Category: Competition

As I woke to the oddly-smelling, dirty motel room, I reflected on why I was here. It was all because of an argument, and now there was a strange woman with me in a strange place, and I had an odd-looking rash where rashes oughtn’t be; why do these things happen to me?

Glittering glass shards, curious cell phones, oozing pink fluid, and relentless red lights litter the highway. I’ll never sing along to the radio again.

She gaze into the mirror, and realized the woman looking at her was not the woman she needed to be now not in looks or intelligence. Were these words true or just what her degrading husband had drilled in her head, its difficult to change looks and intelligence but so easy to throw away a swine.

The icy rain immediately sinks through my coat, permeated through my sweater to my back making it impossible for me to stay long looking at his small understated grave marker. He was one of the most remarkable people I will ever have the privilege of knowing and there is not even a trace of his greatness to passersby on this small cold granite stone.

Relieved was I when I realised that the jar of sleeping pills had not been touched. But then, as I gazed down at the bloody knife on the edge of the counter I knew it was too late…

Then again, what made him spin? His head around his shoulders spun all night,spinning and rotating around the axis of his mind, a moon to earth, a moon with many craters, many craters indeed.

When across the kingdom the traveler did come to aide his friend in need, it was obvious he wanted more but with each touch and hug, she would rebuke him every time.

Her boyfriend did move in to protect his fair maiden and it spoiled the intentions of the traveler, who left quickly and told all who would listen, that it happened the other way.

Hurro!

The first weekly winner is “Supposing” by Sharon Cohen. Prize of $50 AUD (which depending on where you are in the world can buy you a decent meal, a small sandwich or a modest house).

Why I love “Supposing”

I was completely lulled by the melodramatic tone. My initial thought was that it was another heart-breaking sad story. Then came that toilet flush!

Suddenly I was thinking – how long was this person in the bathroom? How long does it take to soak a pillow with tears? What happens when they come back to bed? Do they discover the narrator with swollen eyes and salty skin?

The comedic twist is perfectly matched to counter the over-the-top melodrama preceding it.

Congratulations Sharon!

Thanks for making it a hard decision

Or not! Argh! You people with your crazy writing skills making this so frustratingly difficult to choose a weekly winner. So many good entries. So many great entries. So many excellent-oh-my-god-that-is-amazing entries. If I had multiple weekly prizes I could have easily awarded them.

I’m not going to comment on the stories right now because I don’t want to skew the competition. Let’s just say that there are many amazing entries, possible future winners and a lot of damn talented writers out there. When the competition is over I’ll write a post about the various entries I love.

I’ve been following links in posts back to websites and again I have to say you are a talented bunch. I admit I had a little professional jealousy when I read various blog posts. Thank you all for entering the competition and putting your work up on my site.

On the stats and voting

For those interested in statistics …

Some stories have a very small spread of scores – say mostly sevens and eights. Others have a greater spread – some tens, some fives, some ones. Others have widely varied scores – a bunch of tens, a bunch of ones and a few in the middle.

The problem is that each of these stories can show up with the same overall score of eight-ish.

The stories with widely varying scores do generally fit into the love it or hate it category. This I put down to how particular readers react to certain stories – demographic differences.

Excluding outliers (the single one on a story that has mostly eights, nines and tens for example) gives a more accurate rating for some stories. As the number of people scoring the story increase, it becomes less necessary to worry about this. I will say this – there are some fiveish – sevenish stories that really do look like they fit into the love/hate category. Lots of tens and lots of ones.

Also, you may have noticed that new stories can leap to the top of the sidebar list and then drop down again. I deliberately left the scoring so only a very few votes could push a story up to the top. As I hoped, this means that more people read them and score them – quickly pushing them to a more accurate rating.

Ok, enough stats.

The competition continues …

Thank you all so much again for taking part in the competition and spreading the word via twitter, websites and other places around the interwebs. I love two sentence stories and I’m very chuffed that so many people out there like them as well.

One week until next prize, another week to another prize and then a week later comes the big $150 first prize, $100 second prize and $50 third prize!

I’ve had a lot of fun with this. Thanks for keeping me entertained.

Cheers,

Mat

They meet in the crossroads every night to plot their next escapade against those who live in the light, these devils of the night with a small wing on each side of their body. Only the telephone lines slowed their flight in the shadows of the darkness where their obeah could swiftly and savagely curse a life to misery and ruin.

Jess stands in her bloody, torn nightgown, silently willing her hands to stop trembling, as she carefully aims the rifle. Her hands steady and her focus clears as she reminds herself that just one well-placed shot, fired quickly before he awakens, is all it’ll take to end his reign of abuse and her short-lived marriage.