It's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest time again!

The Bulwar-Lytton Contest deadline is April 15th. To quote the famous writer:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

And in honor of this wordy author, an annual contest is held to see who can write the most lengthy and elaborate bunch of silly foo-fah their minds can string together in one sentence. Each year the website publishes the winning entries. You can find the main page at http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/.

The 2009 results will be published there sometime in mid-June 2009.

Hoping to be ranked as the worst of the worst of purple prose, I sent off this year's verbal herniations for consideration. Two examples of which are included below:

Even though she was being tied to the ornately-carved sacrificial post and watching the witch doctor shake fetishes in her face, Valentina couldn't help being impressed by his lavish, yet charmingly primitive jewelry and flamboyantly colorful make-up, all the while thinking he really should do something about his pores and bad breath, but not in that order.

and

"Don't worry Lucille," shrugged her friend Gladys after she had been retrieved from the crowd at the antiques show to view the beautiful domed-top chair, "because if you are meant to have an authentic early example of an astronomically priced 16th century hand-carved rosewood French hooded porter's chair with the original horsehair padding and tooled Moroccan-Spanish leather upholstery and hand-forged brass studs and casters, you'll find one at a garage sale."