Everyone can write, can’t they? But it takes real skill to come up with truly awful writing, like that celebrated by the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

This is almost as much fun as the Oddest Book Title of the Year contest. But instead of just finding existing examples — in this case, that fit the requirement of a bad opening sentence to a novel — entrants are asked to create their own lead to an imaginary novel that thankfully has not seen the light of day.

The contest began in 1982, and “honors the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton.” He’s the man who gave the world, “It was a dark and stormy night” in the opening to his novel, Paul Clifford.

The winner of the 2009 contest is David McKenzie, a 55-year-old Quality Systems consultant and writer from Federal Way, Washington. Apparently he is a repeat winner, having propelled his awful writing to the top of the Western and Children’s Literature categories before. Oh, yes, there are categories, such as Fantasy Fiction, Detective, Purple Prose and Vile Puns, with winners, runners-up and “dishonorable mentions.” But this year, he won the top prize and all the fame that goes with it.

Here’s his winning entry, in all its 88-word glory:

“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin’ off Nantucket Sound from the nor’ east and the dogs are howlin’ for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the “Ellie May,” a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin’ and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

Most of the entries are pretty funny. Some are short, but most cram as much detail as possible into a longer sentence, like this winner of the Detective category (Eric Rice):

“She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida – the pink ones, not the white ones – except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn’t wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren’t.”

I’d better not turn my attention to writing until I’ve cleared my head of these!

In the movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You” (seen on the plane on the way home from San Francisco), Drew Barrymore’s character laments the sorry state of communication with the opposite sex:

“I had this guy leave me a voicemail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.”

She didn’t mention it, but you can get rejected by Twitter, too. Or at least, this is what I imagine are the Twitter signs he’s just not that into you (inspired by a friend who shall be nameless):

1. He doesn’t retweet your clever tweets.
2. He tweets when he’s out with you, but doesn’t mention you.
3. He doesn’t send you sexy DMs any more.
4. He unfollows you, and then…
5. He blocks you.

What other signs are there?

This is such a great contest: The Diagram Prize’s Oddest Book Title of the Year. Its 2009 winner is The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-miligram Containers of Fromage Frais.

I’m sure you are wondering, how could that possibly have beat out Baboon Metaphysics (#2) and Curbside Consultation of the Colon (#3)? Such is the nature of the wonderfully whimsical contest, now in its 31st year after being conceived by The Diagram Group’s Bruce Robertson as a way to avoid boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The Bookseller posted a short list of six books vying for the prestigious title, receiving just over 5,000 votes in an online poll to come up with the winner. “Six seems such a cruelly low number given titles such as Excrement in the Late Middle Ages and All Dogs Have ADHD were rejected,” said Philip Stone, a sales analyst at The Bookseller.

He added that The Diagram Prize “celebrates the diversity within book publishing today, the risks publishers are willing to take to support freedom of information, the beauty of print-on-demand for fascinatingly niche titles, and perhaps most of all, complete and utter oddity.”

(Thanks to Gloria for reminding me to blog about this.)

Happy birthday to Barbie, who turned 50 today. Talk about a toy with legs! Whether 50 is the new 40 or 50 is the new 30, she sure looks good. And she’s got all kinds of “dream” things — dream bedroom, dream dining room, dream kitchen, dream game room and more, much of it pink, like the dream bathtub (pink clawfoot tub with a pretend flat screen TV). You can see it all on the Mattel site, which sports wallpaper in a violent pink with tiny paired images of her classic slip-on shoes.

Oh, Barbie. Yes, I had her, and a black case with tiny hangers holding her vast wardrobe of snug sheaths, pencil skirts and evening gowns, both store bought and lovingly sewn by my talented mother. I had little boxes holding multiple tiny accessories, like those iconic shoes. I had a cardboard Barbie Dream House, built by inserting tab A into slot B — my handyman father took on that chore, probably late one Christmas Eve. I briefly had a Barbie cake, made out of the stacked icing from four or five Oreos, until a visiting neighour kid ate it.

I also had Skipper, Barbie’s little sister. She had long blonde hair but few other features of her curvy sister; she had flat feet and a chest to match, so I totally identified with her.  She also had sensible shoes and raincoats and shorts, and I don’t recall ever seeing a ballgown. I had a flashback moment visiting BarbieCollector.com when I spotted my “Dreamtime” set: dotted two-piece PJs with a lightweight fleece robe and slippers (all pink, of course) and a tiny blue felt stuffed cat.

Oh, you’re thinking this collection stuff is a girly thing. Nuh uh. My two sons had an enormous collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle gear that far surpassed my Barbie/Skipper collection. They had several different versions of the original four Turtles — Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael and Michaelangelo — plus assorted vehicles, a whack of bad guys to fight, and seemingly millions of tiny plastic weapons and accessories like pizza slices. The Turtles’ version of the Dream House was a sewer lair; we had that, too. (We may actually still have much of it all in our basement. Make me an offer, please!)

