TOP NOVELIST Challenge #4: Final Results
For the record, even with a week in reruns, some of you couldn't get it together to write in about cookies. Yummy, buttery cookies. To you we say, "NO COOKIES FOR YOU!"
To wit, BILL, N., Perry and Patricia all take a pass this week while they're stuck in writer's block-ville. BILL promised us a caffienated return, N. plead something incomprehensible, Patricia was surely too busy championing some too-noble-for-our-blood cause, and Perry cried conspiracy. Clearly, Perry needs to crawl out of his Oubliette.
Of those who remain...the bottom two:
Phillip, you remain a pathetic lump. You had us reeled in with the idea that you had consumed all that guilt...but love handles? Just imagining your love handles is frankly grody.
Julia, you got lucky last week by claiming your writer's block, but the cliches have just worn too thin. We just cannot believe that your children's names are actually Caleb, Caron, and Corey. Please go back to suburbia and write poorly crafted short stories for your mommy group. In fact, go now. Julia, this is your rejection slip.
And now for the best three entries of the week:
Suzanne, ah, the disappointment of that swim meet. We could taste the chlorine, the burnt edges of the overbaked non-confections. But my god, woman, how could you do that to cookies?!?!? Even in fiction! That's just not right.
Daniel, see above. Your bitterness cookies just didn't leave us with the fictional taste in the mouth that we wanted. C'mon...you've read Proust! Surely you could write something derivative of that masterful evocation of madeleines, rather than another bourgeois-Americana bitterness. Was you mother dressed like Jackie O? Crikey.
Lucy...the moment we read the words "Petit Palmiers" you had us hooked. You've truly outdone yourself. We couldn't bear it, and after we read your entry, we drove to the local bakery and snagged us some cookies. And while it was no Boulangerie, we still ate ten.
Lucy, you are this week's winner. Go out and eat some cookies to celebrate!
The rest of you, get ready to compose...Top Novelist will be back on Monday with a new and fascinating challenge...And few of you have your freebies left.
Comments
What I don't get about this competition is how people get to stay in the running for "Top Novelist" when they're not actually writing anything. I mean, come on. It's like sweating blood for all of us, even for Lucy and Suzanne, who are clearly working less with craft and more with just regurgitating their autobiographies. So why some people get to not write at all and still be considered writers, well, I just don't get it. I assume that you won't be able to call in your "writer's block" week during the final elimination rounds, right?? I mean, I hope not!
Posted by: Daniel | April 20, 2006 11:56 PM
Ok, I've got to respond, both to the judging and to Daniel. First, the judging:
I don't understand why the judges didn't appreciate my entry for last week more when what they've been saying all along is that they want me to expand beyond the conventions of my genre a bit more. I thought I did that a bit with my entry last week. If the cookies had been good or if the story had been sweet and heartwarming, I suspect the judges would have said what I did was fluff. I'm not sure what the judges want from me.
And Daniel, if you want to know how people can be called writers without actually writing anything, see James Joyce's character Stephen Dedalus. You've heard of him, right? I mean, yes, there is that horrible villanelle in _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_, but other than that, that "artist" writes nothing. In other words, there is precedent - set by perhaps the greatest writer of the 20th century - for what you note. I would have thought that as an MFA student you would have made that connection yourself....
Posted by: Suzanne | April 21, 2006 11:18 AM
First off, I'd like to thank the producers. I am thrilled to be up here collecting this week's award.
Daniel, the producers already said they didn't care for your bitterness cookies and frankly neither do I. I suppose you believe your writing is from "craft". Clearly, your most recent entry is an autobiographical account of your Oedipus complex and inability to appreciate cookies.
Moral of the story Daniel...I believe you are the POT calling the KETTLE B.L.A.C.K.
Better luck next week.
Posted by: Lucy | April 21, 2006 12:36 PM