WELCOME TO THE RECIPE FOR SUCCESS WRITE-OFF CONTEST

Just a note to say Good Luck! to everyone who enters. I’m excited about seeing some of the great writing that will come through and if you’re the final winner, you’ll win a great prize.

So, send us your entries!

Sandy

I hope you’ll take advantage of this opportunity.

Marilyn

The last time I saw my ex, he’d been holding both hands over his face. Blood streamed between his fingers. But he and the intern and I were the only ones in the hotel suite. No cameras. So I echo the reporter’s words as a question. “You saw a picture of Greg?”

The white two-story house in Oak Dale’s prosperous Estates loomed in front as Leslie Stone killed the engine. Her stomach twisted as she gazed at immaculate trimmed yards and matching porches. Only the numbers over double-car garages were different. The neighborhood resembled a scene from ‘Stepford Wives’ and any minute she expected a robotic perfectionist to come strolling up the walk with a plate of warm cookies.
Her faded Datzun 240Z sputtered then let out one long belch, expelling a cloud of exhaust. In a few short weeks this would be home.

William Battencliffe wagers five thousand pounds that Miss Julia St. Claire will become the next Countess of Clivesden.

Benedict Revelstoke reread the lines in White’s infamous betting book. What the devil? His fingers constricted about the quill, just shy of crushing it. Right. He’d been about to lay a wager. Some idiocy, no doubt—hardly worth the bother now.

The book’s most recent inscription, scrawled in such a casual hand for all the world to see, had quite driven the notion from his mind. In gold ink, no less. How fitting. Gold ink for Battencliffe, the ton’s golden boy.

Thanks for the opportunity. And good luck to everyone!

I got the rules another way. Here’s my entry:
“Mom, come and get me at the city jail!”
“What? You’re where, Chris?” The phone’s jarring ring woke Jennitt Russell from such a deep sleep she wasn’t sure it was her son on the phone. She hadn’t heard him correctly if it was him. “Where?”
“At the city jail. Come in the Route 15 entrance and get me. Hurry!”
Jennitt looked at the clock glowing green across the room; three-thirty. Stifling a yawn, she asked, “What are you doing out at this hour?”
“Mom! Just come, damn it! Send Dad if you can’t tear yourself out of bed.”

by the way, thanks to the pf&ht’s for the good luck wishes, a great contest and a reason to get up at 5am(pt)!
Where the heck is every one else this morning?
I’m looking forward to everyone else’s entries… good luck to all!
cheers
K.

Katt,

Thank you so much for being our first entrant! Good luck.
Marilyn

BTW, I tried to read the rules but the link gave an error.

Paranormal:

The priestess stirred. “Two boys will be born. One dark, one fair.” Deep in trance, her normally smooth voice cracked.
Orion clenched his teeth. “Their fate?” His tone was demanding. Urgent. He wanted out of this hut, away from this woman. He detested prophetesses, detested the way he had been forced by the elders to consult them his entire kingship.
They had made his life a living hell.
But this was personal. He had to know the fate of his heirs. Had to learn if his carefully constructed plans would come to fruition

“FINALLY” Dani huffed.
The amber lights of the cabin shone through snow clogged windows. Multi colored Christmas lights burned through several inches of snow that had accumulated on the railings and front porch while more snow fell heavily from the darkened sky above.
Dani gave another sigh of relief, she pulled her rented SUV into the snow packed space next to another SUV. She sat with the vehicle running and slumped forward in the seat, her frown creased forehead resting on the steering wheel. She had finally made it up the winding, twisting mountain road to her final destination.

Stakkholtsgja, Iceland
1705
Alarr gazed down the precipice. He, an assassin’s assassin, hunted among the sharp shadows cast by a three-quarter moon. Wind whipped at the long, woolen cloak and hood that concealed his blond hair as he surveyed the valley. He stood, a shadow within a shadow, the midnight world around him alive—crickets, rich loam, even the living rock of the cliff beneath his feet. A fine salt, along with faint whale songs, floated on the breeze from the North Atlantic more than a league away. Life forces sliced through him, resonating with every nerve.

A cell phone’s buoyancy only lasts long enough to inspire false hope. I stared horrified as mine bobbed for a moment before sinking to the bottom of the giant fish tank at Cafe Verde. The cog in the organizational wheel of my life rested next to a plastic treasure chest that flopped open every few seconds to release a column of bubbles. That’s when I realized how quickly conceptions about what may be possible change, even in a city created by magic.

The white two story colonial house looked like other houses on Maple Avenue that autumn night.
What was occurring upstairs in the fourteen year old girl’s bedroom was far from ordinary. Thirty nine year old Cynthia Albright pleaded with the tall man dressed in black outside her daughter’s bedroom. “Father Victolini, do something?” Father reassured her. “Cynthia, I promise I won’t give up until Christine is freed. Cases such as your daughter’s often take days to resolve.” Looking over at her husband he said. “Robert, take your boys downstairs and don’t let them upstairs tonight.”

Hey guys! Thanks for hosting this contest. I couldn’t decide between two, so here goes:

“Father, what have you done?” Sarah Murphy focused her narrowed gaze on the tall man who sired her. They’d only been in town for a month, and she was enjoying her first Season, though she was older than the other debutantes. For her father to take the place of the gentleman listed on her dance card–a viscount–the situation must be dire. The noises and opulence of the ballroom in which she stood faded into the background as she waited.

“Now, sweeting, what makes you think I have done anything?” Lord Peeling blinked at his daughter.

