Darn! I missed it again!

Once again, I let my dream of literary fame slide, and forgot to submit something to the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which asks its entrants to compose a bad opening sentence to an imaginary work of fiction. And once again, some other writer has claimed the coveted Grand Prize – a pittance.

This year’s contest winner is Jim Gleeson of Madison, Wisconsin, who bowled over the judges with this marvelous opening sentence:

Gerald began–but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them “permanently” meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash–to pee.

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest honors the memory of the author who penned, along with memorable lines like “The pen is mightier than the sword”, that famous opening line made infamous by Snoopy, which begins – “It was a dark and stormy night.”

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents–except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”
– Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

There were multiple category winners and honorable mentions in this year’s contest, but my personal favorite, in the category of Romance, was submitted by Tracy Stapp of Santa Ana, California –

There was a pregnant pause– as pregnant as Judith had just told Darren she was (about seven and a half weeks along), which was why there was a pause in the first place.

Would someone please remind me next year in time for me to submit something?