NEW! .4K Writing Competition: A Season to Be Brief

Whistle
1

It is here: Bloomfield’s new unseasonably brief short prose writing competition. Great prizes will go to the authors. Everyone is welcome to enter. (Come on out of lurk-mode and share your writing!)

Post a short piece of prose in this thread and win! :slight_smile:

And the fantastic prizes are:

Winner’s choice, second-place gets to pick next, third-place takes the fantastic prize dregs.

In addition the winner will get his entry published in Dale’s Right Hand Pointing.

In further addition Dale may publish other entries that he likes on Right Hand Pointing.

In added further addition the author of the fourth-placed entry will get a thread on the chiffboard named after her or him.

And in final added further addition I reserve the right to send the sorry loser (or anyone who volunteers) my Phil Coulter CD.

Act now and Dale will throw in a set of six Japanese forged steak knives! (Some restrictions apply.)

And it’s not even Christmas yet…

Here are the same old rules:

Fabulous Prizes to the authors of the best pieces of short prose posted in this thread by Monday, November 29th, 2004.

Author = You wrote it yourself.
Short = It’s 400 words or less (and I’m not kidding).
Prose = It’s not poetry.

Multiple entries are permitted and encouraged.

Only other rule: The piece must either mention sex or not mention sex. Alternatively, the piece must either mention Christmas, gnathostomata, or silver ferules, or not, or either, nor any.

After November 29th, Dale (the Undisputed King of Internet Tinwhislte Journalism) and I will select the ten best entries in absolute wanton arbitrariness. The ten “best” entries will be posted in a poll thread and the winners determined by popular vote.

If you’re curious how it went the last time, check out the last compeititon and voting thread.

2

I’m so mad at you.:devil: I can’t appeal to the masses, and yet I find these things obsessively compelling.

so maybe. we’ll see. just maybe.

3

Not this time for me. I believe I came in fourth last time and won’t press my luck to do better than that.

Susan

4

Are previous winners eligible?

5

emm and susan: You do good work. Write. Write, I say, or I shall hound you both like a bill collector with a $400/day crack habit. :smiley:

6

Absolutely. Delight us.

7

ok da**it. sorry. I mean &@#*&%.


Entry #1
Called:

Cloven

I was birthed by a shriek from the throat of Betty Crockmeyer–a shriek which rattled Heaven’s cellar doors and sent me sprawling into the baptismal pool.

I surfaced, spluttered, and stared. The startled congregants at Evertrue Nondenominational’s Sunday night revival stared back in stunned silence.

“What?” I asked. “It’s an exorcism. What were you expecting? A puppy? A cherub?”

Betty Crockmeyer was almost blubbering. The Reverend Mr. Hubbard stammered a few times before blurting out “Go ye…go ye,” while jabbing a finger in the direction of a caged pig.

“Fine,” I said, “I’m going.” I unlatched the door of the pen. The pink and brown-spotted potbelly trotted behind me to the devotional rack by the narthex.

I wanted to calm Hubbard down somehow. He looked ready to pop an artery.

“Just chill,” I said in what I hoped was a soothing tone. “I’m not going to live in the pig. Though it’d be better than Betty and her daily shots of ouzo.”

“That was for my vertigo!” protested Betty.

“Still,” I said, “if I even smell licorice again, I’ll puke.”

I’m pretty sure the pig winked at me before trotting into the woods.

I hitched a ride into town with a couple of college kids weaving their way back from a bonfire. They smelled like beer and burnt leaves, but thankfully not ouzo.

“Cool hair,” said the guy, who seemed a bit more impaired than his girlfriend who was at the wheel.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m looking for work. Anyone hiring on campus?”

“Ask at the coffee shop,” said the girl. “My friend Sage is assistant manager.”

Within a day I had a job. Within a week I could make soy lattés as foamy as cow lattés, and within a month I had dreadlocks like the rest of the staff. But no shoes. You can’t wear Birkenstocks when your feet are cloven.

8

[not an entry, obviously…just a warning].

Not satisfied with anticipating another round of lavish honoraria from the shortlist, the cunning Herr Bloom is clearly already expecting a boatload of bribes from defeatists hoping to escape the humiliation of the threatened genericeltic flying disk landing in their mailbox. And for the loser, I fear that not being sorry will not suffice.

The shipping costs last time nearly broke me. The instant I read the announcement, I forswore the whole thing. Who was I trying to kid? I’ll likely succumb again. Masochism.

9

Hm-m-m . . . interesting proposition. Being a collector of literary rejection slips, I must say this could be quite the challenge. As the resident C&F hack, I might add that I can churn out drivel better than anyone. Much of my drivel, however, often falls short of my minimal standards. So this could prove more humiliating than rewarding.

Just one question: who, perchance, would own the copyright to any of the classics that fall your way? Don’t really know why I’m asking - - I just am.

Ok, another question: Do spelling and neatness count?

Will O’Ban

10

Entry #1, Emmline? You must have big plans. :wink:
Loved it. Very … um … bestial.

Susan

11

The standard thing is that the author retains all rights unless it’s published. Some picky lit journals would consider the mere posting of a story here publication, since it’s not a workshop. One could argue that its merely a contest with a very large judging panel. Most people here wouldn’t care one way or t’uther.


Right Hand Pointing, retains first North American rights, then the rights revert back to author after publication

12

I don’t want your steeeeenking copyright. You can keep it. :slight_smile: As for Right Hand Pointing, I believe the author keeps the copyright but agrees not to publish it elsewhere before it appears on Right Hand Pointing. It says on the webpage I think.

