WRiTE CLUB 2013 - Bout 5

It’s always a pleasure to start off a new round by congratulating the winner of a previous one. Today I’d like to welcome Camille Atwood into the play-off circle for her victory in Round 3.  It was the tightest battle yet, with every vote really counting, so please make sure you sign up on the Linky List before you choose.  The voting for bout #4 remains open until Wednesday.

Last year during the first four rounds we received 350+ votes combined, and this year we've seen barely have half that.  I must say that it's a little disappointing to think that we made all these changes and the outcome has been a severe drop-off in participation.  I guess I can be disappointed, but I shouldn't be surprised.  The changes to WRiTE CLUB, at least on some level, were to make the contest more manageable and save my sanity, but the overall goal was to keep interest levels high throughout the entire run by making it more compact and streamlined.  Little did I realize that overall input would fall off so dramatically.    As they say...the proof is in the pudding and the final report card won't be tallied until the last round...and if votes continue at the same level all the way to the final, then maybe these changes will have been a success.

What can you do to help?  As always...spread the word.  I believe we have a good thing here but so far this year WRiTE CLUB seems like the best kept secret in the blogosphere.

That's enough whining...what do you say we get to it?

Here are today's randomly selected WRiTER's.

Standing in the far corner, weighing in at 476 words and representing the Short Story genre, please welcome to the ring……..Imalie Teller.







“You see anybody pokin’ around, lookin’ for her?”

The little man shook his head and waddled across the floor. He was out of breath. The three steps up to the wagon from the ground were a climb, for him.

“Well? Was there anybody?”

He realized she hadn’t looked at him since he’d come into the wagon. She hadn’t seen him shake his head. “No. Nobody looking.” Rascal put his short, stubby fingers beside Maizie’s bottom on the bunk mattress. He pulled himself up onto his tiptoes and craned his neck to see around her back. “Too young to be a runaway. Hell, too young to go places alone.” He settled back onto the soles of his shoes and waddled to the head of the bunk to face Maizie. “We need to tell somebody. We can’t leave town with her in this wagon. They’ll send us to Sing Sing.”

“We ain’t doin’ a thing but takin’ care of this child nobody wants. We ain’t done nothin’ wrong.” Maize hadn’t looked away from the bunk, not once. She leaned forward and put the back of her hand on the little girl’s forehead. Satisfied with what she felt, she gently smoothed the child’s bangs back down.

The wagon lurched into motion. Rascal was sent staggering. He grabbed Maizie’s arm with his thick, short hands. It was the first time he’d touched her. He didn’t let go, even after his feet were steady on the plank floor. The bare skin below her sleeve was soft, but he could feel muscles and bone, too. She had to be strong, a woman on her own with the carnival. She didn’t have a man, wasn’t part of a performing family.

“Too late to tell anybody, now. We’re on our way to Albany,” Maize said.

She still wasn’t looking at him, but she didn’t pull her arm away, either. Rascal moved his fingers a little, stroking her. He knew it was bold and too familiar, but it was obviously a night to take chances.

“Rascal,” Maize said, her voice suddenly worried, “do you think she’s too pale? I think she might be too pale.” She did pull away, then. She put both her hands on the child’s cheeks. She ran her thumbs over the delicate, closed eyelids.

Rascal swallowed his disappointment and stretched up again to look at the girl. The child surely was pale. The vibration of the moving wagon blurred Rascal’s vision. The girl’s drawn face and her corn silk hair nearly disappeared against the background of the white pillow.

“She surely is pale,” Rascal admitted.

“Like an angel,” Maize breathed. “She’s pale the way angels are pale.” “Just like an angel,” Rascal agreed. He wondered if he could steal some formaldehyde from Wesley’s pickled punk jars. If he could keep the girl from rotting, maybe Maizie could keep her.
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And in the other corner, weighing in with a 457 word sample in the YA Contemporary genre, let me introduce to you ……..Vampyr14




Afterward, still exhausted, we fall asleep in a tangle of limbs. I don’t think either of us moves all night. I wake, stiff and sore, my arm tingling with pins and needles as the first traces of daylight inch their way into the room. I wriggle out from under Dylan, watching him roll over and refold himself into a more comfortable position. He tugs the sheet up to his chin, cuddling it there the way a baby does a teddy. In this gray-blue light, he’s beautiful. He’s peaceful. The tense shoulders and dark worry lines that have started appearing on his face are gone, smoothed out by sleep. Real sleep. Not narcotic sleep.

