Purple Prose Contest Final Round (Rules and Entries Only)

maestrowork

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Here it is, boys and girls... The Final Round.

The Finalists (in alphabetical order):

alaskamatt17
Dawno
prosperitySue
robeiae
Unique



The Challenge:

1. Take the following three (3) opening sentences/paragraphs from classic novels and turn them as purple as you can. That is, each contestant must enter three entries each by rewriting these three prompts.

2. To prevent our brains from exploding, please limit the 3 entries to one (1) paragraph each.

3. Each finalist must write the 3 entries in the style of 3 different genres (please specify at the beginning of each entry). The styles are:

* Romance/Women/Chick-Lit
* Erotica
* Horror
* Suspense/Thriller
* Mystery
* Historical
* Western
* Fantasy
* Science Fiction
* Literary/Mainstream
* Non-Fiction

For example, the contestant may rewrite the three prompts as Romance, Mystery and Literary, etc.

4. No need to stay true to the original materials. But if you could somehow work them in, I'm sure the voters will appreciate that.

5. Please post your entries in this thread, immediately following this post. Please DO NOT post any discussion or crits here. Use the "Peanut Gallery" thread instead.

6. Have fun! And good luck!



The Deadline: Monday, October 3, 2005, 11:59 PM EDT. Late entries will be disqualified.


The Prompts:

A. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. (The Old Man and The Sea)

B. Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. (Ulysses)

C. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. (To Kill a Mockingbird)


To vote: send your votes to maestrowork (at) gmail (dot) com.
 

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Icky Sticky Coco Bop

Old Man & the Sea Slathered in Purple (Erotica Implied)
word ct. 358


He was an ornery and cantankerous old man, grizzled, taciturn and begrimed who fished completely and utterly alone in a battered, creaking, barnacle encrusted skiff, (although he considered it as palatial as a potentate’s personal barque) and he passed the lonely hours in the Gulf Stream and as the warm salt breezes passed over his hoary head and face, he reflected that he had gone eighty four long and miserably lonely days now without taking a single solitary fish worth keeping for anything other than bait. In the first forty halcyon days, a tow-headed boy clothed in his older brother’s filthy cast off clothing had been with him giving pleasure and purpose to his days and deep meaning to his heretofore meaningless nights. But after those first forty frustratingly fruitless days without a single fish, the impishly handsome flaxen haired boy’s miserly wicked and selfish parents had told him in no uncertain terms that the bellicose old man was now definitely and absolutely, finally and forever more, salao, which is the worst and certainly the most terminal form of unlucky, at least according to the Afrocentric Cuban Gypsy enclave to which they belonged and the heart broken young boy had gone tearfully away from his beloved compatriot at their orders in another decrepit and salt laden boat which caught three good and grossly engorged fish in the first fitfully fevered week. It made the poor, wee boy unutterably sad to see the ancient old man who had been his mentor come in each and every heartbreakingly lonely day with his skiff and his hot pockets deflated and empty and he always went down breathlessly after running full tilt the length of fish gut spattered dock to meet him and to help him carry either the wet and tightly coiled lines of water soaked hemp or the wickedly sharp and brilliantly shiny gaff and harpoon and the salt covered and storm battered sail that was furled as tightly as a his lover’s fist around the thick, stout mast so reminiscent of his friend the old man of the sea.
**********************************************************************
To Kill a Mockingbird –(with Horror and Purple)
word ct. - 448

