WRiTE CLUB 2019 - Preliminaries - Round 10

Today is the end of week #2 for WRiTE CLUB and with one more week of preliminary matches remaining, twenty of our thirty writers have been revealed. Ten more to go. Will you be one of them? Or if you didn't submit and just enjoying reading the amazing writing on display, will your new favorite piece pop up next week? Keep following along and find out! 

Recap
WRiTE CLUB is a tournament-style competition that runs during the eight weeks prior to the DFW Conference (who is also a sponsor) and it provides writers the opportunity to compete against one another for a chance to win a host of prizes, topped off by a free admission to the following year’s conference. Our writers have submitted 500-word writing samples under pen names and they'll be appearing in head-to-head in “bouts”, with the winner of each match determined by you the reader—by voting for your favorites. Bout winners keep advancing until there are only two remaining and that’s when a panel of celebrity judges, who include well know authors, agents, editors, and other publishing folks, choose the ultimate champion.

Even though the contest is sponsored by DFW, anyone can vote (as long as you have a Google sign-in or verifiable email address), and when you do, we encourage you to leave a mini-critique for both writers. Oh, I forgot to mention that the voters have a chance to win a $60 Barnes and Noble gift card. Each time you vote in a bout your name will be placed in a hat and at the end of the contest, one name will be selected to receive the prize. And as an added incentive to keep readers coming back for more, we're upping the ante. Readers who place a vote in EVERY bout will have their names placed in a second hat and the name selected from that pool will win a $40 Barnes and Noble gift card. Double the chances of winning!

Even though there will be a different bout every day (M-F), the voting for each bout will remain open for seven days from the date I post it to give as many people as possible to have a say. Voting for today’s bout will close on Thursday, May 16th (noon central time). To help keep up with which bouts are open, you can follow along on the WRiTE CLUB Scoreboard updated right HERE.

It’s that simple. The writing piece that garnishes the most votes will move on to the next round where they’ll face a different opponent. In case of a tie, I’m the deciding vote. I can do that because, like all of you, I do not know the real names of our contestants either (my wife processes all the submissions).

A few more rules –

1) One vote per visitor per bout.

2) Although our contestants are anonymous, voters cannot be. Anonymous votes will not count, so if you do not have a Google account and are voting as a guest, be sure to include your name and email address.

3) Using any method (email, social media, text, etc) to solicit votes for a specific contestant will cause that contestant's immediate disqualification. It’s perfectly okay, in fact, it is encouraged to spread the word about the contest to get more people to vote, just not for a specific writer!
4) Although more of a suggestion than a rule - cast your vote before you read other comments. Do not let yourself be swayed by the opinions of others.

That’s enough of the fine print…like the man says –

For the last bout of the week, we have Cora Williams on one side of the ring representing the Fantasy genre.

Lightning split the sky, the thunder so loud it shook the house. Fear knotted in her throat as Ivy stepped to the front window, where green curtains billowed in the wind through broken glass.  The flare of lightning sculpted gruesome shadows onto the walls. She pushed the curtains aside and looked out. A wall of water swept toward her full of uprooted trees and shattered farmhouses. The dam had burst.

Water and debris roared past, missing her house just a step from the door. She trembled, clinging to the windowsill to remain upright. When she thought the worst was over, two small bodies bobbed to the surface of the dark water and, defying all logic, stopped before her. They turned. Ivy screamed at the unseeing eyes of her children.

She blinked to awareness as her husband shook her shoulder, “Ivy, love, come back!” Her hands gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles white. The apple she’d been slicing lie forgotten on the board. With a cry of anguish, she threw herself into his arms. “Again?” Hayden asked.

“The children,” she gasped, her eyes still misted with visions and unshed tears.

“They’re sleeping, safe in their beds.” He murmured, stroking her hair.

“Why?” she moaned. “Why would the gods have given me such wondrous visions of fire and grace when they were younger only to threaten to take them with such horrors now? The gods cannot be finished with them. The fire hasn’t even sparked in them yet.”

“I don’t know,” he said, “But we’ll stop this, as we have the others.”

“Nothing I’ve ever seen has been so terrible.” Her voice was small and fearful.

“Then we will take extra care with them.”

“How can we fight the gods?”

“All we can do is try, together.” His arms tightened around her.

“I’ll just check on them,” Ivy said. She pushed away from him.

In the next room, tucked into their bed, lay two small children. A boy and a girl, cheeks pink with sleep, red curls tousled on pillows. Ivy sat carefully on the edge of the bed. She still trembled, but smiled at the children, safe and sleeping.

