Yep, I fell off the wagon again and let more day than I aimed too slip by without blogging. The flu has struck the Erwin household and while both my sons and my wife have suffered I am proud to say I have remained virus free. No doubt my ultra-healthy eating habits helped stave off the evil pork-infused germies.
I am sure all of you who are writers have heard about super blogging agent Nathan Bransford's latest contest. For those who have not Mr. Bransford is hosting a first paragraph contest. I have entered several of is contest and frankly never made so much as an honorable mention. Given the fact that his current writer's battle brought in nearly 2651 entries chances are I won't again, but in a way I already feel like a winner.
Never before has anyone other than a few people who already read my blog regularly commented on my entries, but this time I've heard from quite few people both regular blog reader and nearly a dozen total strangers. Some commented on the previous post and some sent me email. It makes me feel great that after having read my paragraph they took the time to find my bog or email address and comment.
For those who are curious I will save you the trouble of scouring the nearly three thousand entries and paste mine here.
Here you go the opening shot of my memoir in progress ... The Feedstore Chronicles
Coming-of-age stories are often fraught with symbolism, hidden metaphors, and a heaping mound of other literary devices. Not this one. I came of age while working at a dusty, Texas feedstore. A place where To Kill a Mockingbird involved a twelve-year-old and a BB gun. Of Mice and Men was a problem easily solved with rat poison. And David Copperfield was nothing more than a dude that made shit disappear.
The finalist are to be announced tomorrow. It would be awesome to make that cut but there are tons of talented writers and I've read so many great entries that I know the odds are slim at best, but all of the kind comments have given me an added boost and forced me to get back to work writing the rest of the memoir. I'm about 30,00 words in so far. With any luck I'll be through with a solid draft by the end of the year.
Happy writing to all of you, and good luck to my fellow competitors.
17 comments:
Good luck! May you make the cut! And...does your family really have swine flu? Or just the garden variety?
The paragraph telegraphs what you are about to tell your audience quite easily and pull us in nicely Travis.
Yeah I heard from a friend TX that h1n1 is hitting pretty hard. Chances are you were exposed to a strain of it as a kid and have a tolerance in your immune system. Just like the rest of us old people.
that's pretty awesome! I hope you make the cut, even if you don't, I'm glad to hear you're working on book about FC! Great stories!
Loved the paragraph, Travis. Blogging woulde be a heck of a lot easier and fun if real life didn't keep knocking at the door!
Good luck, Travis! Hope you win a prize!
Travis, I really like this! I'm glad you posted it because I just can't bring myself to go through all the entries and I never would have found it (since I'm not going through the entries).
Nathan is a crazy man, and I'm so curious to see which he'll pick. :)
It's a great opening paragraph! I would definitely read more of your memoir!
YOU'RE A FINALIST!!!!
TRAVIS!! That's awesome!!!
I just saw it on his blog.
Way to go Travis!! Congrats :)
Congratulations!!!
We just had the regular flu. What does it matter it still makes you feel like poop. We are better and the house is bleached down to the very last knob. It is safe now to enter so come on by.
Flu sucks. Doing so well in such a contest is great!
Take care of your family! Good on you!
Thanks for visiting my blog... I respect your work and courage to write and seek something you are passionate about. While I've always loved writing, I'm simply just a sarcastic mom blogger... maybe someday I will force myself to do something more with it...
Good luck - I'm actually going to check out the contest entries... good luck!
I love your paragraph!
And wow. The flu, huh? Is everyone better now? I mean, that was four days ago and I hope you don't get it!
I hope everyone's feeling better. <:(
Eeep! I hope the flu has left your household by now. Step son had it last month. Nasty stuff.
GREAT paragraph btw. Again, so glad you won, congrats!
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