Some people scoff at toys like Barbie and the Turtles (hey, that would be a great band name, as humour columnist Dave Barry used to say). It’s true they seem to inspire an unfortunate need to collect, but a lot of imaginative play goes on amidst the piles of stuff. So keep on dreaming, Barbie!

Here’s a new way to waste time practice your Scrabble(R) skills: Scrabble Zone, found at Merriam-Webster Online.

You don’t actually connect the words the way you do on a Scrabble board, just make a word as fast as possible with the tiles given. Premium squares show up in random spots to challenge your skills. The object is to use all 64 letters before the time runs out, while getting as many points as you can. Each time the clock runs out, your total score and that of the highest scoring word are displayed.

Tell me that’s not addictive to word nerds!

They’re everywhere these days: illustrating a  newspaper article, highlighting a book’s content, offering a glimpse into a web site. Word clouds are great visual signals for what’s inside.

Make your own with Wordle, a fun toy created by Jonathan Feinberg at IBM Research. Wordle generates word clouds, either from text you’ve cut and pasted or the URL to a site with a feed, like a blog. Toss the words in the Wordle blender and it serves up a lovely graphic. Play with colour, fonts and layouts until you get what you want. Print a copy and do anything you want with it (make a transfer and put it on a T-shirt, for instance), or post it to the gallery to show others. Ones I saw in the gallery included Wordles made of speeches, names, the text in a chapter and attributes.

Here’s an idea for freelancers: Turn your testimonials (AKA your glory file) into a great visual snapshot you can hang on your wall. Copy your testimonials (you do collect them, don’t you?) into a Word document; strip out a lot of the extra words to leave the strong words of praise; add your own name in a few extra times (to make it come out larger than the other words, since size is a function of how many times the word appears). Copy and paste into the Wordle “create” space. Play around with fonts and layout until you find something pleasing. Print it out and bask in glory-at-a-glance.

Or with Valentine’s Day coming up, you might want to paste all the words that describe your sweetie — gorgeous, kind, funny, smart, etc. — with his/her name for a personal and unusual gift.

Try it out!

(Thanks to Ann Wylie’s Writing Tips e-newsletter for pointing me to Wordle.)

Some interesting words I’ve run across lately:

Wrapsimonious: “Joe recycles nothing, so when he carefully removes the paper from his gift, he’s just being wrapsimonious so he won’t have to purchase any.” (From Verbotomy)

Clickstream: The path taken through a web site.

Thinute: “A brief minute when I was two pounds thinner than usual.” (From Flawed Mom)

And two that sent me to the dictionary:

Crepuscular: Of twilight.

Gyre: I thought C.S. Lewis made this up in Jabberwocky (‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe), but it means whirl or gyrate.

Mental Floss shares six new year traditions from around the world in their latest newsletter. Since my grandparents came from Scotland, I was particularly drawn to the mention of Hogmanay, which Scotland marks today. Tonight is also called Auld Year’s Night.

One of the customs associated with the new year is that of the first-footer: the first person to visit your home after midnight (and therefore New Year’s Day). It is good luck if the first-footer is a tall handsome man with dark hair, preferably bringing a gift. The traditional gifts are symbolic, such as salt, shortbread or whisky, two of which are certainly considered good luck in many a house! I wonder if it counts if the tall handsome man who lives in the house goes out the door and comes back in?

Apparently, traditional Hogmanay parties involve singing, dancing, eating of steak pie or stew, storytelling and consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. Scots or not, many people will be carrying on a lot of those traditional activities tonight. So be careful out there, and please don’t drink and drive!

I can’t resist sharing Bill Dyszel’s “freelance national anthem,” about the joys of being a freelance writer. Appropriately enough, it’s sung to Ode to Joy (written by German poet Friedrich Schiller but best known in its musical setting in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony). It opens with:

“We are full-time freelance writers / what we love is being free! / We don’t need no stinkin’ office / We don’t need security!”

I just want to point out, though, that I wear clothes while working!

Did you know that Santa’s blogging this year, and he’s planning to podcast next year? Dave Fleet, who listed what he’d do if he were Santa’s PR guy, directed me to Santa’s blog. Check it out and see if YOUR eyes don’t twinkle!

The list of 100 things about Santa is pretty funny, and it mentions something I ran across recently while editing a client’s newsletter. A headline referred to a “holiday tree,” and I suggested that if it was decorated, as it was, for Christmas, it was actually a Christmas tree. Santa agrees:

“37. It’s a Christmas Tree. Not a Holiday Tree. I’m not (a) offended by your holiday symbols nor am I (b) attempting to take over your holiday symbols. Please leave mine alone. It’s a matter of respect.”

Also funny:

“23. I have been stuck in a chimney. More times than I care to admit. Blitzen carries retrieval equipment in the sleigh.”

Is Santa Canadian? Hmm, he mentions having “replenishment centers,” not “centres” to cover up, but there’s an “eh” in there that makes me wonder.

If you’re celebrating Christmas, I hope it’s a merry one. And let’s hope you’ve been good, because Santa reads every name on the naughty list!