Scottie: Please don’t send any bribes this time. You will not believe how tedious it was to explain the emu to the neighbors (and my fire escape is still crusted with … oh, nevermind). The other tenants were positively ready to kill me and if I hadn’t managed to give the damn bird away on St. Marks Place to an aspiring filmmaker, I don’t know if I’d still be here among you.

emmline: Great stuff! Thanks for breaking the ice with such a wonderful entry. Any story that has a pig, a narthex, ouzo, soy lattes and someone called Sage in it is for me. :slight_smile:

Ok, another question: Do spelling and neatness count?

Not as much as the story itself (and keeping it to 400 words).

13

Okay, okay. I succumbed.

Annie’s baby was due in just a few weeks. She’d sent a message that it was almost time, but still he didn’t come home. She always thought after the first baby he’d want to be with them. That’s where he should be. The small farm was too much for a woman with babies and she was worn out. Her underwear and long dress clung to her sweaty body in the summer heat as she bent over the black stove, stirring soup. She wondered how much more she could do–how long she could keep the chores done and the children cared for by herself. He said he had to work in the mine, that it was the only way they could get by. But it was never enough. Surely the farm would be a better bet. But that wasn’t it and she knew it. Would he ever be able to cure the restlessness that kept him from her side?

She straightened up and stepped to the door to look for the children. The sickly cottonwood tree she’d planted three years before didn’t give off enough shade for a nice place for them to play, but they were sitting on the ground beneath its low branches, playing with one of the pups. The dirt road sent up a cloud of dust as a wagon and team passed.

Day after day she’d worked and waited. Would he be gone again when this one was born? He’d been gone every time–she’d always been alone. Two years before, he came down the road a week after the last one was born. He was pushing a baby carriage. He’d walked 300 miles pushing it for her. She guessed that should have been enough, but it wasn’t. She needed him with her.

Maybe this time. Maybe this time he’d stay. Maybe they could be a real family together.

Annie turned back to the kitchen to finish the dinner.

(Based on a true story about my great-great-grandmother, Annie.)

Susan

14

so sad! people sure had to endure a lot…still do sometimes.

15

Maybe it’s too late for this, or maybe this just isn’t a good idea to begin with, but might I make a suggestion on the judging? To keep this a writing contest and not a personality contest, would it be possible to perhaps submit the entries by PM to either Bloomfield or Dale, and then when the entry is posted for all to read it would be presented annonymously? That way only Bloomfield or Dale would know who the real authors are and it would prevent favoritism by the Chiffers at large when they vote. I’m not saying that the people here would consciously do such a thing, but I remember a study where essays were mixed up and given to English teachers with the incorrect student names on the papers. Some of the writing grades reflected how the teacher felt about some of the students rather than how well an essay was really written. It showed that some teachers were swayed by the name at the top of the paper over the paper’s content.

16

I suppose I shal come out of my troll bridge.

Lost

Quinton glanced at his map. He did not want to make it seem as if he needed to look at it, but he did. Quinton was too proud to admit that he couldn’t find the old camping spot his father took him to every year until he was 18. He passed a large oak, Quinton recognized the “Old Man” as his father called it. Unfortunately his girlfriend in the car recognized it to, and she had never been up these mountains.
Quinton was the younger of two children, his older brother was in the military and was only given enough leave for the funeral, then had to return. So the duty of taking their father’s body up the mountain rested upon Quinton. There father made his boys promise to be burry him near the lake where they had buried their mother.
Quinton found the old road that led to the hunting cabin where they used to lodge. He must have passed it four times already; it was over grown and some branches hung down from a large willow beside the entrance concealing the path. The leaves brushed the tops of the precession as they followed Quinton’s car into the long dirt road.
“Told you we weren’t lost.” He said.
“’bout time” mumbled his girlfriend.
“huh?”
“nothing” she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

The hole had already been dug when they arrived. The gravediggers had been waiting for a couple of hours and were about ready to leave. Quinton had to pay them a little extra to stay longer and fill the pit. A ceremony had already been held in town, and there was not much for anyone to say; regardless the pastor said a few words, and prayed. Quinton did not hear the words the man said. A tear traveled down Quinton’s cheek as he thought about his father in the ground. The pastor no sooner said “amen” then the diggers were already filling in the hole. They made quick work of it. And placed the headstone that had been carved the day before.
It Read “Here lay a man,
Who loved his wife,
Who loved his kids,
And loved his Lord
And may those who remember him be blessed”

Quinton wondered what he had done with his life, and if he would be remembered when he passed. But he knew the answer.

17

Nice story, Fopah. And unusual - I mean right off the bat you admit Quinton had a map! :wink:
Hope more of the lurkers are going to post.

Susan

18

I think this is the very best thing about the contest. That, and the writing.

19

I’ve given this some thought. It’s a bit tricky because this contest isn’t the sort of thing that is big enough to warrant a lot of procedure. Also, it seems to me ultimately it much more about community-building and delight in good writing and in sharing, then it is about winning. Making all the entries anonymous would reduce it to a competition level only. On the other hand, I understand that it isn’t fun if it isn’t fair, and that it can be intimidating to be surrounded by people with thousands of posts (*cough) who seem to have known each other for years.

So, I’d like to offer everyone the option of submitting their stories to me, and I’ll post them anonymously. I think that will work because anonymity will be available both to the familiar regulars who don’t want their story associated with their posting past and to the newcomers or relative newcomers.

I hope this will work for everyone. Please let me know if you have thoughts on how to run this competition.

20

NOW you tell me. Well, since I’m counting on the judges being swayed by my unbelievable and well-known popularity on the board :roll: , it’s just as well that I posted my story pre-rule change.

Susan