Vox pops in with a technical question about the button layout for a high-tech mouse. Join the discussion...
Henry Vogel discusses interjecting political rants into your writing and strongly cautions against it unless the rant serves the novel. Join the discussion...
Bruce Bethke takes us on a tour of the pinnacles and the pits of vampire movies. Join the discussion...
Kersley Fitzgerald introduces us to the concept of brain stem stimulation and how it affects memory, our interactions with others and, most importantly for us, our writing. Join the discussion... She is also justifiably proud that she and Guy Stewart made the first cut in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest! Offer congrats and encouragement...
Also, Kersley Fitzgerald shows us why writers prefer writing at Starbucks rather than home.
And now, let's look at the entries for this week's lesser Friday Challenge, Future Olympics:
[SFX: sound of crickets, chirping]
Bruce interjects: C'mon folks, was this challenge really that uninspiring? You couldn't think of anything? How about Xtreme Snow Angels? The Jumper Cables Relay? Team Carpushing? Nordic Combined Sitzmarking? Aerial Snowboard Faceplanting? I was watching the figure skating finals last night and watched this one young lady last execute a perfect triple salchow followed by a flawless double-cheek butt-plant, and she really stuck the landing! Surely one of you must have thought of Couples and Singles Pratfalling! Or how about Wisconsin Rules Biathlon, where if you miss a target, instead of skiing a penalty lap, you have to chug a beer?
And what about the opportunities for special recognition: say, an Agony of Defeat medal, for the most spectacular crash performed during a downhill skiing event, or the Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards Memorial Better Part of Valor medal, for distinguished cowardice in ski jumping?
Really, folks, the opportunities here were enormous. You just aren't trying.
Henry resumes: Well, it shouldn't take too long to judge this challenge! I guess that about puts the final nail in the coffin for sports themed Friday Challenges. I promise you won't see any more of them.
Fortunately, we also have a greater Friday Challenge running; Splatter Cinema. Here are the entries:
Patrick Henry - Splatter Cinema
Miko - Whispering Meadow
Ben-El - The Omega Team (drop.io, password "challenge")
As always, even if you haven't submitted an entry this week—even if you've never submitted an entry in any week—you're invited to read, comment on, and vote for your favorite. Don't be shy about leaving feedback on the authors' sites, either. Writers thrive on knowing that someone out there is actually reading their words. The winner will be announced on Sunday, February 28, at 9:00 PM CST.
And now for this week's challenge, I'll turn the microphone over to Bruce and retreat to a safe distance.
That's Just Sick!
This week I'm playing host to what may merely be a bad cold, or quite possibly is an alien bioweapon dropped on Earth in advance of their invasion in an attempt to weaken us by critically depleting our supplies of orange juice, Kleenex, and Advil Cold & Sinus. (These as-yet-unknown aliens, for reasons also as yet unknown, are terribly afraid of these items in our hands. For this reason current speculation within AFSPC holds that they may be a faction of Apocalyptic Jatravartids.)
But never mind that now. This week's Friday Challenge, therefore, is to write a very short story or anecdote about being sick—and the catch is, it has to be funny. No grimness and misery allowed. Louis-Ferdinand Céline set the all-time high-vomit mark for that, in a seasickness scene in either Journey to the End of the Night or Death on the Installment Plan that still has me queasy just remembering reading it twenty years ago.
So, got that? The criteria are: it has to be short, funny, and about being sick. As always, we're playing by the badly out-of-date Official Rules of the Friday Challenge and playing for whatever is behind equally badly out-of-date Door #3. The deadline for this challenge is midnight Central time, Thursday, March 4.
So get started writing! And remember, have fun!
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