Hey, I wonder who the most mis-guessed writer was. You know, the one whose name was incorrectly placed the most times. I'm betting it's Wendy, but I'd be curious to see the total.
Something I forgot to write last night... Where
was your story, Lynn? I hadn't thought of it at first, but as soon as people started guessing your name, it seemed obvious. It's your contest. Where was your entry?
BTW, Paul:
I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay,
I sleep at night and I work all day.
Huh?
Sorry, Paul, you've been bumped...well, not bumped but you have to share your status with CC.
lol, no problem, Sara. I actually figured that out before you did.
I'm just honored to be amongst such good company, and flattered that you thought I'd witten that.
Actually, I'm flattered by a lot of the people and stories I was confused with.
Oh, speaking of which...
Also, couldn't help but notice that I didn't exactly fool anyone with mine. Hm. Haven't decided if that's good or bad!
I say it's good. I wasn't as confident in my guess because I was so confused about the other stories, but honestly, I read that story and your name popped immediately to mind. My thought went something very much like this, "Okay, this has to be CC. No one else could write prose that flowing, that good,
and that funny."
What I've been wondering is what it means that hardly anyone thought to put my name with my stories. The punny titles, the short lengths, the punchline endings, the unorthodox interpretations of the premise... The prose in "Clark's Pet Peeve" felt a lot like "Flying Free" to me as I wrote it, too.
I remember writing both stories (I threw both together in about an hour the night Lynn posted the contest, and was the first to send anything in), and thinking "well, these won't fool anyone. I just can't seem to write in any style but my own. Oh well, at least we'll have a couple extra entries to add to the overall total..." It really surprised me when things didn't happen that way, and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.
For the record, the reason I wrote two was that I originally interpreted the challenge differently. I thought everyone was going to write as many stories as they felt like, and we'd get a big mass of them and try to guess. So, I started coming up with one idea after another, except that I was having a lot of trouble with the premise. I just didn't know what to do with a pet in the story. I ended up coming up with 3 ideas. A pet peeve, a pet rock, and a pet Cat. I put two stories together, tried for a third, realized I wasn't getting anywhere, and just threw the gag into the title.
Lynn posted that she was only really expecting one entry per author, and it took a while to sink in. By the time that happened, I'd already sent her my two.
I was very surprised to see only a total of 10 when it came to posting time.
So, Vicki, that's why I had two stories.
I'm confused, though... Who guessed "Wendy" on CC's story? The closest I can find is my guess:
Lois and the Cat by... This one's pretty funny, and it makes me wish that I hadn't somehow inadvertantly skipped ahead between breaks. Now I'm thinking this does look CC-ish. Alright. I'm going to go with Wendy, after all. I'll vote CC here.
By which I meant "I agree with Wendy. I think this is CC's story." I thought that was clear, since you did count that as a right answer for me. Unless you counted my "is it too late to change my guess to Mary?" post as a correct answer...
Yvonne - I don't know your style as well, since tearjerkers aren't to my taste (I have enough problems, and I don't believe in catharsis. I prefer happy fiction.), but your name did come to mind strongly as I was reading your story. There was a lot of UK phrasing and grammar. I thought it might be a decoy, but it was so consistent that I was starting to doubt. The style and flow didn't look like Wendy, Kae, or Mere. So, even without being that familiar with your style, your name was up there in my mind.
What really threw me was your extremely devious plan, in which you told us you had come up with a devious plan to disguise your style... and then faked us out and didn't!
One thing I found really strange, though, was that you kept using my favorite turns of phrase. The little quirks I catch myself using so often that I am now super-sensitive to them and try to edit them back out when I see them. I was reading it, and kept seeing them, and it confused the heck out of me. <g> "Wait a minute... I know I didn't write this. Besides, I don't write
this well. This is how I
would write if I could... There, that's my favorite transition. What's that doing there? There's my second favorite. And that! That's
exactly how I've always wanted to write something like that! Wish I knew how... What's going on? Ack! Stop messing with my head!!"
Anyway, if I'd been even slightly more familiar with your style, I wouldn't have ignored that gut feeling that kept saying it had to be you.
It was a matter of style, UK spelling and grammar, and overall quality.
I think that's all I wanted to add. If not, I'll be back.
So... is everyone going to repost individually?
EDITJust totalled up Lynn's author count. Assuming it's right, the number of times each author was incorrectly guessed for a story was:
Wendy: 15
Lynn: 13
Labrat: 7
Paul: 7
Shadow: 6
MDL: 5
Yvonne: 4
LaruaU: 4
QoTC: 4
Kaethel: 4
AnnaB: 4
Wanda: 4
Meredith: 3
Roger: 3
KathyB: 2
Pam: 2
Kitty: 2
Nan: 2
MLT: 1
Karen: 1
Sara: 1
Irene: 1
Qex: 1
Tank: 1
JulieS: 1
CC: 1
Paul
