The Bet Rides Again and Again
Catherine Ryan Hyde
My horse, ItsmyluckdayOkay, I'll admit it. This year's Kentucky Derby snuck up on me. I didn't realize it was coming up this weekend until I noticed this tweet from madcap fellow author and Bet Associate Brian Farrey:
BrianFarrey7:13am via tGadget To add drama to #TheBet, I'm continuing to trash talk my fellow Bettees. @cryanhyde, yo mama.
I guess you have to know Brian.
This is the third year running that four slightly unbalanced authors, myself included, will bet the writing of a short story on the Kentucky Derby. No money. All stories.
It works like this. We each choose a horse. I chose Itsmyluckyday. Brian chose Revolutionary. Kimberly Pauley chose Fear The Kitten on name alone (Fear The Kitten is 50-1, so I hope you have some story ideas, Kimberly). Andrew Smith chose Oxbow. It doesn't matter if none of our horses do well in the race. For the sake of The Bet, they are only running against each other. Even if they are the four slowest horses on the track tomorrow, somebody will come in ahead of somebody else. The author whose horse comes in first doesn't have to (get to?) write a story, but gets to assign a story title to the second-place author. Second-place author writes a story to that title, and assigns a title to the author whose horse comes in third. And so on. The big loser gets to write a story, but not stick anybody with a title, which is a big part of the fun.
It's all rather odd, I know. But it's become tradition.
You can read the first year's (2011) stories by following the links in this blog post.
Wish me luck!
Slight correction. Fear The Kitten was scratched, and Kimberly is taking Charming Kitten instead. This kitten has slightly better odds. Though, as she noted, "apparently, cats aren't great runners, eh?" Mine is, but I doubt he'd win the Kentucky Derby. Stay tuned for results. And stories.
Okay, here's your winner's list follow-up. Brian's horse came in first. His story title for Andrew, who came in second, is "Journey, Crimson, Nightmare, Name." Andrew gave third-place finisher Kimberly the title "The Druggist and the Apostrophe." Kimberly gave me--yes that's right, I came in dead last--the title "Even Pigeons Can Sing."
Give us about 30 days.