Final contest entries posted today

Literati!

I wish us one and all the best of New Years.

I love the word “resolution”.  It is RE SOLUTION.  Means you’ve got the solution; you just need to reapply it. You have all been so patient with the inconsistencies of posting on the site, and I so very much thank you for hanging in there with us. (see photo to left)  I want again to thank the cowboy–that would be Derek, and the Brit–that would Gary Clark, and Lady D for covering for me. The truth of the matter is the last six weeks and longer I have been struggling with heroin addiction.  Not my own, but someone close to me. It is a very humbling experience, and as I am reminded by so many of you I certainly need to be humbled! Consider me humbled. The experience has been all consuming and I am drained of everything except the need and desire to love and be loved.

But I am ready to play again!

The Victor Villasenor First Sentence Contest has accepted its final entries, which I will post today.  Three finalists will be given a new prompt, but each will already have won a book of their choice signed by Victor, our friend, neighbor, and supporter. Victor still fights racist notions in the publishing industry, which chooses to categorize him as a Latino/Hispanic/Chicano/Mexican American? author.  Take your pick. Victor is an AMERICAN author and I urge you to visit his website www.victorvillasenor.com to  learn more about him. He’s a national treasure and we’ve got him right here in Oceanside, and occasionally dropping in for our weekly writer’s beatups–oops!–meetups!

We at The Word created this contest, now in its third year, in honor of Victor, who drives home the point that your first sentence is your introduction to your reader. Those of us who write professionally and many of you who write on the site are aware of the paradox that you write something over a hundred times (that is NOT hyperbole) to create the impression of spontaneity. So let it be with the all-important first sentence.

My RE  SOLUTION and promise to you is to try to give you all the attention you deserve on this site, and to promote your writing interests.  That’s what you pay me for–OH!   WAIT!  We still do this for love!

And we will continue to do so throughout the coming year!

(The ball drop on New Years at the front door of the towers that are A Word with You Press:  Gary Clark rated the cast of characters who visit this site.  Looking at the bull scrotum he sent, you might say we have been cast-rated.  And yes, Gary is the cowboy and Derek is the Brit, much to the chagrin of each of them.)

Happy New Year!

thorn

still-stuck-in-seventh-grade-humor-in-chief