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Well first, congrats on your coming baby!

For me, I appreciated the overall experience of seeing so many varying first pages, and simply hearing your viewpoints on them.

For the next contest? Frankly, I'd just like to take part in one! I was moving over the first few months of the year, and finally got Internet connection the day after the contest for my category closed. Oh well...

Congratulations on your new baby!!! I hope you can leave work behind, emotionally, and focus on your new little one. That can be hard at first and then coming back when your leave is over is another difficult adjustment. Just hang in there! Having excellent childcare helps a lot.

I would just like to say THANK YOU for doing it. I was delighted--and surprised--to have won one of them and I appreciate very much your comments on the chapter and synopsis and query. Very generous of you.

Major Congrats, Kim! Sending you happy-easy delivery vibes with a quick recovery. Sprinkle your food with lots of cumin to bring that baby out :O)

I read every one of the finalists and winners you posted, and was struck by the diversity of the winning entries. It was a reminder, once again, that our best writing is what we do to our own standards, not what we write in order "to sell." Again, it comes down to voice and originality--writing with something special that catches the interest. If only there was actually a way to describe it! However, your contest definitely gave excellent examples of what works.

Ack! Ack! Ack!

Not cumin but Oregano and Basil!

Kim,

I think what I enjoyed about the contest were the lessons it provided. The main lesson being the one you pointed out in your post: writing is subjective.

Is there such a thing as “the” perfect novel? Maybe, or maybe not. There’s good craft, and bad craft, I know.

But perhaps the attraction to a book is similar to the attraction one feels for a person. I have an eighteen-year-old son, so I hear a lot about attraction. (You can send sympathy cards if you want) He's always talking about the girls he meets and knows. "She has the perfect body. She's flawless. She has the face of an angel. She has perfect . . . (Yep, he’s eighteen.)" Then he will point a girl out that he's really interested in, and I can see that, well, she's not so flawless. And when I mention this, in a nice kind of way, hoping he'll learn from it, he'll give me that you-so-need-to-get-smarter look that eighteen year olds have mastered and say something like, "Yeah, but look at her eyes, Mom. They take my breath away."

So in my opinion, I think there is a craft that must be learned to produce a good novel. But when the craft basics are met, I think the thing in a book that makes it a “must read”, can differ from person to person. And maybe that one thing can even keep us from seeing other flaws.

I think I took away from the contest the message to myself that, despite the heavy contest of diversity in the literary world, I have to have a thick skin and pursue constantly, to keep submitting my work and believing in my ability as a writer.

Thank you for giving us the chance to do that, I find this blog the most helpful out of the ones I peruse.

And congratulations on your pregnancy! Children are terrific muses, and such a gift. :)

Hi! I wasn't sure whether I was invited to send anything to you as a result of my novel _Little Rituals_ having been one of Jessica's picks . . .and I wasn't sure what to send or where to send it. Could someone please fill me in? I mean, your website says NO UNSOLICITED QUERIES now (if I read that page correctly), and I don't know whether I have been invited to send a partial or a full or nothing at all. _Little Rituals_ has been complete for a while (there was serious interest in LR from a New York editor for a while, but it didn't make it through committee. I'd prefer not to name that editor publicly until I'm under contract *GRIN* or maybe not at all, as I was very disappointed because of the early encouragement.)

Please, someone, clue me in on HOW MUCH to send where. Synopsis and three chapters? The full manuscript? By e-mail and not snailmail? Duh! I couldn't find any guidelines on the blog as to what to send, which address to send it to, and so forth among the contest posts, but then I could just be really dense (mass divided by volume, or maybe it's the other way around.)

Please!!

Thanks.

(My verification word is "pkdjewsr," which looks lucky to me and Daphne--PKD for Phil Dick, of course, and "jewsr" as another magical word. Encouraging!)

Congratulations on the baby, Kim!

Regarding the contest, I loved reading all the entries for first 100 words. But the contest I valued the most was the pitch contest. It helped me come up with a pitch for my query that garnered 6 full manuscript requests!

For future contests, if you and Jessica are so brave as to subject yourself once again to the chaos, I'd love to see a dialogue contest, and a chapter end contest. That would be very fun.

Thanks for all you do!

Aha--here is what was said to an early winner, Spyscribbler: "The prize is a critique of the query letter, synopsis, and first chapter of the winning entry! The winner will e-mail us the additional material and we’ll provide our notes privately, not on the blog." So . . . did I actually win, or was I just a "mention"? Sorry to be so stooopid. Just trying to make sure I don't overstep. Because I think I was merely an honorable mention, not a winner, in the first place!

What I learned from the Bookends contest: That there are a lot of talented writers out there.

And I like all that subjectivity too. Like you, there's lots of NYT books or "big" books I don't get. That subjectivity in agenting and editorial selection is what gives us variety, so that everyone -- no matter their sensibilities -- can find something that suits their tastes.

I really like the contests. I wished I'd won one but it's still fun.

I like the idea of the chapter ends contests. I was also thinking maybe love scenes but with some kind of rating system or warning or something so no one gets offended. Dialogue sounds good too. Depends on your guys' stamina but I personally really liked seeing the actual writing samples better than pitches and queries.

Just my two cents.

Love the blog, btw!

~Moth

Shalanna --

I believe your excerpt was one of Jessica's honorable mentions. While only the first-place winners were entitled to detailed critiques of their query, synopsis and first chapters, I would strongly suggest that anyone whose excerpt was a runner-up or honorable mention -- and the manuscript is complete -- query either of us letting us know that you were one of our picks. We'd love to hear from you.

Our website states that we don't accept "unsolicited proposal packages," meaning that we prefer to receive a query before you send any partials.


And thanks to everyone for the congrats!

Such wonderful news, Kim. Congratulations!

The challenge of writing 100 words to capture the eye and soul taught me so much. When writing a novel, it's easy to look at the prospective size and feel that we have plenty of time and space to make our point. I often have to remind myself that Dostoevsky probably wouldn't make it past the partial in today's market. Learning to tighten my writing so that a mere 100 words can engage the reader was a tremendous growing experience. Thank you for the opportunity.

And one final personal perk: the 100-word challenge inspired a completely new storyline, and I'm now five chapters in!

Roben1I missed the paranormal category and that ms. was complete. I kept reading all of the entries and waited for the romantic suspense and entered the beginning of my WIP. I did get an honorable mention from Jessica and will submit when that book is finished.

The main thing that I got from reading all of the categories was the wealth of talent that is out there. I almost didn't enter. But I think everyone who has said this is right, it's a subjective business.

I do understand that even though my beginning may have recieved some notice, it is just the beginning. I think if the first sentence catches the reader's attention, so must the first paragraph, the first page, the first chapter, the first act. As writers we can't ever slack off. And on that note, this slacker had better get to work, there is writing to be done.

Congrats! on the baby! Enjoy every moment of your maternity leave. It's a wonderful bonding time.

I thought it was a great contest, but don't have suggestions for another (too lazy to brainstorm, really!) I think you and Jessica both made it very clear when the contest was going on that just because an entry didn't garner a win or a mention doesn't mean people shouldn't query. I'm surprised that many of the winners haven't submitted their material! Maybe chapters were written, but synopses unfinished, etc. However, I'm not sure I see the point of entering a pretty specific contest when you know up front what the winner "wins" and then not following through on the submission. It's a great opportunity. Send in your chapters, winners!

Wow, I'm shocked the winners didn't respond ASAP! But I do know that last minute fear factor of wanting to give it a polish just one more time. Even when it's on the shelf and ready to go I can't resist giving it a go-over one more time. Call it last minute jitters.
One thing I did not like about the contest was that I read so many great beginnings I want the rest of the book!!!

Thank you, Kim! I shall query. Using the G/L on the agency site, of course. *grin* And add my congratulations on the blessed event--I forgot about that when I was stressing over the query thing earlier. . . .

I learned to work on my openings even though that has always been one of my strengths.

What is so interesting to me is that even after publication there are lessons to be learned reading this blog. Pitching, hooks and first pages are critical at every level.
I think it can't be said enough- perseverance - that's the key.

At the risk of sounding lazy, I'd rather have you pick the subjects/genres. After all, you're more attuned to what is hot right now.

The contests did help me move out of my comfort zone and forced me to work a little, "faster".

Here's wishing a quick and easy birthing day.

Hi Kim!
First of all, congratulations on your baby! I bet you're excited.

I wanted to thank you for having the contest. You gave all of us an incredible opportunity to grow as writers.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the entries you posted and getting a sample of everyone's voice and style. The comments that you and Jessica made were also really cool to read.

Egads! I just read your comment about submitting. As runner-up with Out of the Shade I will definitely submit my manuscript when it is completed.

As for future contests, dialogue would be pretty cool or maybe a description of a place, room or person without a complete info dump.

Thanks again.

Kim,

First, congratulations. Babies are lifes greatest wonder and joy.

Second, thanks to both of you for all your hard work in the blog in the contests.

I did learn a lot. Not sure it stuck with my brain long enough to improve, but I'm working on that.

Future contests? Dialogue, setting, chapter endings, humor.

Congrats on the baby...the best thing God created and helped us be part of it.

I loved the entries and yes what i took away was the voice dominated all.
I didn't enter. Either I have a lousy voice or I fall into the second category where the voice 'grows' over time. My first 100 words didnt have that ooomph in them. I could have revised them, but I felt that was like cheating. ???
Thanks a lot

What I learned...was that you don't represent what I write.

:)

I learned it was an amazing feeling to wake up in the morning, have my nice cup of java and read this blog to find my name mentioned along with my entry in the last round! Kinda like a nice little pat on the back! There were so many diverse entries I totally loved reading each and every one of them!
Thank you Kim and Jessica for taking the time to devote to something like this, considering you have such hectic schedules! And Kim, a baby on the way as well!
I'll be sending along my query for sure!

First,

Congratualations Kim on your new baby, sending you many happy hour vibes. Babies are wonderful time wasters, but I loved evey precious moment of every one of mine. And those moments go so quickly. So enjoy.

The thing I learned most was how to convey your meaning with brevity and clarity to make an impact in those first hundred words. It is not an easy skill and in most cases necessitated a severe prune back.

Did that destroy the meaning? Not at all, if anything made the opening even more crisp and attention getting.

Thanks so much for using your very valuable time to help others.

Don't forget: anniversary tribute to Miss Snark on Pat Wood's Blog starting May 20th.

The I think the most useful thing I gained from the contests was some perspective on the wide variety of ways with which a novel could be opened.

Being a "classics" junkie, accustomed to the slow-build, it was very enlightening to see how other writers dive right into the action, dragging you along with them. Lots of great talent here.

Lastly - on a personal note - Kim - Mazel Tov on your new baby! ~ Fawn

>>It’s not uncommon to open with a killer’s POV.

I think what I really like about this one is the question it raises. Sure he's a killer, but is he the "villain"? *g*

Jessica and Kim,
Thank you so much for running this contest for the past 2 1/2 months. What a time commitment you made to benefit all of us. The insight we've gained into your interests is invaluable. As a result, I'll bet you've been besieged by queries. Hopefully, that was a result you wanted. Anyway, thanks again for doing this.

Also, kudos to all the winners, runners-up, and honorable mentions in all the categories. Hope to see your books for sale soon.

Yay! I was Anon. 8.20. Thanks so much for the feedback and for this amazing contest. And congrats! to the winners. I'd wanted to submit a paranormal but missed out by a day, so, I hung in there waiting for RS to open up and I got hooked on your blog. This must have been an incredible amount of work for you but it was very enjoyable to get a glimpse of other writers work. Thanks again.

what a nice surprise to see my entry as one of Kim's honorable mentions...I too have become hooked on this blog because of these contests, pointed here by the talented Lauren, and I loved reading all the entries. The opening I used is from a requested full I'm polishing up to send away and well,I needed some inspiration as I was getting the "everything I write is crap" blues...thanks for that Kim!

My other entry won this contest yesterday, so I was shocked to see another opening of mine (Golden) in Kim's honorable mentions.

Ladies, your comments and thought-provoking questions are extremely helpful. Thank you for the taking the time to run these contests. I love this blog. Also, there is so much talent out there and I really enjoyed reading everyone's openers.

Congratulations to all of the winners, runner-ups and honorable mentions. Hope to see some of these novels on the shelves one day soon! :)

Marina Richards

"But these were not his words to have, not from me."

Wow. Awesome.

I just returned from out of the country. That's awesome that I placed for anonymous: Do you love me? It's a work in progress and not ready yet for consideration. I'm just excited someone liked the beginning. I know it's really dark!

Thanks
Kim Walter

Lots of great stuff here. I particularly liked Little Rituals and Revealing Gigi. I'd buy these based on 'voice' alone.

GRINDED MONKEYS DON’T WANT NO DAMN PEANUTS



“This sure is a sketchy office,” I said, riffling through Kim’s foil-wrapped desk. “She has serious mind-control issues. Get a load of this tinfoil hat.”

“I’d be scared if I weren’t so down about women’s fiction. Seven Honorable Mentions and still we lost. Could we be bigger losers?” Stinky returned to Kim’s silver-sequined Mac, a single tear slipping from his eye.

“We’re not without skills. I’ll get us through this."

Thanks, man. Hey, check it out. Her screen saver keeps flashing, ‘Take the first step toward your ideal size. Call Jenny Craig.’ So is she a fatty?”

“Not sure, but that’s one enormous gallbladder.” I cringed at the preserved organ, then plucked a hairy object from the desk drawer. “Looky here.”

Stinky leaned in. “Oh, can I pet the monkey?”

“It’s no monkey. Kim has a Jessica doll.”

“Kinky. What’s with the porcupine look?”

“Voodoo pins.” I pointed to one in particular. “That’s gotta hurt.”

“Holy moly.”



-----Keep in mind, greenhorns, this isn’t over. So get your head in the game and follow along as The Grind Guy’s loot one literary agency after another. You might want to stand back, it’s gonna be a gas.

http://www.thegrindguys.blogspot.com/

Oh, and leave a comment. But keep it clean. Otherwise---can you say, delete, delete, delete.

Congrats to everybody and good luck to those in the suspense category!

I can’t imagine how full both of your inboxes have been getting and how much great material you each have been requesting. I can’t be alone out there in wondering if maybe I should give you more than 15 or so weeks before sending a ‘did my query get lost’ email if I haven’t heard back. I don’t suppose ya’ll could do a query status up-date sometime soon? You know we LOVE those!

What I find really fascinating about Kim and Jessica's choices for winning entries and honorable mention is how different they are--different voices entirely. That tells me a lot about BookEnds, that you're not going to be at all narrow in the selections of stories you choose to represent.

Congrat's...Well deserved indeed!

Morgan

Well, at least 2 of my favorites made it to the honorable mentions: When Hearts Cry Out and Hannah's Voice. I'm a big fan of Fannie Flagg and Billie Letts, but I also like the dark psychological stuff.

More than a couple of the Bookends choices left me seriously scratching my head.

I sincerely hope all the great entries continue their greatness through to the end of the books. Cuz I want to read 'em!!!! 8^)

Now we're cookin'. Tons of hits to our blog, but only three comments. I have a theory, no proof, but I think those three are the brave ones.

(BookEnds's visited, so they can't be too ticked off. Or maybe they are, and were just collecting evidence. Yikes!)

Little went as Stinky expected in the women's fictions contest, but hey, thems the break in the publishing biz.

Any of you greenhorns enter and get slammed? Any entries you seriously liked get the bums rush? Some of ours did. Roger that!

Any suggestions for The Grind Guy's next adventure are seriously appreciated.

Stop freakin' cuz we'll all stay anonymous. That's how we play it. If you're gonna role with us, don't insult the powers that be. Ya know what I'm saying?

Thanks again, you greenhorns. You made Stinky want to live another day. Not sure the world will thank you for it, but I will. He's my sidekick. Pathetic as that is.

Lots of great picks in the honorable mentions. Congrats to all!

I am especially intrigued by "When Hearts Cry Out" so I'll have to ride with Jessica on this one. Hurry up and bring this to publication so we can see where it leads. Please!

And congrats to you hardworking women at BookEnds for all you do. Thanks.

Thank you so much, Jessica. I'm honored by your pick and your comments. And I've loved the choices by both you and Kim - some of them I'm excited to read.

And to answer your question, it's about friendship and choices, how even the smallest choice can change your life (or the life of a child.)

Congratulations everyone!

Only one more to go!

Congratulations everyone. Winner, runner ups and honorable mentions.

Special kudos to Jeannie. Way to go, girl! Is there any genre you can't write well?

It's been fun to read everyones work. There are some great writing voices out there in the unpublished world. The future should be full of wonderful books.

Thanks to Jessica and Kim for their time and advice. We won't soon forget it.

Good luck to all the Romantic Suspense contestants. Great writing there as well.

Wow! Thanks for the mention and the kind words for Hannah's Voice. You really made my day. You know us struggling writers -- a nice comment and we can leave the meds alone until the next rejection or critical comment. Seriously, I am honored to be mentioned among some great entries.

Robb

Yes... Kim... Total gratitude for kind words about Revealing Gigi. I celebrated and had an extra big latte... Now. Back to wearing off the letters of my keyboard. Thanks for the time you take on this blog.

Congratulations to all the winners and runners up.

This really was enlightening to see all the talent displayed.

Another special thanks to Jessica and Kim for taking the time and energy to do this.

Julie

*Little Rituals* finally hits the button!

OMG! *I am SO glad I didn't send in my novel about the insurance adjuster who is secretly a clone of . . . never mind, anyway, LR is a book of my heart.*

You get a lot of books about OCD? Wow. That is hard to believe, but over the years (I wrote the original version of this several years ago) this book has been more and more accepted as "salable" (though never sold YET). At first people said they couldn't possibly relate to a neurotic nut like Daphne (my main character) and told me to "make her likable and not weird." I had the idea before all those people, I swear (and way before Monk, on TV), because I have been sending this one (in various iterations) around for years now. *GRIN* However, this book is not ABOUT her OCD, and she says she doesn't HAVE it, and some of her little magic rituals seem to be working, so readers will have to decide whether that's really paranormal, just in her head, or something in between. It's really about Daphne's journey from being someone who blames fate for all her mistakes and missteps to someone who takes responsibility for her own life.

Does this mean I should send some paper to Jessica *squee* as a query/partial or something? Even though I was only honorably and not winningly mentioned? The book is sitting with another of my dream agents at the moment, as well. Maybe I finally found the magic, at last. *GRIN*

Thank you so much. R. J., for saying you liked my voice in this one. I have had doubts, thinking that I should get rid of my strong voice in most of my novels, as some beta readers say I should go for a no-style transparent style (and that just doesn't work with me.)

All I can say is wow! I'm absolutely stoked to be a runner up in this competition.
There were so many good entries.

Most of my writing is dark and gothic and far from cosy comfortable.

Exposure

I watched him walk into Bobby McGee’s, late.

I had been waiting for him all night.

One moment he wasn’t there; the next, blinded between strobes and pitch blackness, he faltered like a winged horse touching down on firm ground. A man who’s been drinking and no longer cares what happens.

Don’t tell me your troubles, I won’t tell you mine. I knew my kind of man by now, since I also used my sanity breaks from the High Country to lose myself in strangers who neither knew nor cared about the rest of my life.

Yes, it was dangerous.

