BardStephenFox said:
Can you tell me (us?) what you learned?
Nope, not really. Or at least not in so many words. It's a "kick from the knee" thing, and if that doesn't make sense to you, you need to read
The Sun, The Moon and the Stars by Steven Brust again.
If you don't think making up stories in 72 hours according to pictures posted by a mad potter with too much time on his hands isn't fun, I don't know how to explain it to you.
How it helped you improve your writing/storytelling?
I didn't know if I could do it when I started. Now I know I can.
I hope it doesn't seem like I'm being flippant. I'm not. I'm trying to be accurate and honest.
The best thing about these competitions (and the Story Hour board and all that stuff) is that we all get to rub shoulders with each other, read each other's work, get inspired and be creative together. For writers especially, this is a rare opportunity -- writing is by nature anti-social and it can be difficult, if you're spending time writing, to find a peer group to share your work with.
I am sort of saddened to hear that Ceramic DM has become something people feel like they need to be "good enough" to enter. On the one hand, it's great that the level of competition is so high -- it means we all get great stories to read, yay! But on the other it creates barriers and divisions within the community, which is too bad.
One last bit of encouragement: Go to any class where people are really there to learn. Not a school class, but say an art class, or a karate class, or whatever. Look at the people practising and studying and learning and teaching and think about who's learning the most.
It's the people at the bottom. The newbies, the inexperienced, the first-timers. They're learning at a tremendous rate, soaking up knowledge and understanding with every pass, each repetition, every word the teacher says.
So if you want to REALLY learn, if you're serious about getting better at anything, surround yourself with people better than you. You'll be the worst one there. You'll make more mistakes and screw up more than anyone else and it'll be embarrassing and painful and make you want to hide. But you'll learn.
Enter Ceramic DM and get kicked out in the first round. You'll feel stupid, but you'll have done it and you'll have learned more than you would if you gave into your fear. Nobody ever learned anything by giving into fear.
I am working with the theory that maybe they don't quite have the confidence to jump in. Which is why I think Nemmerle's Newbie Iron DM contest is a great idea. I am also hoping to elicit some feedback from previous participants. 
