The Best at Being "The Worst"...and Proud of It!

Well, seems it's that time of year again...the dreaded deadline looming ahead like so many ravenous vultures...like so many you lose count - even if you have one of those fancy hand-held metal clicker things that can be punched to 999 before it resets back to zero...then I guess you have to mentally remember that it spun around one whole time already, kinda like when you're dealing out cards and the phone rings and interrupts you midway and you forget who gets the next card, so you just start all over again because someone probably looked at your cards while you were gone anyway. Yep, the 15th of April is fast approaching and soon everyone will be asking each other, "Did you get it in on time? Did you get your entry in?"

"What the heck is she saying??" you might have asked yourself...and what about vultures? Is she talking about the IRS? Accountants? Huh...cards??? "Nay", say I...I'm talking about 'The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest' also referred to as the 'It was a dark and stormy night' competition. You might have read about it when I won the Grand Prize in 2003. Oh, c'mon...it was on the front page of the Montgomery Advertiser...surely you couldn't have forgotten that? Well, okay...maybe you did. Sigh. Let me then enlighten and elucidate...

You see that long sentence I started my blog off with? The one that goes on and on and on and on. Well, that was intentional..and not just because I am a bad writer (oh, keep the remarks to yourselves) but because I was, at least in 2003, proclaimed as the BEST at being the worst. I won the dubious distinction of writing the worst opening line to a fictional novel...and that opening sentence, above, is a little bit like what you'll see in the competition. Need a better, er...um...worse...example? Here is my winning entry:

They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently.

The rules can be found on their home page...but they are relatively simple. Write the opening line for a fictional novel...make it bad...but make it enjoyably bad. Longer is not necessarily better, but it seems they do tend to favour longer entries...but be careful on your punctuation...there's only so many words you can string together before it gets too monotonous. Monotonous doesn't cut it...badly well written does.

So, do you have what it takes to make the cut? Cut might not be the best choice of words...don't cut...but rather elaborate. Can you write famously bad...to get 14 minutes of fame? All forms of glory can be headed your way...I was interviewed on CNN Live (yes, in the daytime)...and a bunch of other radio/tv stations from California to Australia...I showed up on over 7000 hits on Google...more than Alex Trebek; less than Mel Gibson...my name and entry was in newpapers, literally from Albania to Zimbabwe...I even made the front page of USA Today. In a nutshell, I loved it...can you tell? Okay, so Letterman never called...and Conan O'Brien's people said I probably couldn't fill up six minutes of airtime. Uh huh...right. And Craig Ferguson wasn't around yet...what a pity. But I do try my best to get the word out to people who might not necessarily know about the contest because it really was both a fun experience and an honour to be chosen. Thank you again, Scott Rice.

(Professor Scott Rice, of San Jose University, is the originator of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest which has been running continually since 1982.)

Originally published 4 April 2006.

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This post is part of Nicky and Mike’s "30 Minus 2 Days of Writing" challenge.  (Yes, I know - another 30 days of me begging for people to read my blog...but, dammit, I really want the nasty salty licorice prize...so if I come in 2nd, I think I win it; you can be instrumental in getting me to win and gag on it.  Hell, there'll probably be a blog involved...ooops...spoke too soon probably.) Anyway, today’s topic is "Cheesy". Please check out "We Work For Cheese" for a list of the other participants. 

Cougar? I Didn't Even KISS Her!

Cougar—A Cougar is a female, usually between thirty and fifty years-old, who enjoys the sexual company of younger men. Cougars are only usually interested in men under the age of twenty-five.

Well, I guess I could possibly fall into that category if: 1) I was attracted to 20-year-old guys; and 2) I'd enjoy sexual company of them. As it stands I'm about as asexual as I am apolitical. (I know...line forms to the right, guys...what a catch, huh?)

Anyway...

...the male equivalent, I'm guessing , would be the "dirty old man" or "that creepy old dude".

Now, I know it's nothing new for older men to have younger girlfriends, but in my opinion:

1) If you are the guy - other than sex, what's the point? It's not like you can reminisce about the "good old days". But maybe that IS the thing. It's that age-old problem: "My husband/boyfriend never talks to me." Well, this is an excellent way around that, isn't it, guys? Hmmmmm...there might be some logic in this thinking after all.

2) Why would any hot, young chick want to see an old naked guy? I've seen one. Trust me, it's not that pretty...nor is it remotely comical enough to lend itself being seen on a routine basis. Face it, even the best joke gets stale if you hear it a couple times.

But, while I can't relate, personally, with a man's point of view, I can relate to a woman's. There's a couple things I'd like to get off my non-plastic chest (the last of which would be my bra) about this whole "Cougar" phenomenon.

No, seriously women. Think about it. We are vain creatures...you can fess up...it's true. The guys all know anyway. They're worse than us...but that's another blog.

As vain creatures we buy all sorts of things to make us look attractive. We endure 3 and 4-inch heels, that only a handful of people can actually gracefully walk in. C'mon, you know what I mean...and those of you who can't, you know who you are. If it weren't for the fabulous outfit you got at the mall and the impeccable nails you just had done, that hunched over bent-kneed walk you're sporting looks less than runway and more like "run away!" It's a pretty spot-on impersonation of that large striding Bigfoot sighting caught on film...and walking like that or a mountain goat coming down off the cliff side isn't that becoming. If you're doing that, you might want to rethink that heel size.

