Thursday, August 29, 2013

The Gone Fishin' Writing Contest

Vacation!
Yes indeed it's time to hang up the Gone Fishin' sign and retire to reading books instead of manuscripts, turn off the phone, and put a padlock on the email inbox!

To celebrate the start of a week off, let's have a writing contest!

Usual rules:

1. Write a story using 100 or fewer words.

2. Use the following words in the story

beautiful
downtown
queens
rental
cat

You must use the exact letters of the word in order, but the word can be part of a larger one:

So I messed around for awhile and submitted the following:


french sojourn said...
NASA projected the point of impact to be downtown Cairns in Queensland, Australia. Unfortunately the asteroid flattened its trajectory and lit up the atmosphere like aurora borealis on crack… one last beautiful sunset for humanity.

When the asteroid broke into thousands of guided meteorites, the results were catastrophic…all the major cities were razed. Then… they attacked...hell bent from above.

Mortally wounded, Mother Nature capitulated… giving up her parental obligations to a godforsaken planet.

Eve and I escaped to Red Rock One and watched, on the lone satellite feed, as they harvested everyone, except us.

Then they left…so we’re starting over…again.
8/24/13, 11:18 AM



And here are the seven finalists:


(3) French sojourn 11:18am
NASA projected the point of impact to be downtown Cairns in Queensland, Australia. Unfortunately the asteroid flattened its trajectory and lit up the atmosphere like aurora borealis on crack… one last beautiful sunset for humanity.

When the asteroid broke into thousands of guided meteorites, the results were catastrophic…all the major cities were razed. Then… they attacked...hell bent from above.

Mortally wounded, Mother Nature capitulated… giving up her parental obligations to a godforsaken planet.

Eve and I escaped to Red Rock One and watched, on the lone satellite feed, as they harvested everyone, except us.

Then they left…so we’re starting over…again.

And a writer I recently have been communicating with submitted the following:

(7) Myra King 6:06pm
I live downtown next door to an extreme cleaner. OCD, not commercial. Sadie Badenoch. Sadbad we called her at school but she wasn't bad. And before the gunman came she was cat sleek beautiful.

My rental-room looks into her kitchen. Six a.m. I see her cleaning to Queen's music. Mercury rising. Her house gleams like the stars.

Ten a.m., safe behind my impenetrable screen, I watch her prepare for outside. Living in the real world.

Keys jangle. Her hands dart round, up and down her front door's frame. Her ritual protection. Takes two hours before she leaves.

Wish I could.


And the winner is Myra King 6:06pm. One of the things I love about this entry is that it works on several levels.  I read it at least five times and each time found something new to admire.


Myra, drop me an email (janet @ fineprintlit dot com) and we'll figure out what kind of prize to send you.

Thanks to all the writers who took time and creative energy to enter the contest.  I loved reading what you wrote (even you Lenny!)

Congrats to all the winners.


This is the last contest of the summer.  I've got a week's vacation coming up, and then it's back to work for the fall season.   


My first time as a finalist, real happy. There were 72 entries and they were all incredible, happy to get a shout out.  

Cheers Hank

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations, Hank! You might be able to get a novel out of the story, if you are so inclined.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey you, glad you're back. I read your latest post's, and commented. Cheers Hank
    Thanks for stopping by.

    ReplyDelete