I must say I enjoyed all five stories. :)
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I must say I enjoyed all five stories. :)
This is the way I like to see these contests go. Although we have what would seem to be a clear winner, every writer gleaned at lest one vote. So if you didn't win, at least you know that your story reached at least one person!
Good point Pen. That's a great way to see it. And I know when I've entered, it was a thrill to see one vote, even if it was the only vote.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pendragon
I agree with you both -- what a festive competition! You are both also of my attitude regarding what constitutes, "A Winner". That is, to get one person's vote, of course means that a particular individual thought that story was best -- out of all the rest! That is winning all by itself.
It inspires me to sit down (okay, so I'm already sitting... so sit down, WITH AUTHORITY) and do some writing myself.
Congratulations to the writer of "Anyhow In A Corner", who is the winner of August elimination.
Other contestants can post their stories in separate threads if they would like to receive feedback.
You can now submit your entries for the October elimination, which will be the last one for 2010.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sancho
Sadly for the rest of the world, Sancho, the first is the most accurate, what. Good show, old boy, bang on. (Well I was in the Royal Air Force for 15 years - moustache the lot!) Toodle Pip, old bean! :ihih:
Quote:
Originally Posted by dafydd manton
I thought I sensed a kindred soul. I’ve spent the last 28 years in the United States Air Force (all three branches in sequence: Active duty, National Guard, and presently the Air Force Reserves) It’s all been downhill after the first ten years. They tell me I’m in the twilight of a truly mediocre career.Quote:
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few
Anyway, I’m currently reading a book that may interest you as a fellow aviator: Riding Rockets by Astronaut Mike Mullane, The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut. So far, it’s hilarious.
Early on in the book, Mullane talks about his father, a former B-17 pilot who’d served in the Pacific Theater of WWII. It sounds like his dad was quite a character and probably a teller of tall tales:
I loved the bit about the gooney birds.Quote:
He described being attacked by Washing Machine Charlie, a Japanese pilot who kept the Americans from getting any rest by flying over their Philippine base at night and dropping pop bottles from an antique bi-plane. The air whistling over the openings would produce the scream of a bomb, sending everybody out of their bunks and into shelters.
“Boys, we named him Washing Machine Charlie because that damn Jap [with my dad, Japs were always “damn”] had the worst-running engine we ever heard. I know he tuned the engine wrong just to make it sputter and backfire and keep us awake. It sounded like a dying washing machine.” Then Dad would put on a goofy Red Skelton-like face, purse his lips, and produce a litany of fart sounds to describe the offending machine. My brothers and I would laugh and laugh and beg him to “pretend to be Washing Machine Charlie.”
A boom of thunder would put us on another flight. “Boys, one time our damn navigator [like Japs, navigators were always “damn”] got us lost in a thunderstorm. Lighting hit our plane. I could feel it crawling all over my body. My hair exploded off my head, which is why I don’t have any today. It heated the fillings in my teeth and I burned my tongue when I touched it to the silver.”
On other occasions he would swoop through the room with arms outstretched describing how gooney birds (albatrosses) would perch on the wings of his B-17 and hitch a ride during takeoff. The birds would spread their own giant wings and use the rush of air to achieve flight.
"Anyhow in a Corner" was my favorite. The allegory represented by the ship was something many people can relate to, and the story was very well-written. All of the stories were good, though!