BONUS Prize $5 SBD for Rhino Contest 3 - @negativer, you're a winner!
The pain was too much.
After many hours of thought and laborious decision making, I must back pedal, and declare not one, but two second-runner-ups in Rhino Writing Contest #3 because...
The dog alone is worth a million SBD in Twilight of the Long Road Come.
@Negativer, you win! The real-life dog who inspired your Ringo in Long Road has a story so powerful, it explains (really!) why this superlative author keeps writing such catastrophic tales of apocalyptic horror.
I want to award this dog another life, but this is all I can do for now:
He was a great dog.
We had to move
and gave him away
a good 6 months later, he found us
it wasn't states or countries away; we were still out in the country,
maybe no more than 10 or 12 miles away, but he found us
we had to take him back
as a kid it destroyed me the first time
as a kid i just about died the second time
*** it was this wonderful thing where ***
THERE HE WAS coming down the road
and it was a one day reunion, then he was gone again
This dialogue took place last week, when I was trying to read stories submitted to the contest (deadline December 12, and I started reading immediately), and I couldn't just read Negativer's story straight through. I had to stop after every sentence to exclaim over the great prose, the vivid images, and above all, a collie named Ringo.
Today I had trouble finding it again, but Mrs. Negativer came through, with a disclaimer:
morodiene 🍣🍱👹 - Today at 9:53 AM
sorry neg, don't read this
to remember that which created the bitterness deep within
negativer 🥓 - Today at 9:54 AM
ah, 'last tuesday'
back when things were simple
and life was lovely, like a lovely weather.
(See my previous post if you wonder what 'a lovely weather' has to do with this.)
That's our other collie, Prince, and me; Negativer hasn't located photos of his own dog from childhood
Judging a Fiction Contest
I'm amazed at the variety of stories that emerge, and how hard it is to say one is
BETTER
than another. What if a novice author is really stirring and memorable? @ahmadmanga's "Your Heart Would Remember"--a child's drawing, the dawning of recognition--really did give me goosebumps.
So much depends on the words we choose, and how much white space we surround them with.
~Rhino likes white space~
Pixabay photo by Christel • Age 54 • Lille/France • Member since Nov. 11, 2016 • #145
Check out all her photos - they're fantastic
Thanks Carol! Now I wish I could find some old pics of my dog Ringo. Probably in a photo album in my house somewhere. You never really realize how much old emotion and soul are stuffed into those old squares of paper. Memory alone is not really powerful enough, especially as we get older, and those 25 year old memories aren't quite as bright as they once were. ;)
This is so damn...TRAGIC! Yes, I think we all now understand the darkness oozing from Neg's prose. Justifiable. Completely justifiable.
That really was a fantastic story! Way to go @negativer!!
Neg, I'm duct-taping my fingers to keep me from excerpting parts of your story - like, Ringo's reaction to the boy and The Thing -
Listen to your dogs, people!
You do this Hitchcock thing - we all know that worried dogs in fiction must never be ignored - so we scream at the protag, but these protags NEVER hear us.
Grumble Grumble
I want a book where we yell at them "Don't go in there!" and -
they don't.
Well, fine, I guess that could be a drag.
Haha, yes, if they didn't go there, it wouldn't be much of a story. But I always listen to animals. I'd prefer my life to not be a "great story" in that sense.
Well said!
I love your collies, @carolkean! They look so sweet :)
Aw, thanks. Did Neg every find photos of his childhood friend?
No, I think they may be in storage. We forgot to check when we were in WI!