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

[Bloomfield]

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!

And the fantastic prizes are:

• L.E. McCullough's new book/cd "Whistle Around the World" (Read a brief review by Dale in the latest C&F Newsletter)
• El McMeen's newly-released CD The Soul of Christmas Guitar
• A cheap whistle tweaked by Bloomfield

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.

[emmline]

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

so maybe. we'll see. just maybe.

[susnfx]

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

[FJohnSharp]

Are previous winners eligible?

[scottielvr]

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

so maybe. we'll see. just maybe.

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.

[Bloomfield]

Are previous winners eligible?

Absolutely. Delight us.

[emmline]

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.

[scottielvr]

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

... I reserve the right to send the sorry loser (or anyone who volunteers) my Phil Coulter CD.

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.

[Will O'B]

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

[susnfx]

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

Susan

[FJohnSharp]

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

[Bloomfield]

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.

I don't want your steeeeenking copyright. You can keep it. 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.

Ok, another question: Do spelling and neatness count?

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

[susnfx]

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

[emmline]

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

[TyroneShoelaces]

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.