WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!!
Winner
Chris Blanchard (@blanchardauthor) - This one is great. It uses the given words, though not in a predictable way for the story. I really liked that. I'm also a huge fan of alluding to something but allowing the reader to fill in the blanks. In this case, John and Alejandro's relationship and how it comes to an end.
Runner's Up
Sarah E. Olson (@saraheolson) - Another great non-predictable use of the key words. Quite touching, too.
@tinaofbord - I found this one humorous, mainly because the beginning sounded almost exactly like how I came up with using "Deray" for the challenge.
Sarah and Tina - drop me an e:mail d.ryanleask@gmail.com for a coupon for a free copy of "Counting Down the Storm"
Chris - Send me your address and I will mail you a signed copy of my novella!
Chris - Send me your address and I will mail you a signed copy of my novella!
Thanks so much B.C Young for reading all of the stories and trying to figure out which of these great tales was the winner. I know it must have been a tough choice!
Also thanks Tracey for letting me look after your baby while your on your cruise. Next time I'll take the cruise and you run the challenge!
===========================================
Tracey (@THansenWrites) generally runs this show over at her blog Tracey Hansen Will Write For Food but this week she is enjoying a cruise (the boat, not the Tom) to celebrate her 30th birthday! She so kindly asked me to take the helm of the good ship #HumpDayChallenge!
B.C Young is our guest judge today! He has recently released Unspoken Stories Volume 1, an awesome collection of five short stories. You can also buy All My Fiction which contains and will contain all of B.C. Young's writing! What an opportunity to get your foot in the door and buy all his writing which gets updated every time he writes something new! Cool concept. Check out everything he does over at The Time Capsule. And follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
Now for the technical stuff:
Contest Opens at noon on Wednesday and closes promptly at 8pm (est).
Use all five words below in your story of no more than 100 words which you post directly into the comments section below. (If you have issues with posting in the comments you can send me your story via e:mail D.RyanLeask@gmail.com.)
Please leave your Twitter handle or e-mail address below your post!
B.C. Young will chose his favourite story as well as a couple that stand out for various random reasons.
The winner will receive a #HumpDayChallenge Winner badge to post on his or her site as well as recognition via Twitter and Facebook. Each contestant also agrees to lavish kudos upon said winner!
As well as these wonderful prizes they will also receive an autographed hardcopy of my novella Counting Down the Storm with the runners up each receiving it in e-book format!
!So, here are this weeks words:
Omnipotent
Voodoo
Gringo
Alarm
(Any form of these words are fine)
And the judges super extra-special word is:
Deray (n. meaning: disorder; merriment)
Free your mind, empty your bladder and get at'er!
-WTYM
(WTF does that mean anyway?)
DON'T FORGET, TODAY IS TRACEY'S BIRTHDAY
 |
| I Hope You Get To Meet A Nice Fireman! |
One more announcement! Starting Tomorrow I am kicking off an ALL NEW flash fiction contest called:
Deray reigned as shopkeepers scattered. Alarms sounded through the small cruise port town. "Stop the gringo! She has the idol!"
ReplyDeleteA single blonde figure streaked through the city, cackling and skipping, waving aloft the odd wooden creature, a strange voodoo god said to grant omnipotence to the bearer.
"It's mine!" she shouted, pushing over stands selling mass produced allegedly hand crafted trinkets, and ducking in and out of shops selling diamonds and tanzanite. "It's mine and I'm keeping it!"
Ahead was her goal, the massive white ship. Just a few more feet to freedom. A few more feet to glory.
@DL_Thurston
She had to look up the word because she didn't believe it existed. Yup, right there on the screen: deray n. 1 disorder, merriment. Jeez, she wasn't omnipotent, but it'd been awhile since she had to look up a new word. Should alarm bells be going off? Was she losing i.q. points? She sometimes had trouble with word-recall, like the other day when she and Gringo-Eddy were discussing voodoo. It didn't happen often, but now she could picture hardening arteries in her brain, closing her off from any past knowledge. A coming nightmare? Maybe, but she'd think about that tomorrow.
ReplyDelete@tinaofborg
ps Happy Birthday Tracey!
The alarm rang loud enough to wake the dead.
ReplyDeleteOr Death, as the case may be.
She raised her head off Her pillow and looked around at the starry dark.
“Ugh, vacation’s over already?”
Death might be omnipotent, but even She needed time off.
She tried to shake off her malaise as She recalled the party yesterday. Or was it last week? It had been one hell of fiesta, filled with demons and critters of all cultures creating deray. There was even a Voodoo Priestess shaking it with the “gringo” Jackalope Shifters from Wyoming.
Sigh, Monday. “Back to work.”
99 Words
@SiobhanMuir
Do that voodoo that you do…
ReplyDeleteThe lyrics from Rosita’s favorite song crowded my mind as I placed her favorite trinkets and mementos around her grave.
Twenty feet away, Rosita's brothers eyed me with no small amount of alarm, muttering about the stupid gringo. Well, the stupid gringo had the gun. I waved it in their direction. They thought me loco to test my mettle against the omnipotent, almighty God. Fuck them. Their drunken deray took Rosita, not God.
I pulled a quartered paper from my hip pocket, smoothing it open.
"Courage, man," I whispered. "This will fix everything."
@caramichaels
100 words
As I can't compete I can break the rules:
ReplyDelete;-b…
Miss Fortune
"You are a Gringo no?" The fortune teller was passing herself off as Romanian but she was obviously Mexican. This only added to my scepticism of her omnipotence.
"Si." I responded flippantly.
She turned the first card, an old man carrying a lantern. "The Hermit. I see you have been isolated but will return to civilization."
True, I was alone now. Hardly voodoo.
She flipped over more.
