And The Winners Are...

This was a much more difficult judging task than I anticipated-because the entries kept, chronologically, getting better and better. Indeed, several entrants would have made the Top Ten had they not missed the midnight deadline - to them congratulations on fine efforts, some of their similes were truly stirring, and at the same time commiserations on not having got them in on time.

Here, in reverse order, are the 3 winners: Bravo, bravissimo to each of them, and great good wishes to all the rest of you who made this so damned interesting and such FUN!

Number 3 @ieatmypigeon
the remains of a black umbrella – twisted and bent, like a mangled bat wing.

Number 2 @drjosh81
K$sha's voice sounds like a brick in a blender.

And the WINNER is...

@rebeccablood
He gazed up at the pole dancer like a baby watching a ceiling fan.

I hope to welcome each of the winners to lunch one day in New York.Or, they can choose to receive one of the first Advanced Reader's Editions, signed, of my upcoming book "The Matchmaker of Kenmare."

Simile Twallenge Top Ten!

Well, now – we had a bunch of entries, more than double the number we had for our "best first sentence" Twallenge earlier this year and, so, choosing a shortlist of ten was like standing at a Ben and Jerry's display cabinet. Many were in, then out; many more were out, then in, then out again, a few of the top ten were in from the beginning, others yelled at me – and here they all are together and in no particular order: Your Top Ten Best Similes.

Much as I like having the iron fist of choice, I'd like you to put your tiny hand in mine and choose your favorites. Schmooze me, flatter me (worship and adoration works), try to sway me, see if you can influence my choice - you be the democrats trying to to persuade the autocrat: in short, pick your Top Three and we'll all have even more fun.

And thank you, each and every one, thank you so much for being such fun correspondents, for being so good-humored about it all, and for the delightful, willing spirit you showed. Watch this space for news of the winners…

Top Ten Best Similes.

 

@FictionWitch The post came through the letterbox like a gunshot.

 

@paulinembarclay The hour creaked by like the sound of an old rocking chair.

 

@BuggedProject The house was as sturdy as a good man's soul.

 

@rebeccablood He gazed up at the pole dancer like a baby watching a ceiling fan.

 

@drjosh81 My similes fit worse than underwear without a waistband.

 

@mustbehavingfun Heavy sunlight poured like thick oil through a crack in the clouds.

 

@drjosh81 Ke$ha's voice sounds like a brick in a blender.

 

@ieatmypigeon the remains of a black umbrella – twisted and bent, like a mangled bat wing.

 

@rebeccablood Her boasts were as implausible as her dandelion yellow hair; her self-doubt as dark as her roots.

 

@MrCCMiller She felt utterly superfluous, like the final "like" in, like, this simile.

Past Events

Late summer and beyond
Lenox, MA Saturday, July 24 1st Annual Berkshire Wordfest	The Mount, 2 Plunkett St Lenox, Mass www.berkshirewordfest.org Info: (413) 551-5111
Sharon, CT Friday, August 6, 2010, 6-8 pm	Hotchkiss Library 10 Upper Main St. Sharon CT 860-364-5041
North Caldwell, NJ August 18, 2010 Reading and signing	GreenBrook Country Club (973) 228-1800
Sioux Falls, SD September 24-26, 2010 Panel Discussion	SouthDakota Festival of Books SiouxFalls, SD
Denver, CO Thursday, September 30, 2010 7:30 pm Conversation with Diane Meier	Tattered Cover 2526 East Colfax Avenue Denver, CO 80206
Steamboat Springs, CO Saturday, October 2, 2010 Master of Ceremonies	Literary Sojourn: Steamboat Springs' Festival of Authors 1289 Lincoln Ave Steamboat Springs, CO 80487 Contact: Chris Painter, 970-367-4904 www.literarysojourn.org
Chicago, IL November 5 & 6, 2010 Reading, talk, signing	iBAM! Chicago Irish American Heritage Center www.ibamchicago.com

NPR with Scott Simon

Frank will be on NPR’s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon tomorrow (Saturday, June 19) morning! He’ll be discussing World Cup soccer—its drama and theatricality. It airs from 8-10 am in New York City. Click here for local listings:

Re: Joyce, Episode 1. We Meet Buck Mulligan

Re: Joyce, episode 0 - Introduction to James Joyce's Ulysses

The Tweeple at Lillies

Last night we celebrated with Tweeple who came to Lillie's Bar on E. 17th st., New York City, and the people who came there tweeted their friends to say where they were. (see David Goodwin's photographs). The big disappointment? Nobody among my Tweeple in the bar tweeted me (@fdbytheword) to tell me that they were there with me. Had they done so, I'd have tweeted back to say, "Yes, I'm here with you, one and a half feet away tweeting about the fact that I'm here with you, one and a half feet away." Do you remember those boxes where you see a picture of the box on the side of the box, and that picture has a picture of the box, and so on, until the box image stretches down, down into tiny infinity? Or Russian dolls? That's what our close-at-hand tweeting felt like! But I loved it - and we had fun. And I can report that Tweeters and Bloggers are real - they have faces and hands and feet and they smile, and it was a delight to meet them. And I thank them for turning out in the rain.

Tweeting each other at the bar. (@nasuyaki, @acc73, @leahpaulos)
© David Goodwin

Frank and his tweeps, @booksnyc and @leahpaulos
© Ben Goodwin

@fdbytheword and @tarastra
© David Goodwin

Through the window at Lillies
© David Goodwin

The End--Come Celebrate!

