March of the penguin - 150 story, entry to the 5th in-thread writing competition

Since I hadn't put this up yet and I'm busy today, I scheduled this story. It was my entry to the 5th edition of the in-thread writing competition in the Blogger Help Forum (aka 'The Coffee Shop'). I suppose most of you who are active in the forum and participate in the contests have already read it, but for those of you who haven't, here it is.

challenge

write a story of exactly 150 words containing these 5 obligatory words (the ones put in bold): dictator, troop, riding, questionnaire, penguin.

my entry

The contest was finally won by Victoria P. You can read her entry in the thread or in my post on it.

"The new dictator promised his people that he would lead them to victory. The masses were jubilant.

He set off to pound at foreign gates still contemplating one thing: his Arms for the troops. He needed a predator that would inspire trembling in his enemies and still be original. Lions, wolves and tigers, they had become banal. He wanted something fresh to dress his soldiers up as. They would march upon capitals like the animals themselves, mimic its roars making a racket that would incline the boldest to surrender before even a drop of blood was spilled. Their fierceness would be food for legends.

Riding his horse, he thought long and hard, but could not make up his mind. In a fit of brief democracy, he gave out a questionnaire.

A servant handed him an envelope, which he eagerly opened and was taken aback.

“You guys want a frigging penguin?!”"

Mistaken Genius - 150 words Writing Competition (fourth edition, host: Cayman)

Okay, writers of all lands, unite! Here are the submission guidelines for the fourth edition of the in-thread Blogger Coffee Shop writing competition (hosted by last winner, Caymantime), so get out your pens and notebooks and get creative!

You have to construct a story that incorporates all of the 5 words, and is exactly 150 words in length.

You will post your story as a reply to this thread. For the sake of clarity, you will italicize the entire 150 words, so that the stories are easy to spot as one scrolls through the thread, and you will bold the 5 random words in the story.

The winner is determined by how many 'Yes, this answer is helpful' votes she or he gets. Any 'No' answers will not be taken into account.

The competition ends a week from now, Wednesday, January 26th.

The winner of this competition will host next week's competition, and be declared winner on Stories Inc.'s blog, with their winning entry posted, as well as a link to their blog.

Your five randomly chosen words are:

Profile
Believer
Exit
Stunt
Spot

To enter the competition, write a story that is in accord with above rules and post it as a reply here.

And this is my entry:

Mistaken Genius

He thrust his fingers deep into the slick and drew smudgy black outlines on the wall. His nimble fingers sloped the profile along the stone canvas. A little thicker on that spot, a little curvier there, as if he was possessed. Beautiful! It was brilliant, it was bold, it was provocative, it would blow them all away... Who in their right minds could see this and not become a believer in Art and his awakening genius?

He held his breath. Was someone coming to peer on his work? He would NOT exit his domain now, not even if Hell itself came for him.

“What the fuck did you do to my room, you little shit?!”

She pulled him upright by the ear and dragged him out into the hall.

“Ouw!”

“Don’t EVER pull a stunt like that again, you hear? MUM!!!!! Picasso’s been playing around with the motor oil again!”

Happy reading/writings, lots of inspiration and good luck to all of you,

Stories Inc.

Writing Competition, 150 words - Third Edition (host: Nina)

Okay… For quick writers, you still have till the 19th to enter this competition I should have already told you about had the universe not hated me (don’t get me started on all the things that went wrong this week). Bottom line: assignments, bad karma (?), and computers kicking up enough a.i. to make my life miserable when deadlines pop up. I swear it does that on purpose. Anyways... Here’s Nina’s in-thread writing challenge:

Write a short story of exactly 150 words containing the randomly chosen obligatory words

Mixing

Business
Eye
Grind
Urge

Italicize the story, put the 5 words in bold and post it as a reply in the thread. Vote via the “was this answer helpful, yes/no” buttons at the bottom of each reply. Don’t press no or you’ll go to hell. You will.

To enter or find more info, click the thread link. Good luck!

Sorry for rushing through this, but exams are killing me...

Writing Competition, 150 words - Second Edition (host: Hannah)

Hey there,

In for another in-thread writing contest? The second edition is now hosted by Hannah, the winner of the last Blogger Coffee Shop Writing Competition. This edition is another 150 words – of which 5 words randomly picked and obligatory – challenge.

These are the rules, as quoted from the fabulous Hannah:

5 words will be chosen randomly through here; http://watchout4snakes.com/CreativityTools/RandomWord/RandomWord.aspx

You have to construct a story that incorporates all of the 5 words, and is exactly 150 words in length all together.

You will post your story as a reply to this thread. For the sake of clarity, you will italicise the entire 150 words, so that the stories are easy to spot as one scrolls through the thread, and you will bold the 5 random words in the story.

An entry that is not 150 words exactly, that has not been italicised, and that has not bolded the target words, will be ignored, because I just cannot be bothered to sift through everything and find stories and/or words in stories.

The winner is determined by how many 'Yes, this answer is helpful' votes she or he gets. Any 'No' answers will not be taken into account, because seriously, stop being petty.

The competition ends a week from now (IE; Next Tuesday), at whatever time I can manage to get online.

The winner of this competition will host next week's competition, and be declared winner on Stories Inc.'s page, with their winning entry posted, as well as a link to their blog.

(Example entries can be found here, if you're still unclear about the rules; http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=6576a96d76aeb054&hl=en. The 'italicise entries' rule is new, that's why the entries here are not italicised.)

Your five randomly chosen words are; Preliminary, Yellow, Contrary, Dying, Draw

You can enter the competition by posting your entry here.

Good luck to all of you and I’ll be looking forward to reading all of your entries at the Forum ;)