Friday, April 22, 2011

Impromptu Writing Contest Results!

Award for understatement of the decade
"The junk-punch hurt" Dan Krokos 8:10pm


These lines just cracked me up:
Then this manly ray of sunshine sauntered in with all his teeth
Traceyhansenwrites 8:14pm

I knew she hadn't been hungover since the first time she'd stolen the whiskey from behind her mother's toilet tank.
Inkasrain 9:37pm


Excuse me," said the cowboy, "I gotta go powder my junk."
Wayne Plourde 10:12pm


Someone has seen some of the brawls here at the office:
Jared X 4:48pm



A whole sub-genre on missing pants (I blame Jeff Somers and Sean Ferrell for this)

Where was his dignity? Or his pants?
Traceyhansenwrites 8:14pm

But his dignity was irretrievable, like his pants.
Shelley Watters 8:48 pm


And soon as I crawl out of this ditch and find some damn pants
Richelle Morgan 11:59pm



He called me a simpleton without pants. I checked. Sure enough, junk.
David 1:50pm




Who wouldn't want to know more about these characters!?
This is the story of an amazing, selfless girl, whose super power was the dignity-punch.
S.K.Walker 8:15pm


He’d lost the pig-riding race, punched dignity in the mouth and now stood, in a cow suit with a quarter suspended between his horns, awaiting her fabled “nailgun-through-the-eye” trick. Praying they’d meant the quarter’s eye, not his.
Helen 12:29am



Some of the entries had a particularly brilliant line:
I was hungover on the morning of the second zombie werewolf attack.
MaryOwen 11:03pm

The Jeep only grinned, the steam leaking from under the hood and the gaps in its grill making it look like a toothless, hungover wino smoking a cigarette butt.
Kari Lynn Dell 10:54am

I washed my face in the toilet.
Kelly 11:49am

The junk slipped quietly between the shoulders of land into the inlet
Micah 11:57am


These entries made the final cut:
C.L. Moyer 8:26pm

Amy Parker 12:35am

L.Scribe Harris 2:40am

SarahB 9:02am

Joel Q Aaron 11:10am

Bettyfokker 11:14am

Kevin 11:54am

Jenn 2:45pm

Karen 5:18pm


And here are the four finalists:
Chad 10:28pm

The garage-door-barely-opened- first- blue-haired-yard-sale shopper scurries up the driveway, zeroes in on her find, and inquires, “What's with the gunbelt, Honey?”

Annoyed by the presence of this shopper prior to start time, the hungover homeowner mumbles, “A fluke purchase after a late night of junk-punch drinking . . ..”

“It belonged to the Duke, you say?”

Frustrated, the homeowner inhales deeply and responds with purposeful enunciation and elevated volume, “No, Ma’am . . . a buck for the 'fluke?!'”

The elderly woman's back straightened, “I got my dignity, but the Duke is the Duke!”

-----------------
Christwriter 11:50pm
“He’s junk-punch.”

“I think you mean punch drunk.” We’d had rum combos the night before. “Why?”

“He’s so hungover, his dignity’s tied to his gumbelt.”

I looked. “Dingbat. You mean he’s got the dinghy hooked to his gunbelt.” My sister’s boyfriend did indeed have his belt hooked to the yellow boat.

“Whatever. Hey, watch this.” Julie exited stage right. A few seconds later I heard two angry roars, first the boat, then the man. Julie returned, smiling.

“So when are you going to dump him?” I asked.

She watched him chase his runaway jeans. “I think I just did.”


------
Briandbuckley.com 9:49am

She rose from the ketchup-stained carpet by a series of escalating efforts: elbows, hands, knees — vertical! Sunday morning. No, argued her fuchsia BudgetChrono wristwatch: Sunday afternoon.

Hungover from an ill-advised 3 a.m. experiment with absinthe, Commodore Platypus rum, and an industrial-grade pomegranate processor, she wobbled kitchenward, seeking the cappuccino machine and dignity, in that order. She was not seeking Damien, who crossed the faux tile out of nowhere with gunbelt swagger.

Damien.

Shit.

"It's not what you think," he purred. She cracked her knuckles, preparing to deploy a shaky but enthusiastic brand of punch-junk love.

----------------------
Alice 3:27pm

“You’ll get him next time.”

He wished she’d said “I told you so.” It’d hurt his dignity less.

He took the icepack she offered and grimaced. He felt punch-drunk. No, punch-hungover. The kid had handed him his ass--much longer and he'd have cried "Uncle!" just to get him to stop. Christ, he was too old for this shit. He opened his desk drawer, dropping his gunbelt in the junk next to his PI license, and made a decision.

“No, Kiddo,” he patted his daughter –Partner!-- on the hand.

You’ll get him next time.”




And the winner is Christwriter.  As you can see it took a LONG time to decide. You guys wrote some really amazing things on this contest! Thanks to everyone who entered!


Christwriter, drop me a line with your mailing address and we'll send you the Chelsea Cain audio book edition of THE NIGHT SEASON.

10 comments:

Michael G-G said...

Jeff Somers and Sean Farrell get blamed for everything!

Congrats to all the finalists--some really good stuff there!

Jenn said...

So exciting to see my name on there! Thank you!

And congratulations, Christwriter!

Jenny Maloney said...

Congrats to Christwriter! You'll love, love, love THE NIGHT SEASON. Chelsea Cain rocks the world!

HK said...

It was so much fun!

Congratulations, Christwriter. I loved yours. It deserved to win. You packed a lot of amazing stuff in only 100 words.

I'll be grinning for days with "Who wouldn't want to know more about these characters!?" :-)

:)

Ari said...

Congratulations, Christwriter.

Anonymous said...

Congrats to Christwriter!
As well as all the entrants. It was a lot of fun reading the efforts of such creative people!

And a big shout-out to Janet again for donating her time, her unpaid time, to judge this event.

Sheila JG said...

Congratulations Christwriter! And to the other finalist - amazing stuff, well done.

I learn a lot from the talented writers here. Thank you for doing these contest, Janet.

Wayne Plourde said...

Congrats Christwriter! Love the twist!

Thanks to Janet for the mention!

Joel Q Aaron said...

Much Fun!

Congrats to Christwriter, the finalists, to those that made the final cut and to all those with snippets.
JQ

Unknown said...

Cool: I made the final cut.

Cooler: Christwriter won.

Coolest: Janet Reid reminds us of how much fun writing can be.