Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Nathan Bransford's Paragraph Competition

Nathan Bransford is putting on a fantastic contest here (which actually inspired me to start this blog, finally) and I have to say, he's a lil' bit crazy (no offense Nathan) and therefore has encouraged his readers to spread the word even if it means that he has to read through well over 2,000 entires. Yikes. I've only read the first 600 hundred paragraphs and my eyes are furious with me. I've officially decided to nickname him captain awesome (for obvious reasons).

Here is the paragraph I'm entering:

I pried the last remnant of the hideous flagstone peace sign out of the wet Utah County clay and lugged it toward the far corner of the overgrown yard. Sure, I felt horrible about dismantling Annette’s landscaping masterpiece so soon after her death, but my inner Martha had gotten the better of me and that abomination simply had to go. The insides of my wrists started to burn like they’d been spritzed with acid. I looked down and found an army of fire ants infiltrating my pale blue garden gloves. I screamed, dropped the infested stone, and flung the hateful little beasts from my body, but it was too late. Dozens of tiny red welts rose from the tender flesh in a chorus of disapproval. Karma can be such a crazy bitch, leave it to her to take the dead hippie’s side.

What's wrong with it?

(Seriously...tell me. I can take it. I have no illusions of winning said competition, but if I could get some usefule tips from great writers, that would be sort of fantastic, you know?)