Greetings and salutations to all the members of our Nine Lives family: old and new, young and small, tall and… something else. The days are long and warm, the sun is shining but alas, the lack of The Walking Dead, and more particularly Caryl, tears at our souls. Luckily for us, we have had quite the eventful summer here on Nine Lives so far!

Our Round Robin teams are still going strong & putting out amazing new chapters to kill us with feels. We’ve done Smutfest!, Featured Flashbacks, Awesome AU Featured Stories, the AU Prompt-A-Thon, all while continuing our monthly traditions of Members of the Month and our ongoing Writers Chats series.

What more could we possibly bring you for August? Well, I’ll tell you. The theme for August here on Nine Lives is... VACATION! 

As in: we the administration staff are taking one.

That’s actually not as terrible as it sounds. There is a LOT cooking behind the scenes of Nine Lives, stuff that has been simmering between FM, Ikkles & subs for months now and it’s all about to come to fruition in September. The three of us really need to take the time to make sure everything is ready for those upcoming events; so in August, there won’t be any writing challenges. (Emphasis on the writing – you’re still getting a challenge! You didn’t think we’d leave you guys with nothing, did you?) We’re also putting the Writers Chats on hold until September. However, as always, the chat room itself is open to our members for their use & we highly encourage you guys to take advantage of it!

All of us – FM, Ikkles & subs – will still be on Nine Lives every day doing our usual admin tasks, writing and reading all of the amazing stories the archive has to offer. So while we’re on ‘vacation’ from all the extra stuff, we won’t actually be gone. (In fact, we'll be working harder than ever - you just won't see it for a while.)

“But what are we supposed to do for all of August?� we hear you ask.

Summertime vacation is all about relaxing and the ideal summer day is spent lazing about in the sunshine reading a good book. With that in mind, we present to you your challenge for August:

THE CHALLENGE

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read and review as much Caryl OR McReedus fanfiction as this site has to offer! (And that’s a lot!)

The fun part? WE WANT PROOF! This is a Photo Challenge! Take your laptop or phone or Kindle and read new stories, or your old favorites: on your porch, in a hammock, in a tree, at the beach, by the pool, in a coffee shop, at the mall, with your pets, with your friends (for those of you lucky enough to live near other Caryl fans!), using Carol and Daryl Funko pops or action figures, wearing TWD merch. Anywhere and any which way you can think of. You do not have to show your face in these photos – we know that’s not everyone’s jam and that’s ok! Just have fun with it.

THE RULES

• Read and review stories here on NL!
• Take a picture! Take LOTS of pictures – multiple submissions are not only allowed, but encouraged!
  • You do not have to include your face in the photo
  • Photos must show a story on Nine Lives open on your phone, computer, Kindle, whatever
  • It must be a different story open per photo!
• You must leave a review on that photographed story for each photo submitted. We will be checking!
• Submit your photo via one of these methods:
  • tumblr: http://ninelives2.tumblr.com/submit
  • Email: http://ninelivesarchive.com/contact.php
  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/NineLivesCaryl
    • Please do not submit your photos to an admin via PM – that’s more than our inboxes are prepared to take on.
• Submissions must include the following in addition to the photo itself:
  • Your Nine Lives username
  • What country you’re from
  • What story you’re reading in the photo
• Photo submissions are due by August 29!

We will be doing some cool stuff with the photos submitted, so stay tuned for more on that later! In the meantime, get out and get reading! As always, if you have any questions, please PM an admin.

Happy reading and Caryl on!