I’ve been awake how long? Maybe five minutes? And already I’m thinking about drugs. It’s been a couple of days since my last hit, and I can feel it in the way my blood creeps beneath my skin. It’s not itchy yet, but I know it won’t be long. There’s a low ache in my bones. I wonder how long it’ll be before the shaking starts. And the sweating. Will I be able to stand it?

A tremor shudders through Dylan, making the bed quake. He groans and digs his head deeper into the pillow before settling back into sleep. He’s facing me and I let my eyes travel the familiar planes of his face, reading them, memorizing them: the knifelike cheekbones, the fine, sensitive mouth, the pointed chin, the magnificent beaklike nose. He thinks I’m beautiful. Doesn’t he know how stunning he is? His narrow frame barely makes a wrinkle in the bed. How can someone who means so much take up so little space? My heart swells as I crawl from the bed, tucking the sheet around him. I love him so much. Too much.

I leave the sheet music puddled on the floor. I leave my clothes in the closet. I leave my phone in the creases of my pillow. I bend over and leave a single kiss on his cool, damp forehead. It’s that kiss. The one I hoped I’d never have to give. The one that can only mean goodbye. The words to the song swirl through my head and tears spring to my eyes. Yes, I love him. No, it’s not enough.

The early morning air is cool against my skin. I clutch my violin as I hurry down the disintegrating sidewalk, knowing only it can share my regrets. Each tear that splashes against it paints a bitter, salty message. I’m not alone. These sidewalks have seen and heard worse. Each scar holds a secret; each crack a broken promise. I add my own, leaving them behind when I duck into the womb-like darkness of the subway.
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Please leave your vote for the winner of round 5, along with any sort of critique you would like to offer, in the comments below (but remember you must be registered on the Linky List here first).  And please tell everyone you know to drop by and be part of the fun.  The voting for Round 5 will remain open until noon Sunday (7/28). 

Remember, here in WRiTE CLUB, it’s not about the last man/woman standing, it’s about who knocks the audience out!

WRiTE CLUB 2013 - Bout 4

Our winner of Bout #2 was Philangelus!  Congratulations, and you will now move into the playoffs which will being in approximately seven weeks after all 16 preliminary rounds are complete.

New to WRiTE CLUB?  Great...here's how it works.  Below are two 500 word anonymous (aside from the pen name) writing samples, read them both and then in the comments below tell us which one you prefer.  Leave a simple critique as well, if you can.  But in order for your vote to count in the final talley you must register as a WRiTE CLUB member on the linky list HERE.  Simple as that!  If you want to read the full rules, which includes how you can win a $75 Amazon gift certificate, you can do that there as well.

In previous rounds a good litmus test for deciding victory is whether or not a writing sample leaves the reader wanting more.  If nothing else, this should illustrate how we must each strive to adhere to this guiding principle in every phase of our work.  We've seen some awesome 500 word snippets, but what about the next 500 words...and the 500 after that?  We as writers cannot afford to coast, or compose filler to simply serve as a bridge to the next major plot point, character interaction, or dramatic encounter.  Our standards must be set higher than that and the luxury of complacency a foreign concept.  A tough task indeed, but one we all embrace willingly.

Are you ready for an awesome mid-week battle?

Here are this bouts's randomly selected WRiTER's.

Coming to the ring, weighing in at 500 words and representing the YA Fantasy genre, please welcome to the ring……..Dirch McGurkin.




“Your mother sent me letters, sometimes,” Marcello said. “Though none in recent years.”

I sat up in my chair. “My mother? Bianca Saldana?”

He snorted. “Unless you have another mother I don’t know of, then yes.”

