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Friday, January 25, 2008

New Millenium Hypergraphia



Two missives that spell C-R-A-Z-Y came in last night from my friend and yours Don Williams of New Millennium Writings. This time, he has a little rope-in announcement for contest participants; it's a congratulatory letter saying that if you are receiving the email, you were a finalist in his last contest. That means you made it down to the final 200! Whoo-ee!

But then just a few hours later, Don writes back to say that he sent out the congratulatory notice to the wrong list; you are NOT really one of the lucky final 200. You may in fact be the regular run-of-the-mill contest loser you always supsected you were.

But don't worry; Don will write you again because that's what he does. Just sit tight and he'll get back to you to let you know if you really, really are in that prestigious finalist crowd of 200, so that you will have renewed hope and submit another story and another twenty bucks to him.

Where there's life, my dear-hearts, there's hope. And where there are desperate writers, there is marketing ambition. It's a familiar story, isn't it?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hope this outrageously cynical trick backfires on Mr. Williams. Glad you're spreading the bad news. Are you holding your breath waiting for his third e-mail that he promised would go out "tomorrow" to "real" semi-finalists?? I guess I'm still quite naive because I find this one shocking.

Anonymous said...

Cheese. Ball.

Anonymous said...

Shame, shame on all of you who would criticize Mr. Don Williams. Doesn't he have to make a living?
Would you finally be satisfied if his magazine folded and he had to turn to something shabby like telemarketing?
Give the man a little compassion.