"Oh, this one is alarming." It was a man hanging upside down. "You may gain knowledge of the future, only to die suddenly."
"What a crock," I said and swiped my money from the table to return to the deray that was the marketplace.
The Ro-Maxican witch stood up. "Beware!" She shouted.
I shouldn't have ignored the rest of what she said.
"Bus!"
This was twisted!
ReplyDeleteI knew I was dreaming, but couldn’t wake up.
It was Mardi Gras--in my backyard--not in New Orleans! There was much drinking and deray among people from every movie I’d ever watched.
Among them were cowboys, gringos, gypsies and cajuns – the last of which, feeling their omnipotence, were scaring the crap out of me.
In Voodoo heaven with their spells, curses and dolls, I noticed one of them held my likeness over the open flames…
…My alarm clock jarred me awake. Reminder—never smack it again!
But why were my feet so hot and red?
100 words
pcarmichael1@triad.rr.com
Tracy’s lower lip jutted out in a cutesy little pout as she looked up at the voodoo priest with her big blue doe eyes.
ReplyDelete“Please” she said “you are a most revered and omnipotent leader here on this tropical island, wont you consider allowing this gringo girl and her birthday revelers a onetime pass for setting off the alarms? We didn’t mean to cause such trouble by having an all you can drink wine tasting at the same time you were hosting a catch the greased piglet contest but you have to admit that the ensuing deray was unforgettable.”
100 words
@Ravensdragonfly
in honor of tracy's bday bash - may she be having one heck of a deray!
The first notice I had of alarm was my coffin opening but how could a dead man feel that? My mind slipped back to her shop. One drink of the voodoo potion from the voodoo queen and I felt omnipotent and then as I heard her deray I knew I had made a mistake. Then I was here.
ReplyDelete“Gringo arise and do my bidding.” She commanded “Kill the vampire Luka Kalderaš.”
Maybe this would be so bad. I had been dying I’d asked for a spell to live forever and now I would live as a zombie vampire killer.
@SweetSheil
99 words
The sign said "Playa Deray." Typo? Odd. Not on the map or listed as an attraction on her handheld. Recklessly diverting from the itinerary, she plowed through sprays of banana leaves, lured by faint lol-lol-gaggling of steel drums and whiffs of rock-salted sea breeze.
ReplyDelete"Lost, gringa?" A native's charcoal lips bared a disarming flash of teeth, synched with chiseled torso. "I'm ... found?" she babbled. He mightily scooped her up, the distant lowing of the ship's 10-minute alarm drowned out by moans.
Back in Calgary, "D" set down the Tracey Hansen voodoo doll and declared himself Omnipotent HumpDay Host -- forever.
100 words
@terryism
“The end is near, Alejandro,” John said, raising his rifle. “I’ve discovered who is the cause for the deray in the world. And now that I know, I can end it.”
ReplyDelete“Gringo,” Alejandro said in a slow drawl. “You always were an alarmist. How can you know who is the cause? Are you omnipotent now? Or have you resorted to using voodoo to see the future?”
John turned to face his friend with a look of sadness.
“No, Alejandro,” he said, raising his rifle. “It’s because I know now that it is you.”
He pulled the trigger and fired, crying.
@blanchardauthor
Screams ran out, and she collapsed.
ReplyDeleteBrett exuded the confidence of an omnipotent deity, inserting the needle as if she were nothing more than a voodoo doll repaying vengeance on a lost lover. He could not allow this lover to leave. The alarm and deray in the narrow alley threatened his focus, but he would not be distracted, not this time.
When her eyes opened, the flood of relief swept over him like a tsunami. He folded over her, cradling her head between his hands.
“My gringo,” she whispered, before his lips silenced hers with a kiss.
98 words
@saraheolson
"What kind of voodoo is this Gringo? I am omnipotent, I see everything, I know the truth Gringo, you thought I wouldn't notice in the midst of this deray. You are no smuggler from San Diego, you are John Middleton from the DEA. I should feed you to my dogs, but you would probably upset their stomachs. Tell me John what is it like to see your end?"
ReplyDeleteThe cold steel of the pistol penetrated John's flesh the hammer of the pistol clicked back and then the piercing sound of an alarm clock awoke agent John Middleton.
97 words
@antonioangelo21
“Mary, there’s a gringo in the backyard! Call the police before he steals something,” screamed old Mrs. Winterbourne in alarm. She looked like she had just discovered a voodoo doll of herself.
ReplyDeleteNurse Mary lied to appease her while I went about my business. Since the Alzheimer’s diagnosis, we’ve adjusted to this constant deray.
“Gringo, omnipotent God will know just what to do with you,” she warned me from the balcony, now even more fired up because help was coming.
I shook my head in disapproval and thought, “Racism didn’t stop you one drunken night in Tijuana, did it, Mom?”
Call_me_bookish
100 words
Sorry, couldn't post from work. Didn't get home in time (west coast). Hopefully, next week and thanks for hosting.
ReplyDeleteNo problem Wade.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of the entries, what an awesome group of fiction (I hope… SweetSheil, I doubt… terryism).
Good luck picking a winner Mr. Young! You've got a hell of a task ahead of you!
Don't forget to join the inaugural 3 For Thursday tomorrow at 3-4Thursday.blogspot.com!
I miss my computer and it's lack of explorer, I can't even post a comment as myself IN MY OWN BLOG F'in B. Gates a-hole
ReplyDeleteWhat a great contest! Thanks you @DryanLeask for hosting this week while I was away. And thank you for all the great birthday wishes! The cake on fire is awesome. Also I LOVE the graphic of the camal! How cool! @ChrisBlanchard wins a t-shirt too so if he would like one I need an address to send it 2! : )
ReplyDelete