In the quest for more creative output from the exmo community, in the wake of shocking (SHOCKING!) new policies from the most recent general conference, and after reading ziller's latest "Three Fisted Tale", I've decided that RfM will sponsor a short story contest. Also, why not?!
The theme will be, "The Collapse of the Church formerly nicknamed Mormon". You can base your story on the theme or write about something else -- whatever you want.
Stories can be of any length, from a paragraph to... any length. The length is up to you.
Here are the rules:
1. Stories must be entered by December 1, 2018. Pick your favorite time zone. 2. Stories will be solely judged by Concrete Zipper (and by whomever he assigns) according to whatever criteria Concrete Zipper (or whomever he assigns) feels like at the time. 3. No one is required to enter. 4. All authors must grant permission for the story to be permanently archived on exmormon.org.
Here's how to enter:
Write your story. Write it well. Post your story here by the deadline. Label it "Entry for the 2018 Story Contest". Include a sentence at the end granting permission for the story to be permanently displayed and archived at exmormon.org and signed with your usual username.
Three (yes 3!) lucky winners will receive .... [drum roll]...
***** A CZ from CZ *****
That's right, the winners will receive a cubic zirconia from Concrete Zipper!!! Winners will need to provide me with a valid mailing address to receive their prize.
That's all for now. If you have questions, please post them as replies under this post, or e-mail me at the usual address.
There once was a Mormon persona Quite desperate to grow his fides-bona. So he called on his deity With superlative fealty, But all he got back was sarcoma.
There is no insisting. There is no guarantee of translator availability.
You may submit what you want, but we're not going to allow anything we can't read. For example, Susan I/S fan-fic/porn written in the Adamic language will not be allowed. Actually, she'd kill me if I allowed that in any language, so don't try it.
There IS a translator available. Elder O'Dawg knows that I read, write and speak Spanish, and I hereby volunteer. Furthermore, I was an exchange student in Mexico (where I believe he did time as an elder), so we speak the same KIND of Spanish.
Besides, in my distant youth, I wrote and published short stories in magazines as well as newspaper articles, so I have at least a semblance of style and basic literacy.
I would love to submit a story myself, but how many versions of "I was starry-eyed at first, but gradually disillusioned" can the judges tolerate?
elderolddog Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ahora me tienes que revelar a donde fuiste para > tus dos años de esclavitud!
A mi me aperecio come el infierno. A veces. Un indicio: guerra civil, explosivos y ametralledoras. Que divertidos fueron las reuniones do zona!
I was going to say the same thing about don and other great writers here.
I was hoping you'd enter, don. Give the rest of us a challenge! And obviously, another great piece to read, at the very least.
If the contest is anonymous (as I've suggested further down this thread) unless a story you write sounds exactly like you, then if you won it would be due to your enormous talent and not because of name recognition. Nobody could quibble about that.
I'd vote yes, go for it don!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2018 12:37AM by Nightingale.
As mentioned in the original post: "Stories can be of any length, from a paragraph to... any length. The length is up to you."
Of course, if the story takes too long to read or I find it boring, it may not win and you'll have to buy your own cubic zirconia. No matter, all stories will be published and archived on the site.
The theme "The Collapse of the Church formerly nicknamed Mormon" would see quite out of character for me.
You did write that I can base my story on the theme or write about something else so I would do so. I'd prefer to write "Prophecies of Exponential Growth" as we've had some pretty amazing peculiar prophecies pronounced on this topic in our wondrous history.
I was thinking about writing the full name of the Church in my Story but you did say "Short Story" so I'll just use "[long]" instead. And right there is an example of "Exponential Growth" in what we call ourselves. We don't call ourselves "Mormon" but "[long]". I guess I'll have to go do some serious digging to see if I can find any other examples of real growth in the Church the past couple decades as I can only honestly think of this one example right now.
The problem is it isn't Mormon. It's doomsday world will end at Y2K holy-roller. Fanatic mother tries to keep knowledge of sex from her son. The title is Sex Ed in Lizard Lick Arizona. Is that too far off topic from secret underwear?
Now somebody's going to have to organize another exmo conference in Vegas so that we can all get together, and I can line up the misbehaving posters and give them their punishment.
I have shared my rendition of The Little Factory a few times, so for those who have read this, oh well, here it is again:
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The Little Factory
I have a Little Factory, but for the first dozen years I didn’t know what it was or what it did except for one very basic function. Never really paid much attention to it. As I entered my teen years I became aware that this Little Factory would sometimes make itself known in small subtle ways. On occasion it seemed to want to start up on it’s own with the morning shift being the most active. Every now and then the graveyard shift would go to work and manufacture a little surprise too.
In my mid-teen years the Little Factory was almost always in the fore front of my thoughts. I was curious about it and wondered why it acted the way it did. About this time the Bishop called me into his office and talked to me about the “M” word. I didn’t know what it was so I said “No“. I had no idea the grief I had avoided simply by being naive.
Girls don’t have Little Factories, they have Loading Docks. Their Loading Docks are also multi-function but their biggest purpose is shipping and receiving. They also have more paper work to deal with than Little Factories. Most Little Factories need a Loading Dock nearby and most Loading Docks prefer to be close to a Little Factory. Occasionally a Loading Dock would rather be by another Loading Dock, the same with Little Factories. Local Zoning Laws try to regulate these placements and much is discussed concerning this issue. Hopefully someday, Little Factories and Loading Docks can situate wherever they darn well feel like it.
Even though magazines were around, I had never actually seen a real Loading Dock until I was married. Then there was a flurry of activity at this particular Loading Dock. The Little Factory now had a license for full production. After a decent amount of receiving, the shipping part started up. This continued for years with unabated shipping and receiving. We had many urgent Morg orders to fill you know.
After six packages had been shipped we decided we needed to Unionize. We needed the protection of the Union even though we knew that the Morg was against this protection. The parties at the Loading Dock continued, but we had enough packages and didn‘t want any more. Don’t get me wrong here, we still did lots of receiving, just tried to stop the shipping.
Some years later we severed the lines of communication between shipping and receiving. We also cut ties with the Union and went without their protection with much delight. Union protection was a good thing, we just didn’t need their protection anymore. We could now freely frolick without Union protection.
Many years later now, the Loading Dock is gone and the Little Factory has mostly shut down. The boiler fire isn’t as hot and the conveyor belt barely runs. The packages we delivered have their own Little Factories and Loading Docks now. It’s their time to flourish. It was a good run but reluctantly I will have to shut this Little Factory down and lock the doors. Good bye Little Factory.