As she reached to stroke their curls, something glinted beside their heads. Dread crept icy fingers into her heart. Any peace she’d gained fled as she picked up two crystals, each etched with a name. Shaking, she brought the crystals back to where Hayden waited.

“It’s done,” she said. “Their names are written.” Grief made her cold. Slowly he took them from her. After a glance down,  he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He went to a small trunk beside the hearth and undid the latch. Inside, other crystals, other names, caught the firelight and held it. He placed the two crystals on top and latched the box closed again. Then opened his arms to his wife. She fell into them, weeping. Hayden stared into the heart of the fire. Let the water come. Fire would meet it. 

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On the far side of the ring, we have Sunshine&Rainbows who is also representing the Fantasy genre.

The fate of Santi’s world balanced on a feather’s edge… and the back of his thieving chicken.

Hundreds of shoppers made a dull roar like a heavy rain on a tin roof. The aroma of cinnamon fry bread permeated the air, broken intermittently by the scent of mule dung and perspiration.

Frango, Santi’s best pickpocket, flapped his wings and then strutted into the browsing crowds at the souk, hunting for shiny baubles small enough to carry back to their hideout. Exactly the way Santi had explained.

The more Frango brought back, the larger his pile of feed at the end of the day. The bird brain wasn’t the smartest fowl around, but Frango understood that.

Sweat beaded on Santi’s upper lip, and his stomach growled. For most of Santi’s barnyard cohorts, feed was currency, but Santi needed a good payday.

Frango darted between people, ducked beneath goods tables, and challenged the fat tabby that the grocer employed to keep the rats at bay. Though, Santi had never seen the feline with anything rodent-like in his mouth.

A monk exited the convent to ring the hourly bells, the deep tones vibrating loud enough to silence the mob. A cart rumbled by, blocking Santi’s view of his feathered partner. He tipped up on his toes and peered over, catching the eye of a well-dressed woman on the other side of the street.

Santi turned and dropped back into the shadow of a stoop. He had to look out for his little friend, but, in their line of work, undue attention never helped.

Down the way, a man yelped, drawing Santi’s gaze.

The thick-shouldered, sour-faced man muttered words Santi couldn’t make out and rubbed at his bottom, a line of a dozen gold hoops quivered in his ear and gold chains circled his neck, his nose a little too high in the air.

Something must have gotten him, and it wasn’t the first time Frango had pecked the mayor’s ass.

In a flash of iridescent feathers, Frango bolted around the corner toward home, and Santi grinned. He couldn’t make out what Frango had in his beak, but it could mean food for an evening or food for a week… or more, if they were lucky.

Being able to communicate with animals hadn’t been the curse that Santi initially expected. Thanksgiving might be in order.

He set a leisurely pace toward the hovel they shared near the cemetery. The local authorities hadn’t yet figured out the band of creature misfits, so the slip-away would be easy. He winked at the row of grandmothers that sat in the shade cast by the eaves of the shrine, waiting on the nuns to come out and bestow the alms of the Matriarch.

Curses filled the air, and women gasped at the language. Santi crouched and pretended to re-lace his leather boots so he could keep an eye on the mayor.

“I’ll butcher that chicken,” the mayor bellowed, “if it’s the last thing I do.”

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Leave your votes and critiques in the comments below. Again, be respectful of your remarks and try to point out positives as well as detractions.

Before we sign off I wanted to address the issue a few readers are having with not being able to post comments, or having those comments show up as UNKNOWN even though they have a Google Account.  There are several things at play here. First, if you are using the Safari or Chrome browsers they have a known problem with Blogger and you have two choices. Switch to Firefox as a browser (I've never had a problem using it), or change the setting on Safari as illustrated below.

The other problem is Blogger not recognizing you when adding a comment and therefore designating you as UNKNOWN. This could happen if the reader is a Blogger user themselves and they have not changed their settings since Google + went away.  To do this, follow these steps:

Go to Blogger dashboard.
SETTINGS
USER SETTINGS
Set User Profile = Blogger (instead of Google +)
Save

Hopefully, that will resolve everyone's issues and let the votes/comments reach our contestants. If you missed the first two bouts because of one of these issues, remember the bouts remain LIVE for a week so you can still go back and let your choice be known.

We’ll be back next week for the final five first-round bouts. Please help all our writers out by telling everyone you know what is happening here and encourage them to come vote.

This is WRiTE CLUB—the contest where the audience gets clobbered!