Well, I’m out of Red Planet, but then I have some very good company since no one has popped up on the blogs yet to say they’re through (that I’ve seen, anyway). Check out Paul’s hilarious response here.
Moving onwards anyway… If you feel like you need something to get your teeth into next and perhaps a change of medium, why not go from Red Planets to Red Bull? Red Bull have launched their own short story contest “Red Bull Tall Stories” – the winner with the best story gets it made into an advert. You can even read and vote for your favourites. Sounds fun*, no entry fee either. Closing date December 31st. Check out full details plus terms and conditions here.
Talking of tall stories, last night I was propositioned by Jeremy Clarkson – well in my dream I was, though that part was probably more of a nightmare. What was interesting about the dream though was that we were in the Top Gear studio and toffee poppets kept raining out of the ventillation grills and interrupting the filming (anyone remember them?? Check out this amazing website where you can get sweets from your childhood!). Anyways, Jeremy was extremely irate and blamed co-host Richard Hammond. I wonder sometimes how I function with a brain like mine, the weird connections I make in my subconscious. Hey ho.
In other news, I thought I trod on some kind of furry snake/worm thing on the landing on my way to the bathroom last night and screamed, waking up both children and Him Indoors. It turned out to be a lime green pipe cleaner. Well, it was dark.
*I’ve never entered this by the way, but I may do. Anyone else? Let us know what you think as always
Commiserations…I didn’t get an email either.
Ah well.
Thanks Anon. Commiserations right back atcha but remember: just as it is better to have loved and lost, it’s better to have entered a contest and not won than to have never bothered at all. Or something.
Never mind chuck! Commiserations from me too.
Talking of weird dreams, last night in my dream, Iggy Pop committed a lewd act on a woman who was upside-down on stage!
Details, Elinor, details…
DON’T Robin, Elinor is an undeniable, certified sex maniac and may get my blog on to Google porn searches… Again.
OK, Lucy, I’ll just have to try and guess what the lewd act was.
I don’t think you need to guess my friend, the clues are right there: upside down???
How is that a clue, Lucy? She’s upside down and he’s the right way up. What on earth could he possibly…oh my good lord! OK. I wish I hadn’t asked now. I’m going for a lie down.
Such filth!
bad luck lucy. i’m afraid i was one of those losers who didn’t apply.
Commiserations to all who didn’t get through, congratulations to those who did!
Me? Thanks for asking…no email as yet, but like Paul, I suspect mine is merely lost in the electronic postbag…
Step away from the box labelled HOPE in your brain Sheiky, it’s for your own good!!! ‘Tis all over, now let’s get virtually drunk. Tho just between you and me I dunno how Danny can do this to me after our wonderful rendezvous in… Oh! I’ve said too much again.
Pots: the SHAME! not for me and the filth either (the clue is in my title there, Bang2write aka Shag2write by some of my American friends) but for YOU for not entering! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
Do three thousand Hail Marys and sit on a thistle and I might forgive you my friend.
uI’m also here to lob in commiserations- as well as adding another stone to the growing “Not Going Through To The Second Round” mountain.
Ah well, we are writers. Getting up, dusting ourselves down, starting all over again- that is what WE DO! It’s either that or give up. Any takers? Thought not.
Congrats to the successful few, though. You know who you are.
Is everybody planning to go for the 4Talent scheme? I’ve been trying to break my storylines for that one for a couple of weeks now. Writing is haaard.
I dreamt last night that I’d just survived some terrible disaster adventure, and was in a crowded room with hundreds of people in evening dress.
There was delicate opera music playing, but suddenly mechanical spiders that looked a bit like malevolent killer thumb tacks sprouted from a steel wall and started springing halfway across the room at people. Everyone screamed. Chaos. Terror.
I ran away like a big wuss, but a spider leapt straight at my throat and pierced me dead.
I’m ALWAYS dying in my dreams. I think this must say something deep and meaningful about my disposition. Not sure what, though.
Hey ho.
Commiserations….
(I really wish a green pipe cleaner was the worst thing I’d ever stepped on in the dark…)
A pipe cleaner isn’t the worst of it my friend… In the dark I have trodden on:
Numerous plastic bricks and other hurty-type toys
A fishing hook
A wasp nest
cat shit
staples
and once, a dead animal that was decomposing. I think it was a shrew or perhaps a moderately sized squirrel. Disturbing.
Also, once I got scared and pegged it Blair Witch style thru a wood in the dark and got full-on clothes-lined by a tree.
You can all learn from my mistakes.
Mere trifles…
Staples. Check.
Plastic bricks and hurty toys. Check.
Cat puke? Many, many times!
A broken glass badly cleaned from the bathroom floor… took forever to pull the shards out!
A scalpel blade that I’d been looking for.
Half a mouse carcass I had to pull from between my toes… they do rather ooze. And it was still warm.
…at least two dismembered bird corpses.
But I see your darkened forest branch and raise you (admittedly in daylight) plummeting down a muddy river bank through a herd of brambles and over a barbed wire fence all while trying to protect several thousand quids worth of borrowed video-camera.
I’ll have to learn from your mistakes… because I certainly don’t seem to learn anything from my own! 😉
Stopped deluding myself that the internet was on a mega go slow. So it’s no from Red Planet and no from Metlab in one weekend.
Commiserations to everyone else who didn’t make it. Time to lock myself away with a giant bar of chocolate and a sharpened pen.
Oh dear, you poor thing Rach! 2 things in one weekend does suck. I didn’t realise you applied for Metlab – Was it with the script I read a few weeks ago for you?
Thanks. The one you saw was for Red Planet so you’ll not be suprised it didn’t get in.
The Metlab one was a nice little horror that I’m going to write anyway. Hate to bin anything. I’ll pass it in when it’s ready for a good ripping apart.
Oi lady, no denigrating of your work here please! You know full well there was stuff I liked about your script, I even said so in the coverage ; P
As for the horror – you’re quite right, NEVER bin anything, as I always say, recycle! And I’d more than pleased to look at it when you’re done.
Hey, someone called me a lady! Wow. Wounds all licked better. Ripping and re-sewing underway. Sounds like I need to write a zombie flick.