This is what I tell my customers: “It’s written in the cards.” It sounds a lot better than saying, “Life is iffy.” But life is iffy. For example, if I didn’t have dyslexia, I’d probably have some sort of degree and a decent job instead of being a fortune teller. And if my grandmother didn’t have dementia and think she was still in 1940 and there was a German under her bed, she wouldn’t have saved my life. And if I hadn’t bet on Bittersweet Melody that day at the track, I wouldn’t have ended up stumbling onto a racing scam and stealing a million dollar race horse.

PAUL CAME AT DAWN

The San Isidro church loomed a dark hulk against the gray sky. The moon and Venus hung just over the bell tower. Paul came at dawn. He watched the old men and women shuffle to early Mass, coats and scarves pulled tight against the sharp morning air. Six times the bell shattered the clear air. Six times the echo resounded off the mountains. And six times quivers pulsed up his spine.
Again today he had awakened trembling. That damn nightmare. How did it connect? The church wasn’t in it. She wasn’t in it. Only terror and death were in it

Congratulations to the winners!

I went back on my blog's earlier post where I put my choices and seems not a one made it through.

Good thing I'm not an agent huh?

Adoption Under Fire



“Push! Come on, push!”

“You can do it, Val!”

Encouragement came from nurses and staff on all sides. Though she didn’t think she had the energy or the strength left, Val Smith pushed with all her might as the next contraction reached its peak. “Ahh!” she cried as pain, pressure, and relief came together during the final moment, leaving Val breathless and completely exhausted.

WAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

“You did it! It’s a boy!” the doctor exclaimed, wiping his sweaty forehead.
She did it. It was all over. But the moment was bittersweet, because now she would never see her baby again.

Wow! You made my day. Ok, you made my week. Hell, you made April! I had the winner and the runner up, Lifeline.

I really appreciate the chance to submit these for feedback. It's been so helpful the past few weeks reading what worked for you both. And having to pare down the beginning to 100 words made them stronger, I think.

Now there's the pesky matter of making sure the 95,000 words to follow hold your interest.

Lucky's Charm--101K words, completed manuscript, romantic suspense/thriller.

The death clock in Lucky’s head ticked silently and in rhythm with a rapid drumbeat. Two hundred yards through the rifle’s scope made the mark seem an arms length away. Each second that passed was a moment closer to the kill.

This time, what happened in Vegas wouldn’t stay in Vegas.

Keeping Conrad Andersen in the crosshairs through a small crack between the motel’s grimy curtains remained an irritation. Only a portion of the bed was in view, limiting the probability of a clean window shot. However, the opportune condition would present itself and make the job easier with the chaos left behind.


Thanks for the chance!
Jenn

NEW DOCTOR IN DANGER
The huge, black SUV came barreling out of nowhere, its oversized tires straddling the double white line. Cathy jerked the wheel to the right and jammed the brake pedal to the floor. Her little Toyota spun crazily toward the ditch that bordered the narrow country road, rocking as though flicked by a giant hand.
For a moment she felt the fearful thrill of weightlessness. Then the world turned upside down, and everything went into freeze-frame slow motion. The floating sensation ended with a rending jolt.

No Apologies

Quiet beach, dark water barely lapping at the shore. A dim gleam of moon shrouded in clouds lit the sand in an eerie surreal glow.
“Take off your clothes.” Ephraim’s voice was an evil hiss, but it was the gleam of gunmetal that convinced me.
“Don’t do this.” I said, even as I started unbuttoning my blouse. “Please.”
His mouth slashed in a twisted grin as he repeated, “Take it off.”
I tried hard not to glance toward the dunes where Judy was hiding with her video camera. If I gave away her position he just might kill us both.

Congratulations to the winners and runners up. Good choices, as usual.

I'm looking forward to the romantic suspense entries.

The Devil She Knows

The front door slammed. The crash reverberated through the old Victorian as the plumber bolted out the front door.

Sam surveyed the third floor hall, now deceptively silent and still. It could be worse. Mr. Roberts of Roberts Plumbing and Heating could’ve had a heart attack on the landing when Aunt Helen did her thing. Who was she kidding? This sucked. She had a leaky toilet, a water stain in the middle of her bedroom ceiling roughly the size and shape of Texas, and no plumber.

Living in a haunted house could be a real pain in the butt.

SINGLE VAMPIRE MOM

Chapter One
Dear Sage Advice,
If I fall asleep and snore, will my date get the idea I’m bored?
Snoozing in Seattle

The date from hell was just about to finish.
Dirk Bennett had talked Kara Sands to death the whole night then had the audacity to laugh at her when she fainted at the sight of blood. This was a date not to be repeated. So here came her dilemma. He’d want a kiss. He had that look in his eye that he had no idea how badly she wanted to be home in bed.
Alone.

Scars of the Prophet

The ecstasy took hold of her mind on the dance floor. I saw it dull her eyes under the blinking strobes as she spun out of control to the thumping bass. I liked her. She was like the other deviant disciples who wanted only to share the larval embraces of lust disguised as temporary love.

She would feel it tonight.

They were all the same to me. Sultry-eyed Tinkerbelle’s from fairy tales with their coy appetite for romance novel fantasies.

“You wanna go some place quite?” she asked grinding her crotch against my thigh.

“I was thinking that very thing.” I grinned.


Morgan

Rachel jumped as her cell phone burst into its digital rendition of the William Tell Overture.

Late night phone calls were never good news. There were five people in the world she cared about, and she instinctively knew that something shitty was happening to one of them.

Rachel reached for the phone. The tiny screen displayed her sister’s name. Her heart skipped a beat as she flipped open the cover.

“Sarah?”

“Rachel? I’m sorry for calling so late.” Sarah’s voice shook with her apology and Rachel’s heart bled for her, again.

“It’s okay. What’s wrong?” As if she didn’t know.

This is more of a general observation and question. I've looked back over a few of the recent contest winners and it seems a high percentage are written in 1st person.

Is this a coincidence, or is it easier to grab someone's attention quickly using first person? It's certainly more personal, closer to the emotions. I'm just curious about this.

Counterfeit Conspiracies

“Are you ever going to kiss me?” I heard the steel in my whisper as I tried to remember how I’d gotten into this position, draped backward over the arm of my worst nemesis. Still, to get out of this mess in one piece he needed to cooperate.

Instead, he gave me that blasted grin and asked, his voice like a breeze, “Do you want me to?”

“Of course not,” I lied. Then I clasped his face in my hands, and regained my feet as I brought my lips to his. Damn! I hoped our gunman appreciated assertive women.

Dark Revenge

The coolness of fall languished in the stale, rotting leaves at his feet, as the tall male threw his satchel to the ground. Quivering nostrils inhaled a fresh, crisp shot of air, and blew out a fine mist of warmth in return. He was well over six feet in height, and moved with a sinuous grace that was uncommon for one as large as he.
It did not bode well that Jaxon Castille was working.
In his particular area of expertise, it meant that someone was going to die.
It wouldn’t be pretty; death never was. But it would be quick.

Dreamers

Death. For such a small word, it sure left a world of hurt for those it touched. Today, with the bright yellow sun and cool, crisp breeze, it also mocked. If death had a voice, it would say “See, I can slither in under the door, when you least expect it, and ruin any day I want, 365 days a year.”

Lucy Mirabelle Watkins knew she’d never take life for granted again. A tear slipped down her cheek. She shoved it away. Silly to cry when she’d never met the man called Michael Cook. Not in real life, anyway.

“No way, Stinky. We posted Shuffle last week. It’s ancient history.”

“But it’s a fan fave. A boat load of emails asked for another gander.”

“Shut up. Really?”

“Fer sure. Like totally dude.”

“Well then, peeps, here goes.”



GRINDING, THIEVING AND THE QUASIMODO SHUFFLE



"What kind of burglar are you?"

My writing partner stopped fondling Jessica's pink-haired Barbie. "A really bad one. That's why I write books."

"Earth to Stinky, you suck at that too. Forget women's fiction, you never had a chance. Let's search Kim's office."

"Leave empty handed? How about this pink hat? I'd wear it."

"Pitch it. EBay has standards." I inched open Jessica's office door and pushed Stinky into the hall. "Duck below the windows."

"Too late. The neighbor's washing dishes. She's seen me."

"Quick, drop a shoulder and drag one leg. She'll think you're Kim."

"It worked. She's waving."

"That was close."

GRINDING BODY PARTS CAN BE TECHY


"That Quasimodo fake saved our bacon. Good call." Stinky fumbled with the deadbolt on Kim's office door. "This is nuts. Let's break it down."

"Sure, being that we're such studs." I nudged the door open with my pinkie. "Don't bother donating your brain to science."

"No way. I need it. Hey, what's with the spotlighted pedestal?"

I nosed up to the glass beaker displayed on top. "Criminy, I saw this on CSI. It's a gallbladder."

"That's gross."

"Grub worms are gross. Squirreling away sucked-out organs is creepy. Let's look around."

Stinky grimaced. "It's uber shiny."

"Wicked. The joint is covered in tinfoil. Dis girl is twisted."

"No diggity."




-----Let the guys throw something crazy your way. Visit their blog----

http://www.thegrindguys.blogspot.com/

----and read their ongoing foray into the world of literary agents, publishers and editors. Anyway you slice it; it’s going to be fun.

Buckle up, you greenhorns.

SAVE THE LAST KILL FOR HER

Hadiya ran her boat close to the undersea shelf, and cut the engines. A heavy stillness seemed to descend on the night, as oppressive as the cloak of equatorial humidity.
She was alone, apart from Ovimbi who hunkered silent on the prow watching the black blot of mainland.
There was no breeze.
No moon.
Just the spatter of Milky Way across the dark vault of African sky.
Then she felt it. A silent surge beneath the hull. A sway. The life of the sea transferring motion into her body as her boat listed gently. Hadiya’s pulse quickened.

FOR HIS EYES ONLY

Lara went into the bathroom with a razor.
She looked into the small mirror above the enamel sink. Her hair was a rich mahogany -- she’d dyed it before flying into Bulgaria and catching the connection to Zurich. It was naturally blonde, her eyes an icy-blue. But the eyes that stared back at Lara tonight were hidden behind hazel contacts.
A stranger’s eyes.
The stain that lingered on her skin gave her a distinct Mediterranean look. The name she’d used to book into the Swiss pension was Hannah Klimt, the language she’d used Bavarian-accented German.
Who are you, Lara Korakovoa?

REDEMPTION

The man slouched on the edge of the bed, his fingers clutching the deadly syringe hidden in his jacket pocket. Despite the timpani drum pounding in his chest and echoing in his ears, his face was expressionless.

He stared at the naked, unsuspecting woman asleep on the bed, her slender body seductive even in repose, her blond hair a halo on the pillow.

The guilt gnawing at the man's gut did not spring from having been inside her, making love to her, earlier in the night, but from what he knew was inside her heart and mind and soul.

BLEEDING THE BEAST


Two more miles to Dark Skies.

Lily feared black magic. Maybe it was a consequence of once being held captive by The Balancer. He was a man resplendent with secrecy and shadows. She had realized this the moment he had kissed her.

In his mahogany eyes, in his long ebony hair, in his passionate gaze, her vulnerability seemed suffocating, dangerously close to revealing her desire and nearly, though not completely, blowing her cover.

One more mile to Dark Skies.

STILLNESS

There was too much blood on her hands.

The gun slipped from her hold and landed on the marbled floor, next to his body with a clang. She covered her ears as the sound grew louder and louder and louder.

But she couldn’t shut it out--no matter how hard she tried.

You killed him. You killed him. You killed him.

She stared at the photo on the wall... the one of his wife and son. Kneeling down, she placed a kiss on his lips.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered tenderly, “I’ll take care of them, too.”

Ghost Writer

“How do I kill him?” She really needed to find a way.

Marin had been trying to figure out the best solution for hours now, but nothing worked. This guy absolutely had to die in order for her to move forward. He must be killed. It was too bad, though, since she had grown to like him. “Hmmm… maybe I’ll change his medication to a lethal dose. Yes, that’ll work.”

Marin Coltrane smiled.

Finally, the breakthrough she had been waiting for. This writing business wasn’t as easy as it looked.

Made in Hell

Today wasn’t the wedding day Julia dreamed of as a little girl. A white pony hadn’t carried her off to live happily ever after with one of the New Kids on the Block. Her hair didn’t sparkle, and her breasts hadn’t grown to d-cups. But Julia had bigger problems to worry about; namely, one too many husbands.

“Stop.” Julia waved to a houseboat attached to the pier. Paint peeled from the hull, and a flag flew from its mast. The betrayal of man and country hadn’t destroyed her belief in those colors. She was glad it hadn’t ruined his either.

Last Chance
E.J. Brighton

Party animals, maniacs and crazies--her first New Year's Eve in the emergency room had been an eye-opener. Jana Sutherland fingered the pepper spray in her lab coat pocket. Most of the other docs on the trauma rotation at Sereno General had permits to carry concealed, but she couldn't stomach it.
She scanned the bleak waiting room, squinting at a fluorescent light. Its high-pitched buzz revved her background headache. Nineteen hours on her feet, but after this consultation, she had a couple days to sleep and--God willing--clear the stink of unwashed humanity and death from her sinuses.

The Last Magician

E.J. Brighton

Norah Redfox ripped her sleeve free from the six-foot chain link fence and dropped to the ground. On her right, two pit bulls dozed, stomachs full of sirloin laced with Ambien.
Rap music blared through open windows, but Bert's angry voice boomed above the pounding bass. From inside the run-down bungalow, fear and pain radiated from her sister, LaVerne. A chill shuddered through Norah.
The bust would go down in less than ten minutes. She had to get LaVerne and the child out, or she'd have to identify both their battered, bloody corpses in the morgue. Again.

Wow, Anonymous 7:43! A winner and runner-up! Very impressive.

We look forward to seeing more.

Congrats again!

“Do you love me?”

I liked the sound of his voice on my body. It tickled in the right places, the dead places.

“Tell me you love me.” His command was soft, terrifying.

I shook my head, slowly; the flint of anger in his eyes flared. But these were not his words to have, not from me. His long fingers wrapped around my neck, and I breathed the deep, hard breath of ecstasy. Whether orgasm or death was irrelevant, the year past had left me empty and prepared for either. And the bitter taste of ending was near.

Canyon Road -

"Are you lost?" The man's soft voice startled her. He stood in the V of her car and open door, his face in shadows, backlit by the store's fluorescents.

She hadn't noticed anyone in the parking lot. Where did he come from?

"No. I'm okay." She reached to pull the door closed but he stood in the way. Damn these helpful Midwesterners, they took niceties way too far. Oh, to be back in New York. "You need to move."

To her shock, he leaned in closer, rested an arm on the doorframe. "Well, here's the thing... I need your car."

UNTITLED

Riley Kinney never wanted to go to war. War came to Riley. It came early one morning out the clear blue desert sky, over the gleaming minarets and so-called modern Mesopotamian architecture of the Al NaJa’ar skyline.
It came in the form of U.S. scud missiles, and it carried thick smoke into the black of night as tracer bullets glowed green arcs across the night sky and parachute flares hung surreal over the besieged and ancient city -- a city filling with the scream and thunder of tank shells.
And the terror of her animals at the Al NaJa’ar zoo.

What great winning entries!! I want to read all of those books. Great choices!

Congrats to the winners! All righty, another one in the pot. Here we go!

ABSCONDER

The man fell.

A rustling from a nearby bush, and I held my hands up as a soldier in a gas mask appeared from nowhere, pointing an M-16.

The last thing I remember after being shot was feeling dizzy as my leg gave way, meeting the ground. He stood over me, a foot straddling either side.

He kneeled, removing the mask … she, a red untidy bun. Beautiful. I hadn’t seen a woman in years.

Am I hallucinating?

She looked sharply up, hearing something. I lost consciousness, and when it came again I was being dragged along the forest floor.

Tears Before Love -

Jake Marlon cut through his corner lot and sprinted across the street. In the park, he slowed, made each step deliberate on the rain-slickened path. Thick haze dulled the park lights, and he had to strain to see the woman he followed.

She moved over the footbridge and onto the lamp-lit path; the swift and steady clip of her heels, tinny against the stone. Silently, he reached the far end of the lake where his view was unobstructed. But the humidity made the rear exit nothing more than a blotch in the haze, and her, a ghostly blur.

GOODNIGHT, TEXAS

“Hey, August, check out that guy in card stock. He’s hot, but skating close to sketchy.” Junie paused. “Nice! He’s got a little silver hoop in one ear. And a tattoo. Wonder what he’s doing here?”

August glanced up from her laptop, from the inventory lists she’d been fighting all morning. He stood toward the front of her small shop, fingering a box of Kate Spade note cards. He was tall and huge and kinda dirty. Dusty. Like he’d stood too long in a cotton field while a thunderstorm blew in. Junie was right. He was as out of place in the shop as a can of motor oil on a perfume counter.

THE CONTRACT

As Cassandra wriggled through the underbrush, wisps of fog snaked like malignant tendrils up her nostrils, filling her throat and lungs, squeezing the air out of her in short, sharp gasps. In vain, she tried to fight the panic, tried to convince herself that the fog was her friend, muffling her awkward movement and concealing her in its clammy grasp. But, her irrational mind feared it, like it feared the muzzle of her tormentor’s gun, taking her back to that earthen cell she’d so recently escaped. Damp. Suffocating. Like a grave. Her grave. Only she wasn’t ready to die.

Wow. Some great entries here.

CC

PUPPY LOVE

PROLOGUE

You can’t tell from my sweet face, but I’m a bitch with a nose for corpses.

I smelled five on the mofo who was trying to pick me up—including Mama’s scent.

I bared my teeth, yapping: “Police! He took Mama!”

All in vain. No human at the animal shelter spoke Shih Tzu. So I bit the mofo’s hand and put myself on death row.

Luckily, next day, a fine-looking brotha came with a warrant for me. I wiggled my butt and licked his hand. I was going to find Mama and that cop was going to be my bitch.

Untitled WIP/Kathryn Skelton

He pulled the small red box from an inside jacket pocket. The taut leather winked under the gym lights.
“Lanie Jane,” he said.
Gary’s chocolate-colored eyes met mine. I adored that imperfect dimple, that hard to place drawl, loved that every time I suggested dirty Bingo, he scoffed – and still got his clothes off first.
Gary lifted the box, knelt down. My insides tightened, mouth dry as socks. In ten months we’d never talked about questions posed on knees. And I’d never told him everything.
“Lanie, will you – ”
A pirate sword cracked Gary over the head before he could finish.

Untitled submitted by KM

A mother wasn't supposed to watch her own daughter die.

Ester Getz stared down at the lifeless form in the hospital bed. A breathing tube, IV, and endless monitors were attached to the frail figure, turning her sixteen year old daughter into a delicate blonde Frankenstein.

Only hours before Suzanna had stormed out of the house into the night. Even the raging winter storm had not been able to convince her to forego the New Year's Eve party. She lamented that tonight was her last chance for fun.

Yes, it had been her last chance. Fate made sure of that.

UNBROKEN

The blade was sharp.

I traced my fingertip down its edge without enough pressure to draw blood. Fine steel, not stainless but tempered carbon, the kind sharpened on a stone. A hair laid across its edge would be instantly laid open.

