Okay. YOU asked for it, so I don't want to hear any whining or complaining or trying to wiggle out of it. We will have, yes, WE WILL HAVE, a writing competition. Right here. Right on this blog. And if it goes well, I might repeat it, or maybe even make it into a recurring thing. Because I really want to find great indie authors out there. I KNOW YOU ARE OUT THERE. And share your writing. And give you a little plug and push and visibility, as much as I can. Well, and of course, just to have a little fun, right? Maybe it will become a thing. You know. MAD TUTU will become a thing. Who knows. Whatever, not important. Here is what's important.

MAD TUTU WRITING COMPETITION RULES.

THEME: Fantasy or magical realism or a mixture of both. Okay, you can throw in a touch of horror or a touch of sci-fi, if you're dying to do so. Just forget genres, think of it this way. Your story has to have magic.

STORY ELEMENTS: You have to include in your story the following animals/objects (and don't roll your eyes at me, deal with it, this is a MAD TUTU writing competition for a reason):

One elephant.
One tutu (any color).
One breathalyzer.
Beer-flavored lollipops (as many as you want).
One brick.
One purse.

TONE: Funny. If you can't keep a straight face while writing it, hopefully we won't be able to keep a straight face while reading it.

WORD COUNT: 1,000 words. You can go as low as 800 words, but then your story has to be stellar. Please don't go over 1,000. It's too long for blog readers to read and I won't consider it.

EDITS: Please make sure you go over your story several times to catch as many mistakes as possible. I will edit the winning entry, if need be, but have mercy on me. Plus, I'm not the best editor on the world.

DEADLINE: Deadline is 12AM PST (that's midnight in Seattle) on Friday, July 11th. So you have a week. A whole week! That should be enough to bang out 1,000 words.

PRIZE: I will select 1 winner over the weekend after the submission deadline and will post the winning story on my blog on Wednesday, July 16th, in the morning, around 10AM PST. You also get one of my signed paperbacks.

WHAT TO SUBMIT AND WHERE:

A Word document or plain text in the body of the email, but no PDF's from where I have to extract text.
A photograph of you at least 610 x 610 pixels large, square, 72 DPI, in character, meaning, maybe dress up in a tutu or as an elephant or suck on a lollipop.
One line bio. I don't need lengthy descriptions of how awesome you are, we all know that already. Tell us something we will remember and maybe laugh about.
Which of my signed paperbacks you want, in case you win. Pick here.
Your physical address, so I can ship you the book you won.
Email all of your submissions to kseniaanske at gmail dot com.

All right! Game on! Get on it, poppets! *starts timer*