My parents met during the battle of Clarksville. My father was shot only a few minutes after the first charge and lay dying in the tall grass to the west of the main fighting. Acrid smoke from discharging rifles filled his nostrils and the sound of cannon fire made the ground quake. He was supposed to die there, but he took one look into the clear blue eyes of the Union nurse that bent over him and decided to live.

Acckkk… I posted the wrong paragraph – seven words over AND unedited. If I can repost…here it is. If not, I understand.

“We’re never moving again,” Abigail Grace Johnson declared scanning the stacks of boxes for one labeled bathroom. The moving company had promised that the boxes would be gently deposited in the appropriate rooms. Her boxes were crowded in the small living room with most of the furniture. The delivery was supposed to have happened on Friday but the truck had been delayed in its six hour trip from Chicago until Sunday evening. Now she was frantically searching for a hair dryer so Becca wouldn’t show up at her first day of school with long, red, wet hair.

Women’s Fiction
100,000
Title: The Aviary

May, 1997, York, England

“Pardon me?”
This crazy Yorkshire dialect is giving me a migraine.
The grizzled old cop leans an elbow on the counter and speaks again. “Shy aye, but is too airly ter file a missin’ pairsons report, lass. Appen t’lad come back afoor lang, an all. Ter’s nowt wer can do right noo.”
My eyes slide over to the younger cop, who’s hovering nearby with a clipboard in his hands. “What?”
“He could come back any time. There’s nothin’ we can do for a week,” he translates.
I’ll starve! “Yes, but maybe he… What if he can’t come back?

Quinn Adams jolted awake. She scanned her clock. What? Then she heard the buzz again. What the hell? Some idiot must’ve hit the wrong doorbell. She flopped over, hoping they’d figure it out quickly. Another buzz, the extended version this time. She got out of bed and stomped downstairs. At the intercom, she said, “Who are you looking for?”

“Quinn, babe, it’s me. Let me up.”

Nick? “What are you doing here?”

“I came to say happy birthday.”

She sighed and buzzed him in. Nick had always tried to be thoughtful. He just wasn’t any good at it.

Bummed I can’t enter – was all ready to go when I saw entrants must be unagented. CURSES!!!

Sorry for the short post. Hit the submit key before I had my hundred words there. Good luck to all and thanks for this great opportunity ladies!

Kylie wanted to sleep but couldn’t. Her stomach had the same butterflies that appeared before a college final exam or competing in a rodeo queen contest. The fluttering intensified when her sister, Erika, brought the cell phone in around midnight.

Murphy didn’t like things that went bump in the night.
He wasn’t sleeping, but lying in bed staring at the ceiling in the darkness of his bedroom trying not to think about things that grieved him. A difficult task at best. Thunder rumbled in the distance from the storm that was rolling in. Wind whistled through his open window and cool mountain air brushed across his naked flesh where he lay atop his quilt, hands stacked behind his head.
The noise he’d heard wasn’t the wind. It was on his doorstep and probably not human.
Murphy didn’t take any chances.

Michelle’s eyes grew as she described the man she was engaged to—a Marine, deployed to the middle east for the next six months.
“We skype every day it’s possible. I hover around the computer each morning between six and seven a.m.—the time difference makes them almost twelve hours ahead of us. I miss him like the devil. And I’m on pins and needles, worrying about his safety.”
Sydne pursed her lips. Left over emotions undulated inside of her like the backwash of a tidal wave. She shook her head trying desperately to twist her thoughts away from memories of the man, her Rob, who was gone forever. There wasn’t even a grave to place flowers on. Rob’s

I was going to enter until I realized inspirational and paranormal stories are not eligible (the only ones I have available). Oh, well. Good luck to everyone.

Thank you for this opportunity! (as I squeak in at the last minute!)

The Ever After Affair
Fantasy with Romantic Elements
70,000 words

Penelope Shallott picked herself up off the flagstone path, wondering whose spell that backlash had come from. It had been enough not only to knock her flat, but to make her feel as if her own magic was being torn out of her grasp, eroded like sand under a sudden flood. Only by dint of both hands, her whole mind and every fiber of her being had she held onto it.

Here’s my paranormal.

Walking among demons made life hell.

Sweat rolled down Ethan Lang’s spine as he approached the home he’d shared with his parents all his life.

Uprooted plants, snapped trees, and blackened grass led to the battered house. Shutters ripped from the white siding lay scattered around the yard like a deck of cards tossed to the wind. The front door held onto the doorframe with one weakened hinge.

A demonic Hallmark Card.

Sword in hand, Ethan placed one leather boot across the threshold as a shiver tingled across his skin. Evil. Was this an echo or a continued threat?

This was it — the real thing. Quantrill inhaled deeply as though he could smell power and wealth in the McChesney mansion. Upon entering the stately home, Quantrill was not sensitive enough to realize it, but he was facing a variety of sentinels. He only knew that his mouth suddenly had become dry. The burled walnut chest with Queen Anne legs and original carved pulls, that had guarded the entry hall for three generations, remained silent. However, the limoge pieces on top of it screamed “do not touch!”

Maggie Donovan crushed the brake pedal on her new Jeep straight to the floor bed. The screech of tires against pavement wrapped around her brain, as the force of the sudden stop ricocheted her head back and forth. Eyes clenched and breathe on hold, she couldn’t bear to look.

What if she hit the man? There hadn’t been a thud. That had to be a good sign. On the other hand, how would she know what running someone down felt like? She bit her lower lip, inched open her eyes, then exhaled a sigh of relief.

Debbie and the other PFHT members: Thank you!!

Thank you! Very excited to be among the finalists. There were some great entries. Can’t wait to read this week’s entries.