Let your pet words have a field day
Sep. 27th, 2006 09:02 amAll writers have pet words that rarely get to come out and play: crepuscular, epicine, exiguous, orts, lenticular, tope, modulo, etrog, groak, squamous, the entire contents of Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words. Here's a contest that will let you -- nay, encourage you with blandishments irresistible, summon you with a siren's call, exercise a gravitational pull upon your very heart's core -- use those words, every last one of them, and some of them twice or thrice.
It's the R. L Fanthorpe Write-Alike Contest to benefit the Susan C. Petrey Clarion Scholarship Fund. Starting in 1982, the Petrey fund has helped send 41 beginning writers to Clarion or Clarion West, including Kathe Koja, Syne Mitchell, Nisi Shawl, Barth Anderson, Eric Witchey, and Heather Lindsley. It also sponsors one Clarion West instructor each year as the Susan C. Petrey Fellow. The Petrey fund is near and dear to my heart.
R. L. Fanthorpe is science fiction's answer to Bulwer-Lytton. Since science fiction is a more modern, forward-thinking variety of fiction than the Victorian novel, Fanthorpe is still alive and quite cheerful on the subject of his prolix writing (prolix! There's another of those pet words!). He came to Orycon a few years back and served as auctioneer for the Petrey auction. He cooperated with Debbie Cross, the Petrey administrator, when she put together Down the Badger Hole: R. Lionel Fanthorpe: The Badger Years, a fine collection of the choice bad bits from his work (my long-time favorite: "The city slept. Men slept. Women slept. Children slept. Dogs and cats slept.").
Okay, okay, enough explanation of the background. You want to enter this contest. You do, really. You want a reason to write a few pages free of the influence of Raymond Carver, free of the need to justify every goddamn word, free of the need to be really good yet constrained by the desire to outbad the Badgers.
It's only 600 words, and it has to be in the hands of the judges by October 10, 2006. It costs $10 to enter (that's the benefit part), and there will be prizes as well as glory and ignominy.
As Gardner Dozois says, how long could it take? How bad could it be?
Thanks to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
davidlevine for the reminder.
It's the R. L Fanthorpe Write-Alike Contest to benefit the Susan C. Petrey Clarion Scholarship Fund. Starting in 1982, the Petrey fund has helped send 41 beginning writers to Clarion or Clarion West, including Kathe Koja, Syne Mitchell, Nisi Shawl, Barth Anderson, Eric Witchey, and Heather Lindsley. It also sponsors one Clarion West instructor each year as the Susan C. Petrey Fellow. The Petrey fund is near and dear to my heart.
R. L. Fanthorpe is science fiction's answer to Bulwer-Lytton. Since science fiction is a more modern, forward-thinking variety of fiction than the Victorian novel, Fanthorpe is still alive and quite cheerful on the subject of his prolix writing (prolix! There's another of those pet words!). He came to Orycon a few years back and served as auctioneer for the Petrey auction. He cooperated with Debbie Cross, the Petrey administrator, when she put together Down the Badger Hole: R. Lionel Fanthorpe: The Badger Years, a fine collection of the choice bad bits from his work (my long-time favorite: "The city slept. Men slept. Women slept. Children slept. Dogs and cats slept.").
Okay, okay, enough explanation of the background. You want to enter this contest. You do, really. You want a reason to write a few pages free of the influence of Raymond Carver, free of the need to justify every goddamn word, free of the need to be really good yet constrained by the desire to outbad the Badgers.
It's only 600 words, and it has to be in the hands of the judges by October 10, 2006. It costs $10 to enter (that's the benefit part), and there will be prizes as well as glory and ignominy.
As Gardner Dozois says, how long could it take? How bad could it be?
Thanks to
davidlevine for the reminder.