An exaggeration, perhaps, but a small one. A spot of blood appeared; I popped my fingertip into my mouth before it started to sting. I'd misjudged again. I hadn’t been the best judge of anything lately.

In the blade, its light alive as in a mirror, I could see the image again; I could almost make it out--there--

Phantom Fear

Answer your phone tonight at 11:00. Do not pay the cost of disobedience again.
He knew she wouldn’t risk any harm to Natalie.

He controlled her life, though he’d only forced her to take the drugs for three days. Battered, Lindsay had barely been able to walk when the drugs had worn off. He decided who she spoke to, when she slept, what she ate. He watched her, stalked her, hurt her, but he hadn’t hurt Natalie.

Not yet.

Leave the kitchen curtains open. Sit at the table. Answer on the first ring.

Eleven fifteen, and he still hadn’t called.

Bleeders

Elvira had a dead-end job. Literally.

She worked at a funeral home and hated it. But it was a necessary evil and one she had to do for a mere three days, six hours and four, bloody minutes more.

A cynical smile curved her lips as she stared up at the oiled portraits of her father, grandfather and great grandfather. Three generations of bloodletting professionals encased in gold, muted frames. All educated. All rich. All dead.

And if she didn’t want to end up next to them on the wall or better yet, six feet under, she’d better greet “the family,” with a smile.

ROGUE MOON

A low moan whispered through the pines. “What was that?”

“Just the wind.” John couldn’t see his friend’s expression in the soft light of the full moon, but he knew Buzz rolled his eyes just the same.

Around their campsite, amber moonlight and lightly falling snow bleached the color from the landscape, washing everything in shades of sepia. John glanced up at the star-dotted sky where the moon glowed pale orange. He knew its reddish color was a trick of light refraction, but the Blood Moon still gave him the creeps.

And that hadn’t sounded like the wind.

"Deadly Contract"

As Shar Bennett entered her house, the cordless phone flew toward her. It buzzed through her hair, almost scalping her, before crashing to the floor.

Zachary.

Her heart sprinted. Why wouldn’t her feet do the same?

Eyes consumed with rage, her husband stood in the foyer, a half empty bottle of tequila in his hands.

“You got a call,” he slurred. “Forget to tell me something?”

She shouldn’t get into it. Not while he was drunk. She knew better.

When she started to walk away, he grabbed her hair and jerked her close.

“We’re not done talking yet, sweetie.”

Whispered

“I'm alive.” The words met Twyla Segreto's lips, but no sound accompanied them.

Dry, hot air reeked of death. A single breath became impossible without coating her mouth and throat from the unsettled debris. The urge to cough up the dust bunnies residing in her lungs, overwhelmed her. She suppressed and listened for enemy footsteps. In the distance, the steady pat of automatic weapons echoed. Somewhere further away, a crackling whistle sound filled the stagnant atmosphere. Explosions grumbled through the sky and the ground trembled from the assault, indicating the missile had made contact with its target.

Thanks for the contest once again ladies, good luck to everyone.

Hidden Agenda

Novelists write about killing with imbrued tones to stoke their audience, but how many would take the actual plunge? Could they feel the rush and savor that most ancient of human appetites like I do?

Probably not.

Most would cringe and withdrawal into some hollow-husk world of regret…but not me. I need it more than the sex or romance, even though I use both to find my next one night love for pay. That’s what the lonely women want and I give it to them when they ask, and they always ask.

That’s why they come to my escort blog.

Redneck love baby.

“Another one, Mags.” Doyle said as he leaned against the framing of the door to her office.
“Where?”
“5th Street.”
“What’s the tally now?”
“12.”
Maggie turned her chair to stare out the window and watch the river. Twelve souls in all. Twelve people who had seen the person that she had been searching for since last May.
“Coroner got it yet?”
“Yep. Al and Simon took the scene. Another blonde. Late teens to early twenties I think.”
“Thanks, Doyle. I’ll get the reports.”

Golden


We lie here on our dark liquid blanket, and the bugs crawl all around us. I hear their legs lick the earth, wings whisper against the leaves and grass.

During those moments when I go silent, he asks me: Don’t you come babe? but I don’t answer. I only laugh in secret at the question. He thinks he’s the greatest lover in the world. He’s seventeen, yet he’s Casanova.

Doesn’t he know what a cliché we are? A cheerleader and a jock?

Tomorrow, I’m going to tell his girlfriend everything.

Your boyfriend rapes me. Have a nice day.

Till Death Do Us Part

I knew Becky was in trouble by the run in her hose and the chipped black fingernails. More often than not that intuition is justified, but sometimes you shake it off like a cold chill on a warm day.

Who do you tell when you catch your wife sticking an ice pick through a pedophile’s eye socket? The cops?

Funny, she is a cop.

When there’s no easy solution and you have the inner city police covering up those unsolved murders, well…when in Rome.

An attorney and a cop, husband and wife, Bonnie and Clyde.

The things you do for love.

Begrudging Bones

Sadie Cyrus was back in town. Whorin’ Lorne’s daughter had come home.
The thought made Sadie cringe as she crept slowly down the street, the invisible return that she had hoped for foiled by the slight clang of the muffler on her car. A light flashed, illuminating the upstairs window of the old Stokes house as she passed. A figure appeared, seeking the source of the racket.
She sincerely hoped that the unintentional announcement wouldn’t have a line of men waiting outside her door by mid afternoon the next day, men expecting her to live up to the family name.

Twisted Snare of Fate

“He had you handcuffed.”
Colonel St Clare’s voice from the door was as controlled as a tightrope walk between two high rises, but it didn’t fool me.

“Yes.” I heard the door click shut. Sensed him move further into the room. Told myself to be careful. “How did you hear?”

“The Security Report says you broke protocol. You never break protocol.”

Damn Security. “Guess there’s a first time for everything.”
The two officers assigned to the job hadn’t been happy with Weber’s call, but they’d done it anyway. And, apparently, tattled to the boss. Bastards.

“Are you all right?”

Arms of a Stranger

Kareena Ellis slowed for the traffic lights. She didn’t need this. Time was of the essence.

She looked about. Everything seemed fine, calm.

She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. She would be okay, no need to panic, no reason to worry.

A shadow came across her face, and Kareena looked up.

He was big, a giant compared to her tiny size, his beard roughened face making him look ferocious.

He stood at the front of the car staring at her, his eyes challenged her.

Kareena shuddered. They’d warned her and she didn’t listen.

Close Protection

With dirt in her mouth and sick dread rising like nausea in the back of her throat, Mackenzie struggled against waking knowing even as she did it was too late––the pleasant dream of swimming in the ocean had already faded, replaced by a nightmare of blindfolded darkness, rough twine rubbing her wrists raw, and the hollow panic knowing she was in deep shit.

Inhale, breathe out, get up.

Her body hurt so bad. Hysteria bubbled just under the surface waiting to erupt.

“No fear, no fear, no fear,” she whispered, mantra-like.

But there was lots of it.

Nothing to Fear

C.J. Devine gripped the steering wheel and squinted through the rain-splattered windshield. Her fingers tightened as another gust of wind rocked the idling car.

Giant fir and cedar trees, their branches hung with witch’s hair, draped themselves over the twisting highway as if protecting the small village below. Through an opening in the trees, she caught a glimpse of Trinity Bay—her first in thirteen years.

It sat hunched at the base of a steep hill, looking like a morose and bitter old man, ready to spit out invectives at anyone who crossed its border.

God, I hate this place.

The Door

I stare up at the rickety door when I hear his hollow footsteps in the hallway. A single, lonely shaft of moonlight casts an eerie sheen across the aged wood. The closer he gets, the lower my gaze falls. I focus on the orange glow burning behind the ancient keyhole.

I know what happens next.

He’ll eclipse the only shred of warmth I have left.

I watch, strangely rapt as darkness descends. Had someone asked me yesterday if watching an old door be unlocked was similar to dying, I would have said no.
But before last night, I’d never thought of death as a door.

BLUE LIGHTS

Tiffany heard the alarm in her bedroom start buzzing. She would have given anything to stay in bed today, warm and comfortable.

After turning off the alarm, she sat on the edge of the bed, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. The image of Chad, winking and giving her a thumbs up, filled the darkness. Chad wouldn’t be doing that anymore. She swallowed hard to get rid of the lump in her throat.

She counted the cash in her wallet and scrunched up her face in disgust. Damn Mitch.

The door to the tavern nearly hit Avaia Waters in the ass when she walked in and stopped cold. It wasn't the sticky floor that made her pause. No, that she could handle. But the redneck paradise in front of her made her skin crawl. Worse yet, every drunk in the place ogled her as she headed to the bar. She shrugged it off, took a deep breath and kept walking.

What did a victim drink anyway? They should have done more victim profiling before moving forward with the operation. With luck today would be a good day to die.

Oops. The title for the Avaia Waters one is The Hunt

From THE WEEPING WOMAN

A woman stumbled in, dragging a suitcase behind her. She pushed back her dark hair, revealing large eyes and a furrowed brow.

"I'm sorry I'm late – finding a taxi was harder than rush hour in New York." She held slender fingers to her mouth. "Oh! You speak English, don’t you?"

Señor Cabrera rushed across the lobby. "Of course. You must be Señorita Patrone. Let me take that. I'll get your key and you can check in properly in the morning."

Her luminous beauty and voluptuous figure chased any thoughts of hostage takers and gun-runners from his befuddled mind.

Unlock the Truth

Dena Roman stared at her reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall of the elevator. The evening Criminal Justice classes were taking their toll. The desire to find her sister's murderer--to walk on Cabrera's land where Carli's body was found--had become an obsession.
She stepped out at the penthouse level and grimaced at the gold lettering on the doors: Steven Brennan & Associates, Public Relations. Her days here would be numbered when conservative Steve found out what she'd done. She shrugged. If Zeke Cabrera called back, if he fell for her plan, she'd deal with being fired.

Fès, Morocco; August

Naked! Naked and wet! Naked, wet, and running, the pungent stench of fear clinging to the filmy sweat covering her entire body! It was not at all how she intended to spend the evening.

Her lungs burned under the labor of the unusual effort; mortality, in a way never before sensed, willed her feet forward. The chaotic, ancient town blurred by. Was it her deepest imaginations, her pounding heart? But the echo of footsteps, not far enough behind her, still rang in her ears.

He's dead; he's dead, no tears, no tears, no time at all.

WAIT

“Is this your first time?”
Claudette rolled her eyes and placed a cigarette between her already pursed lips. “Of course not,” she smiled. She sucked the unlit nicotine stick seductively before allowing the man beside her to chivalrously offer his lighter.
“You familiar with the rules and all?”
“Yes.” She took a long drag from the cigarette and gave one of those deliciously satisfied smiles smokers unconsciously wore at that first inhale of carbon monoxide.
“What are you offering?”
“Fifty,” Claudette said, tossing a crumpled fifty dollar bill at the short, balding man in front of her.

Dead Right


Vivid red, orange and yellow leaves, torn from their branches by a sudden gust of wind, danced wildly through the air. It would have been the perfect fall day except the leaves landed on the newly discovered bones of Detective Brina Sabourin’s crime scene.

Despite the gruesome scene her stomach grumbled. She’d skipped breakfast. And it was already well past dinner. She might miss supper too if they didn’t wrap things up here soon. Her stomach grumbled again. Louder this time. She took a quick look around to see if anyone heard.

CIVILIAN

Some booty call.
It wasn’t easy ignoring the soft skin that surrounded the brunette’s bullet wound, especially since she was unconscious on his table, but giving medical care in his kitchen sure as hell beat the enemy occupied desert of his past. And it was safer than taking Cat—or whatever her real name was—to Tucson Medical. The bastard who’d ambushed them like Rambo on meth was still looking for her.

Mike’s own blood oozed down his knee as he cleaned parking lot nastiness out of Cat’s side. He really needed to stick to blondes; brunettes were always trouble.

END OF OPERATIONS

Adrenaline put a coppery taste in Ian’s mouth as he saw a burqha-clad woman exit a taxi a block from the embassy, but his radio voice remained professional. “Eagle Six, blue burqua, await orders.” These days, women were the insurgents’ bombers of choice, but he couldn’t risk the horrific consequences of shooting a civilian.

“Sir, she’s approaching the gate.”

His heart caught in his throat as he saw the self-satisfied feminine swagger he knew so well. “Hold fire! That’s Director Stuart.” Pamela Stuart was his boss; he couldn’t strangle her for risking her life. Worse yet, he couldn’t kiss her.

There it was again.

Abby stared at the spider crawling across her laptop screen. She glanced at the time. 8:33. Just like last night.

The spider turned and fear grabbed at her. Not just like last night. This time it was carrying a knife.

Get the evidence. She pressed the PrintScreen key, pleased that her fingers were steady. Animations didn’t freak her out. Hackers with knife fetishes did.

In horrified fascination, she watched the spider rear up and swell to fill the screen. Its knife swung in a lazy arc towards her, just as the doorbell rang.

BRILLIANT MISTAKE

The man Catherine held at gunpoint was far too calm. That irritated her. "Over by the desk," she ordered.

"Why?" Martin didn't move. Underneath the beautifully-tailored charcoal jacket, his shoulders were relaxed. Admirable acting talent--no wonder he was such an accomplished con artist.

"I need you to stay put, and I don't have any cuffs on me."

"Expecting me to wait tamely to be hauled off to jail?" He shook his head, smiling, although the expression didn't reach his hazel eyes. "Sorry to disappoint you."

"I didn't think so." Her finger contracted on the trigger.

*

(Thanks for running this contest!)

Title - Double Dealing.
Clutching her throat Coral screamed.
The sound echoed around the archives room, through the high windows and out into the library, sending shivers through librarians and customers alike.
A baby cried.
The echo reverberated around the old library, sneaking around walls, like smoke from a fire.
Coral regained her composure, and stared at the old faded pages as though her gaze could penetrate the words and transport her to the world they portrayed. Her world?
'Ghosts just ghosts,' she muttered as her boss rushed in.
'I wouldn't have thought one so young would have many of those.'

KISS ME UNDERCOVER

Near the Tigris River, Iraq

They were back.

Keagan watched through broken slats of the dilapidated shack as bright yellow light from the headlights of the jeeps sliced through the cobalt desert night. The villagers were awoken house by house, as insurgents, wearing guns like badges of honor, dragged them from their homes and pushed them like sheep into the small village square.

Feeling sweat beginning to bead at his lower back, Keagan tightened his grip on the small knife he held, trying to keep his breathing even.

The Missing

Janey Bright lies on her back and swears she hears herself snoring. Swears she's five years-old and being suffocated by the dentist. Crying and thrashing when he covers her mouth and orders her to shut up. His fingers stink of medicine, and when she tries to kick him, his hand melts into her face.

She will not get a lollipop today. Bad girls do not get candy. But Janey desperately wants a lollipop.

Desperately yearns to be good.

She blinks up, gasps, and shakes in her chair. Imagines candy on her tongue, sweet and sour.

I'll be good, I swear...

DEAD MAN WALKING

It was a dream. It always was.

“You were always meant for the gallows, Billy,” she whispered, her heart breaking. He looked so beautiful in the distant light of the moon, even if he wasn’t real. Even if he was dead. “You know that.”

“But I loved you,” he said, and his voice was small and far away. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“If I’d loved you, what would it have saved? Goodbye, Billy.”

He was already fading.

“Why can’t you say you love me, Eliza? I would live my life over again, just for you to say those words...”

Wicked Little Things

They blew into Ordinary like cicadas on a blistery summer’s night. Thousands landed in trees and wood. They came, stole and ate like pigs. Yet no one knew what they were because they were never seen. Only the results of their voracious hunger left marks, like the fangs of a demon on another beast’s throat.

In this case, the victims were human.

Two by September.

Five after that.

Hundreds by Halloween.

Maya read the report until her eyes burned and she no longer thought of the victims as people, just mangled, chewed-up chunks of meat. “Great way to lose weight.”

Second Chance
It took time for her to realize she was dead and even longer for her to accept it. She found herself standing in a hallway with no memory of how she got there. Everything around her was blurred unless she stared hard. Concentrating was difficult so she just wandered through the house in a daze. She tried opening the front door but her hand passed through the handle. She was staring at a portrait over the mantle of a handsome older woman with long red hair when she realized the woman was her and she remembered who she was.

Hodgepodge
She was late. Juggling her satchel and shoes, Gillian McInnis locked the door and followed her dog around the corner of the house. An awkward dance of rearranging the bag and jamming her foot into one of the shoes was tricky enough, but noticing the gorgeous man leaning against a huge black SUV only exacerbated her clumsiness.
"Holy Mother of God!" And down she went.
The man stepped forward.
Gillian stalled him, sticking her hand out and muttering, "I'm fine." As she struggled to her feet, she prayed this was not the man she had hired to investigate her mother.

Title: Old Secrets

Luce nosed the car through the gateway.

Rusted wrought iron gates lay against a thicket of weeds like drunken soldiers. Gnarled oaks cast ghostly shade, despite the blistering January heat.

The car lurched from pothole to pothole and rounding the corner, she trod sharply on the brakes, breath escaping in a startled gasp.

Drumullen was a sprawling ruin, abandoned and derelict in an expanse of waist-high grass.

Nothing stirred.

Gran’s voice echoed eerily in Luce’s mind. “When I die, you must return the portrait to Drumullen. Promise?”

A shiver caressed Luce’s spine.

Was the recurrence of her nightmare an omen?

CLOSE AND YET SO DISTANT


Her father’s night nurse phoned at nine. Kendra struggled with pleasantries as the woman pleaded too ill to work.

Lilies scented the apartment that served as both home and prison to her ailing father. If Kendra closed her eyes, she could see him as the healthy man he’d once been. She wanted to curse Alzheimer's for eating away his still young mind.

“Come on, daddy. Missy isn’t coming. You’re riding shotgun. We have a killer to catch.”

“Baby girl, it’s not a killer you need, but a husband.”

The tears came back. “Well then, Josh shouldn’t have murdered that man.”

The Cats of Cullaby Creek

The only thing I could think about was Kyle and those gemstone eyes of his. Like a greedy jeweler, all I wanted was to see those two glittering orbs one more time again.

“I have to see him before we leave,” I whispered.

“Are you sure you should trust him?”

I told Mom the truth, “I want too.”

“I know. But it’s probably not safe. You can’t forget he’s one of them. It’s all about money.”

“No, there’s more to it than that.”

“What else is there?”

“The way I feel about him; that’s what I can’t forget.”

Thanks for running this contest!

-------------------------------------
Untitled

“Sorry, he’s running a little late,” Jim Clyde’s long-suffering secretary Gloria said.

I’d sat down and pulled out papers to grade when a loud accented voice shrieked. “You cannot cancel my class. It is an insult to me and my community.”

“Enrollment figures aren’t high enough. You knew that was the deal when we agreed to offer your class.” Though Jim spoke softly, the rejection was definitive.

I retained just enough of my upbringing to feel uncomfortable about eavesdropping. But short of plugging my ears – or leaving and missing my appointment – I had little choice.

Tall, Dark and Exotic

Prologue - Cambodia 1979

Through the darkness the child ran, dogging the woman’s heels. Short, angular legs that had never seen an ounce of baby fat, churned through the sweating foliage. The damp heat tightened, stealing her breath as the tropical jungle closed around her.