When he was nearly reached the venerable old age of thirteen (alas, such a portentously unlucky number!), my slightly, but much beloved and beleaguered older brother Jem got his tender, teenaged arm ravaged and badly broken at the both the lateral and medial epicondyle of the elbow. He had been casting nefarious spells and chanting tonelessly over his inherited (from our ancient Aunt Agatha) Oijua board in the cob web covered attic of our forlorn but historic home which was situated in the oldest section of our humble hamlet (Alas, again! Our cherished but crumbling, ivy covered home was located adjacent to the Confederate cemetery!) When it healed, grotesquely crooked yet still functional, and Jem’s irrational fears of never being able to play football as the star quarterback were assuaged, he was seldom self conscious of his injury unless the Confederate corporal which he had summoned, cruelly and maliciously made a point of reminding him of his affliction. His left arm was somewhat, but not immediately more noticeably shorter than his right, unless he stood motionless for a time, or even worse – he began to shuffle with that newly acquired Zombie-like gait, the back of his hand was poised at oblique right angles to his faltering body, his thumb parallel (though somewhat drooping) to his now malodorous, yet still firmly muscular thigh. He couldn’t have cared less; his mind was totally gone by then, taken and possessed by that long dead Confederate soldier. As long as he could pass and punt – his idiosyncrasies were overlooked by the football fanatical townsfolk as long as he helped win the game they ignored his vacant and staring eyes. With the exception of Coach Radley, no one knew my brother well enough to notice this dramatic change in his previously stellar intramural performances. When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them without the attendant horror and shame, we sometimes girded our fragile minds against the cruel memories and discussed in hushed and halting whispers the series of unfortunate events leading to what others referred to as his ‘accident’. I maintain that the evil and peccant Ewells started it all with their blood soaked sacrifices beneath the gibbous moons of autumn in the old Confederate cemetery, but Jem, who was merely four misspent years my senior, said it started long, long before that. He said it came with the sickening heat of August in the summer the spirit Dill came to us, when the shade of Dill first gave us the appalling idea of making the spirit of Boo Radley – Coach Radley’s nefarious ancestor come out and do our bidding.

************************************
Ulysses: A Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Purple Punk
(Chick Lit, but not chewy gum)
word ct. - 278

Stately and plump, ‘Big Buck’ Mulligan – King of the Bushwack Trailer Park and a legend in his own mind, came prancing round from the stairhead bearing an delicately enameled bowl, which he had purchased in the South of France, near Nice` on his last wickedly extravagant, but totally tax deductible excursion to the Continent. The lather which covered the delicate strawberries (fraises du bois to those who know) lay on an antique beveled mirror and a jewled razor that lay crossed on a monogrammed sterling silver tray wafted an aroma to his slightly coke numbed but still functional nose. A canary yellow dressing gown trimmed in burnt umber maribou, ungirdled and open to the essences of summer was sustained gently behind him in the mild morning air. He held the enameled bowl aloft as if sacred and intoned: Introibo ad altare Dei. He continued, “Holy Moses! By all that I hold dear, that was one heck of a flame throwing wingding last night! Yee Haw, Bubba!” Halted by the hand of Grace, (his sister Grace, not the mother of the saint), he peered hesitantly down the dark and ornately carved mahogany stairs and called up coarsely in his loudest and most belligerent tone: “Come on up Kinch, ya hairy throated bastid! You can’t be whacking on my sister like she’s the last pitch of a 10 inning World Series game! Besides, Emily’s camera didn’t have any film in it last night any way; and she’s only our cousin six times removed at that! Come up I say, you fearful flaming excuse of a mint julep drinking Jesuit! Come on up here, I say!”
 

robeiae

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A. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. (The Old Man and The Sea)

Literary:




Withered, tired, and grey, the faint lines of the battered craft told the tale of its use: a relentless and daily plowing of the constant current that ran from the lands once claimed by Eriksson to the line where nightfall brought the first glimpse of the Southern Cross on the distant horizon. The lone navigator that piloted the knackered skiff was not unlike his charge, seasoned by the winds of fortune from the east, and those of change from the south. And now, these same fickle forces conspired against him, for six fortnights had passed since a scaled denizen of his homewaters had graced his deck.





B. Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. (Ulysses)



Erotica:



The pseudo-tones of the overused yet somehow still playful soundtrack filled the halls as Buck ascended the stairs, freshly oiled and ready for the day’s chores. His most immediate goal: the room immediately beyond the frequently empty linen closet, from which passed sheet after sheet, traveling from shelve to bed to hamper. Buck knew Sheila, oiled and undressed, would already be in the room splayed upon the bed, as she enjoyed a regiment of self-moistening before each act. She always started with both hands gently caressing her perfect breasts, ample and proud with sharp lines delineating their silver-dollar sized nipples. From there, she moved straight to her womanhood, plying herself first gently, and then harder, all the while moistening her ruby-red lips with her soft pink tongue. Buck’s masculinity grew beneath his flimsy robe as he thought of her. And today, they would make history, bringing fame to both Sheila and Buck Mulligan (known better by his screen name, Buck Naked). For as he took her beneath the bright lights and cameras, he would simultaneously eradicate every hair from her once-intact flower with the help of the bowl of lather, the mirror, and the razor that he carried under one arm.





C. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. (To Kill a Mockingbird)



Western:



The dawn came early with the first shafts of orange piercing the hills just east of Dry Gulch. The air was quiet as I peered cautiously out my window; no dust disturbed the tracks of drunkards and their mounts, made only hours before. They were caricatures of men, who seemed to spend nightly the meager fortunes they scratched from the riverbank by the uncovering of a few bits of yellow rock. And like every other day in this godforsaken place, they would soon roll off their slumbering pads and begin anew. But today was different, for I knew my brother Jem would be changed forever after today. And for what? For being a man, a man who stepped between his simple serving girl of a sister and an alcohol-soaked drifter with eyes of blue steel. ‘Cause Jem didn’t know who had had tangled with, didn’t know the worn road apple that he accosted was none another than John Henry Morris, the notorious gunfighter; a man who people said road alongside the other Horseman, but was always better armed and quicker on the draw. And in a few hours, he would draw on Jem, my brother. My brother, who broke his arm when he fell from a tree, landing straight on his elbow, when he only just become a man. My brother, who always feared he’d never learn to shoot because of the fracture. My brother, who never broached the subject of his injury again, once he knew it would not hamper him. My brother, who was gonna die by the gun, just because he had learned to shoot.

Rob :)
 

Dawno

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Well, it just isn't gonna get any purpler with me tweaking every adjective over and over.



This writer wants to warn the audience that they read this at their own risk.



If your eyeballs start to bleed, remember, I warned you.



A. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. (The Old Man and The Sea)



Literary:



Fourscore days and four he was afloat upon great Posiedon’s domain. The solitude of the current, the swell of lonely waves, and the isolation of the endless empty sky was equaled only by the barrenness of the net he had cast, the absence of piscine attachment to the laceratingly honed hooks he had precisely set with bait that had patiently waited upon mounds of glittering ice. He was not a young man, nor a middle aged man; no, he was in his senescence, the winter of his years, those last forlorn grains in the hourglass of his days were fast approaching the neck of the long pinched bulb that measured the passing moments of his life. All alone he sailed, for he had ever set out with only the company of the creaking deckboards, the conversation of the luffing sail, the low mournful hum made by the sheets as they rubbed against the windblown, salt polished mast and spar – yea, isolated o’er the deeps and him welcoming it. He sought only one thing when he went to out to the sea, he desired only one sort of fleshly company to amend for the many enervating days spent adrift in the balmy Gulf Stream. Alas, this journey found him abandoned by even the small camaraderie he craved, the company of dead fish.



B. Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. (Ulysses)



Romance



Buck, his statuesque form magnificently framed by the roseate light crowning over the eastern horizon, light reminiscent of the blush of afterglow he had left upon his now sated lover’s skin, strode down the risers and emerged from the stairhead. In his large, capable, immaculately manicured but firm hands – and what skilled hands, hands that could bring intense pleasure – in those hands he bore a copious bowl of nearly overflowing rich, creamy lather. A gleaming mirror set in a chased silver frame sat atop the bowl, crossed with a keenly stropped straight razor embedded in a hard bone handle worn smooth and gleaming after years of daily handling. The instrument and looking glass sat balanced upon the bowl with precision, the kind of precision Buck wielded when addressing so exactly the locus of his partner’s ultimate delight. The mirror atop the bowl reflected the strong jaw and the firm chin of its bearer as he crossed to the parapet he would use so as to address the sunrise with his ablutions. His saffron-hued dressing gown, ungirdled and alternately concealing then revealing the now quiescent (ah, but earlier!) manhood within, seemed to be adrift on Cupid’s breath on this mild morning-after.





C. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. (To Kill a Mockingbird)



Horror



The boy, on the verge of manhood, now having achieved that superstitious year, had never before experienced such snapping, searing agony as this. In his innocence he had not conceived in his wildest imaginings such intense, prolonged misery. This was surely the worst one could endure! Even after the physical pain had subsided to a minor ache, the psychic torments continued. Trembling, alone in darkness, unable to cry out for shame his fears would be thought cowardice, he often contemplated, what worse twists of fate could possibly come upon him next? Then, as he finally succumbed to a restless sleep, he would find himself tormented by feverish nightmares. He would run, run, run as if pursued by the legions of Hades, but he could not reach the goal, he could not hold on to the prize and howling, screeching Harpy-voices coming from all around him, echoing as if he was in the bowl of a great amphitheatre, would mock him, “You cannot win, you should not try!” In the light of day many caring and concerned folk spoke reassuringly to him but it was only through the passage of time and the agony of rebuilding that which had atrophied during the long convalescence, that his confidence returned and the nightmares abated. With the resiliency of youth, the trauma of the past eventually faded to a misty memory. Soon he hardly recalled with any intensity the incident, so rarely did it prick upon his consciousness. Little did he realize what life had in store for him, what new nightmares were yet to come.
 

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A.) He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.

Genre/Style: Horror

The old man had gone for an unbearable eighty-four days without taking a fish, eighty four days without food or water at all--eighty-four days, and the thirst and hunger were beginning to well up inside him. He needed meat, and he needed blood. He needed to quench the awful lust for carnage that swelled in his heart, threatening it to burst, and if the net and the pole would not suffice, he would need to find another means--any means--of sating his primal desires. The gun on his shelf was calling to him, and on the wind he could hear the gentle gossip and hardy guffaws from the halls of Gulf Stream High School (where the students where having a lock-in slumber party), blowing down on the blustery winds--through sheets of rain and blankets of fog and comforters of sweet, dark night--from the north. ...

B.) Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air.

Genre/Style: Fantasy

With a shout and a warcry to break to splinters the oaken railing (which was made of the strongest wood yet hewn by living men (or dead)), Buck Mulligan leapt the last three stairs, brandishing in one hand his nine foot claymore and in the other a bowl of foamy white lather upon which lay crossed the beautiful, gilded Razor of Reckoning and the Mirror of Truth, which can see truly into the hearts of man or woman, and reveals in them that which is basest and most secret, that which they wish to hide, which they intend for no other ear to hear nor any other eye to see, nor any shrewd mind to discern by wit. His yellow dressinggown (worn for the fact that may be seen by all to be true (the fact, that is, that dressinggowns are sleek, sexy and stylish (stylish in a way that accentuates, rather than masks, the stark appeal of the wearer))) billowed loftily in the mild morning air, suspended on invisible currents that the eye may strain to see, but which nature has deigned to hide from mortal eyes. He had a gruff beard--a scruff of five clocks--greying him on the chin and cheeks; men were wont to wear their beards gruff in those days. He came to the bathroom door, hinged with black iron and marked with the scuffs and gouges of a thousand battering rams from failed sieges long forgotten to all but the door which bore their marks. He alone held the key. He--Buck Mulligan--had in his pocket the only piece of metal to which this accursed, stiff, ancient, stubborn ingress might yield. But, alas! His hands were full! With a grunt, he deposited the greatsword (for it was truly a greatsword, and not a claymore as any not-quite-so-astute-as-myself observer might have thought) on the floor and jabbed a deft hand into his pocket--which was on the left hip of the blue and yellow square-patterned swimshorts he wore beneath the dressinggown he'd been a-gifted of by his father, the true king of all the lands of Ash'la'ria, before he donned his gilded plate and mail and struck south on his destrier to wage war against the abominable legions of the Traitor Who Feasts on Ash. With a flick of his wrist, the key emerged from the pocket and glistened in the rays of golden dawn that trickled through the Norman window on the east wall. Grunting as he strained, he thrust the key into the keyhole with all his might (or rather, all the might of the hand which did not bear the bowl of lather across which lay crossed the Razor of Reckoning and the Mirror of Truth), and turned it as fast as the mechanism of the lock would bear. His effort expended he released the key. And there was a click! A glorious click! And the door swung open on hinges that groaned for want of sweet, black oil. Beyond the threshhold dwelt darkness so thick you could cut it with a sword, though his sword lay horizontal on the floor behind him. With a lurch he stepped forward into the darkness, sweat trickling from his brow like venom from a chimera's stinger. The darkness swallowed him, but at last he was here, and the end of the Night was come. The Morning of Heroes had begun.