This . . . this flipped my world upside down. Why would my mother send letters to Marcello Saldana, who we were told never to speak of? Who had brought shame to the Family. “Why would she do that?”

“We were friends. I was glad when she married Dante and joined our Family. I had great love for Bianca and my brother. It opened a wound I thought long healed to hear of their deaths at the hands of the Da Vias.”

“Then why do you refuse to help me?” I leaned forward. “If you give me the location of the Da Via safe home, I will make them pay for what they’ve done to our Family. They will never forget the Saldanas!”

“At the cost of your own life, you mean?”

I leaned back. “If need be. I’m not afraid to die.”

He laughed. “No, of course you’re not! You’re, what, seventeen? And a disciple of Safraella. I’m sure you can’t wait for Her cold embrace.”

“You step awfully close to blasphemy. I am Her disciple, and She will offer me a fast resurrection.”

“And then what?”

“What?”

“And then what? You die and are reborn and what of the people you leave behind?”

“There are no people. Everyone’s dead.”

Marcello widened his eyes in a way that said he didn’t believe me. He pointedly looked to the room where Les slept.

Les, really? Perhaps he’d be sad, but surely he’d get over it. I couldn’t mean that much to him. Right?

“Dying is the easy part.” Marcello got to his feet. “But what you grant for those you leave behind is much more difficult.” He glanced over his shoulder again to Les. “I fear you will destroy him.”

“Me?”

“He is too kind to you. He is too kind because he thinks if he is kind, people will like him. And if they like him, they won’t leave. But that’s not the way of things. You are like a flame and he is a moth, drawn to you, unaware if he gets too close you will burn him up.”

He’d hit dangerously close to my own thoughts regarding Les. But I wasn’t the only one to blame. “And you? You’ve given him a sword and taught him just enough to be dangerous with it, but not enough to know when to back away.”

“Things were fine before you arrived,” he countered.

“Were they? You never fought about it until I found my way here? You never threatened to stop training him, never held that over his head?”

Marcello was silent. He couldn’t deny it.

I leaned back in the chair and sighed. “Truly, Uncle, we’re both at fault.” He nodded slowly. “We’re Saldanas. Sooner or later we destroy the ones we love.”
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And entering the other corner, weighing in at 499 words and representing the YA Paranormal genre, here is ……..Word Huntress.

I hate California. Too many people. Too much heat. Too much sun.

I prefer night, if I have a choice.

Then again, I hate making choices. Always make the wrong one. If I’m taking a multiple choice test and narrow a question to two answers, I always pick the wrong one. Every freakin’ time. It’s a curse.

Not that I want to think about curses right now.

I swear the AC’s not working. My pits are getting wetter every second. At least the bell rings, signaling the end of torment until Monday, but it also means I’m stuck in a hallway crammed with more kids than a fire fighter would be happy with.

Don’t want to think about fire right now either.

By the time the crowd herds me outside, I almost want to go back inside the hated stone building. The blast of heat pounds into me, and I feel like I’m about to burst into a flame.

Not now.

A freshman or sophomore nearby is opening a water bottle. I snatch it out of his hands, pour half the contents in my mouth, then dump the rest onto my head. His jaw drops, but he says nothing as I toss it back to him. He fumbles and drops it onto the ground.

Jerk move, I know. Don’t care what people think of me. Stopped caring long ago. Not since…

I start to walk away but a beefy hand clamps onto my shoulder. Rolling my eyes upward, I see Jake Gallagher, some kinda hotshot on the football team. Thinks he’s all that. I think he smells worse than a bird carcass that’s been in the desert for a month. And he’s has more zits than Swiss cheese has holes.

“How’s it going, Isolde?”

I ground my teeth. Ever since our English teacher assigned us to read Tristan and Isolde, Jake thinks it’s hilarious to call me Isolde. Hate my name enough as it is, don’t need this oversized greasy slob giving me more reason to.

Normally I ignore him and walk away. Once he cracks his joke and his friends laugh, he lets me go. But today, his friends aren’t around. And for some reason, maybe the heat or maybe I’m just sick of taking his crap, I decide enough’s enough.