“Mama,” the child whispered and the faint sound of her own voice was comforting when everything around her breathed death. She reached for the hand her mother offered, holding with desperate strength to the only person who might save her from the evil lurking in the shrouded Cambodian night.

Last Man Standing



He floated headless in a mist of tears.

Even the river’s roar was not enough to mask the scream, so piercing was it and so unnatural that it silenced the never silent land. Overhead the Borneo midday sun skidded a brilliant reflection across the river’s surface.

Garrett clapped her hand against her mouth like she owned the scream and squinted trying to clear her tear blurred vision, as if that would shift reality. As if that would change the fact that all that stood between Malcolm and anonymity was the San Diego Chargers’ logo on his torn, water soaked t-shirt.

Not Your Average Sleeping Beauty

Victoria closed her eyes and took a deep breath waiting for the panic to pass as it always did, eventually. Her heartbeat slowed and a sense of calm spread through her as the familiar musty scent of the earth filled her nostrils. Opening her eyes with a smile, she looked over her shoulder and nodded to her assistant.

Ignoring the large intricate ceramic vessels lined along the wall, the dark-skinned man shook his head as he stepped farther in. “How does one become an archaeologist while being afraid of closed-in places?”

I'm about to give up writing. Before I type the next few words, I'm donning my helmet and flak vest as I can already hear the incoming rounds.

The agents at BookEnds are tops and obviously know their stuff. Their success in the business speaks for itself, so their opinions are pre-validated.

My entry didn't get picked. I thought it should have been at least tied for first (shock of shocks an author would think such a thing :)) with one other entry. (it didn't get selected, either) As a huge fan and avid reader of suspense/thrillers, I didn't see anything entered that would have enticed me to read word 101, but the agents did - and enthusiastically so.

Clearly, my 'calibration' of what's marketable and what is well-crafted, must be way, way, off.

That's why, perhaps, I should give up writing novels. Or, at least, writing novels for others to read.

It's a subjective business.

Which one was yours?

The people who make the decisions at Book Ends 'subjective' judgements are what pays their rent, therefore more equal than the opinion of others.

My first reading said this was only someone's expression of sour grapes, but now I can feel the writer's frustration.

Whoa there Anon 9:56... You give us far too much credit. As the other commenter pointed out, publishing is a very subjective business and I think that's been evident throughout the contest. Even two agents within the same agency have trouble agreeing sometimes, so imagine how many different opinions and tastes are out there in the entire publishing industry.

Plus...it's only 100 words. We know we can't judge the marketability of a book based just on 100 words. But given limited time and cyberspace, we can't make it the 100,000 words contest.

You certainly shouldn't stop writing based on the contest. That would just be silly.

I want to add to what Kim said. This is a 100 word contest. 100 words out of potentially 100,000. A drop in the bucket compared to the rest of your work. Yes, there certainly are times when we receive a submission and choose not to read beyond those 100 words, but there were many, many entries in all categories in which I would have loved to see full chapters. The talent here is far-reaching and the voices are so different that choosing was never easy.

To put it into perspective, when I read through the entries I make a short list and pull out those that spoke to me the strongest. My list usually ends up somewhere close to ten entries. From there I weed out five, those that when looked at a second time didn't ring as strongly. From the five entries Kim and I each pick we look for matches for a winner and runner-up. It's amazing how rarely we've had matches or how, at times, we've had to go to our longer lists to find a match.

And truthfully, I'm not always so sure of my picks either. It's 100 words folks. Not enough to truly judge a book by.

Working to hone your craft and a little bit of luck are the only way to success in this business. Someone once said that with each query you send out and each book you write about 10 other unpublished authors drop out of the game, bringing you closer to your goal. That is probably close to the truth. Don't be one of the 10, be one of the few who takes those steps toward getting published.

--jhf

P.S. -- If Jessica and I stopped submitting a book after two editors said they hated the voice or didn't respond to the writing, we wouldn't be able to pay our rent. We might feel a little discouraged at first, but inevitably we end up selling the book to another house and enjoy great success with it.

I agree with the ladies...I submitted my 100 words, it didn't get picked, but, I sent them a query letter and Bookends requested a partial...Am I upset?

Not in the least...

Congrat's to the winners and honorable mentions...well deserved indeed!!

Thanks to the ladies at Bookends for taking the time from their schedule to put on the contest.

Morgan

Hello Anon....

Don't give up.

After my first book, I sent 70 queries and got three requests for paritials and that's where it ended.

I wrote book number two, sent out 81 queries and got zero requests for anything.

I going effing backwards, but won't give up. Book three is 2/3 into its first draft and we'll see what it brings.

Mr Tom Clancy's, Hunt For Red October got turned down 105 times.

Well said, ladies, and thank you. I must admit to a little frustrated, but then, that’s the biz. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

I have learned from your choices, and I think that is where our focus needs to be. We are not competitors but colleagues. There is room for all of us if we learn.

Thanks again, Kim and Jessica, for giving us this opportunity.

Congratulations to the winner and all honorable mentions, everyone put their hearts into their submissions and it shows.

Best of luck with your careers.

Where do the gals at Bookends find the time for these contests?

Thank goodness, they do.

If you are uncertain about whether or not your writing is "speaking" to others in the industry, try seeking out a good critique group. They can tell you if it is time to give up the ghost, or at least put a project under the bed.

That said, there are a lot of entries that caught my attention, and I'm a very picky reader.

Don't give up based on this. This has to be one of the hardest contests I have ever seen. Only one hundred words, and two opinions with well over 100 entries for most of the categories. Those aren't good odds for winning.

I'm also curious which one was yours. I bet it was a powerful one. I thought there was a lot of good writing in the "killer beginning," entries, but I had to stop reading because I couldn't handle so many sick-o killers in such short bursts.

I think part of the game is starting out in a way that is different than the majority. I noticed a lot of the historical romance entries had a girl running away, either on horseback, or otherwise.

And in the suspense there were a lot of "killers" opening the books. Perhaps the only problem is not with the writing, but that the opening is structured just like so many other submissions.

Anon 9:56,

I have a hunch that every published author has thought, at least once, about giving up. It's a tough business, and it's a crazy business and as the others have pointed out, it's a highly subjective business. One editor may reject a novel and another offers a three-book contract based on the same submission. The only thing you can truly count on in publishing is that you can't count on anything. *s*

But while I understand your frustrations, I have to say that, if not getting selected in a 100-word contest on the BookEnds blog is all it's going to take to make you quit . . . well, your chances of surviving this crazy business aren't looking so good. I mean, trust me. It's gonna get worse. The worst thing you can do is take any of it personally.

Faye

This is such a crazy business in some aspects - we volunteer to be rejected from the onset. We expect it.

But this is such a subjective business. Agents and editors are human beings just like we are. They focus on the stories they feel passionate about in that moment...and the ones who turn into clients are the ones they KEEP feeling passionate about. But that doesn't mean that other agents won't see something different in the works presented, and find something different THEY are passionate about.

I imagine if you had two or three other agents from other agencies look over these same entries, they might make other choices. Not because Jessica and Kim are wrong, but because it IS subjective.

It's no different than how each of us has different authors we love. We won't all choose the same ones, but that doesn't devalue the ones chosen.

It would be a curious thing to have the blog readers vote on THEIR favorites and see those results as well as Jessica and Kim's choices. [A nightmare to manage from Bookends perspective, I imagine, but still interesting. :)]

Okay, I'll admit there were times I was very frustrated while limping along the publishing trail. But I still recall a conversation with my hubby after I got a handful of rejections in one week and had just finished a pint of really good "Double Monkey "Something"" ice cream.

Hubby: You aren't thinking about giving up are you?

Me: The idea has crossed my mind. But . . . who am I if I'm not a writer?

Hubby: (thinks a minute and tenderly says) You're my wife. The woman who sleeps with me. Cooks for me. Cleans our house. Cuddles with me. Watches movies with me.

Me: (thinks for a longer moment) You're right. If I can do that without getting paid for it as long as I have, I can do this, too.

Moral of the story. You have to be committed to being a writer, married to it, for better or worse.

If giving up is more than just a passing thought brought on by too much Ben & Jerry's, Double Monkey "something" ice cream, then maybe this path isn't really where you want to be. It's tough.

Someone said, "If you can stop writing, do it! You don't belong in the business." To me, that seems harsh, I'm more of a cheerleader, shaking my pompoms and yelling, "Never give up. Never give up." But the truth is . . . this business is not for the weak of heart.

CC

Christie, I love your comment! LOL You are SO right.

I was talking to someone just last night actually, about how to keep on writing when you're rejected. And I told her that I'd read a question somewhere - if someone told me today that I would never be published, would I keep writing?

I answered yes, because writing is just a part of me. I write because I love it. So even if that goal isn't the end result, I keep writing because it's my passion. I think that's what keeps me strong...because I know those rejections aren't the end of the road.

GRINDING IN THE BIG GIRL’S LAIR


“Stinky, get this, we got copycats. Amateurs.” I snapped off Jessica’s pink computer. “Where are you? Speak up.”

The door behind Jessica’s desk creaked opened. “Uh oh, I did the dirty deed. Hurry, light a match.”

“What’s wrong with you? You don’t use other people’s toilets. Not for a stinky.” I clicked my BIC. “You didn’t make a mess? No prairie dogging?”

“I’m a little insulted.”

“You realize I had to ask, considering what happened at the Nelson Agency.”

“Oh yeah, Kristin’s shrine to Britney. But the fingerprints on Brit’s poster, I had to cover them up.”

“Your fingerprints?”

“Not mine.”

“Ewww.”

Christie, great post.

I almost didn't enter the contest after I read aimless writer's entry about the man in the elevator. I thought - there's your winner right there. I thought it was amazing and it didn't get a mention.

Of course, I'm not a trained professional, but when people say the business is subjective - it's true!

So, anonymous, if you can picture yourself not writing, then maybe that's what you should do. Writing makes me a better person, published or not, so I'll keep at it.

And thank you ladies, for the contests - they are a lot of fun!

I very nearly wrote what Anon 9.56 put - a little tongue in cheek BUT the point is valid. I sent six entries in to various categories. I could have done the erotic one too but I have a book coming out with Ellora's Cave at the end of the month so I figured I'd proved I could do that. But the six that got nowhere- well despite the fact that it's a subjective choice- none were liked enough to get a mention so I HAVE to assume that like Anon, I'm not writing something that catches the eye. The one thing I've learned is to sharpen those first 100 words because in the end, that might be all the time you get to impress.

"The one thing I've learned is to sharpen those first 100 words because in the end, that might be all the time you get to impress."

And that's the true beauty of this contest. Honing an introductory paragraph into 100 kick-butt words becomes an advanced writing class. I'm a better writer today than I was a month ago because of this contest. After the deadline for this one passed, I wrote another entry that was only 81 words, and it won this week on another forum.

My anonymous friend, it is indeed a tough business. It has chewed me up and spit me out like a wad of tobacco many times. I continue because I know I can be better than I am now, and because writing soothes an ache inside. You must find your own reasons to continue. Just remember that both you and the industry can grow.

For the scribe of ‘Grinding in the Big Girl’s Lair’, 'Ante up the Grind', and 'Back to the Old Grind'



Does Stinky’s friend have a name. Inquiring minds want to know.

Thanks for the laugh. (With all three subs!) Good timing.

Kim, thank you so much for the honorable mention. You made my day!

Congratulations to all the other contestants and many thanks to Bookends for giving us this fantastic opportunity.

Congratulations to the winner and the honorable mentions. I appreciate these contests. They are fun and offer great incite into what Kim and Jessica like.

Kim chose one of my favorites: the honorable mention by Anon 4:48. I think that one is true suspense. Some of the others, clever and cute as they are, are not thrillers/suspense, at least not what I like to read. Yes, it's VERY subjective. Maybe that's why Anon 9:56 was/is upset? When I think thriller, I think John Sanford, Karin Slaughter, Alice Blanchard, Keith Ablow, etc. So the winner of this contest as talented as they are--kind of threw me. I guess like my suspense a lot harder. But I'm jaded.

Anyway, I hope Anon 9:56 doesn't give up. It's bloody out there, but worth the wounds.

I'd like to add my two cents worth to this subject.

Yes I've entered most of the contests so far and haven't had even an honourable mention.

Am I about to give up?

No way.

This has been the biggest learning curve in my writing career.

I now look at every words twice, see if I can use one stronger word to convey the same meaning.

To quote Ms Weathers one perfect rose instead of a bunch of straggling daisies.

I also look at my first chapter and choose the scene that can be milked for the most poignant opening.

In one entry my 6 page prologue became the first 100 words of 250 word prologue and yet lost nothing in the telling.

Have I learned something?

Indeed and I would like to thank Kim and Jessica for running these contests.

I have learned so much from both the other entries and their valuable comments.

Hey Anon 9:56 AM,

I hear ya, boy, do I hear ya! And, oh get this, I got an Honorable Mention from Jessica in the mystery competition! So, why can I still relate to what you're saying? Because after 100 words, she still doesn't know what my story is about. What if she hates it? What if she asks for a partial and is bored after only five pages? What if she asks for the full and thinks the story falls apart somewhere in the middle? What if she reads the whole thing, decides she loves it, and then a published author already on her list turns in a project with a similar premise???!!! ACK! (Okay, now I'm really freaking myself out.)

My point is, this contest is only the tip of the iceberg, there's so much more beneath the surface and you have to prepare yourself for that. There'll be many more trials, tribulations, and rejections...trust me. But there'll also be victories, and celebrations, and a wonderful sense of accomplishment when you finally get what you want. But only if you keep going.

You know, I think you should do exactly as you suggested. Write for yourself. Write a book that you love and are so darn proud of you just can't stop beaming. Then, send it out to a long list of choice agents and while you’re waiting to hear back from them or to get that coveted call, sit down and write another.

That's the only way to keep doin' what we do.

Anon 9:56. Take off the flak jacket and helmet. You are among friends and fellow writers.

First off, you obviously love to write and you feel you have a good story. How hard are you willing to work to birth that baby?

Compuserve Books and Writers' forum has a firsts workshop going on right now. They are now up to first chapters.

Paladin's Pride lost some of my favorite scenes and I wept bitterly for their untimely demise. The story is much, much beter now.

Dragon Valley lost the whole first chapter and opens with the second chapter.

When you get involved in good critique groups and enter contests it not only polishes your work, but it also polishes you. It also has a tendency to toughen you up to rejection. This business is filled with rejection so you need that elephant hide.

Here's the way I look at it. I want to be a published writer and I believe I will be one day. I can either keep working on that goal or give up. If I keep working on it, what have I lost? In a year I will be a year older, whether I am closer to my goal or not. I might as well make this year count for something.

Believe in yourself and your work, then make others believe in it.

Anon, bless you for being so brave! I've hesitated to say something all day, considering, but your post really tugged at me.

You know, when I entered conservatory, I was the second worst pianist there. But so what? I learned, studied, practiced, and eventually was one of only two pianists in the whole school to get A's on their jury one year.

But so what? That didn't really matter, either.

Either way, neither made a difference in the fact that after college, I went out and made a living for myself with the piano.

Maybe that just says I'm real comfortable with other people being better than me, LOL. I believe that I can find--and make--my spot, no matter what. I believe I'll keep working every day to improve, and I believe I'll keep making opportunities for myself.

I lost the erotica contest, and rightly so, because there were some kick-ass entries. But so what? I still make a little money from erotica, and I still will--readers, thankfully, want to read more than one story, and they have vastly different tastes.

I won this contest, but again ... so what? (Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful! It was very kind and was a wonderful boost, and I appreciate the first chapter critique immensely.) But I'm still going to have to get out there and make a career for myself.

And you know what? Those writers on the front tables of Borders? Those writers at the top of the bestseller lists?

They still have to get out there, every day, and make a career for themselves.

For what it's worth Anon 9:56:

I too entered this contest (with more than 1 entry, even), and was not among the chosen ones.

However, my actual query to Bookends received a request for partial (still haven't heard back it's been about a month now). Different story, though, not that I think it would have placed in the contest anyway.

So don't freak out about not winning the contest. The real contest is in the query process. Freak out if all your queries get rejected, but not about a little contest.

The women at BookEnds are great, don't get me wrong, but they are not the be all and end all for what will sell in this country or world. And I'm sure they have said so or will tell you the same thing. They confess to sometimes having a hard time agreeing on what entries worked for them and sometimes (historical category) didn't agree at all. If they don't like your stuff, there are at least another hundred or so agents that might feel quite differently. If you are an avid reader in your genre believe me your 'calibration' is just fine.

And really, I think 100 words can tell someone if you can't write right off the back, but for those CAN write pretty well, it won't tell you how great a story you've got. This exercise is not to discourage anyone, I think it's to help us really weigh every word we put down on paper (especially in the opening scene).

Plus, if you manage to get an agent ask for more off a query, they'll probably give you about three pages before they decide they don't want to read anymore.

Dear Anon;
"I'm about to give up writing"
In the immortal words of Richard Simmons, (remember him?) "Never, never, never give up."
You're a writer--so write. And keep writing no matter what. Do it for the love of the word and do it for yourself.
You might not have won this time, (me either!) but you tried so that put you one step ahead of the guy who didn't. As long as you're moving forward you're on the right track.
Someone once said, "A man is not a success because he has never failed, but because failure has never stopped him."
Take off the flak vest. We're friends, connected through our writing and this blog. I think we all felt a mixture of dismay and elation when we saw the winner/honerables. Darn! Its not me, but hey-Spy won. Yay Spy! (check out her blog-its great!)
As a writer I think we go through the times when we think its never going to happen but look deep inside and you know it will. Its there, inside you and someday you'll hit the right agent, on the right day, with the right book.
John Grisham caught the eye of an editor on his 100 submission of A Time to Kill. He was all set to send it out for the 101st time when he got the call.
It will happen. Know it in your heart.
Later gator, I gotta go count my rejection letters to see if they hit 100 yet.
;)

Wow, don't get discouraged Anon 9:56. I just did a post on my blog as to whose women's fiction entries I enjoyed and I hated to admit that there were some that I didn't even get thru the first sentence because I know what I like and don't - it's all subjective.

Hang in there and keep going!

It really does come down to individual taste. And if every agent could run a contest like this, we writers would get a much better idea of who to submit to. These "sound bytes" with explanation have really demonstrated agent taste without having to search out and read every book an agent reps to get a "feel" for their likes.

Jessica requested and rejected a partial of mine. After reading her faves in these contests, it's absolutely clear that my style is not for her. Yes, I looked at the titles she reps before submitting, but I didn't have time to read them all (sorry!).

Kim's choices are closer to the way I write, but I've learned this too late :o).

My questions are: If one of Kim's Honorable Mentions had been submitted to Jessica, would Jessica have passed the project to Kim? And vice versa? Did any of the choices of one of the ladies surprise the other? Or did the judging simply validate the "a no from any agent is a no from the agency at large" policy?

Congrats, Natasha! I have to say that, aside from my own entry, I also liked yours the best. I'd certainly keep reading.

Love Undelivered

Mark Newman lifted his hardhat and wiped the sweat that had formed on his forehead from the heat of the mid-day sun. Even though he was the foreman in charge of the demolition, with every swing of the wrecking ball he felt he was destroying his family’s heritage.

