Contests

Funny thing happened with the contest that ended at 9pm CT on Sunday. It had simple rules, unlike my previous contests. It had a couple people mention it on their blogs.

The story had to be about something missing which is almost poetic since the only thing missing in the contest was the actual stories.

I thought I was going to get away without needing to make the prize and mail it, or even talking about the contest again. But, at 8:27pm CT on Sunday, an entry arrived in the contests mailbox. I thought, oh great, now I'm going to get a bunch of entries all at the last second.

Nope. Just the one entry. The good news is that judging the contest is a breeze. Paul, The Struggling Writer, is the winner in a landslide.

At least his story was funny. Everybody must have known they had no chance to compete against any story Paul was going to send in. Either that, or people were busy and/or thought the contest is lame. Oh well. You're loss.

Paul, email me your address to the kalbzayncontests at gmail dot com, and I'll get your bookmark in the mail as soon as I have a chance to make it.

I'm feeling like reading some 100 word stories again. And I'm willing to pay one special one-of-a-kind homemade bookmark to do it.

I'm in a hurry, so I'll keep it short.

The winner of this weeks contest is Lara Rose.

Send me an email lettin me know where you'd like your bookmark sent to. My email is kalbzayn [at] gmail [dot] com.

Congrats and thanks for everybody that entered.

First, what's at stake.

A originally designed, nearly one of a kind (after all if I like it I'm going to keep a copy for myself) bookmark to arrive to the postal address of your choosing. This isn't Amazon so it might not ship within 24 hours, but it'll get there.

What do you have to do to win this major award?

Write something. A story in fact. A story of less than 200 words to get more to the point. And, if you really want to get technical, a story of less than 200 words on the following topic: The breakout hit for a comeback album is entitled "How Playstation Ruined My Life". What happened to inspire this amazing new song?

Now, I know what you're thinking. This is great and all, but I need just a little bit more time. Fine, you have until Friday night at 9pm central time.

If you're afraid that the contest sounds to great to enter since it must have a staggeringly large entry fee, relax and put your wallet away. Just submit the story. This contest is so amazing that coorporate sponsorship is covering all of the expenses.

To enter, write a story and paste it into the comments. If you have any further questions, let me know.

Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell your blog.

First off, I'd like to say judging any contest like this is difficult. There were so many great entries. But, there can only be one winner. In the end 7 people entered. How many contests have you entered recently with those kinds of odds?

I'll give a brief comment on each of the non-winners (cause there are no real losers here), not in the hopes of making you better writers, but just because it will tickle me.

Leopold, with two entries you would think your odds were better, but you managed to break the rules in each. No poetry allowed on my site. I just don't get it. And 105 words are something like 42 too many. I'm not too good at math sometimes either so don't feel bad.

Rellimaber, besides the whole nepotism thing, and the massive word overflow, I've got nothing against you. In fact, I'll still carry all the laundry upstairs later tonight and even put it away.

Struggling Writer, how man prizes do you really think you need in one week. Besides, I have a feeling that the story might not be all that made up. Just a hunch. I might be wrong.

Benbob, the thought of considering eating anything out of your nose bans you from this contest, and I'm going to have to consult the rules after I write them and see what impact that might have on future contests.

Kelly, I'm DQ'ing you because you already get too much mail and you'll probably be too busy taking care of getting that to the bank to really appreciate a one of a kind prize this week.

Z, I wanted to know more. I wanted to follow the bum around and see what he was all about. So I'm punishing you for creating too good of a character for such a short story. I know, I'd probably be pissed if I were you, too.

So, Bonnie, you are the winner. Partly because everybody else was DQ'ed and partly because I think it was the smoothest use of a ridiculous phrase. Congratulations. Well played. If you send me an email (kalbzayn [at] gmail dot com) with an address to mail the bookmark to, I will do my best to get the bookmark there. I have a trip this weekend to meet my laminator, so there's a really good chance it will get sent early next week.

If everything goes well, I'm going to try and make the bookmarks a little different for each contest so even if you do manage to win one someday, please come back and try again.

I took some time this week to jot down a whole bunch of new ideas like this. Hopefully they will be a little less bizarre and maybe scare off fewer people. I'll post the new contest Monday'ish.