“The name’s Tristan.”

“Oh, excuse me. Trisha.”

“Now that’s a laugher. Bet it took you all night to come up with that one.”

His beady eyes look even smaller as the puffiness around them grows larger and redder. “What. Did. You. Say. To. Me?”

By now, a few classmates who haven’t boarded buses yet or left the school grounds to their fancy cars their rich daddies bought them or—gasp—walked home like I do are forming a circle around us. A bead of sweat congeals with others as it trickles down my back and becomes a wad. I wipe it away and flick the wetness off my hand. Toward Jake.

He lets out a massive roar.

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*shakes head* Another tough choice for you.  Before you leave your vote for the winner of round 4, make sure you’ve pre-registered to vote here. Any sort of critique you would like to offer are most appreciated as well.  Please tell everyone you know about WRiTE CLUB and get your friends to make a selection as well.  The voting will remain open until noon next Wednesday.

Remember, here in WRiTE CLUB, it’s not about the last man/woman standing, it’s about who knocks the audience out!

WRiTE CLUB 2013 - Bout 3

Today we have the added pleasure of announcing our first WRiTER who has earned a ticket to advance into the playoffs.  It was a brillant battle between two very competent WRiTERs, but please join me in congratulating N.U. Endo as the winner of Round 1. Voting for the second bout remains open until Wednesday and that winner will be announced on Thursdays post.

If you're having trouble keeping up with what rounds are still active and taking votes, simply check out the WRiTE CLUB 2013 tab at the page.  Every round and its competitors are listed there, if there is no winner beside the bout that means voting is still open.  But remember...everybody who votes must register on the Linky List first.

Over the course of the next several weeks we will witness a clashing of writing styles, which always prompts some discussion about the fairness of having samples of different genre's in the same ring together.  Broader still, maybe WRiTE CLUB is inherently biased towards YA WRiTER's since it seemed like the majority of the blogosphere (at least this hemisphere of it) is populated by those working in the YA genre.  I do not accept either of those postulations, for many reasons, but the primary one being that I believe visitors to WRiTE CLUB...regardless of the genre they practice in...can recognize excellent writing!  And it doesn't matter if that writing is YA, MG, Sci-Fi, Horror, Mystery, Fantasy, etc...etc.  I'm confident that the WRiTER's that have chosen to submit their work (which I have the utmost admiration for) did so knowing that those 500 word snippets would stand on their own, without the benefit of plot or theme, and though there may be an element that suggests a specific genre (vampires are a dead giveaway), it is the way the scene is weaved that would be judged.

Here are Round 3’s randomly selected WRiTER's.

Standing in the far corner, weighing in at 493 words and representing the adult thriller genre, please welcome to the ring……..billypayne.

From the moment he heard the bell signaling the arrival of the elevator, his eyes locked on the doors.  He had waited for hours outside her building, and when he finally saw the light in her office darken, he knew it would be only minutes before she was stepping off the elevator to get to her car.  Almost instinctively, he re-adjusted the mask that covered his face and slipped on a pair of latex gloves, pulling them tight so they wouldn’t fall off during the madness.

           

Silently, the doors slid open and a second or two passed before the pretty blond stepped from the elevator.  Traces of light from the low wattage bulbs made her hair glisten, an iridescent halo marking the prey as she paused on the cement pad before venturing out into the darkness.

           

He had selected her because she fit the profile perfectly.  A powerful attorney, immersed in an extremely high-profile case, this one promised the front page the moment they discovered the body.  And then, there were the other advantages, the ones he had managed to discover through the hours spent outside her bedroom window, late at night, at the moment she felt the most comfortable and the most secure.  The long, golden hair pulled tightly back from her face during the day, but allowed to fall down past her shoulders at night; the voluptuous, firm body carefully hidden underneath the business suit, and the long, shapely legs that nothing could manage to hide.

           

His eyes stayed on her.  Riveted.  His breathing mirrored hers as he tried to limit the possibility of her sensing something was wrong and suddenly getting away.

