Discussion thread -- SEVENTY-FIVE WORD WRITING CHALLENGE June 2013

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Congratulations, Sleepy! Usually a vote from me is a kiss of death to an entry -- so well done for rising above that handicap!
 
I promised that I would give a little explanation about mine, so for those who are interested:

In 1826 Sir John Franklin set sail on the mission that would make his name. The ship he went on was the HMS Erebus, joined with the HMS Terror. Their quest: to find the North West Passage that conceivably existed through the Arctic, linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

As time passed and no contact was received expeditions set out, no longer to find the Passage but to find out what happened to Franklin and his crew.

Both ships were found frozen in the Arctic seas, but the crews were not found. Further expeditions across the icy wastes over the years, found stories (with the Inuit) of the strange white men making their way across the cold, but bodies were scant and rarely found, but diaries and notes were.

It seemed as though the crews had tried to make their way home across the snow, but no-one made it. There were a few stories of some men joining tribes of Inuit, and more commonly horrendous tales of them trying to eat each other to stay alive.

Franklin was never found.

In 1981 Canadian Singer Songwriter Stan Rogers released the song 'Northwest Passage' which explicitly references Franklin's expedition, and raises it to a mythical status with mention of Franklin's hand reaching out of the ice reaching for the open sea:

Stan Rogers Northwest Passage

chorus: Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.

In the late 1990's the song featured quite strongly in the final episode of the series Due South, which ended with principle characters Benton Fraser and Ray Kowalski setting out into the cold wastes to try and find the hand of Franklin (where I first heard of it)

And only a few years ago horror writer Dan Simmons wrote the novel 'The Terror' which told the story of the second ship with fitting horror trappings.

Finally I did want to try and squeeze in the legend of The Wendigo, a myth that states any man eating the flesh of another will be transformed into a monstrous creature, but there was just not enough room!

Phew!
 
Perpetual Man said:
In 1981 Canadian Singer Songwriter Stan Rogers released the song 'Northwest Passage' which explicitly references Franklin's expedition, and raises it to a mythical status with mention of Franklin's hand reaching out of the ice reaching for the open sea:

Stan Rogers Northwest Passage

In the late 1990's the song featured quite strongly in the final episode of the series Due South, which ended with principle characters Benton Fraser and Ray Kowalski setting out into the cold wastes to try and find the hand of Franklin (where I first heard of it)
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As I started reading your post I thought "Due South"! A seriously odd episode, that one.
 
Congratulations SleepyDormouse! :)

Sorry, sorry, sorry for not voting. I thought I'd have time but got caught up in last minute bag re-packing and other things international move related...

Thanks Boneman and Perp for the mentions!!
 
Congratulations, SleepyDormouse. A wonderful story! :)


And thank you very much, Ursa, for the runners up. I’m thrilled with that.
 
Moonbat said:
Sleepy now has the harder task of coming up with next month's theme, if it isn't the best theme ever and perfectly suited to the idea I have already formed then I'll consider it a conspiracy against bats. ;)
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oh.. and the pressure is on. :)

Don't worry Moonbat, I am on your side. The miss-representation of bats in novels and films is atrocious. :eek:

However.. I can't promise to fit in with your idea. I'll do my best. :)
 
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Sorry I left this late. I just managed to vote before the deadline last night.

My vote went to Juliana. I liked the idea and the imagery. What I liked most was how the way it was written allowed the situation of the character be a philosophical analogy for each human or a macrocosmic (not sure if that is a word?) analogy for humanity as a whole.

Yet another great month of entries. Bravo to all!

Thanks for those who reviewed - much appreciated as always.

Thanks a lot to TacticalLoco, Parson, Boneman and Starbeast for shortlistings, and thanks also to Betawolf for joint silvering my story. All made me very chuffed indeed. :D

And congrats to SleepyDormouse!
 
Dormeuse said:
Chris you are right that my last entry was March '01... you must have done quite some digging to find that!
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Aha. I am the keeper of the secret knowledge, the master of the chart. Tremble at my powers, mortal. And it was '11; the challenges only started in '10.

Well done with the story, by the way!

I didn't take the flat in Ende der Welt strasse. I so wanted to. but it was too far to walk from the studio (next village along, partly up the Jura) and the busses stopped to early in the evening. Not that the flat was anything very special (new, clean, Swiss) but what an address.

Parson spotted it; my entry was autobiographical. All my chattels travelled back to the old country last week, I'm clutching a ticket for the return of my body (preferably animated) tuesday; an epoche draws to a close, and the tendency of Swiss geography to see itself in the centre of things, so "Mittelerde', and so too the Tolkien connection,

What this tie meant was that for the first time in my versification this one was a poem; not as good structurally as some of the others (two rhythmic stumbles, and not enough words to do the rhyme for 'condemned') it had some emotion driving it. And it got a vote, if fewer than usual short lists, so it couldn't be all bad.

As I mentioned, my muse was over generous last month, giving me three usable ideas. Here's one of the others.

Conflict​

Earth torn asunder, iron shod war hooves
Tank tracks, nailed caligae,
Watered with poisons, blood and petroleum,
Strip mines for iron to continue destruction,
Sapper-rent by explosives, petards, entrenching tools
Burnt by flame throwers, nuclear, Bowler's ray guns,
Cursed by religions, nations, invaders,
Overbuilt with fortresses, emplacements, concrete defences,
Teams compete in furthering destruction.
STOP!
Whistle blows, oranges, half time, change ends.
 
sorry mosaix.. I wanted to do the post myself and didn't fancy staying up late enough. It is there now.
 
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