The English language contains two words superior to all others - “THE” and “END.”

I can attest to their beauty because I’ve just typed them – I’ve delivered to my publishers a new novel, The Matchmaker of Kenmare; it’ll be on sale in February, 2011.

They speak volumes, those two darling words. They tell me that the light peeping through the tunnel wasn’t an oncoming train. They tell me – no more waking up and grabbing a notebook at four in the morning because, Oh, God! there’s a contradiction in a major characterization. No more worry that such-and-such a scene stinks (and that there’s major alliteration running riot). And no more shrieks of profanity as my fatigued memory asks: Haven’t you repeated a passage verbatim somewhere?

Yes, it’s lovely, the relief of “THE” and “END”; an adorable feeling of, “Well, I finished it. Despite all the hopping and trotting – I finished it.” But then I had to hit “send” in order to transmit it to Mark Tavani, my editor at Random House - and that's not totally a nice feeling.

It’s not unlike the moment that you take your oldest child to school for the first time. For three or four or five years, you’ve been able to regulate how the world sees him, and therefore you can control how he reflects the work you’ve put into his upbringing, but now you walk him into the school, with his little cap and his knee-socks – and, yep, there he goes, on his own! But now they can say what they like about him. Your only consolation is that you tried as hard as you could, and given the limited access you have to him now, you’ll continue to make such improvements as you can.

Am I being cheesy? Oh, yes. Do I exaggerate? Of course – and quite a lot, especially as I’m too grizzled now to feel unfettered anguish. But would I have held it back if I could? And re-written it? Indeed I would. And there are perhaps only two words in the entire book that I wouldn’t change – and you’ve guessed what they are: “THE” and “END.”

FOOTNOTE: I’m going to do a little reading aloud from it in New York on Wednesday afternoon around 6. Join me at Lillies from 5:30 to 7 or so!.

http://www.lilliesnyc.com/HOME.html

And The Twallenge Winners Are...

Here are the Twallenge winners - and a surprise! We have a Top Three and more. In the democracy of Frank's team, Emma Gibson had votes from everybody. Jon Sadler had enough votes to make it into the Top Three. Much lobbying went behind Heatherhaze, so she's a winner too. And here's the surprise. So many of the team - and the lobbyists - voted for each of JeanLouise Finch's first sentences that we're awarding her an extra prize - in fact, if you want to make a hierarchy of winners, Finch is Number One, Emma Gibson Number Two, Jon Sadler Number Three and HeatherHaze Number four - and each will receive an audiobook of Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show written and read by yours truly.

Thank you everybody - for all your tweets and twitters and good nature and excellent lines - I wish there could have been more prizes but I'm only a poor struggling author like the rest of you! 

@jeanlouisefinch Dad was only halfway through his first scotch and he was already crying.

@jeanlouisefinch Edward Witworth went to Yale and he did not wear it lightly.

@ealvarezgibson She was out swimming the night Carrickton burned.

@JON_SADLER The legend about a century old private sanatorium hidden deep in the Jungfrau was probably just that, but I had to be sure he was dead

@HeatherHaze Cries of joy erupted as the last lotto ball came up on TV. We just won $40 million, and all I could think of was, "Oh God, not again."

Top Ten Entries in My Writing Twallenge

Midnight oil by the gallon, pounds of candles burned at both ends, teeth gnashed down to the root canals, brains cudgeled with baseball bats (Frank's Team says: "OK - that's enough - we get it") I've finally chosen my Top Ten entries in the Twallenge.

Remember what the contest required? That you write the first line of a novel I would want to read. Some of the best entries came from Ben Goodwin - who is automatically and TOTALLY disqualified, because he, as a member of the Team, helped design the Twallenge. But he'd now better hustle and write the novels whose first lines he entered:- "You don't know me, but your children call me 'Mr. O.'" And - "On the occasion of our second wedding anniversary, I presented her with a baby giraffe."

Here are the non-disqualified, that is to say eligible, Top Ten, from which I will go on to choose the Winning Three, each of whom will be sent an audiobook of Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show, read by the Author (that'd be me).

Much though I like autocracy (my own, naturally), I love democracy more, so please weigh in and try to influence my decisions in the comments below!

@VisceralWriting: You're going to commune with a centuries-dead ghost, take him by his poets balls and castrate him?

@PauletteJaxton Celeste licked a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth and smeared it across her lips. Then she smiled at the King and spat blood

@HeatherHaze Cries of joy erupted as the last lotto ball came up on TV. We just won $40 million, and all I could think of was, "Oh God, not again."

@jeanlouisefinch Dad was only halfway through his first scotch and he was already crying.

@JON_SADLER The legend about a century old private sanatorium hidden deep in the Jungfrau was probably just that, but I had to be sure he was dead

@ealvarezgibson She was out swimming the night Carrickton burned.

@TamsynTweetie I knew it was time to move on when a tramp peed on my uggs.

@jeanlouisefinch Edward Witworth went to Yale and he did not wear it lightly.

@theJoeGriffin Life is a serious of blissfully uneventful stretches in between moments of humiliation.

@ShirtnTie Alfredo's situation was hopeless. She was his soulmate. Their love was boundless. Yet he didn't flinch as he pulled the trigger.