           

A squeal of tires was heard on the ramp as a car climbed higher and higher into the structure.  He counted the seconds between the sounds, hoping to use the noise to cover his narrowing the gap between them.

           

She was moving again.  An almost casual gait as she crossed the lit drive and stepped into the shadows near her car.  Suddenly, she stopped.  She looked up and out into the darkness as if startled.  Whether she had heard him or was simply unnerved by the lateness of the hour, she immediately sensed the urgency of getting into her car.

           

He was up and running by the time he heard the pop of the electronic door locks.  Just as she grasped the handle of the door, her keys slipped through her fingers and crashed to the ground.  In the moment it took for her to stoop and retrieve them . . . he was on her.

“Enough killing for today, gentlemen?” a voice whispered from behind the two men perched in front of the computer screen, playing the game for the thousandth time.  He snapped on the lights in the room and brought them back to reality.  “We still have a great deal of work to accomplish . . . work that we will get immediate compensation for.” 

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And in the other corner, from the women's fiction genre and weighing in at 499 words , let me introduce to you ……..Camille Atwood.

Peggy Bauer ignited the pink 4 candle, a remnant from her daughter’s last birthday. She glanced at her softly illuminated reflection in the black glass of the microwave oven and wished that the whole world was lit that way.

With both hands clutching the crystal serving dish, she pushed the door to the dining room open with her foot. A collective “ooh” resonated from her two children upon spying the beloved dessert.

“I made your favorite,” Peggy boasted and set the gooey concoction in front of her husband.

“You made your own cake? How lame is that?” said her teenage son.

“Of course I did. Who else would bake me a cake?”

“Well, dad could have bought one,” Mark mumbled.

“Oh, those bakeries can’t make a cake like mine.”

Peggy brushed the idea away like a pesky gnat and turned towards Dave. His eyes fixated on the glowing candle.

”Make a wish mommy,” demanded Caitlin, now five.

“I already have everything I want.”

With one puff, she blew out the flame. Dave leaned back in his chair and their eyes met.

“Do you want to open presents or have cake first?” he yawned.

“How about presents,” beamed Peggy.

“I think you might find something with your name on it in the hall closet.”

Peggy sprinted out of the room with the expectation that behind that closet door was something terrific and expensive, something that could momentarily erase the nagging feeling that life had somehow escaped her between soccer practice and PTA meetings. With sweaty palms, she closed her eyes, inhaled deeply and gently pulled at the door.

Sandwiched between Dave’s golf clubs and an old purple snow-suit sat a shiny yellow vacuum cleaner wrapped in a red bow like a pageant sash. A wave of embarrassment rose up inside of her. Peggy spun around to see if Dave was watching her reaction. He wasn’t.

With brave face, she dejectedly reentered the dining room, lugging the pricey instrument behind her like it was an unruly child.

“Look. Daddy got me a vacuum for my birthday,” she deadpanned.

“It’s one of those ones that never lose suction. It’s top of the line, Peggy.”

“Yeah, it really sucks,” said Peggy, sinking into her chair.

Mark eyed his parents to see if they’d notice him leaving the room.

“Okay, all puns aside, it really does suck,” Dave’s voice rose. “It’s supposed to be the best there is, Peggy. I thought you said you wanted one.”

Peggy gulped the remainder of her chardonnay in silence then rose from her chair with a jolt.

“Excuse me for just a moment.”

She lumbered up the stairs, her pulse quickening with each step.

There had to be a robin egg blue box with a moderately expensive bauble nestled, possibly hidden somewhere inside their room. She checked every drawer, under the bed, under her pillow, in the bathroom, even in her giant orange purse that hung on the treadmill.

It was charged on Dave’s Amex. Where was it?

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Now it’s up to you.  Which of these two samples resonated the most?  In the comments below leave your vote for the winner of round 3, along with any sort of critique you would like to offer.  Please remind your friends to make a selection as well.  The voting will remain open until noon Sunday.  

Remember, here in WRiTE CLUB, it’s not about the last man/woman standing, it’s about who knocks the audience out!