Stringing words together is hard

For those who think that anyone can write a short story, let me point you to the entries in Miss Snark's writing contest. The rules (see her April 2 post) were simple: 500 words max; extra points for using a list of 6 words & 5 phrases. Miss Snark apparently was overcome by the number of responses: 100+ in less than 24 hours. Though I think if she'd kept her head out of the gin pail, she'd have seen that her legions of adoring fans (her blog has had more than a half-million visitors since last July) would leap to the challenge. And quite a challenge it is, as you can see from the varying quality of the entries, which Miss Snark posted unedited. (Reminder: Spell check doesn't catch homonyms.) Fortunately, there are few clinkers. Some of the stories are stunningly imaginative and several are laugh-out-loud funny. Darling Husband and I shared a half-hour of domestic bliss yesterday evening, during which he prepared his famous Tofu Surprise while I read him some of my favorites.