I see I missed the results of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Bad Fiction Contest, which were posted in August. Shame on me. I really should plan these posts out better.
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton was a Victorian novelist who penned the infamous, "It was a dark and stormy night" line. The faculty at San Jose State University have sponsored a "bad opening line" contest for the past 26 years.
Here are the best of this year's winners, or at least the ones that I enjoyed the most.
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BULWER-LYTTON FICTION CONTEST WINNERS, 2008
"Joanne watched her fellow passengers - a wizened man reading about alchemy; an over-sized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children who chatted ceaselessly about Latin and flying around the hockey pitch and the two-faced teacher who they thought was a witch - there was a story here, she decided."
"I'm convinced that the Doc is dealing drugs to most of the mining crew because they either can't stay awake, constantly sneeze, grin like maniacs, or won't look you straight in the eye (not to mention behaving like a moron), and they wonder why a dwarf gets grumpy!"
" 'Toads of glory, slugs of joy,' sang Groin the dwarf as he trotted jovially down the path before a great dragon ate him because the author knew that this story was a train wreck after he typed the first few words."
"The pancake batter looked almost perfect, like the morning sun shining on the cream-colored bare shoulder of a gorgeous young blonde driving 30 miles over the speed limit down a rural Nebraska highway with the rental car's sunroof open, except it had a few lumps."
"Like a mechanic who forgets to wipe his hands on a shop rag and then goes home, hugs his wife, and gets a grease stain on her favorite sweater - love touches you, and marks you forever."
"Carmen's romance with Broderick had thus far been like a train ride, not the kind that slowly leaves the station, builds momentum, and then races across the countryside at breathtaking speed, but rather the one that spends all day moving freight cars around at the local steel mill."
"Vowing revenge on his English teacher for making him memorize Wordsworth's 'Intimations of Immortality', Warren decided to pour sugar into her gas tank, but he inadvertently grabbed a sugar substitute so it was actually Splenda in the gas."
"Jan Svenson, having changed his fortune in the annual 'Scandinavian King of the Beach' contest in Santa Cruz with a bottle of black hair coloring and thus standing out in a sea of fair-haired rivals to win the coveted title, realized the ironic truth of the old adage, 'That in the kingdom of the blonde, the one dyed man is king.' "
"Creeping slowly over the hill, the sun seemed to catch the small village nestled in the valley by surprise, which is a bit unusual really, as you'd think that something with a diameter of 865,000 miles and a surface temperature of 5780 degrees Kelvin, and which is more normally seen from 93,000,000 miles away, wouldn't be able to creep anywhere, let alone catch anything by surprise."
"The day started out as uneventfully as any other, and continued thus to midday and from there it was nothing at all to ease into an evening of numbing, undiluted monotony that survived unmarred by even the least act of momentary peculiarity -- in fact, let's skip that day altogether and start with the day after."
[family-friendly selections made by Mark Raymond from the Bulwer-Lytton 2008 Contest; see all the entries here]
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Well, Bonnie made it down to Florida and back home again safely. Yay!
Among the other treasures, pleasures, and unexpected measures that next week holds, one of them is Thanksgiving. Now, a few years ago I ran a very popular piece called "Life's Little Joys" where you folks supplied most of the material. What's a "little joy?" A baby's smile. Finding money in the pocket of clothes you haven't worn in awhile. Catching all the green lights on your commute. The smell of coffee. A cool pillow in summertime. You get the idea.
Well, now I'm of a mind to run something for next Thursday's Thanksgiving post I'm calling "Life's Little Gratitudes," where you send me the little things in life for which you're grateful. Like snooze alarms. Newspaper porch deliveries. A dependable car that starts on cold mornings. A hug from a friend. Stuff like that. I'll need your "little gratitude" as well as your first name and last initial, if you don't mind. Otherwise I'll just use your email name (without the ISP, to protect your privacy and Inbox). You have until next Wednesday. Start writing!
I'll see you on Monday.
Mark
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WEB SITE of the WEEK: You can find lots of "do it yourself" (DIY) projects with a twist of science behind them at http://www.instructables.com. Everything from how to make a bookshelf that holds the books in upside down to building a LEGO® case for your flash drive to making a pair of duct tape shoes to unique recipes and things you can do with fabric. It's a creative DIY-er paradise. And there are lots of contests you can enter to win cool stuff. Registration is free.
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Mark's Musings is certified by the folks at Habeas to be spam-free. That means I'll never email you spam. Or any other meat byproducts, for that matter. Subscribe, view past issues in the Archives, and click all you want at my web site. To contact me and sooner or later get a reply, click here. Joanne Woodward was the first person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. There are now more than 2,100 celebrities enshrined there. I am not one of them. You can still forward or reprint "Mark's Musings" freely but please keep the credits attached. You must be a licensed blog writer to perform a creditectomy and then only after a second opinion from me. Original material and commentary © 2008 by Mark Raymond. I update this blog with a copy of this post daily and occasionally toss in bonus material on the weekends. Look for the label that says "Weekend" and you can bring them all up with one click. My personal mission statement remains John 3:30. "He must become more, I must become less."
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WORDS for YOUR WEEKEND: "If God has forgiven us, I rather think we must forgive ourselves." (C.S. Lewis)
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