But I digress once again.

Lipsticks, hair dye, haircuts, manicures, tanning beds, facial creams, eyebrow and bikini waxes, palates, thongs, and push-up bras...are only a small sampling of the things we do to keep up our appearance...but it's inevitable, we WILL age. Gravity happens. "Perky" is not a word you will ever hear describing anything about you once you are on the "slide down side" of forty, unless you are Katie Couric - and even then it's said in a condescending tone.

Why then...WHY...would you subject yourself to the humiliation of some 20-year-old guy seeing you "sans" clothing?

You girls all know you play a certain game when you get in the bedroom and it's not the one the boys think. You've practiced it in countless mirrors...you got it down to a science...it is a science - the science of looking better than you do. You pose yourself in certain ways in certain lights...candles and darkness are your friends...and a couple well-timed Martinis don't hurt, either.

And when you're alone...you have another game you play: you lift your head and angle your face just so in order to take all those photos you take of yourself. You experiment until you get it right. You might even have collagen or Botox injections in all the right grooves...you might even have a boob job, but do you want to see something which will stop you right in your Jimmy Choo Cougar-tracks? If you don't have some surgical interventions...go grab a couple tissues.

Now go and grab a hand mirror outta the bathroom. If you have one with the regular mirror on one side and the magnifying one on the other side...all the better. Now hold it up to look at your face - you still look pretty hot, right? Now, holding that same exact mirror - bend forward at the waist so your face is now facing the floor.

Scary, huh?

Now, take that same mirror and lie, face-up, on the bed. Whoa! Instant face lift...a good 10 years shaved off without any surgery...maybe 20 comes off if you HAVE surgery.

But, unfortunately for all us ladies, there's not too many legitimate jobs which require you to lie flat on your back all day. So, this is why my next piece of advice is one I'm sticking to.

I don't know about you, but I certainly would rather be the better looking naked one out of the pair of us. Maybe that's why I was never attracted to those Chippendales guys...I don't want to compete with someone whose body looks better than mine. I already have a complete lack of self-esteem...give me the most out of shape guy (well, maybe not THE most out of shape guy) with a brain. Sixty? Fine. 40? Eh. 20? Hell, no! I'm not incredibly vain but I'd also like to keep those last three shreds of confidence that I do have.

So, me...a Cougar? Nah, more like a gray panther.

(Originally written, but not published, approximately three years ago.)

Write On

A few of you might know that I passionately entertain the thought of one day being a "real" writer. That being said, I like to extol the virtues of writing...or at least using your imagination once in a while and writing something with it. I also believe there should be a lot more writing in school, especially in the elementary grade levels.

A few years back I talked my daughter's (name withheld because I'm like that) English teacher (also name withheld because I'm like that) into allowing me into her classroom to talk about my limited (but still very special to me) writing experiences. Some of the things I touched on were my methods of undertaking various aspects of writing...and how I hoped they'd embrace writing instead of being scared of the whole entire process.

This is that talk I gave to my daughter's 6th grade class...and, as such, you have to remember I tried to appeal to a year 2007 6th grade English class. Also, I ad-libbed a LOT as I tend to talk a LOT...and that's not in this basic outline of this "speech".

By the way, last year I was invited to speak at AUM (Auburn University at Montgomery) to a group of English students regarding my 2003 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest win...and if you're interested, I'd be more than happy to share my limited "life-long" writing experiences in other settings (classrooms, auditoriums, etc.) as well. All you have to do is ask me.


Allow me to introduce myself - I am Mariann Simms...Mrs. Simms...but most of you know me as my daughter's mom.

The reason I'm here today is because I talked your teacher into letting me come here and tell you that you should all WRITE some more. LOTS more!

A little about me...when I was young, about your age, I wanted to be a writer...then I grew up not knowing what I wanted to be until I realized, not too long ago, that I still wanted to be a writer. Imagine my disappointment knowing how much further I might have actually gotten had I just listened to myself years ago.

I have an online interactive humour website that I've been doing since 2001 that you shouldn't go to and I've also won tons of prizes, including a TiVo, by entering "funny" and or "writing-type" contests online. But my biggest claim to fame to date was winning the prestigious Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest in 2003. For doing this, I was interviewed by CNN...American, Australian and Canadian radio and television programs, and had a front page write-up at the Montgomery Advertiser. I was on the front page of USA Today...and was literally (and I Googled myself, so I know for sure) mentioned in newspapers from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Yes, my name was mentioned in the Zimbabwe Times...or whatever they call their paper.

How many of you have ever heard of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest? (Excluding my daughter.) How many of you are now somewhat impressed by the fact I won it? Professor Scott Rice, the man who came up with this contest back in 1982 and still judges it, asked all the previous winners the other month (for his upcoming Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest book) what, if anything, did we notice that changed or happened to us since our winning it.

