I’d just like to say, first of all, thank you to everyone who has entered so far. If you haven’t already entered, please enter only in the original contest thread. The deadline is actually THIS WEDNESDAY, not whatever date I had erroneously listed in the original blog post. Did I tell you those rules would change?
The second thing I’d like to say is that since I began reading entries this evening 21 more entries have come in, so basically, the rate of new entries is currently exceeding my reading speed.
The third thing I have to say is this:
That is all.
May the force be with you…
500 entries and rising.
I think you’re going to need a bigger bottle.
I see Leis has done the math… but now it seems obvious the total will break 600 entries. 150K words total. 🙂
Can you imagine how many entries it would have been if you gave a whole week? I almost missed it — I was glowing in the Snark comet tail and scooted over to your blog today after a brutal day at the newspaper. I rushed home (after grocery shopping), picked a dialogue segment at random from my many little snippets and snuck it in under the deadline.
You’ll be up all night – a small feat compared to Pat Wood’s marathon.
Hey, I just found out about the dialogue contest this afternoon and mistakenly thought I had a week to enter, so I hammered out the following. Sending it to you anyway, just for the yuks.
Vinnie grimaced and looked across the table. “Jeeezus.”
“What?”Tony said. “It’s the friggin refried beans. I told you I didn’t want Mexican. Why couldn we justa gone to Marcello’s?”
“How many times I gotta tell you? This is where The Hammer said to meet. Eat your guacamole and shuddup.”
“I ain’t touchin that green shit. I already don’t feel so good.” As if to confirm this, a deep grumble gurgled within his stomach and turned into a throaty belch. The owner of Taco Flaco turned towards their table, then quickly looked back.
“Jeezus.” Vinnie shook his head. “Get any on you?” He lifted his shirt cuff and checked the bright gold watch. “Where the hells The Hammer? He’s forty minutes late awready.”
Sweat rolled down Tony’s forehead. He nudged the combo plate with his sausage-like fingers and pushed his chair back. “Vinnie, I think I gotta take a….”
A tall dark figure appeared from nowhere and pushed Tony down in his chair. His hand in the pocket of his raincoat was clearly holding a gun to Tony’s head.
A childlike voice behind Vinnie said, “Hello, boys.”
Vinnie swiveled in his seat and stared into the pockmarked face of The Hammer, all four foot seven inches of him.
“You bring it?” the little man squeaked, poking what Vinnie assumed to also be a gun in his ribs.
“No, we didn’t,” said Vinnie.
The Hammer and the thug in the raincoat exchanged glances.
“Jimmy said to give youse a message instead.”