“Again!” The pear shaped ball swung at the post office as portions of the structure collapsed without a fight. The second floor offices were now visible without a front wall, ironically resembling mail slots.

Title: Stolen

This man barely resembled his father. The impersonal bleep of machines interspersed labored breaths. Sparse lashes on hollowed cheeks rendered Mac fragile.

He woke, looked at Jack and shuddered. “Dammit Winton. Can’t a man die in peace?”

Ice trickled down Jack’s spine. “Winton?”

“Your father.”

Jack frowned. Was this a sick joke?

“I’m not your father.” Mac’s words held surprising strength, his gaze lucid.

“Then who..?” Jack barely restrained from shaking the old buzzard.

“Winton Malone.”

Jack wanted to grab that scrawny neck and squeeze. Hard. Then the silence registered.

How like Mac, deliver a bombshell on his dying breath.

ALL BUT DISSERTATION

As youngest daughter, the one whose marriage would have been last on Mrs. Bennet’s agenda, Lydia has "cut in line" for parental attention by planning to summer in Brighton. Jane and Elizabeth's disapproval is thus attributed to envy. Narcissistic as any teen today, Lydia Bennet is a twit.

The tone and vocabulary of that last clause wasn’t going to fly with her director, truth notwithstanding. Lydia Bennet highlighted it, rapping “Del.” And the irony! Whatever possessed her to accept a marriage proposal from a med student named Andrew Bennet after submitting a dissertation proposal entitled “Jane Austen and Sibling Rivalry”?

Title: With This Ring…


Amy Kerrigan struggled to remain calm. One glance at her estranged husband made that almost impossible.

Although no longer the shy, insecure girl who came to Darkhaven as Brody’s bride, Amy feared the impending meeting. It lay over her head like the sword of Damocles.

Up ahead was Gaelen’s house, nestled in its grove of oaks.

The car turned into the avenue. The last leaves of autumn clung to the trees. Fallen leaves lay in mouldering heaps against the railings, and beneath the sod, bulbs waited for spring.

As did the malevolent secrets of Darkhaven.

Amy shivered, suddenly very afraid.

Just Like in the Movies


Rachel Scanlon stood on Broadway and Ninety-first Street, without a single key in her pocket. She had severed all her ties with the city; there wasn't a door in all five boroughs that she could open. Her life there was extinct--her job in her father's theatrical office, a set of stale friendships and a love affair that should have ended months before. Her furniture had been scattered among her friends, her books had been boxed and sent on to Stacey Clark in Playa Del Rey.

In Between Goodbyes

The New Yorker code reads “don't look each other in the eye, it’s dangerous,” but the well-dressed redhead making her way uptown from Chelsea violated, as always, all the codes. Hope not only made eye contact, she ran around frantically with a street a grocery cart, gathering all of the woman’s possessions before they flew away in the February gale. Then they shared a pastry and a smile as they huddled against an upscale coffee shop in the icy morning blast. It was her usual prelude to an afternoon of gluing sequins on tits.

Worlds touch

"My life has two anchors," thought Priscilla. "Celia and chocolate." She pondered as she trudged. "My life. My daughter. My chocolate."

On reflection, she wasn't sure about her daughter.

Priscilla lived in a green tourist-town in the Blue Mountains. A nice stroll and she could talk to the Three Sisters. She did that sometimes, when no-one was watching. She would walk as if fitness were her only concern, breathing deeply to fill her lungs with the fragranced air, and she would address the great rocks across from her as if she had known them forever.

Wow, thank you! So many of the thriller entries were good, I can't begin to imagine which ones the other two entries might be. This contest has made me excited for what we could see in the genre in years to come!

Thanks again!

"Seven Exes Are Eight Too Many"

I stared at the seven men of my supposed dreams. Of my nightmares, more like, and theirs too by the stunned faces staring back at me. The hotel ballroom's walls closed in and a wave of dizziness shuddered through my body.

The show's host said, "What's wrong, Princess?", the overdone innocence in his voice making it clear: this was no accident.

My mind swirled with scrambled thoughts and emotions. Knowing how many eyes, electronic and otherwise, were studying my every move and reaction silenced me as effectively as a hand over my mouth. I struggled for words, but none came.

"Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo"

Ian and I looked at each other across his suitcases. I couldn't remember the last time there'd been nothing, physical or otherwise, separating us. Always the distance now.

"Well, I should get in there," he said. "The security check will take ages."

I nodded. "You're sure you have everything?"

"I hope so." He paused as if considering what he had to bring, then said, "I'll miss you, Candice."

"I... I'll miss you too," I said, tears rising at the realization that we were both embarrassed to admit to even this much emotion. How had we lost each other so completely?

Flight To Freedom On A Forklift

The beginning of the end came in a spent Retin A tube. I picked up the spatula and scraped it so flat the edges were razor sharp. Then, like a skilled surgeon, I dug out the final remnants with an X-acto knife.

Thirty-four years of marriage should end with an explosion. A sultry mistress arriving on my doorstep. A note that Don has run away with his best friend to form HoH, Husbands of Husbands, a new male liberation organization. Something besides the tube of wrinkle cream's soft burp as it surrendered to emptiness.

Congrats, SS!

Yay Spy! Can't wait to read the book! WhoooHoooo!

A Mother's Heart

He should be a tiny bundle, sleeping safe between my breasts, as light as a feather and innocent as an angel's kiss. Tiny fingers intertwined in my hair. Lips curling up into a soft smile.

Instead, he towers over me. Black hair curls at his throat above the brown army tee-shirt. The uniform makes him look older than his twenty-one years. He's been a soldier for four years and yet my mind still has problems comprehending that even when I see him in the camouflage, which is supposed to protect him.

We both know it doesn't.

Spyscribbler, congratulations. It was a stellar entry and very deserving.

I have to say I am so disappointed about the runners up, though. How frustrating for the writers to get this close and not make it.

One of the hard facts of life. Rules aren't always made to be broken.

And, once again thanks to Kim and Jessica for doing this. This has been a Herculean task.

Troy

Tall, dark and country lifted the Braves cap to run fingers through thick locks. Silver peppered temples gave him an air confidence as he confirmed her original diagnosis. “Yes ma’am. Magneto failure. This bird ain’t goin’ up.”

His pronouncement wasn’t news. She’d said the same five minutes ago. Controlling frustration she nodded. A male his age in this shape lit up her internal danger meter and the warning pegged past caution. He moved with the grace of a body build to be a weapon. This was no country boy who thought a plane worked a lot like a tractor.

When Hearts Cry Out ( Women’s Fiction)

Trudy Hale had watched seventy-four-year-old Liz McCall circle the parking lot six times.

“Mornin’ Liz. You doin’ okay?”

“Fair to middlin’.” Liz patted the sides of her sprayed stiff hair, the color of which resembled an uncirculated silver dollar. “I swear . . . some of those fools must’ve gotten their driver’s license out of a box of Cracker Jacks.”

Trudy pointed to an empty parking place only feet away from the salon. “Why didn’t you take that spot?”

“Shit. Do you really think I’d park my Cadillac next to that big old bucket that Vivian’s husband is driving?”

Congrats, Natasha! I am thrilled for you (no pun intended)!

Title: Mi Casa

One glance at the next table and I knew there had to be more than seven sins. I saw the devil dancing in his dark eyes and read 'Raul' on his name badge.

On his way out of the restaurant, he dropped his business card in front of me, licked his lips, and whispered, “You're an angel.”

As Raul sauntered away, I understood a thin line exists between heaven and hell.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

I don’t know what possessed me to want to do this again. Seven of us were staying this time – four women and three men. No couples -- just friends. Living with six other people for two months is just asking for drama, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to spend the summer writing by the ocean. I stepped out of the car and inhaled the sea air, struck by how great the house with a bright border of red tiger lilies outlining the wrap-around porch.

Title: Finding Pepper Ann


If it weren’t for Celine Dion, I never would have been awake to see my father die.

I'd dozed off, curled up in the rocking chair next to his bed when a tinny, piercing rendition of “My Heart Will Go On” came screaming into the room. Dazed, I jumped to my feet and inadvertently answered the phone. It took a few seconds of the droning dial tone in my ear before I realize the sound was coming from the room next door. I hung up the receiver and looked down to see my father’s crystal blue eyes shining up at me.

TITLE CHANGES

My first clue was the weak insincere smile she gave me when I entered the room. We sat across the desk from one another and for the thirty millionth time, I was glad that my mother taught me to look people directly in the eye. It usually made them nervous when they were feeding you garbage and calling it sushi.

“Listen, I just wanted to bring you up to speed on what’s going on.” The nearly nothing smile faded.

Denise slid a single piece of paper from a manilla folder and placed it on the desk between the two of us.

Tiara Wars

Katie Warren's husband Larry haunted her garden.
With the North Carolina June suffocating her like a magnolia-scented blanket, she could almost see his grass-stained Topsiders and white lawyer's ankles peering at her from behind the hedge as they had the day he died.
Despite the "Southern Living" layout potential around her, the memory of Larry's legs sucked the joy right out of her retreat. Which only fueled her anger at him.
A burst of "Für Elise" sent her pruning shears flying. She fished the phone from her pocket.
"Mom," Callista barked. "Where are you? I've been waiting 15 minutes already."

Title: Day of Life
Author: Marcille Sibley

In the NICU, we call the day an infant is born day of life one. Sadly, some of my patients don’t make it to day of life two.


DAY OF LIFE ONE

Lee Attworth:
When she sees me, Nola’s eyes flash for a nanosecond. But what I see in them, I cannot decipher. Is it lust or disdain? We’ve been involved now, off and on, for over a year. I wish I could get her alone so I could ask what happened last night, but first, I have responsibilities to face, sick babies to see, and orders to write.

WOOT!!!!!!!! GO SPY GO!

Loveland

Jackdaw isn’t going to make it. I can tell by the way the first jump unseats him. The big white bull lands and then gathers underneath him like a kid playing leapfrog. Jackdaw curls forward and whips the air with his right hand, but his butt slides off-center. Thirty yards away in the bleachers, I involuntarily scoot sideways—as if it would do any good. The bull springs out from under Jackdaw and then arches its back, gyrating its hind end like a mother flipping covers over a bed.

Jackdaw is tossed wide off the bull’s back.

Tamara

Title: For Sparta

A.Genova

Where could she hide this time? Twilight approached and with it her last chance. The old cypress tree? Melaina hesitated. She would have to be strong and swift to reach it before he saw her. It was a good distance away and uphill. But he would never suspect it.

A tingle crawled through her belly as Nikolaos shouted from far down the slope, “Melaina, where are you?” and laughed. Then his voice turned harsh. “You can’t hide from me forever!”

She took a breath and sprinted. The parched grass crunched and tickled under her bare feet. Tonight, I can.

Congratulations, Natasha! Well-deserved. I love your entry!

Best Year of My Life

After twenty years, my husband should know that when I want help I specifically say, “Please help me.” The artisan lamp now resembled razor-edged confetti on the concrete floor, conscripted to death when Charlie moved the still-laden table to save me the trouble of unloading it. Only necessary because depression pushed him to remove the carpeting when I’d left for a meeting. I tasted sarcasm, dying to ask him when I’d asked for help. But I didn’t. That would have meant arguing, and arguing strengthens his depression and weakens my soul.

If happiness came easily, we would all have it.

Way to go, Spy! May this much deserved win lead to bigger and better things for you.

Title: Grace's Second Chance

“Look, you have insurance and nobody got hurt. I’m sure your husband won’t be too pissed off. So could you please stop crying?”

“You think I’m crying because of what my husband might say?”

“Ugh, yeah.”

“Well, I’m not. My husband of 15 years ran off with all of our money and a slut from his office. For the last two weeks I have been turned down for every job I’ve applied for. I have four kids, a cat, a dog, and 4 hermit crabs depending on me, and now this.”

“Wow, you look great. You really have four kids?

Title: Love Returns

It was Saturday morning, late in September. According to the calendar autumn was a few days old. It was Emily Daniels’ favorite time of year. It was also her birthday. The high school senior was now 18 years old and pregnant. She had driven into Cincinnati yesterday and purchased a home pregnancy test. This morning she had woke up early and read the directions very carefully. She had never been very good at taking tests, but she had wanted do this one right. Two pink lines. The first time Emily aced a test and it had to be this one.

title: revealing gigi

There are many silences.

There is the sort created by standing perfectly still in an uninhabited space under a huge sky. That silence is riveting; a surreal sensation of wishing the moment would not ever end because somehow the lack of sound brings a brief moment of understanding.

Then there is the kind of peace in those small quiet moments. Just pockets void of dissonance that allow my brain to process the day.

Finally, there is the awkward variety. It springs up between two people who have said far too much, for too long, with words that meant nothing at all.

Title: Tracy's Treasure

“I hate Mondays.” Tracy Sullivan said to herself.

It was 7:30 in the morning and she wished she hadn’t gotten out of bed. She had burned herself with the curling iron, pulled a button off of her only silk blouse, and spilled coffee on her briefcase. She put on her coat, grabbed her keys, her purse, and her now dry briefcase and walked out the door. She yelled goodbye over her shoulder to Reno, her feline roommate and closed the front door. She walked towards her car and stopped.


“How the hell did I get four flat tires?”

Falling Like Figs
by W.C.

Montgomery, Alabama 1951

Ten years before her kiss would seal a man’s death, Maribelle Hamlin Thomas sat on a small hillside beneath a grouping of large fig trees loaded with fruit.

To Maribelle’s back was her family residence. Beyond the house were acres of untilled soil that had once yielded crops rich enough to sustain one of the largest plantations in the South. The fields now sprouted cotton as wild as honeysuckle; bolls of white opened to the clear sky.

The scent of summer sweetened the air, and the vigor of youth roared inside her.

Alabama Creeper
by W.C.

Some people are just happier dead.

“Beverly Ann!” Aunt Rhonda shouted at me.

It’s true. Gramma started chain smoking the day she read about lung cancer in Life magazine. She refused to wear her glasses when she drove, even though she couldn’t tell Lawrence Welk from a cello without them. She said her children were worthless, Alabama was the armpit of the South, and after having spent her life sweltering in heat, hell would feel like Casey’s Ice House & Fish Market, and probably wouldn’t smell half as bad.

Title:Seven Down

Miami’s humid heat smacked me in the face. Dad was circling the terminal in his Taurus. Brakes screeching, he cut off a shuttle and pulled over.

“Selma! You’re finally here.” Big hug, a few surreptitious tears.

“Sandra,” I reminded him. I’d changed my name long ago, in college.

After we loaded the car, he lurched out into traffic.

“So, Dad, who’s not talking to who?” Without this information, I’d be safer crossing a minefield blindfolded than entering the lobby of his high-rise.

“Everyone’s mad at Bella, as usual. Speaking of which, I have something very important to tell you.”

UNFORGIVEN (working title)

She couldn’t hide forever. He would find her soon.
“Abby!” Brody bellowed. He was getting closer to the room at the end of the hallway.
Abby inched back against the wall under the bed, her breathing too loud. Her right eye felt like it was swelling already. She touched it gingerly and winced at the pain. If only she’d kept her mouth shut. None of this would have happened. He always told her how she pushed his buttons, brought it all on herself.
“Abby!” Brody screamed again. Maybe she should just come out of hiding. It would be easier that way.

Kick Start


I thought I was too smart, too hip, too careful selecting a life partner to end up a thirty-nine year-old cliché. Which proves how profound my delusions were.

First came denial.

"You can't leave, we have children," I said. Seemed logical to my panicked brain at the time.

Second came bargaining.


"Mark's starting college and the girls aren't even obnoxious yet. They need you."

I'd seen the look in Rick's eyes before. In criminal court he used that steely determination to his advantage. But I'd never seen him turn lawyer on me.

Woot SS!! So excited for you! I loved the entry and can't wait to read more.

The last line Rocked!

Kick Punch Breathe
by E. Lynd

I actually met Mac at the supermarket, so there goes any justification for disdain at my mother picking up men there. Still. This is hardly the same thing. For one, we weren’t lingering over a dish of chana masala, but in the regular, non-fragrant American supermarket, looking at boxes of blueberry muffin mix, which is about as un-Indian as you can get if you think about it. I had my hand on a box of Jiffy—it was cheap—and heard this deep, lilting voice warn, “I wouldn’t.”

The Seven Man Itch

Ray lay stretched out on the queen sized bed, a white sheet covering him from the waist down, sleeping the sleep of the not-yet-busted, but that would end soon. Very soon.

I stood at the foot of the bed, debating whether to sneak back out to 7-11 and get a gallon of gas while rage and hurt boiled to an acidy peak in my stomach.

His...companion, a skinny girl with cocoa skin and stretch marks on her hip, lay curled up at his side. In my spot.

Going Greek

When I said the words until death do us part, I meant them.

But nobody told me divorce is exactly like death. It’s just that, instead of your life flashing before your eyes seconds before you snuff it, your life plays out for months…like a bad dream you can’t wake up from. And inevitably, you find yourself looking for the clues you missed in real time.

You relive the moment when you stood outside the chapel in your wedding dress and wondered whether cold feet meant something other than that it was 40 degrees and you were wearing sandals.

Chicks Dig The Accent

“He-hem.”

I looked up.

“Molly Ivers, you’re on,” Professor Sullivan’s polished London accent woke me like good coffee.

“Yes, sir.” My mind far from presenting, I felt guilty about breaking up with Sean, wondering if I’d done the right thing.

Keeping my eyes focused on the podium as I headed towards it, I reminded myself how close I was to graduating and leaving this hick town.

It’s the only thing a woman can do when shops close at six, and the regular cashier at your Walmart looks like MacGuyver – saving the world with a mullet, duct tape and a stapler.

BLUER THAN THE HEAVENS

Chapel Hill, NC 1863

Mama locked herself in her room the day the Federal Army began their occupation of our campus. Papa yelled at her door that General Harland was expected for super and she had three hours to make herself presentable. But Mama said she’d rather dine with the devil himself than to welcome a Yankee into her home. Shortly thereafter, Papa called me into his office and insisted I act as hostess in Mama’s place.

And so by presiding over that timeless tradition of hospitality extended and hospitality accepted, I became the downfall of two men.

Shades of Beige

Be quiet. Don’t move. Take up as little space as possible. Blend. Be the perfect shade of beige. He might not notice you when he comes back.

Megan listened to her son’s laughter from the other end of the apartment. He was playing with a monster. She couldn’t wait any longer. She wouldn’t allow Logan to grow up believing it was normal to inflict pain one minute and squeal with joy the next. She had to prove she was stronger than her mother had been.

One more night. Just one more night. Tomorrow morning I’ll do it.

Title: Petals of the Rose

The measured clip of her heels was a familiar sound. The aroma of disinfectant and pumped-in air conditioning filled her lungs. The sterile white walls were as familiar as home --more so, according to Nate. But as Dr. Danielle Stevens strode down the hallway, she sucked in deep breaths to calm sudden nerves. In all the scenarios she’d imagined seeing Melanie again this had never been an option.

Danielle was a pediatric cardiologist. She may have wished a number of things upon her former best friend’s head, but needing her expertise...

No, this was never — never — one of them.

