There's a writing competition coming up, and its theme is 'dystopia'. I've been working on one so this could be good practice.
Submitting any kind of story to an editor is pot luck. One editor might like it, while another might rate it lower than 'The Gordon Brown Compendium of Fun' or Cameron's early exercise video, 'How To Get A Head'. The only thing that matters in this game is a thick skin and bloody-minded persistence. An ability to spell does help a bit too.
So I am busy trying to write about a fictional mad world. Meanwhile, in the real world, I see Elvis has risen from the grave to rob betting shops in Brighton, the Nazis had life-size Barbie dolls to shag, global warming heralds the coldest summer for 18 years and still calls it global warming, and after decades of trying to gender-neutralise all children, it now appears that children who don't display gender-specific traits will turn out gay. Oh, and shampooing your hair now makes you fat, too.
SoI have to write a dystopia. It's not going to be easy to imagine something more bizarre than what's really happening out there. Politics? Oh, that left the realms of credibility long ago.
I'm going to have to get very, very drunk for this one.
3 comments:
"Oh, and shampooing your hair now makes you fat, too."
But remember, after the smoking ban kicked in, everyone stopped shampooing their hair on a regular basis, just like they stopped laundering their clothing and stopped taking daily proper showers and baths. So now there is an entire generation growing up who believes that the sweet aroma of tobacco smoke stinks while oblivious to the foul stench and odors coming from their very own hair, clothing, skin and putrid unwashed body parts. Anti-smoking, ain't it just great what dystopia it can create just in the course of a few short years.
hadn't thought of the logical corollary - thin people can't be washing enough.
Watch for the job ads - 'No smokers, no boozers and no stinky thins'.
Why put all that effort into it? Just cut and paste from the papers, I doubt if anyone can better that.
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