WRiTE CLUB 2019 - Preliminaries - Round #12

Although the voting in the bouts this year has exceeded previous years, I'm still confident we can (or should) do better.  Please help me by using your social media outlets to raise awareness of our contest. Our writers deserve our best efforts!

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 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 Sunday, May 19th (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 –

Our first contestant in the ring is YNaLIas representing the Paranormal Mystery genre.

“Careful with those, Opal,” Detective Grant said as I stared at the bags he’d handed me. Two contained jewelry. The third held a lock of lilac hair that roiled my stomach. “The jewelry needs to be back first thing tomorrow, and you don’t want them to find your DNA on it.” 

I dumped the hair into a glass bowl and followed it with the ring and necklace.

“You sure that’s hers? It looks like a man’s ring,” John said, voicing my own concerns. Huge, onyx, and ostentatious, there was no way it belonged to a Jane Doe.

Grant nodded. “It was in her jacket lining. Removed it myself.”

Satisfied, I reached for the two men’s hands and instructed them to do the same. John’s palm was cool to the touch. Grant’s was slick with sweat. What was he hiding? I searched John’s expression for any enlightenment, but came up empty. If the detective had another agenda, John was unaware. Reluctantly, the men took each other’s hand.

I checked the room once again to ensure everything was in order. The candles were lit, sage was smoking in an incense burner behind of me, and the Ouija board was within my grasp. Not that I’d need it with John here. He could see but couldn’t summon. I began my chant.

 “Spirit from beyond, honor our call.

  Show us what we seek, before we fall.

  Spirit from beyond, please tell your tale.

  Show us what you need, to break from the veil.”

A few chants later, the air thickened, and the bowl shook, the jewelry clanging against its sides. A gossamer rose above the bowl where it hovered peacefully until John’s scoff jolted it into the air. My concentration broke as the spirit spun around the table.

“You summoned your girlfriend?” John said, his line of sight on Detective Grant.

The wide-eyed cop stared at the bowl still quivering on the table.

His girlfriend? What the hell?

The detective gulped. “It was the perfect opportunity to see how she’s doing. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

Before I could scream at him, the candles blew out, the gossamer providing the only light. It stopped again in front of Grant then blended into the darkness.

The bowl banged against the table and something brushed the side of my arm, severing my grip on the detective. A loud crash and a scream from the detective brought my other hand up to my heart. Taunting voices filled the air, while mine stuck in my throat. Footsteps padded over the carpet.

John turned on the lights.  My bookcase was overturned, books and crystals scattered, but my attention focused on the detective. On his back and with “You’re next” etched into his face, Grant was barely breathing.

The room darkened, and the voices began anew.

“Five more lives to set us free,

  to give us life for eternity.

  Five more lives to make us whole,

  to supply and feed us with their souls.”

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On the other side of the ring, we have Ms. Sunnydale who is representing the Dystopian Retelling genre.

It took me five years to forget the ocean. The memory didn’t leave all at once. Rather, it leaked from my mind little by little like a seeping wound: first the sound of waves, then the smell of salt, the keening of seagulls, and so on.

Mercifully, other pleasures went quicker. In two years, I couldn’t recall the taste of fast food, or the lyrics to that pop song. In three, I’d forgotten the good scald of a shower and the shudder of a bus engine beneath me. Like society, like peace, memory is a fleeting thing.

I wish I could forget him as easily. But the memory of him in the nursery window is still there, infecting my brain like a persistent poison.

“Jossana.” The way he had said my name was a song. A prayer. I heard more hope in it than a hymn, even if it had been spoken by a sinner. And not just any sinner. A Reb. The Steadfaster elders say their name like an obscenity, if they say it at all. As though not speaking the name will make the Reb’s offenses less real. As though we could forget the heathens who usurped our government, plundered our food, set fire to our cities. Under the Rebs, violence had spread like a plague—hot rashes of anger and oozing grudges infecting anyone with a bone to pick.

But the boy in the window hadn’t come for violence that night. He came only for a song. As irony would have it, it was Amazing Grace. My brother Tannen had asked me to sing it while I tucked him in, because he still believed in the magic and goodness in its words. And me? I had outgrown magic and knew better than to trust goodness, so I sang it hoping it would make me a better sister than I was a Steadfaster.

A good Steadfaster would have called out when she saw the boy, yelled for the elders in the other room. But it had been my fault. I had popped the plywood from the window that night to let the breeze in. And instead of feeling threatened when my eyes snapped around the boy’s silhouette, I had felt the immoral tug of excitement.

But neither had the boy come armed, as far as I could tell. Rather, he wielded a smile that dug out two shallow dimples in his cheeks, and eyes that cupped warm candlelight.

And a question, What’s your name, girl?

To which I answered, Jossana.

When he echoed it, the word had taken flight off his lips like an enchanted, winged thing, more beautiful than it had the right to be. I wonder if it might have floated off that night, taking part of me with it so I would never be quite whole again.

Perhaps that’s why I don’t remember the ocean, but I remember every shade of blue and green in his eyes.

Memory is an enduring, excruciating thing.

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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 tomorrow for another preliminary bout. 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!