Title: Willow Landing

Willow Ames officially declared Wednesday shit day. It wasn’t a calculated decision—few decisions in her life had been—more the result of the municipality she and Al moved to when the kids were toddlers. In Beamsville, garbage and recycle got collected midweek. Willow figured if she had to haul around bug-infested pop cans and rain-sodden newspaper, she might as well do the other dirty chores, too.
Time for Wednesday’s soul-searching questions. Paper or plastic in the recycle? What could she make for dinner that would survive in the microwave until Al turned up? Lately, was only Wednesday shitty?

TITLE: LITTLE RITUALS

My life is filled with little rituals. I don't know when or how I invented them; I don't always rationally believe they work.

Everyone knocks on wood and avoids the thirteenth floor. Who doesn't cross her fingers now and then? But the most powerful rite is more abstract: do something selfless, something selfish, then a random, anonymous act of kindness. In that order. Within a span of forty-eight hours.

Since we buried Cheryl three weeks ago, I haven't been controlling myself very well, so I turned to ritual to give me control.

This is the charm that heals, I hope.

ANTE UP THE GRIND


"Well, well, Stinky, you entered a thriller submission without me."

My writing partner nodded, shamefaced.

"I don't want to mention numbers, but this makes how many thumbs down?"

"Don't be a killjoy. Explain women's fiction. It's next."

"You desperate or somethin'? Our writing is kaput."

"Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Never mind, let's get this over."

"Look, there's the agency, so shut up and do as you're told."

"Are you forgetting the last time we did this? We wound up hogtied in a car trunk."

"Oh come on, you're not still mad about that?"

TITLE: THE LEFTOVERS WASTELAND

"Lane-eeeey." Rachel's whine floats up to the attic, where I'm crouched in terror. "Hurry! We need that cauldron for the witches' brew. This stuff's really HOT, I mean COLD."

I peer around our duplex's dark garret, but don't see any cauldron. I hate the dark. Why am I up here slapping at authentic spiderwebs? We ought to be holding the Halloween party up here instead of decking the apartment with webbed cotton and plastic insects.

Rachel should be doing this, but she's already in her Belly Dancing Queen costume and has her rubbergloved hands full of dry ice.

Redux - Women's Fiction

He’s killing my flowers.

The flowers are the centerpiece of my meticulously cared for artwork. I planted the flowerbed last year, desert flowers, easy enough to care for, but they do need some care. What’s so hard about a little yard work?

And I swear, I’m not stalking my ex-husband. Just because I’m circling the street he lives on doesn’t mean anything. I just need to check on the house.

I look around the neighborhood. It’s nine o’clock on Monday morning and the street is deserted.

THE MIDDLEPAUSE REPORT

Claire lay unconscious on an oak pew, deep in the shadows of the St. Anselm University Church. Chocolate matted her frizzy hair. Her stained apron stank of wet dog.

"One, two, three, testing." The music leader set up a microphone to the side of the altar, then conferred with Father Raines, the young Jesuit priest.

Outside, students hurried through the coastal fog toward the church, kicking up the acrid dust of early autumn in Northern California. The bell struck nine. The few stragglers jogged past the towering oak and ran up the tile steps.

FRIENDS AND HYSTERICS

Six days after her hospital adventure, Sinead waited in a drab basement office. She rooted around in her shapeless bag for acetaminophen. A bottle of Benedryl and a warm cheese stick rolled out, nothing remotely helpful for her throbbing head. The hospital IV had screwed up her blood pressure, and now she was getting a headache, too. Lovely.

Sinead shoved everything back in her bag and sighed. She noticed a tray on the side table. Her throat tickled, but she didn't want to risk a drink from that dusty pitcher. She slipped off her clog and rubbed her aching foot.

YOUR NEXT BIG THING

Think back to a point in time—your memory morphs. Or so they say. Sands shift, new castles form. Something like that.

But I don’t buy it.

I still see that morning in August so clearly, you can’t tell me my memory’s changed. The workers heaving up the “Sam Levine’s Dental Spa” sign in their thick-soled boots. Sam smiling at me, not a full smile, just enough to get his dimples going. Infectious. Candy.

No shifting sands have re-worked my memory of that time, a week before my first day of work at the university.

AN OFFBEAT ALLIANCE

I sank into my office chair, picked up my nameplate, and smiled. MALIA AGBAYANI, Director of Development. Yes. Exactly according to the Plan. Finally, after eighteen years of school and four years of shared cubicles, I had arrived. My own big office at Ignatius University, my alma mater.

Director.

Nothing like that new-job buzz. When new is new.

When my MBA friend, Janeen, heard I’d accepted the offer at Ignatius, she teased, “You’re gonna work for the Pope?”

Come on. Like I’d work for the man who appointed a condom committee. But I could work for the Jesuits.

From Lonnie
Title: Finding Jayne

The dirty underwear, socks, and pants splattering the kitchen floor and countertops made me feel like I was in a three-dimensional Jackson Pollack painting. After five years of managing properties, this kind of mess didn’t surprise me. That isn’t to say it didn’t frustrate me, particularly as it was the first apartment I had shown to my prospective tenants. Their frozen expressions reminded me that seeing people’s messes isn’t something that everyone is accustomed to.

Over the years as a rental agent and property manager I’ve had no choice but to become desensitized to the oddities I’ve walked in on.

From Lonnie
Title: Housebound

The red digital numbers on the kitchen clock followed Maggie, as if they were tapping her shoulder with each passing minute. Seventeen minutes late, already. She left the kitchen, but the living room offered no escape. Now the numbers on the VCR clock were staring her down, glowing and marking the progression of time.

Everyone else on the block was home already. The McCormick’s had just pulled into the driveway next door, and Mr. and Mrs. Hebert, across the street, had been home all day. Cars passed out front, but there was no white Chevy Cavalier and, therefore, no Ray.

Title: Return to Me

The rain came down in a torrent. A staccato drip and splash were indicative of the the overflowing gutter right above the window. Kaity watched as the water made a hole in the dirt of the window box, and splashed mud up on the glass. She gripped her coffee mug tighter, trying to make its warmth penetrate her cold fingers. She was always cold these days. And always watching out the window. Looking for someone who would never come.

"Mommy? Please don't cry anymore." Small arms wound around one of her legs, holding tight.

The Joys of Matyrdom

They always blame the mother. But then, their main concern isn’t fairness, and it sure as hell isn’t mercy, either. And truly, why should it be? Doctors are in the business of deciphering the hard why’s of it all. There’s no room for intention, for motivation, for explanation. For kindness. If I happened to be crucified in that process, well, so be it. I can accept that fact. It doesn’t mean they’re not bastards for it, though.

“Bastards.”

He sat across from me, his face strained and worried.

“Don’t say that.”

I ignored him and picked at my fingernails.

Did LaGringa's cat enter? LOL

Title: Preggo

Jeremy asked me to marry him approximately three minutes after I threw up on his brand new leather jacket. I should have taken that as a red flag.

I was crouched into a ball with my face resting against a toilet bowl when it happened. I still remember looking around, quite sure that fourth martini was now causing me to hear voices. “What was that?”

“What?”

“I just heard a voice ask me to marry them.”

He gave me that look. “That was me, dumbass.”

Red flag #2. Man who just proposed thinks you’re a dumbass.

Congrats Spyscribbler! A great entry!

This one stood out to me as well, partly because it started with suspense, but not with immediate death and terror. It didn't set out to repulse me, but drag me in.

Well done!

I wasn’t sure at which point I’d be crossing that line I promised Daddy I never would. When I picked up the envelope of crisp hundred dollar bills off her desk? Or when I stuffed it in my pocket. Maybe when I walked out the door with it, onto my new life; when I was officially stealing Marcy’s dream and replacing it with mine.
I liked the heft of those forty bills in my hand. Brand new from the bank. I fanned them out like a poker hand. Daddy always liked new money. “It ain’t stealing, Noreen,” he’d tell me.

(I realized there are glaring grammatical errors in this; they are intentional)

Title: IF THE MOCKINGBIRD WON"T SING

I’m no killer, but if I was, my family would say my MO is death by breakfast.

At Travis’s mid-life physical, his doctor informed us my daily sausage gravy on biscuits was drivin’ him to an early grave, claiming Travis’s LDL was higher than a crackhead. I said if a crackhead had my sausage gravy he’d give up the crack and rather die of plugged arteries. He didn’t laugh. We switched to cereal.

When Logan developed a propensity for up-chucking, his pediatrician pointed to the milk on his Cocoa Crispies. Who the Sam Hill is allergic to milk?

"Due to that situation, there isn’t a runner-up for the category."

You could pick a runnerup from the 'legal' entries.

The Mean Queen, Dethroned.

The newspaper fluttered from my hands and I dropped the vase. Damn. A Waterford. His smile taunted me from the front page. “Local Developer Brings on Investors.” I took a ragged breath, the kind that turns into a cry if you let it, and ripped his picture in half. And then again and again until I held a handful of confetti. I marched to the bathroom, dumped it in the toilet, emptied my bladder for good measure, and flushed my husband away. I returned to my packing. He’d given me two months to get out after I got my diagnosis.

The Other Side of Love

My love affair with Andrew—all right, so it wasn’t exactly an “affair,” per se, and “love,” well, that’s entirely a matter of opinion. Maybe it was more of an infatuation, magnified to the 17th power, or perhaps it was a romantic endeavor gone terribly awry and intensified well beyond what it should have been.

Maybe it was just the heartbreak of losing a first love. I don’t know. All I know is that it had been five and a half months since Andrew and I had ended, and still, every minute, I ached for him.

Congrats, Spyscribbler. ‘I was only ever partly his.’ Loved the line before it was chosen. Very emotive.

charles gramlich: “One naturally makes assumptions.” Laughed aloud at that one. Hope you make honorable mention.

Title: Over the Edge

On the brink of her first date in over a year, anxiety paralyzed Kat. Maybe dating her boss wasn’t such a hot idea.
But Peter wasn’t anything like Evan.
She summoned her most stunning smile and with a few determined steps, reached the door and swept it open.
Her sister, reeking of whiskey, staggered past her into her apartment.
“Gonna crash here.” Lacy flopped face-first onto the couch, a twig tangled in her hair like a tarnished halo.
“Tell me you didn’t drive like this.” Visions of metal wreckage careened through Kat’s mind, and she searched Lacy’s face for cuts.

A Hundred Little Paths

Avery Elliot rubbed her temples as she headed to her bathroom in search of a Motrin. She struggled to open the economy-sized bottle before popping two pills in her mouth, even though the label recommended only one. The sour aftertaste left a sweetness compared to the predictable throbbing that continued behind her left eye.

She looked at her pale reflection in the mirror, unhappy with the familiar face that stared back at her.

The face that knew too much.

She couldn't meet the disappointed and judgmental eyes that frowned back at her and was forced to look away.

PIECES OF PEARL

Pearl looked out the upstairs window. The backyard stretched before her, ending at a row of trees. Their leaves still clung to the bright greenery of spring, not yet ready to release it for the lushness of the coming summer. She caught flashes of blue, the lake winking at her through eyelashes of brown branches.

Grunting, she pushed up the window. It rose with an angry squeal. Pearl dropped to her knees, putting her face to the screen, letting her eyes cross against the grain. She inhaled, savoring the fresh, sweet air of cut grass and possibilities.

AUthor: Loni LuAnn
Title: Cats Don't Leave You

"What was that smell?" thought Emily vonHuufer. Yesterday's trash, or just my career rotting out from underneath me? Thom & I argued that it would come to this -- tell the truth, and the whole truth, or suffer the consequences. Well, I guess these are the consequences. Can't wait for the suffering. And damn Thom for always being right. The FCC is going to eat me alive.

Lifeline

I decided I didn’t believe in lifelines when a palm reader in Tampa refused to read mine. She frowned and pushed my hand aside. “Too short,” she said, pushing my money back toward me. “I don’t deliver that kind of news.” I rolled my eyes and left.
But I reconsidered the possibility, looking down at my bloody body on the gurney, putting out a flat heart rate. “Damn,” said the tired young doctor. He sighed. “I’ll call it. Time of death, 4:20 pm.” I died on August 9th. 34 years old. I studied my palm. That is a short lifeline.

Title: Cooked

“Smile for the camera,” Hannah’s soon-to-be ex hissed over a huge wedge of pie.

Right. No matter how hard she tried to manipulate her frozen facial muscles, all she managed was to bare her teeth in a grimace. Even her well-loved studio set kitchen and the familiar faces of the production staff provided no comfort as they taped her—their—farewell show.

“Divorced?” the studio manager had gasped a week ago. “Sorry. We want a married couple cooking show.” Boom—another door slammed shut.

Cinnamon and cloves perfumed the air. Hannah closed her eyes and made a vow. She would be back.

SIMMER

Bad things come in threes. Ruben leaves me. My parents die. And then there’s the funeral.

Other people wouldn’t say those last two things are different. For me they are.

I’m bad at crowds, or crowds are bad at me, or something. People are hard. I have to find ways to calm myself down when there’s too much attention. When I was little I’d think about drumbeats. When people asked me private questions or measured me or stood too close, I’d play music in my head. No notes, never notes. Just drumbeats.

Now instead I think of food.

No, I'm Not Having Fun Yet

Words are disappearing. There’s a chunk of words I can’t see, and it’s the part where Jamie warns Claire he can’t be gentle. Damn. I needed that part. I tossed the book on the floor and closed my eyes; a flashing light danced in the darkness. A migraine on my kid-free day off. I lay back to wait it out.
The phone rang. Perfect.
“Do you have Cilantro?”
“Laurie?”
“I’ve already been to the store twice. Who eats Mexican soup, anyway? How’s the entree?”
I sat up and my head spun. I forgot about the dinner party. At my house.

Sleeping With The Enemy

Why did I think moving to Colorado would help?
The disturbing question reverberated in Ana's mind as she stared at the magical glimmering nightscape across Fort Collins. From the window of the children's ward in Poudre Valley Hospital, she watched dozens of tiny flickering lights mimic the stars in the night sky. A wonderful sight for those into wonder. A curse for Ana who no longer wondered about much of anything.
But it was past time to worry about why she'd come so she freed herself from her constant depressing thoughts. Time for the girl's medication.
Get on with it, Ana.

(writing as Pat Dale)

The Pole Dancer

"Would you look at that?" Sally clicked YouTube's replay button on the computer screen. "Ballet sure has changed since I was a girl."

The cat on the chair lifted her furry head and winked sleepy eyes at her master.

Sally gazed at the tutu-wearing dancer who had traded ballet slippers for a pole. The lithe young girl arched her back and twirled upside down with her legs wrapped around the slender rod of metal.

Sally pinched an inch of flab from her middle-aged middle. Her doctor did say she should exercise more and dancing burned a lot of calories.

Princess In Steel Toed Boots

Pepper dropped her hammer onto the scarred workbench. Pulling the neckline of her tee-shirt to meet her hairline, she blotted the stream of sweat running in her eyes. Sweating was better than not in the one hundred and two degree heat.
“Mom, Mom!” James burst through the door. “Terror Williams is sitting on a dead guy.”
“What?” Pepper froze. She replayed his words. Once. Then again. A dead man? No. There couldn’t be. Why would there be? Damn! She hobbled for the door as fast as her braced knee allowed.
“Terror didn’t kill him!” James grabbed her elbow.

Title: Still Life, With Flowers

The afternoon sun sliced the room like scissors through cellophane, exploding against the laminated flipchart in a blast of white light. Elaine shielded her face with an out-turned palm. "The slats," she interrupted. "Excuse me, Mr. Severson. The slats." She jerked herself to her feet. Wadded tissues tumbled from her purse like confused sheep. She herded them under the chair with her toe and navigated around the artificial ficus to the window. The room smelled fusty, like last week’s forgotten bagel. She muted the glare with a twist of the dowel, then reached beneath the blinds to raise the sash.

CHILDREN OF BRIEF SUNSHINE


Nothing lasts forever. For this, I’m grateful. If not, I’d have no one to love.

The children call me Suki. They call my assistance Benny and our housekeeper Rainbow, both are loyal and guard my secrets. My son was Trevor. He was born with his heart outside his chest.

I was born with my heart not deep enough.

Trevor lived only a short time, but it was enough to make me weep. I still grieve him, yet I hide it in my secret place. It’s there that I grieve them all. Twenty children I’ve watched slip away, ten to go.

Title: They Are Everyone
The voices and laughter enticed her but at the threshold she hesitated, tentative about entering this room of strangers. Maybe she'd fit in, considering how she seemed to be a stranger to herself lately, feeling unfettered from all that was familiar.

In the room sunlight settled on a circle of chairs; one was occupied by a young woman with a baby on her lap. In a corner two friends were talking, their heads bent toward each other. Beside a refreshment table women stood chatting, some standing silent, sipping from Styrofoam cups. She took a step toward them and then stopped.

She sensed something in his mood when he walked into the kitchen. She was chopping vegetables for a stir fry, lulled by the monotony of the task. Hanna, who sat at the table ostensibly doing homework, was entertaining her with a monologue on her expectations of university life. Abby was only half listening when a gust of fresh air announced Peter’s arrival, disturbing the calmness in which she and Hanna were immersed. She responded to his greeting and became acutely aware of an anxiety that simmered beneath his cheerful entry.

The Really Good Guy

Mark’s fingers clenched, tightening in her long, curly hair. His thighs contracted against the steering wheel, the soles of his feet pressed down into the floor, his back arched, and his head pressed back against the headrest.

He couldn’t have told you her name, the color of that hair, or where they were.

Then the moment passed, and he remembered who he was, who she was, where they were, and he realized that he needed to get home. An hour ago, if not sooner, and it was at least a 30 minute drive back out to the suburbs.

The Mudskipper Symphony

This was the plan: I would win back Sam, the man I had loved for the past three years. Then! I’d drop him like a box of stale Lucky Charms, and escape to Ireland, finally free of my obsession.

This is what happened instead: Sam used me for sex and I went off to Ireland in tears. One month later I found myself still completely in love with him and also going to bear his child. Time for Plan B. No, not that Plan B. Too late for that too.

Anon 2:24 --

In most cases (except the historical contest -- where each of us felt very strongly about our own individual selections), the winner and runner-up had made it to both of our lists. Since Jessica and I didn't agree on any of the other picks in this category, we're only listing honorable mentions.

I'm sorry, I forgot the title. Here it is again:

Title - Arms Too Full

She sensed something in his mood when he walked into the kitchen. She was chopping vegetables for a stir fry, lulled by the monotony of the task. Hanna, who sat at the table ostensibly doing homework, was entertaining her with a monologue on her expectations of university life. Abby was only half listening when a gust of fresh air announced Peter’s arrival, disturbing the calmness in which she and Hanna were immersed. She responded to his greeting and became acutely aware of an anxiety that simmered beneath his cheerful entry.

The Devil In Her

It happened when I least expected it. I was running my three-mile, my thighs pure lactic acid, when there was a twist in my gut—a scent I’d never smelled before. My mind rolled a filmstrip of scenes. In them, Rod was happier than I’d ever seen him, even at the beginning when no one else existed.

Questions ate at me. What could I do differently? Better? Maybe I should have dropped these ten pounds long ago?

I pictured his smile from breakfast this morning and it annoyed me. I started to think Lorena Bobbit got a raw deal.

Cecilly On The Loose

It was just a little accident. It could happen to anyone.

Anyone.

