A year ago Derleth started this thread, Make up the worst possible opening line. and included a link to the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. I entered. I won.
My name and my bad sentence have gone all over the world. I have received inquiries from as far away as South Africa. The story has made it into such diverse publications as the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Hindustan Times.. I have been interviewed by AP, CNN, and every local media outlet. The AP story has been carried in most every major city in North America. I received praise that made me blush and attention that made me preen.
I was going to keep my mouth shut about winning but some other members figured it out, and total strangers have been tracking me down IRL anyway. So I am embracing my 15 minutes to say, "Whoo hoo! I WON!!
I thank the SDMB for giving me the singular honor of a unique member title “Best of the Worst”. I want to thank Derleth personally for the inspiration to enter. I want to encourage all Dopers to enter this year – I know for an absolute fact that I am NOT the cleverest, funniest or most articulate member here. I am only lucky that more of you didn’t choose to enter last year and consign my entry to eternal oblivion.
I want to invite you all to listen tomorrow to NPR’s Whad’ Ya Know? with Michael Feldman, as I am a guest on the show. It airs live at 10 AM Central – unfortunately I don’t know exactly when during the two-hour program I will make an appearance. Check your local NPR affiliate listing, it may run delayed in some places.
I figure I have another week or so of fame, unless I can spin this into something bigger. I was clever enough to lay the groundwork for some future work, by mentioning in my bio a book that I began a few months ago, a self-help book for slackers. As I AM a slacker, you can imagine that there wasn’t a lot of progress made, but I’m feeling rather capable at the moment and maybe I can push it through, get an agent and publisher, and make it happen. I guess we’ll see.
I do have some material from it ready to read on NPR, if I can amuse Michael Feldman enough to grant me time to read it.
So, any questions for a guy half way through his 15 minutes?
Oh yes, my winning sentence:
**Gerald began - but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten per cent 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. **