Friday, August 17, 2007

I've Got To Get In On This

World Mag's Blog links to the annual contest at San Jose State University that I hope to win some day. It's prize is awarded to the person who comes up with the worst possible opening line for a novel.

This is something I could do. I write bad. It's my badge of honor.

This year's winner:

"Gerald began--but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them "permanently" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash--to pee."

Check out the rest here.

Here's my favorite:

"Danny, the little Grizzly cub, frolicked in the tall grass on this sunny Spring morning, his mother keeping a watchful eye as she chewed on a piece of a hiker they had encountered the day before."

4 comments:

  1. Sorry, I don't think even you could write that badly! That introductory line about Gerald is a classic!

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  2. TK!

    I'm not sure how you meant that, but thanks.

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  3. I meant that even though you aren't living up to your own lofty writing standards, you are still an excellent writer. For evidence, I give you the many people who check in with you a few times a week to read your blog!

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