Sentencing

My Sentence file contains sentences that I am saving to insert in an appropriate writing. This is similar to my Greeting Card file. I save cards for just the right person on the right occasion. Some cards are edgy, sacrilegious, or inappropriate for those who cannot see the humor in being insulted. After awhile I realize I cannot give a certain card to anyone if I have not selected it after two or three decades in rotation. Throwing it away is such a defeat so I pick out two people and send it to one of them with the other person’s name and address on it. The same phenomenon is taking place in my Sentence file. If I could not find a place for a saved sentence in my novel, my Christmas Newsletters, my first 1350+ Blog postings, or any other writing vehicle, then logically it must not be a useful sentence. As noted above, I have an aversion to tossing out my unused source material. I am not crazy enough to write an entire novel around one troublesome sentence. While searching for solutions to my dilemma, I stumbled over the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. This contest annually awards a modest financial reward to the writer who composes “the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.” I should have been entering since 1982 when the contest began. I have so many sentences in Purgatory to choose from. I start this phase of my career with: “His body was cocked, loaded, and in the hands of someone who knew how to use it.”