Thursday, August 18, 2011
Writing competition
My boyfriend Ransom sent me a link to a Reader's Digest writing competition and I already entered it. The rules are life in 150 words. It is very challenging. He sent me this link: Your Life: The Reader's Digest Version The venerable magazine is willing to shell out $25,000 if you can keep "The Story of You" to a crisp and compelling 150 words. Do you want to post them on Invisible Women? Then we could work on each other's lives.
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Here's mine:
ReplyDeleteI don’t remember squeezing into the world: just billowing orange clouds, then some orange codeine cough syrup, and fitting into the family rhythm. I do remember Clarence making fun of me walking to school, thinking of the perfect comeback too late, and realizing that timing is everything. I remember my dog racing the flying squirrels. I remember Randy, now long dead from AIDS, almost kissed me. I remember Clark called me Chicken-lips, told me I was quick but not funny, and did kiss me. I remember my husband and the farm and our tattered pirate flag and how the boys taught me to skateboard, gathering garage sale junk and selling it back to make the land payment. I feel I was mostly in on the joke, and that I’m delighted to squeeze back out into the orange clouds, but not just yet: timing is still everything. And everything is magnificent.
Oy. Now my life is a collaboration? Tell you what, why don't you ladies just work on my life and let me know when to pick up the finished version?
ReplyDeleteSusan,
ReplyDeleteThis is lovely, but not RD material. If this gets picked up, I like my crow grilled in tequila lime marinade with crispy skin served on corn tortillas with a bucket of iced Coronas to wash it down.
Here is a venue for you: http://www.narrativemagazine.com/
They encourage submissions of all kinds including essays. Quite the gem, really.
Should we draw straws to see whose life we work on first?
ReplyDeleteSo I really like the essay, but I want to know about the cough syrup. Was there even codeine when we were children? I only remember Vick's and hot toddy's (is it a wonder that I drink?), but then maybe you lived a life of cough syrup privilege?
I only remember standing in a crib and being fed the two spoons (one an antibiotic and the other the orange codeine) and the bitterness of the orange one and my preference for it.
ReplyDelete"...the bitterness of the orange one and my preference for it."
ReplyDeleteNow that's a good line, work it into the story.