Welcome to February, the month with the most wonderful holiday of all

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Now that the Macmillan/Amazon.com fight is over (supposedly, since none of the Tor novels I look at on their site are available) we can focus on the greatest, most hated holiday of all.

Valentine’s Day.

It’s only two weeks away, and it’s justifiably hated by single people. People in love can spend a couple of bucks (or even better, some time and thought) to come up with something nice for their loved ones–which they ought to be doing year round anyway, but never mind. For people who are single but don’t want to be, it can be the loneliest day of the year. Believe me. I remember.

For you singletons, happy or un-, I have a gift. Actually, I have a contest! Here’s how it will work: Post a story, either in the main blog or on LiveJournal (sorry, Facebook people, but you have to go to the blog to enter), of the worst, most pathetic true tale of dating hell you can come up with. Rape, murder and pedophilia are off limits–those stories are hard for me to bear. Everything else will be fair game. You an enter as many times as you like.

On, let’s say, Thursday, I’ll link to all the stories and choose my favorite three (assuming I get that many) and let you readers choose the winner.

The prize will be a copy of Child of Fire, of course. Single folks will be able to shut out the tawdry pink hearts and chocolates with the nasty cherries inside and read a romance-free book about shadowy killers, a disintegrating community, and cleansing rage. Yeah, you heard right. Cleansing, cleansing rage.

Of course, you don’t have to be single or lonely to enter. Everyone is welcome, although if you win the book and you already have someone in your life who will be treating you special on that day, maybe you can give it to someone else who might enjoy it (and I’ll leave it up to your judgement whether you tell them why or not.

Let the stories begin!