Saturday, August 27, 2011

I woke up this morning to an unexpected and delightful creative writing contest on Janet Reid's website.  
Here are the directions:

"Sounds like PANIC to me" Writing Contest!


There are two kinds of people in NYC today: those who are panicking about the incoming storm, and those of us annoyed by the hysteria.  To give everyone something else to think about for a couple days, let's have a writing contest! The prize is a good one: THE CUT by George Pelecanos.  (It's f/ing AMAZING!!) Rules for the contest are a little different this time.
Write a story using 150 words or fewer (note the word count change from the usual 100).  Use at least three sets of homonyms (words that sound the same) from the list below...

Out of respect for Mother Nature and Irene, as she approaches, I wrote this micro-story:
from here



She stood on the pier and faced the sea that whipped its fury against her cheeks. She would not budge, whether hurricane or whale lunge for her, or the indignant weather leave its wale across her flesh.  She wailed.  Thrust her fist in the air and cried “Whore!” to the sea that had devoured him. 

Her fisher, who three days ago had left this pier and his hook in her heart, and was swallowed by his bride-sea. 

A fissure in her heart widened, but she reined the two halves together. The sea would not reign her, would not strike an oar across her shaking calves and send her tumbling into the violent, black-ore depths.

“You have his flesh,” she shouted into the deafening rain. “But I have his soul. It was me he gazed at when you pulled him down to your cold bed. Behind his eyelids, it was me.”


150 words exactly.  That was a fun and challenging exercise.  Visit Janet's blog to read more of the entries in the comment boxes and to add your own.  Contest ends tomorrow (Sunday)!
Leave a comment here for me if you enter the contest so I can go read your story, too!