C&F Writing Competition. Can you freaking believe it?

[Bloomfield]

From the Foetry website:

Over and over again, judges often select their own students and friends, even when manuscripts are read "blind."

Doesn't apply here. Bloomfield has no friends.
Man, I crack me up.
Tony

I was going to say, Mark, let's not go there. Who wants to talk about dodgy judges. I mean, of course it's poetry and you never know about people who write poetry. One second you think they are perfectly reasonable and interesting people the next you find out that they are child psychologists with a whistle fetish and a penchant for deconstructing toy accordions (spooky, eh?).

Anyway that foetry site is just a bunch of disgruntled losers. They are sore that they've never won a writing competition. And frankly, no wonder!

Over and over again, judges often select their own students and friends, even when manuscripts are read "blind."

[MarkB]

I didn't really expect you to use it Bloomfield, but posted it for interest. I'm always leary of such things such as secret judging etc. living in the visual art world to much of my life and having to deal with judges and selection groups etc, has given me a most sour taste in my mouth for this sort of carp.

MarkB

[Nanohedron]

Entry:

On a walk through the evening calm, as the heat unstifles itelf and shadows stretch to cool the day, a flow of twittering not far overhead slowly awakens my attention, moving and changing like the sparkles of light that dance about on a pond's surface. I look up, and mark them: not birds after all, then.

I watch them as they swoop and dive, careening above me to feed on insects I cannot see. A flock of winged mice! I am mesmerised by the bats' hungry ballet, and then notice their wings and how surprising twilight shows through the fine, thin skin of them: dark small things with pairs of glowing wings, tumbling riskily in the dusk after a prey beyond sight.

After a time I seem to remember a destination, and start out once again toward it, the bats' staccatto slowly dimming behind me until it is finally gone.

I am no longer the same.

[Jerry Freeman]

I hadn't been following this thread, but then I noticed it had grown so I decided to see what's going on. I still have several pages to read, but it reminded me of this, which came in an email:

Example offered by an English professor at American University.

"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back and forth.

Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of my English students: Rebecca(last name deleted), and Gary (last name deleted).
----------------------------------------------------------
THE STORY:
(first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind
off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
---------------------------------------------------------
(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things round her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
-------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret Mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"
--------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semiliterate adolescent.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F***ING TEA??? Oh no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels."
----------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
A**hole.
--------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Bitch.
--------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
DICK!
---------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Slut.
---------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
Get f***ed.
----------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Eat sh*t.
---------------------------------------------------------
(Rebecca)
F**K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!
----------------------------------------------------------
(Gary)
Go drink some tea - whore.
**********************************************
(TEACHER)
A+ - I really liked this one."

[Paul Reid]

[TonyHiggins]

Was Gary's real name 'Jerry?'
Tony

[carrie]

The last time I went to the zoo I saw a bat pee. It was really cute, like a baby almost.

(not an entry, btw; just a little sidebar to Nano's lovely one)

Carol

[boomerang]

Entry

Who dares to critisize?,
who has the ordasity to judge annother souls writing?
did it not come from the heart?
were not the words a gift from its conceptor?
words are words, but in combination they are music,
a flowing assortment of surprises, rolls and crans,
to inspire the mind and elate the soul,

You would dare judge?
would you tear to pieces the undiscovered literary genious, grading it like sausage at a steak cook off?
how dare ye,
do ye not know the worlds most complex system of electrons, neutrons and neurons ordered the creation of inspiration.....

how do you live with yourself,
knowing you have the power,
you and you alone,
is it good? or is it not?,
come on we are waiting.....
judge us as you will,
but know this.....

words are created out of silence,
yet they are loud and strong,
an eternal part of annothers spirit,
the words will live yet its creator will not,
unless they are not read...
then ........

nothing.........


My literary skills should never be taken seriously,
and i really really really, (suck fawn lick grovel)want a bloomie whistle
Regards
David
edited cos i cannot spell for s@!&

[amar]

i liked the word ordasity. hehe...
audacity you might have meant?

sorry, I'll shut up, haven't even contributed to this thead.. :roll:

[boomerang]

(grin),
passionate i may be , Yet i still cannot spell for Sh%@
they really outta get a word correct thingy on this site for illiterates like myself

[boomerang]

orrrrrrrrrrrrr
was it just my eccentric way of spelling out my accent,
yeaaaa thats it
but you be the judge

[billw]

I waited for a long time to enter this thing. Maybe too long. Or maybe not long enough. I want a Lollycross CD, though, and since I spend all my money on new keyboards to post to my own threads, I thought maybe this would be a way to get one.
(Breaking the rules...)
I had a little whistle
It was white and sounded good
It was made by ol' Paul Busman
But it wasn't made of wood!

neener, neener, neener!

Bill Wooden ... uh ... Whedon
(I'm beginning to get attached to it! )

[PhilO]

Alright, Bloomy, since I'm such a longshot here (you couldn't possibly appreciate the reality and grittiness of my characters and writing of the Bronx), should I win, I'd like to reignite my Overton fling with one of those...

Philo

[Walden]

ENTRY: It was 8:00 A.M. and I was to deliver a speech at Pawhuska in three hours. There was no way for me to write one now. I'd have to wing it.

I shuddered.

As I sorted through the clutter on my desk, I noticed a beat-up Clarke original that had never worked, since first I saw it. As I started to push it aside, I was startled to hear a knock at the door. "I don't have time for this right now," I thought.

I answered the door. It was my great uncle Leroy.

"I was just fixin' to head out west," I said.

"I'm goin' with ye," Leroy said.

"You know where I'm going? I'm going way up to Pawhuska. Do you know where that is?"

"It's near Bartle-veale ain' it?" my uncle said. "If you could just drop me off at Bartle-veale."

I really doubted that I could make it to Pawhuska in three hours, much less drop my uncle off in Bartlesville, but what was I to do? I told him to get in the truck, and we headed out.

Before we even got to the highway, Leroy tells me, "I'm gonna need to stop at the Wal-Mart's in Wagoner and pick up my prescription."

"But we're not going to be in Wagoner," I responded, fairly patiently. "There's no way I can make it in time for my speech, as it is, but Wagoner is completely out of the way."

"Wagoner idn't out of the way," protested my great uncle, "It's between here and Muskogee."

"But we're not going through Muskogee."

"We' why not? We could get on the Turn-pipe and go straight into Telsie, and then on up to Bartle-veale!"

"But that's completely out of the way," I said.

"You don't know how to go?" said my uncle, completely missing the point. "Let me show you how to go. Here. Stop up here at this Jiffy Mart."

"We don't have time to stop at Jiffy Mart," I said.

"Yes we do," said Leroy. "Otherwise we'll be wasting time drying up the seat of this truck."

He had a point.

We stopped at Jiffy Mart. There was no way I was going to make it in time, so I went to make a call on the pay phone, while Leroy was doing his business, but then I realized, not only did I not have change for the phone, but I had exceeded my 400 word limit.

[Zubivka]

The last time I went to the zoo I saw a bat pee. It was really cute, like a baby almost.

Er... cute but don't try it, cuty-pee.
It's quite difficult to keep dry when dangling head down and feet up.
Especially to a Batwoman.