I’d like to preface this offering with a historical note. Some fifty years ago, I was identified as a child with “mild hyperactivity.” My default setting, tuned to daydreaming, doodling and bursts of enthusiasm, caused ripples in my attitude toward Education. Perhaps here I could say more honestly, Education’s attitude toward me.
Curiosity and humour are superpowers I use to keep the trolley on the tracks. Indulge me, please, while I introduce you to the multi-disciplinary crew that is more often than not running the show…
This time last year, I waited with giddy anticipation for my first contest-related short story prompt. My first writing contest EVER sort of prompt. Mental Hamster Command (yes, that’s a real place, just behind my left ear) was a-buzz with the audacity Rarely Regarded Body Parts demonstrated, using links, clicking keys?
Where was the consultation, the focus group, the committee! When at last, some months later, the first prompt appeared in my inbox, there came a collective squeal. Not a, we’ve won the world cup sound, more of a leaky bicycle tire valve refusing to hang on to the air. Really. Any Genre. Any location. The writing task force at Mental Hamster Command erased the whiteboard in its ready room, rolled up the plot map and left Barry alone with his notebook. He had, after all, lost at rock paper scissors.
To be fair, Barry sweat bullets by the deadline, passing out cold when the RRBP hit the send button, and almost a month later, raised up on shoulders to be feted by his peers. We’d made it through to the next round. Barry brought Jasmine and Dave on board, causing a few bent whiskers, but the team got us into the final ten submissions. A feat hitherto unimagined. Tiny fury high fives all around!
The sense of disappointment with the contest prompt lingers still, leaving me to wonder, what makes a good one?
Images are good, not practical for a contest perhaps, but excellent for crafting worlds with details crisp and believable.
Overheard snippets of conversations if you can jot them down. Working in industrial construction, as I do, provides a buffet of topics as varied as they are hilarious, well removed from cliché and not always PG.
The hunt continues. I find lists of contests, lists of prompts (this list is long and surprisingly unimaginative), but not a matrix for arriving at anything contest worthy. I now suspect that I’m overthinking the problem. (The hamsters are all in agreement, overthinking stuff is a topic for another day.)
Back to contests- I suspect there are some wild ideas fomenting in the minds of the Corner Lot. I shall consult.
Hilarious 😂.