My nose is fine. Really. It only hurts because when I opened my closet just now, all my shoes came crashing down on me and a stiletto-heel clipped the space between my eyes. Not to worry. When I touch it there’s hardly a speck of blood.

Mustn’t dwell.

Mustn’t curse either because I’ll flush and my cheeks will stay red for hours, then everyone will know I ran around all morning and tried on different outfits. So not cool when you’re starting a new job.

I see, Kim. (Anon 2:24 here). Thanks.

TOUGHER AT NIGHT

The tavern was hot as an incubator and so was he. But I wasn’t here to meet anyone, so I blew him off and strode to the bar. He followed me. First with his eyes—gray lightning that once would have struck me numb, now the effect only annoyed me. Then with his stride, stalking and mean.

I flung the bartender a ten. “Bloody Mary.”

Gray Eyes lowered in beside me. "Bloody Mary," he drawled in a Scots accent, catching me off-guard.

God. Did he really his think his ploy of sexy accent and identical drinks would get him laid?

Title: Love Me Tender
by Sharon Davidson

“Hello. My name is Roslyn O’Dell. DOCTOR Roslyn O’Dell. As Doug said in his introduction, I am going to be the Assistant Head Trainer for this football team. It is both an honor and a privilege to be here, working with you.”

She looked out at the sea of faces. There were over a hundred men at this meeting, the first day of mini camp for the Lexington Mountaineers. These men, who averaged 200-300 pounds, would be intimidating to a normal woman of her stature. However, with five older brothers who were all athletes, she was not intimidated.

Spyscribbler.

An excellent entry and a well deserved win.

I'm itching to read the rest of it now.

One could almost imagine Daphne du Maurier penning those lines.
Last night I dreamed I was at Manderlay...

Fish Out Of Water


“Ma’am, you’re gonna have to leave.”

I smile at Bernie Luster, director of Fish Out of Water. He probably hasn’t had his coffee yet.

“People! I said fresh meat. Fresh, young meat like the Olsons or Avril. Jays-us! Do I gotta bust a vein to get my point across? No old chicks!”

I race after him, my heels clacking on the cement. “Excuse me, sir, but you know what they say, forty’s the new twenty.”

He whips around, framing my face, then stares at my cleavage. “Christ, those look illegal. Where’d you get ‘em? Argentina? Slovenia? What?”

“Downtown Boston, actually.”

The day I fell down the stairs was the best day of my life.
I know that sounds weird. Of course, I didn’t realize that right away.
Our life is crazy, but the week that led up to my fall was a week from hell. A stressed-out, stretched-thin, head-banging week from hell. That morning, when I got peanut butter on the sleeve of my blouse in the usual rush to make lunches, find homework and pack bags, I swallowed a scream and rushed upstairs to change.
The last two light bulbs popped in the upstairs hall. Shit! I cursed my husband in the dark.

I'm sorry, I too forgot the title!

Here it is again:

Saving Grace

The day I fell down the stairs was the best day of my life.
I know that sounds weird. Of course, I didn’t realize that right away.
Our life is crazy, but the week that led up to my fall was a week from hell. A stressed-out, stretched-thin, head-banging week from hell. That morning, when I got peanut butter on the sleeve of my blouse in the usual rush to make lunches, find homework and pack bags, I swallowed a scream and rushed upstairs to change.
The last two light bulbs popped in the upstairs hall. Shit! I cursed my husband in the dark.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT by Milka

"I need your help," I said breathlessly. "I'm going to propose to Robert."

Savannah gave me a wry glance from over her sunglasses. "Isn't that his job?"

"Why wait?" I said with an exaggerated flourish. "We both know we want to get married."

"You don't think he'll mind?"

"I know it's untraditional, but I really feel this is the right step." I nodded with certainty. Proposing to my boyfriend would prove how I felt about him. It would demonstrate how love transformed a cautious lawyer into a passionate romantic.

I was only stymied by the logistics of a female proposal.

CRANING

If I gained weight, I’d limit my choices in the romance and career departments. Every extra inch around my waist would increase the chance of heart attack, sleep apnea, diabetes and dementia. But Captain Crunch is the food of the Gods. So at least I’d be heaven-bound when I croaked -- unwed, drowsy, destitute and babbling.

With a sigh, I chose the skim milk.

I was halfway through the bowl when fire engines shrieked to a stop next door. I loaded my spoon, savoring the sugary crunch as I ran outside.

Saving the Orchids

Ravensclaw, Virginia--June 7, 1923

They say people dream in black and white. Not so with me. My nightmares are a green as thick as pea soup.

Over the past four months I’ve resided in a windowless cell. Doc assures me the blank walls will clear my mind to an empty canvas.
What are they planning to paint? Or worse … what do they hope to erase?

I won’t forget. I know what I saw; and I know what I did.

Momma used to say, “Jenni, self-pity is leftover pride served up cold by the devil’s hand.”

That’s my name. Jenni. Jenni Sweet. And I am an Orchid.

You Got Friend

Cheri arrived at work sweaty and breathless from the walk. She pushed the vagrant strands of wet, brown hair off her round face and tucked them behind her ears. There weren't many, but nonetheless, they were bothersome, being the only ones to escape from her baby pink barrettes. Without thought, she tapped her right foot five times before using it to push open the store's door. Every day the glass swung freely, but not today. Confused, Cheri looked up then down. That's when she spied it. "A package?" she said. She began to tremble. "It's got my name on it."

What About Baby?

"You're pregnant."
Doina Marks stared dumbfounded at Doctor Peters, her energy drained slowly from her as tears welled in her eyes. Pregnant. Joy and sorrow warred within her, the battle of her emotions finally numbing her.
"Are you sure?" They'd tried so many times and the embryo never took. Why now?
Doctor Peters nodded sadly. "I know this is hard for you. If you want to terminate -"
She shook her head, a hand gently touching her flat stomach. "No way."
"I know you weren't prepared to keep the baby. Under the circumstances I think we should discuss your options."

Title: Kim's Mistake

“What the hell did you hit him with?”

“My shoe.”

“Your shoe? Damn it Callie, you can’t kill someone with a shoe.”

“Hello, they’re Prada.”

“Just stay right there.”

Kim Murphy walked across the room and stopped in front of the chair.

“Tell me again what happened?”

“I told you, he was sitting in that chair when I got home. I took off my shoe and hit him in the back of the head and ran over to your place.”

“Then you don’t know how he got the hole in his chest?”

The Jane Asher Factor

"Okay, so are you guys ready for this one?" Mary Grace said, filling her eyes with the loud reds and yellows that splashed the restaurant's walls, before leaning deep into the table she shared with her friends.

"Is it gossip?" Jules said, taking a gulp of her Margarita. "I love gossip."

"Ready?" Annie said, shoving a hunk of nachos in her mouth. "Ready for what?" Cheese sputtered across the table when she spoke.

"My news. My big news. The reason I called this meeting tonight!"

"Sorry Mary Grace," Annie said, still playing with her nachos. "What's your news?"

IMPERFECT

Auschwitz-Birkenau, October, 1944

Shayna Wolinsky curled up in a tight ball and bit her lip to keep from screaming. She’d soaked through her miserable shift, and the blood wouldn’t stop.

“We need to get you help,” Feyge whispered.

Shayna shook her head. “The matron will take me to the medical barracks. You must help me hide.”
No one ever came back from the medical barracks. Another cramp seized her.

“I don’t understand,” Feyge whispered. “Nobody’s had a period in months. Now you get one, and it’s so bad.”

Shayna hadn’t told her friend of the rape. She’d been so ashamed.

Dear Kim and Jessica,

I entered four entries in this category. I just noticed that I had already entered two of the entries in previous categories.

Please remove:

Love Returns and Tracy's Treasure

I am very sorry for the mix up.

Sincerely,

HollyD

This Moment

Prologue

I am no one you’re supposed to know, but someone you easily could have met. My name is Ryan McGuire. I've never thought of myself as a particularly special person; I’ve been lucky, yes, but special, no. What's the difference, you wonder? Well, in my personal dictionary, one I’ve spent years alphabetizing in the annals of my brain, I’ve always thought that to be lucky is to have good things befall you. But the things that do are out of your control, like winning the trifecta at the track or being born with good looks.

Lost Mountain

Flat on her back in hard packed snow, Claudia Kelly struggled to see. Harsh rays of sun shot in her eyes. She squinted.

Something above her cast a shadow. Through fading splotches of green and black, a face hovered close to hers.

She blinked hard, and her vision cleared. Her breath caught in shock as she found herself staring into a man’s eyes. Soft and brown, with a cast of gold, like candlelight reflected in whiskey—never, ever, had she seen such eyes.

“Are you...all right?” His accented English faltered. Sun streamed from behind him as his eyes searched hers.

Borrowed Tango


He couldn't die, not tonight, not ever. Not the man who loved her from the beginning, the man who taught her to dance, the man she'd waltzed with time after time, the man who meant more than any other. He couldn’t. Not her father.


Francine Wentworth stared at her parents’ wedding picture. Her throat constricted and her sight blurred. Suddenly, there was nothing but music—no glass-walled office, no ballroom, no dance trophies on the étagère. From the next room strains of Strauss floated in, but the rise and fall of the violins spiraled into a music of pain.

Above Average Girl

The average American woman is 5’4”, 164 pounds and wears a size 14. Let’s just say that I’m above average—and I’m not talking about my height. I didn’t start out this way, mind you. At birth, I was actually below average. And I didn’t catch up real quick either. It took a combination of factors to bring me to my above average status. Genetics, environment, economic class and emotional health all contributed to my current dress size.
Genetics cannot be described as an “exact” science. DNA is combined randomly. So, while my siblings are almost six feet tall, I was dealt a much shorter chromosome.

Please forgive the 106 words, the last sentence is a long one. :-)

The Lady Intelligencer

Katherine always wished to say no to the insinuating whelp, no matter what the request. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, perched in the chair by Katherine’s seat, one elaborately gartered leg balanced on top of the other, bending over to the Countess with the air of one who knew his great value as one of the Queen’s frequent favorites..
Normally, the strapping man spent his time, when not trying to influence the Queen and the members of the Privy Council, flirting with the young attractive maids of the court or practicing his gallantry on bored widows.

"So, while my siblings are almost six feet tall, I was dealt a much shorter chromosome.

Please forgive the 106 words, the last sentence is a long one. :-)"

If you change last sentence to:

While my siblings are six feet, I was dealt a shorter chromosome.

...you're down to 102.

Moby Chick

Her mother started in again: "I really don't see why –"

"I saw this woman on a talk show once, a really liberal 60's type. Her teenaged daughter rebelled by joining the Neonazi Party of America. She even had on this getup, like a black and red Girl Scout uniform. Would you like that better? Give me a break. I'm only a chick with dreads going on a Greenpeace ship."

"Since when did you start watching talk shows?"

"In the dorm, mom. Talk shows, soap operas, Saturday Night Live. You can't study all the time."

"Or save the world -"

The Least of Men

It was no great sacrifice for Alice Gibbs to walk out into the snowy darkness that night. Truth be told, she hadn’t planned on leaving. Methodically, she washed up the supper dishes and set her husband’s untouched plate on the back porch, wrapping it in an oilcloth to keep the cats away. John had not returned from hunting, and she knew he had squirreled himself away somewhere for the night, hoping the morning would bring the soft sounds of a buck and the promise of meat they so desperately needed.
She had not wanted him to go.

Title: Stella June

Stella showed up on a Sunday. I remember exactly the time and place she entered my life and for years afterwards would wonder if she had any inkling of the damage she would cause. Tired and worn from one of Granddaddy’s sermons, legendary in our county for their length and fervor, I didn’t know who she was at first. Having never seen my mama, I only knew that this strange woman was the cause of the greatest spectacle Sparta had ever seen since the youngest Hyde child blew up the local bakery with an M-80 and his daddy’s shotgun. But this was different.

Burn Pink Ribbons

The season of my sister's breast cancer started with a turquoise Christmas card. On it, a pair of chubby penguins in pink Santa hats were having a snowball fight. My sister had pointed out that, although one of the penguin's snowballs, a hard puff of white pom-pom at the end of its flipper, had fallen off, the spot it had fallen from was also white, so it still looked like a snowball.

"That's my justification for giving you a defective Christmas card," she'd joked.

We'd been sitting by my artificial Christmas tree, ridiculously large for the apartment containing it.

Sonya Chloe Lives at the North Palace

"It's been so humid lately –" Cassie had leaned against her powder blue minivan, folding a powder blue piece of paper into a fan. Done, she'd waved it before her face rapidly, inwardly groaning. Why on earth had she agreed to meet Phil at the Buhr Park tennis courts, this hot June evening?

"Too bad the snow castle on this isn't real," she'd joked, waving the brochure for her wedding cake business, now pleated into a limp fan, before Phil's unsmiling face, "or this might actually work." She'd pulled away from the minivan, and, with a little extra tug,

Heidi Dawning

“Doug, I just don’t think it’s a good idea, budget-wise. I know Heidi thinks what she’s advocating makes sense, but it will put us fiscally in the hole halfway through the year. How would you justify that at town meetings?”

Advocating? Advocate this, pinhead. Heidi forced her fingers to remain laced loosely on her desk. The Town Engineer’s desk. She wanted to strangle Mike - he was making them both look like idiots.

Doug Thiebault turned away from her senior engineer, the florid skin of his neck pressing over a starched collar. “Heidi?” The one word was steeped in irritation.

Congrats Spyscribbler! Although I don't read your genre, I very much enjoy your voice. You have tremendous talent.

I must say I am disappointed the rest of us - who followed the specified guidelines - were deemed unworthy of runner-up status. For some reason, it feels more insulting under those circumstances to have not been chosen...failed by irritation. Sigh. Live and learn.

(She stands back up, dusts off, and moves forward.)

Good luck to those entering this next contest.

Sitting in a rented car, Melanie Hudson observed the little girl from less than a mile away, justifying the reason for kidnapping her. It was more like borrowing anyway, because in the end, it would be for the child’s own good. Anyone who cared about children would see it this way. It was obvious.
Melanie would teach her parents a lesson. She realized her knuckles were getting numb and released them from the grip of the steering wheel. Flexing her fingers back and forth she watched as the child played hopscotch along the edge of a desolate slab of cement.

"For some reason, it feels more insulting under those circumstances to have not been chosen...failed by irritation. Sigh. Live and learn."

*Shrugs* There can be only one, as Duncan says.

I didn't think Dancing Horses would do much when I entered it. I hadn't really planned on entering it at all, but I figured it wouldn't hurt.

I'm planning on going to the Surrey, BC Writer's Conference in October with Paladin's Pride. I stink at titles, queries, blurbs and all other things right, light and tight. Thinking about speaking to an agent makes me want to barf.

I look at these contests and discussions on the agent blogs as rehearsal. Hopefully, I will be over my stage fright by October.

Taken

No one expects criminal activity in a library. While traveling on business he found a myriad of places to keep up with his various responsibilities, legal and otherwise. Libraries were his favorite.

He worked at a table, papers spread out before him, laptop open. He'd been working for awhile when he looked up and laid eyes on her for the first time.

A woman stood in the New Books section, reading the back of a book, lost in thought. Curly dark red hair framed her face and fell onto her shoulders. The expressions on her face intrigued him.

The Comedy of Her Errors

She'd nicknamed him mountain man, because he was so grizzly looking with his full beard, the raccoon like circles under his blue eyes and bad breath. He was always pushing a cart full of discarded plastic soda bottles in plastic bags. When she got so broke and depressed that she had to sleep on the streets, he’d taken care of her. But she only knew him by the street name he went by, Perez.

“Did you know he was one of the ten richest men in the world?” her sister asked.

No, she didn’t. Damn.
Well, there’s always tic-tacs.

Teaching Celebrity

Like any respectable fine artist, I had taken a solemn oath. Starve to death before ever resorting to the classroom. I’d even considered having “Teaching is the artist’s vampire” tattooed on my arm.

Yet here I sat in my beat up Civic, parked next to the formidable brick façade of Woodbridge Academy. The school that just last week was plastered all over the cover of Star Magazine because one of its celebrity students had been busted with a bag of pot at the tender age of twelve.

Teach or move back with my psycho parents. What a choice.

IN TESSA

Tessa stopped listening after Papa said that liars go to hell, and her eyes grew wide with dismay.

Had he not told Mother yesterday that he had broken a jar by dropping it, when Tessa had seen him throw it against the barn door? He had, indeed he had!

Thinking of how Papa might look in hell, Tessa gulped back a sob.

Days later he left the farm, shovel on his shoulder, to help dig the ditch that would become the Erie Canal, and Mother said she was worried about malaria, because the swamps were rife with mosquitoes.

Title: Marcel Uncorked

A long time ago, I shared my bed with Zack in a room scenting of iris. And then, no sooner did my eyes close and he bent forward to kiss me, another man showed up. He appeared as imperceptibly as wine decanting in a room. And his name was Marcel.

A ménage a trois, you might think. But not anywhere near as sexy as that. Much more turmoiled.

Life offers up strange bedfellows, my grandmother Hannah always used to say. Whether they were alive or not was the question.

And another thing.

A long time ago, I was really unhappy.

TITLE: When Rain Falls

Candace Johnson expected to catch someone in the act. Ignoring the menu in her hands, she observed the people at the other tables. The lunch hour in full swing, her table was located in the middle of the restaurant, with various conversations rising up and down in volume around her. She didn’t recognize anyone, nor did she notice anyone looking in her direction. Her tired eyes fell back on the menu.

Just one night.

If she could finally sleep in peace, she wouldn’t be feeling paranoid right now. Almost forty years old and still anxious about the bogeyman visiting her dreams.

A NEW STORY FOR O

"If there are two kinds of women like Jackie O said; those who want power in the world and those who want power in bed; it might explain my split personality." Carly took a gulp of her too hot latte, side stepping a woman slowly pushing a stroller through the lobby of the office tower.
She jammed a hand into the closing doors of the elevator, smiled sweetly at an older woman leaning back to avoid the coffee cup, winked at Blushing Bobby the gofer, and stopped on the threshold.
“You’re sex crazy,” Jillian offered.
“And a bitch?”

Plain Jane Goes Wild

Jane Ryan gently placed the phone on the counter, tidied her already neat hair, and screamed at the top of her lungs, “I am the rock between the fruit loops.”

Her anger rose like an imminent eruption of Mount St. Helens. Lee press-on nails popped as her fingertips bit into the granite countertop, ricocheting off the wall and cabinet front to become deadly plastic ammunition.

Why did she let her mother do this to her, every . . . single . . . time they talked?

Ain't Life Grand


Angela Ross slowed her beat-up Datsun to a crawl. Wind tugged at the duct tape on the top of the passenger window. Only a couple miles of barren highway, and acres of rangeland, separated Angela from her old hometown. The sight ruined the tranquil, peach-hued sunrise.

What she wouldn’t give to turn the car around and disappear again.

This time forever.

From this distance, the towering grain elevator loomed over the trees and smaller buildings like an over-sized tombstone. Yep, from this vantage point the entire community of Grand, Texas looked exactly like a giant grave.

The Dark Side of Luck


Click, clack. Click, clack.

The gurney’s wheels ticked across the sterile tile floor. Rolling death. Three years at Heritage Nursing home, and Destiny Holt had yet learned to cope with the regular sight of patients leaving for good, beneath a stiff-white sheet.

