I was drunk enough to agree, but not drunk enough to deny remembering I agree. Leave it to Mercedes to strike at exactly the right time! She wanted a throw down with the loser to re-enact one of my fantasies: to be Jesus, serenaded by Yvonne Elliman, complete with jazz hands:
But that wasn't enough. Oh, no. The more, the merrier, we said, so we invited Harley and Jason.
Yes, we Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are going to be engaged in mortal combat, with a theme chosen by a neutral party, one Boudreau Freret.
The Theme: A sci-fi/fantasy short story describing, "The first contact of two species with a mutual attraction betwixt them."
Story Deadline: We have until February 1, 2010 to come up with an original story based on the theme, to be simultaneously submitted to a SFWA-approved market.
The Stakes: First person to be published in the chosen market wins.
The losers will video themselves performing a song of the winner's choice ("Everything's Alright" in my case), complete with jazz hands!!
These are all worthy adversaries. I don't underestimate a single one of them. I've read their words. We're all at various stages of our writing careers, and yet a contest like this--well hell, a lot of publishing in general--has an "any given Sunday" feel to it. It could very well be me on video, jazz-handing along to someone else's tune.
This is going to be a first. I've never written to avoid humiliation before! :)
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Edited to add: Harley's and Mercedes' understandably skewed opinions on the matter.