C.) When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury.

Genre/Style: Literary/Mainstream (angsty and morbid)

When he was nearly thirteen--the age of transformation for most of us, and of mortification in the locker room, and of beings shoved in the trash or else being the one who shoves others in the trash--which elsewhere might be called garbage, refuse, or rubbish)--my brother Jem broke his arm clean off at the elbow. Well, that may be a bit much of an exaggeration (but aren't all exaggerations?). It was only a fracture that the doctor showed to me and my mother and my father on the x-ray. We were poor in those days, and winter was cold, and the whole of humanity was a desolate race bereft of the morality that had clung in the minds and festered (who says morality can't fester has never seen the way it hung to life long after its time of usefulness faded into antiquity) in the hearts of those doomed to waste their ragged hours on this useless dustheap of a world. Oh, would that I were a bird. Birds can fly. But girls can't, no matter how much they want and I'll never be able to fly, and I'll never be a bird with great fans of feathers and muscles to work wings through the air with hollow whooshes that part the fabric of the oxygen which sustains. Perhaps the world would be better as a barren rock. Without life there could be no death, and without death the world would be a better place. But without death there would be no compost to feed the grass and in turn no flowers to grow from the dark, fertile soil and stretch their rosy petals into the forget-me-not sky with all the tenacity of a long daisy in a rock crevice on the precipice brown as manure. Woe! Despair! Even death has a place in this world, but has it ever spared a niche for me? It has not. IT HAS NOT!! I want to see it all torn down, into dust that never settles, carried across galaxies by the pull of a black hole from the darkness of the coldest regions in space; the darkness in my soul is greater. It's the world we live in that lets older brothers' arms break; it's the world we live in that treats cripples with such open hostility--keeping them off football teams, which are the only retreats from the hostile emptiness that surrounds us. But such is the world we must bear, until sweet death claims us by the toes and drags us into the abyss where we can rest.
 

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A. He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. (The Old Man and The Sea)
Science Fiction

Journal Entry: Some on this planet say the river Styx exists only in mythology, but it runs…oh, yes, it runs…a dark, hellish, fishless stream of energy…winding its long and lonely course in the Stygian darkness of space (both sublime and ominous) to this cerulean, azure globe where the crabby, fussy, stubborn, wizened, old man sits hunkered in his small, wooden boat beneath the searing rays of the luminous star lighting this planetary system. This star…spewing millions of protons and rays and stuff into space in violent bursts of radiation, and he, the crusty, ancient mariner of a man absorbing these rays into his very skin, nay even into his brain…dance again as the seemingly endless night oozes into the virulent, blinding day for the eighty-fourth time. Our note log indicates: No sandwiches. No drinking water. No Doritos. No soap. No toilet paper. No deodorant. Probably no underwear, but we really don’t want to know. And, as we sit thoughtfully in our fifth dimensional observation post, we must add: No fish. No wonder.


B. Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. (Ulysses)


Romance

Buck, who figured himself quite a ladies man, smiled wickedly as he sauntered down the stairs and into the hallway toward Jessie, his flame-haired paramour and part-time cook, waiting impatiently in the bedroom at the end of the hall. Buck had something special for her today. He held a painted Grecian bowl with drawings of lovers in every imaginable position (and some quite unimaginable). Usually filled with an assortment of erotic fruit, today the bowl was filled with Skintimate sensitive skin moisturizing shave gel…the ultra protection kind with emollients. Buck grinned lasciviously as he thought to himself, she was going to need those emollients. A special small, thin razor and a large, gilded mirror in the shape of a naked cherub lay on top of the bowl. Buck intended to brand her today, make her his in a very special way by shaving his name in the wild mane of curly hair in her delicious nether region. Buck hummed the tune to The Name Game and guffawed quietly for he liked to incite women’s passion by singing his name to this song as he dithered passionately with them. He walked almost completely naked without hardly any clothes, dressed only in his yellow silk dressing gown (bought at Barneys in a year-end sale while he was on a junket to New York with his friend, Harper) which stroked and caressed his body as it billowed out in the breeze from the open window at the end of the hall. Trembling with anticipation as he came to the door where the voluptuous Jessie waited, he began singing, “Buck, Buck, bo Buck….”


C. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. (To Kill a Mockingbird)

mystery


The smoke from his unfiltered Chesterfield curled up to the dark ceiling as Joe leaned against the wooden window frame watching the street below…thinking about his latest case…feeling a bit of a pinch from his briefs and deciding whether to tug at them or move around a bit and let them rearrange themselves. The neon light from Manny’s Dinner lit his office as it blinked blue, then red, then blue again, and so on. Joe decided to move and gave a satisfied grunt as his briefs settled into a more comfortable pattern. His mind settled, too, because he had a handle on the Mockingbird case. The dame was young, probably too young to be a dame, but he wasn’t sure she was a broad yet either…whatever you called them at that age she was persuasive. She had looked up at him with her baby blues and convinced him that her brother needed help or he would be ruined forever. His arm was broken and his football career was hanging in the balance. She had begged him to help. Joe never could refuse a woman who begged, he chortled humorlessly, loved it as a matter of fact. The little broad had money. He’d give her that. And he’d chased down every lead he could think of from Hoboken to Hackensack. Some poet or wise acre in some gin joint in some century or other said time heals all wounds. The six weeks on this case had been the easiest he’d ever spent. The plaster cast had done its work and the brother’s arm was healed. If he had a file on it he would have stamped it another successful case closed. But for now, he was flush. He had two bucks and change and all he could think of was a cold Rolling Rock and a hot woman…maybe both at the same time if he was lucky. Joe walked out of the case and into the dark arms of the waiting night.
 

maestrowork

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OK. All entries have been entered (bravo! days ahead of schedule). Voting starts immediately.

You have until Wednesday to vote for ONE finalist only. Please send your vote to maestrowork (at) gmail (dot) com.

Deadline: Wednesday, October 5, 10 P.M. ET

Good luck, AlaskaMatt17, robeiae, Dawno, ProsperitySue and Unique.
 

Dawno

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Are the voting rules the same as last time -- meaning I need to vote for one of my co-finalists? (tough choice, too, I love all of the entries!)
 
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Dawno

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Dawno said:
Anyone who would like to use the 'finalist' icon I created is welcome to it. The image link is: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/Ebil_Librarian/prosefinalist.gif

if you left mouse click on the link and select 'copy link location' then in your signature editing box click on the little picture of the mountains and then cntr+v the link will be added to the pop up box and voila, it's in your siggie...I hope...
 

Dawno

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OH, RAY! Yoo-hoo! :hi:

I need an answer so I can vote in time:

Dawno said:
Are the voting rules the same as last time -- meaning I need to vote for one of my co-finalists? (tough choice, too, I love all of the entries!)
 

maestrowork

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You can't vote for yourself, but you certainly can vote for the other 4.

Come on people! Only one more day left. Vote! The turn-out is rather pathetic so far.

Send votes to: maestrowork (at) gmail (dot) com
 

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Yours is too.


Um, Dawno? :eek: Just thought I'd mention that I copied aruna's sig and changed one word. So, nice sig, aruna.
 

ProsperitySue

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maestrowork said:
Come on people! Only one more day left. Vote! The turn-out is rather pathetic so far.

Hi Ray,

I was surprised that the forum contests aren't mentioned in the AW e-newsletter. I believe I saw a stat that there are 75,000 subscribers and it might encourage more people to enter the contests as well as vote. Heck, if you enter you not only get to write, but to see yourself in "print" instanteously. Pretty good deal.
 

aruna

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OK I found your voting address, Ray:

maestrowork (at) gmail (dot) com
Might be a good thing to post it in the first message of the Entries thread.
Sheesh, that was hard. I could have voted for any one of them.
 
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ProsperitySue

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Originally Posted by ProsperitySue
I was surprised that the forum contests aren't mentioned in the AW e-newsletter.

JennaGlatzer said:
But they are! They really, really are! Sigh.

Thanks for setting me straight on this, Jenna. I have taken the appropriate action of 30 lashes with a wet noodle!