I told him I found that people whom I've told about my winning this contest seem to look upon me with an amount of admiration and respect...ESPECIALLY those who hadn't a clue what it was. Who here ever heard of the saying "The pen is mightier than the sword?" Well, the man who wrote that saying was Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who lived back in 1803-1873. He also wrote a novel entitled "Paul Clifford" which has the distinction of having, possibly in all of history, the worst opening sentence ever written and printed. How many of you have seen those "Peanuts" cartoons where Snoopy is typing and starts off..."It was a dark and stormy night..."? Well that was how Bulwer-Lytton started his novel...but then it went on and on and on and on...and really ended up getting worse by the word...only I'm sure he wasn't trying to do that intentionally. What I did was intentional. In 2003, I was judged to have come up with the "worst opening line to a fictional novel"...but keep in mind...I was the BEST at writing the WORST. It's not easy to write badly well...or is that badly good? Anyway, here's my winning entry:

They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would
have you believe it does by coloring it differently.

Seventy-one words...yep, 71 words...in one opening sentence; many different forms of punctuation, but only one period allowed. And I did this all on my first attempt ever at sending in an entry...and I only sent in the one entry. Yes, I had to throw that in for posterity.

This brings us to one of a writer's most annoying, perplexing, head-banging, paper-crumbling, pencil point breaking event: Coming up with that "stupid" first sentence to anything you write. Face it, after you get that part written, the rest usually comes a lot easier, right?

My advice to you...is to write the way you speak. How would you say it if you were just telling your friend? Just write the way you'd say it. Try it...it works.

Most of my favourite authors don't write to baffle and impress - sure, some do - but I find it most annoying to stop every 8th word to go look it up. Ray Bradbury, a science fiction writer who wrote such classics as "The Martian Chronicles", "Farenheit 451", "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit", and countless other stories...writes extremely simplistic...but since it's told WELL, it captures you and draws you in. You WANT to keep reading to find out what's going to happen next and he hardly ever gets all "super intelligent" with you. Not that writing with big words and expanding your vocabulary isn't a good thing...I just don't think most people talk like a scientific journal reads...so, especially when you have characters in a story having a conversation...it's best they talk the way they would if they were real people.

My second piece of advice...get a good dictionary and thesaurus - a REAL one, not one of those online ones...and just keep it handy when reading or writing. How many times do you just skip a word that you read but you don't know its meaning? LOOK IT UP! When I was a kid or when I worked, during lunchbreaks, I would read the dictionary. No, seriously, I would. Sounds kinda spooky, huh? One of the most fun things to do with a dictionary is to just open it up on a random page and look at a word you don't know. You really can't do that kind of thing with an online one...so invest in a real one.

Now on to the "flow" of words...how they are strung together...how they sound. Are you redundant...using the same word over and over again? At the risk of sounding redundant here...get a thesaurus! Altho, sometimes redundancy is called for...as one of my favourite movie lines of all times from "The Shawshank Redemption" (which was a short story written by Stephen King...you know that scary guy?) shows. Bear in mind the word "hope" itself is used throughout the movie in many scenes...and it's used again toward the end of the film by the character Morgan Freeman plays, a man who's just been released from prison after serving about 40 years. As he's sitting on a bus that will ultimately take him to see his former-inmate friend, he thinks to himself:

I find I'm so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it's the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.

Anyone know a quote from a film or book? What would have happened if it were strung together differently...think about that when you write...does it flow...does it sound nice when you say it? Does it have the impact you want it to have? How about if you change it around? Would it lose or gain something?

Coming back to myself here...I also write a blog at the Montgomery Advertiser's online site...only if any of you have seen blogs, they are all like "Oh my cat jumped on my car today and I think I have to get it washed...bummer." In other words, I don't think they're very interesting. Well, I write a blog there, but I like to think of them as "blogumns", or better yet, very short stories. But I'm not talking about newspaper-type stories...let me explain...

When you read a news story in a paper, there's a format journalists are supposed to follow. How many of you read the paper or have ever read an article in the paper? How far down in that article do you usually get? Do you read the whole thing...or stop after the first couple paragraphs?

Now, how many of you read books...like the Harry Potter ones? Did you read the whole thing or stop after a few pages? You read the whole thing, right? Did you ever stop to wonder...WHY?

You see, in the paper they have this thing called the 5 W's. Who, What, Where, When, and Why? They typically put all the most interesting and important bits in the first two paragraphs. The rest is just incidental stuff, filler, and probably some back history, quotes, and biography work-ups.

What would happen, say, if JK Rowling would have said ALL her interesting ideas in the first couple pages...or even the first couple chapters and then just dwindled off into "filler" the rest of the story? Wouldn't be much of a story, would it?

And don't get discouraged if it doesn't come out right the first time...JK Rowling took six years to write her first book...and she was turned down nine times before someone signed her. And guess how many times Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket was turned down for his first book? Thirty-seven times!

My last piece of advice to you would be the next time you sit down to write a STORY, keep in mind you need to capture AND HOLD the reader's curiosity to get him to turn that next page. Remember not to cram ALL your good stuff in the first sentence...or else it just might end up being a worse sentence than even MINE was...but probably not intentionally.



"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." --Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)