes:

That would be OK… but I DIDN’T FAIL!

April 13, 2010 at 5:03 PM

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Deepanjolie Figg writes:

Andrew, thanks for the great inspirational tips in your post for all creative writers – way to go! HAHD #4, here I come!

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Andrew writes:

Thanks all.

Elisabeth Kuhn – It did feel a little like article spamming sometimes. I was on a roll. Just didn’t stop. I’d hit the 25 limit, then have to wait a day or two. By which time, I’d written a whole bunch more.

The real beauty now is they are are.

Once you’re article is up, it is up. You never know who will see it or where it might go and end up.

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K. MacKillop writes:

I just received my email for the free cartoon mug and noticed that it is a gift certificate to the store. Can I order anything from the store? I saw several things that I’d love to have!

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Marte writes:

Hmmm… haven’t gotten an e-mail yet with the certificate. Are they going out over time or should I be looking to see if it got routed to my junk box?

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K. MacKillop writes:

My email came from donotreply@CafePress.com — so it may well have triggered your junk mail filter.

April 21, 2010 at 9:57 AM

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Marc, Product Marketing Manager writes:

Marte,

K. may be right about the donotreply issue. Also, we are metering the certificates out over time for a few reasons … none I’m able to share here. If you haven’t seen it already, you should see it by the end of the day today.

Thanks for your patience! :)

April 21, 2010 at 1:04 PM

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Marte writes:

Thanks Marc,
I’ll just be patient. And I’ll watch for something from cafe press. I could have deleted it myself if I saw that address rather than yours!

Hopefully it did not come yesterday, because my junk mail empties at the end of the day.

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Marc, Product Marketing Manager writes:

I just checked and yours should be arriving this afternoon – probably very soon in fact. :)

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