Click, clack. Click, clack.

The men from the funeral home rounded the corner with Mrs. Gershwitz’s body. Destiny thought of the two blue-eyed little girls who smiled down from a frame beside the woman’s bed. Working nights, Destiny rarely met the residents families, but she knew them just the same. She'd heard all the stories.

Nature Girl

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be thirty-seven. 37. Wow! Some people even say I look 20, but we won’t go there because that was a really bad time for me. Anyway, I’m okay with being another year older. It’s not an issue.

Really.

Just because I’m playing R.E.M.’s Green and standing in front of my mirror, drawing circles around the gaggles of cellulite that have metastasized on my butt, doesn’t mean I’m not handling this thing in a healthful and accepting manner. Everyone ages. I get that and cannot understand why some women make such a big fuss about it.

THE HOT AND THE BOTHERED

Hyacinth sashayed through the cocktail party, intent on her target. She raised the gun and without hesitating for an instant, pulled the trigger. Brock fell back against the curio cabinet behind him and slid to the floor. He placed a weak hand on his chest, looked down to see the blood, and then up at Hyacinth.

“But I loved you,” he whispered as the screen faded to black.

“NOOOO!” I raced to the television and touched the screen as a commercial for toilet-bowl cleanser played beneath my fingertips. “Why? Why are you doing this to him?”

Carry Me Away
Author: Robb

Thank goodness they finally painted the walls a different color in here. Pale green wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it beat hell out of the stark white from before. It didn’t hurt so much to open my eyes this time, but my throat hurt. I didn’t think I should try talking yet, but I could swallow so I knew they’d taken the tube out. That was a good sign – I hoped.

I traced the different color tubes from my arm to the bags hanging overhead, like following a road map, trying to find which highway goes to what city.

Hannah's Voice
Author: Robb

“Pancakes.”

With that one word, I broke my silence of a dozen years.

“I said I want the goddamn pancakes.”

Finally, I got what I really wanted. Not the pancakes, but some silence. Everyone else shut up. Finally.

I didn’t decide to stop talking forever, or even for twelve years. I just chose not to speak at a moment in time. Sometimes decisions have a way of forging your future, setting a path before you that you must travel, even if you’re only six years old when you make the choice.

#

“Hannah, did you clean your room?”

THE DIVINE SECRETS OF THE 100-WORD SISTERHOOD

It had seemed so easy: Buy the soul of literary agent Kim Faust with one hundred words of brain-tickling delicious darkness, and a year later, Mama would be watching me on Oprah.

Mama always said I had more talent than sense. It might explain why I forgot Microsoft’s word count feature. But my pounding heart was disrupting the library when I finished my entry, and the librarian started showing off her NRA pin. I panicked. And I clicked “publish”.

I would be a better writer today if I’d learned to hook an agent in 100 words back then. I hope Mama’s proud anyway.

(No, not a serious entry, and I don't think I was one of the guilty. But I thought we could all use the laugh!)

Lie Beside the Road

Charlotte sliced open the last piece of mail catching a whiff of mildew. A tattered piece of flannel fell out. Her breath caught as she reached for the fabric. Even before her fingers touched the cloth, she knew from what it had been torn. Thirty-seven years earlier, the fleece had been larger, a little boy’s security blanket. The now dried rust spots had been bright red. Wet.

The phone rang. Charlotte jumped and shoved the tainted fabric in her pocket before answering.

“Where the hell is my son?” Lily screamed. The anger in her daughter’s voice exploded through the receiver.

Six Grains of Rice

Summer 1967
“Holly! Mommy needs help,” Martha sniffled.

Holly pushed back the sheet, swung her feet to the cracked linoleum and faced the twins huddled together wide eyed and furiously sucking their thumbs.

“It’ll be okay,” Holly promised. “Go back to sleep.” She tucked in the five-year-olds with a thread bare blanket. Two of her other siblings stared from their top bunks. Only Diane, hearing aid lying on the bureau, snored through the frantic pleas of their mother coming from the kitchen.

Holly’s eyes traveled to a thin line of yellow light snaking beneath the closed door. Her stomach tightened.

Sorry, Ana. I couldn't resist. Well, I could have, but I didn't. No offense, Jessica and Kim, just having fun.

The Wedding

The 100-Word Sisterhood had grown beyond anything Ana could imagine when she started it.

Women accustomed to flowery passages learned to cut their prose until they turned from lush bushes to single stalks with one or two extraordinary blooms. It could just as well have been called The Sisterhood of the Orchid.

Ana was the official at the first Sisterhood wedding, where each person spoke only one hundred words.

Ana asked Trudy if she took Ted to be her lawful wedded husband.

"Objection," someone shouted, waving a calculator in the air. "She's already over. She can't say, 'I do.'"

OPEN TRAIL

Uvalde County
Texas, 1870

I can do this.

Feeling the horse shift underneath me, I tightened my hold on the saddle.

As long as I didn’t fall off.

A better life, free of my husband awaited me in Abilene so why did I feel like I was sneaking off in the night? Letting the horse slide into the flow of lumbering steers I felt the tears on my cheeks. A red sun streaked the eastern sky and I watched as wave after wave of black horns moved towards it. Taking a deep breath I fanned out my skirts and followed.

...And on that 100 word limit, does the title count as part of the holy hundred?

Visions of Tommy


In the summer of my fiftieth year, I climbed the oak in our yard. An hour after my ascent, Stan drove down the driveway, parked the car and entered the house. A few seconds later he emerged holding the note I had left.

I’M IN THE TREE BY THE GARDEN.

“Bad day, Diane?” he asked loosening his necktie. He squinted up at me.

I shrugged.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

I shrugged again.

“Well. I guess this means I’m making supper. How long do you plan to be in the tree?” Stan asked with a bemused look on his face.

Title doesn't count.

Love On a Half Shell

Whoever built our beach house must have scavenged its parts because nothing matches. The bathroom door, which is heavy enough to have come from a medieval castle, makes a hell of a noise slamming up against the bathroom wall in front of me.
It doesn’t matter though. I can barely hear the door because Torey, framed in the doorway, is screaming, “What do you mean, leaving us alone until eight o’clock at night? What the hell are we supposed to do all day? I left messages at your job and called your cell a million times, where were you?”

"...And on that 100 word limit, does the title count as part of the holy hundred?"

Since the title doesn't count, does the city, state, and date setup count? Or is it just the body of the actual story itself?

BTW, thanks so much for doing this! We all appreciate it, and don't mean to ever sound ungrateful. We know this is above and beyond what most agents will do! You guys are class acts.

East of Jesus


He looked dead, but Grace Hackett had fantasized her husband's death so many times she couldn't trust her eyes.

Howard lay in his La-Z-Boy with the footrest extended and a Dukes of Hazzard rerun blaring on television. His hand was stretched out, palm up, but the remote had fallen to the floor. His mouth gaped open, which wasn't too surprising since he was a chronic snorer. His eyes were open also though, and glazed over, and that was a bit surprising.

Grace dropped the groceries. He didn't move. "Um ... Howard?" She cleared her throat. "Are you asleep?"

Did I miss the women's fiction contest?

Yes, there were WAY too many good entries for this one.

Your choices tell me this however (which is something is always good to know about an agent when deciding to query them) where your tastes run.

Jessica seems to like the more emotional themes when it comes to historicals.

Kim seems to also be drawn more to the intrigue, but does seem to have a penchant for the more amusing ones too.

When I look at the HUGE list of agents and try to decide who to query, I'm always thinking, will they like my voice, will they like my plot? If I can (because they have a website), I'll jump on to see who they currently represent in my genre and try to figure out whether I think their tastes will run to my books.

I always wish that an agent would actually be more specific to what their tastes run to. Like, love intrigue historicals more, not to crazy about the lighter stuff. LOL.

This little competition gives just a little more insight into your specific tastes. Thanks for doing it girls!

The boy was buried nearby, and she would find him. She stood on the bluff overlooking a field of wild grass. The ground beneath her was ancient. Blood had soaked it in the past; blood from tribal wars, from massacres and from hunts. But the earth had not yet been sated. Blood still soaked the ground. She could feel it. It was a strange and terrible certainty.
She shifted, thoughts flitting through her mind. She could sense the policemen standing nearby, just out of sight. She chased those thoughts away and concentrated. There had to be an echo here, an echo of murder. There had to be…she felt it now. The bones in her forearms suddenly started to vibrate.

PLAGUES: THE SEQUEL

Holy crap! Virginity was actually good for something. Bursting with that mind-boggling discovery, Stephanie skidded into the
cave- like room, a whorl of frosty air and a boyfriend named James trailing her.

She shook her sleeping roommate. "Mari, wake up."

Bathed in a halo of light, Marianna slept the dreamless sleep of profound exhaustion, tumbles of coal black curls veiling her face. Medical textbooks standing on end fanned out around her, sentries keeping watch.

Squinting, Mari raised her head. "Whaaa?"

Stephanie stabbed the circled listing in the campus newspaper. "Your virginity. It's worth a hundred thousand dollars."

Congratulations to the winners of the historical romance contest. I have to admit that Kim's list included two that I really liked and hope will be published soon-I can't wait to read those stories-so keep writing, ladies!

He loved elevators. In an elevator you could stand in a woman’s space, inhale her essence and no one cared. The more crowded the better. The wood feel of the small box, four walls closing in, a moving crypt of pleasure. Women close enough to eat. He could close his eyes and imagine being in a coffin with them. A glimpse of how they would be in death.
He walked the mall. Weaving in and out of stores, prowling the food court, and now loitering outside of the ladies room. They always smelled best when they left the ladies room. Wafting scents of hairspray and perfume traveling in their wake. A shudder of excitement ran through him.

Congratulations to the winners and runners-up! What an excellent variety!

Oh, this is an excellent selection. I knew this was going to be tough because there were so many good entries.

Congratulations to all.

JW

Dancing Horses

Colton's fingers chased the wedge of tongue around the basin of the horse waterer. It slithered and darted through the pinkish water as if it were still alive, deftly avoiding his grasp. A few drops of diluted blood trickled through his fingers when he finally captured it, but most had already drained into the water, leaving only pale blue flesh behind.

Turning from the waterer, Colton held the tongue up to the light. It was easy to see where the horse's teeth had bitten through.

Another accident. Another dead champion.

Anonymous 6:42:

No -- you haven't missed it yet. We have two contests left. Romantic Suspense and Women's Fiction. Not sure which will come first yet, so keep an eye out!

"He loved elevators. In an elevator you could stand in a woman’s space, inhale her essence and no one cared.--"

Wow.

Yeah, that opening would keep me reading.

"Stephanie stabbed the circled listing in the campus newspaper. "Your virginity. It's worth a hundred thousand dollars."

Oh, man. Fun opening.

JW

I see already this is going to be a tough category.

BURDEN OF PROOF
Dr. Matt Newman was running on fumes. His eyes burned. His shoulders ached. His mouth was foul with the acid taste of the coffee. Night call was for someone younger—much younger. But all that was about to change. Then maybe Diane would stop carping at him. Maybe this would make her happy. Maybe.
As Matt moved from the brilliance of the Emergency Room into the mottled semi-darkness of the parking garage, he felt the weight of responsibility begin to slip from his shoulders. The hissing of the pneumatic doors closing behind him was like an auditory exclamation point.

THE HUNTER

IT IS SO much easier to hunt when the prey doesn’t even know it’s being hunted.
The Hunter stopped writing in his journal to study the little girls playing in front of the funeral home. The children played tag, giggling in the bright sunlight, obviously relieved to escape the adult gloom inside the house of death.
When their age, his father taught him to hunker down until an unsuspecting animal was lured clear of the mesquite scrub forest. Then the whispery twang of the bow.
It was the first time he felt warm blood on his hands.

FIVE STEP CRIME

Step three, stand over the victim.

Amigal slid black gloved fingers onto her belt pouch.

“Nnnnnn.”

She ignored her victim’s continual muttering. They wouldn’t sway her from her job.

Her gaze fixed on the dark hair splayed on the pillow, half hiding her victim’s face. She clasped a glass vial in the right hand pocket of the pouch. Sliding it out of its leather cocoon, she placed it in her palm, using the other to unscrew the lid.

Step four, with the specified tool, kill the victim.

Congrats to all the winners. I have to agree and say that of the many I really enjoyed, Kim did pick two which really caught my eye.

Bev

"But the earth had not yet been sated. Blood still soaked the ground. She could feel it. It was a strange and terrible certainty."

This is a powerful line and premise.

Good thing there aren't many posted yet or I would be late for work.

JW

Congrats to the winners! Thanks for holding this contest, it's been great fun and an awesome learning experience.

Here's my suspense entry, title TBD:

Laura locked the front door then slipped on her head phones with a wince. Three hours holding the phone with her shoulder while fixing a system glitch on her laptop had turned her neck into one big cramp. She was losing faith that walking would ever get her in shape, no matter what the fitness magazines said. After eight weeks she had killer calves and a burning sensation in the bottom of her feet. And she was still a size fourteen.

It was just after 10 p.m. One benefit of walking so late – she’d offend fewer people with her singing.

A Reason For Dying

There are over one hundred-eighty species of chameleons in the animal kingdom. They survive by camouflage; approaching by stealth to destroy their prey, then melt into their surroundings before becoming prey themselves. There are chameleons in the world of humans as well. Using the same tactics for different reasons.

The ’67 Mustang rumbled through the dark maze of streets that made up Washington D.C. as if on auto-pilot, while Laura Daniels’ mind pondered another crappy day. It had been nothing but a string of crappy days since arriving in D.C. a couple of months ago. The Mustang jerked to a halt between the white lines it called home and the big engine shuddered to a stop, letting out a sigh as it gulped a last gasp of air through its grimy carburetor.

Laura gathered her things and trounced up the stairs to her Forest Heights apartment. As she turned the key in the deadbolt, the concerns about her day vanished. The click and familiar resistance were missing. Her mind shot back eighteen hours to when she left for work. Did she forget to lock the door? A forty-caliber Sig Sauer P-229 handgun appeared from beneath her lightweight jacket as she crouched to set the computer case on the hallway floor.

Title: Smart Cookie

It all started with a plateful of cookies in the teachers’ room. The recipe was left in this day of nut allergies and carb counting on a fingerprint-free index card next to the Saran-wrapped paper plate. The poisoner took a chance with the almonds sprinkled on top, but there was nothing else too objectionable about 2 eggs, 1 cup of sugar, 1/3 cup of oil, 1 teaspoon of almond extract and 1 cup of all-purpose flour. 350 for half an hour in an 8x8 pan and you were all set with a tasty if possibly deadly snack.

Did you guys up the word max for Thriller/Suspense?

Title: Nine

The rain had turned to snow as night descended upon the nation’s capital. A gust drove the snow at a slant that transected the buildings around her. Aspiring poets, the kind Eve had met in college, might liken the winter wind to a knife that dug deep. If they’d ever been stabbed, they would never have confused the cold with a blade.

She slowed down and took a breath, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her leather jacket. What she had on didn’t project the right image--cool, impenetrable and professional--but the Agency had insisted she report to the headquarters ASAP.

Scars of the Prophet

They’d sent me home too soon. I wasn’t ready and home wasn’t ready for me. It’s not about the brutality of war; it’s the consequences of what that imbrued violence left behind. It felt like I had exposed some subconscious nerve to the cold touch of darkness. In my dreams I was still in Iraq where devil dogs roamed and ruled the dark grotto’s of Hemingway’s world.

I went off to war and came home expecting Jesus to take me back. The nailed prophet laughed down from his perch and gave me a new set of rules to follow.

That’s when it started.

Morgan

THE BIG RED TRUCK

If you could discover the great secret of life and death, would you do it—even if it meant losing your mind? I’ve had very few fears in my life, but one of them’s been that I’d lose it someday. Do most people worry about this kind of thing? I don’t know; I don’t know what most people worry about. Love, I guess, or when they’re going to get married.

Or maybe they worry about finding a good job. And when the weekend comes, you can go out and party and get drunk and laid and have a swell time.

Wow! What a surprise! I'm in shock. I was sure I wouldn't even get a mention because there were so many great entries, and so many with killer first lines. Thank you, ladies, and especially you, Jessica! :o)

THE FOUNDATION

A lurch. Commuters on the Friday 5:30 express got only that much warning before the train rolled down the embankment.

One minute, Parker Sheffield was reading the The Journal’s NYSE pages. The next, he’d been jerked roughly to one side, into the scruffy neighbor he’d been trying to avoid. A metallic shriek sliced through the chatter of homebound suits and college students.

Then the roll lifted Park, slammed him into the aisle and over a seat to the ceiling, finally landing him back on the floor atop a hairy wet leg, with someone’s hiking boot rammed against his forehead.

Title: Rose's Obsession

“Oh dear God, please, please don’t let me throw up.” She muttered under her breath.

The last thing Rose Donnelly needed was to appear weak in front of the officers. Many of them were already convinced she was not fit for the job after what happened the last time. She had to appear calm and in control, even if she wasn’t.

How was she supposed to do that when the entire room was covered in blood?

“Damn it, Rose! What the Hell are you doing in here?”

“It’s always so nice to see you too, Detective Quinn.”

Thriller: VENGEANCE

It came without warning. Like a bullet. The crack of a whip. A bolt of lightning.

Calen Grant smelled her own fear. Like rotting pus spewing from her pores. Saw nothing except the twisted grin of maniacal pleasure plastered across the man’s face in the other car.

Heard nothing but the sick crunching metal. Not the whoosh of traffic. Not the thump thump of the bass on the radio. Not even horns blaring.

She spun. Colors blurred. Silence screamed and filled the air.

Calen sucked in breath. Eyes wide. Fingers clenched around the steering wheel.

Then everything stopped.

The Honey Project.

The CORNELIUS JANSEN turned at the mouth of the Columbia and began pounding its way upriver, loaded with a city’s worth of incendiary death. Five miles away, a rowboat splashed into the water near the support pier of the Astoria bridge.

Fifty yards from the channel, the town of Astoria woke up, dressed, and ate breakfast, preparing for another quiet day.

The rowboat bobbed in the water, tethered against the river current. Its concealing gray tarp, printed with green, blue, and brown, stretched from gunwale to gunwale to keep out the rain. It snagged up against the side of the bridge pier.

In the channel now, the CORNELIUS JANSEN slowed. The top deck of the massive Liquefied Natural Gas tanker . . .

Thriller (YA)
HUNTING AARDVARKS – LESSON 1: KEEP UP OR TAKE NOTES!

Rick Hunt fought to keep his eyes focused on the swaying blond ponytail attached to his best friend as she walked out the front door.

Don’t look at her butt, don’t look at her butt, don’t look at her—GAAAAAHHH!—you looked at her butt! Okay, don’t panic. Oh, crap, she’s turning around. Mayday! Mayday! Abort-abort-abort!

Hunt forced his eyes down to the floor.

The Other Mother

It was only one sentence, one of those headlines that crawl across the bottom of the television screen during the morning network news shows.
“Mother in adoption-kidnap case dead.”
No.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. I put out a hand, found a chair behind me and dropped into it. My legs had stopped working properly.
The rest of the headlines slide past; more soldiers dead, more jobs gone, a celebrity doing the wrong thing with the wrong person, sports scores.
It’s someone else. It’ll be someone else, don’t over-react, I told myself.