Tag Archives: Contest

One of These Facts is Actually a Lie

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I think this is a good time for you to get to know me a little bit. Though instead of doing a Q&A or blather on about myself I thought I’d do something different. Here is a list of strange, interesting, fascinating, or quirky facts about me – except one.

To make it interesting I am asking you to guess which one of these is a complete lie. When I reach 20 guesses, I will reveal the lie and someone will win signed copies of my books Bent But Not Broken and Hard Truth. 

The rules:
 
  • Follow me on one or more of these platforms:
  • Comment with your guess at the bottom of this post. For your comment simply which statement you think is FALSE but feel free to comment with other words too!
  • You may only guess once HOWEVER if you email subscribe to this blog you get a bonus guess (you’ll only get emails when I post, which isn’t very often). If you’re on a PC or tablet the link is on the right sidebar. If you’re on a phone tap here, or you can scroll way down to find the form.
  • The day following my receipt of the 20th guess:
    • If one person has guessed correctly, I will award them the prize
    • If more than one person guessed correctly:
      • I will award the prize two whoever has followed me on the most platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and email subscribed to my blog)
      • If there’s still a tie, I will award the prize by using a random draw for those who are tied
    • If no one has guessed correctly, I will award the prize using a random draw including everyone who has guessed

Those who know me (or who have been paying attention) will know for certain some of the truths. Don’t spoil it for others! Just comment with your guess and see what some other people think.

Without further delay. Here are the facts (and one lie):
 
  1. I have scored a game-winning goal at Maple Leaf Gardens;
  2. I have assisted Penn & Teller on stage with one of their tricks (Mofo the Psychic Gorilla);
  3. I have been paid as a freelance writer to provide original content to a video game;
  4. I have had a 1-minute conversation and spoken five scripted words on a nationally broadcasted television show (US and Canada);
  5. The episode from #4 aired more than once, and at least one complete stranger has recognized me for this appearance;
  6. It was 20 years before I saw the clip from #4;
  7. I have played and won, hockey games on both the 1932 and 1980 Olympic hockey rinks in Lake Placid New York;
  8. I have had a 500-word anecdote selected for inclusion in a Darwin Awards book;
  9. In the first printing (hardcover) of the Darwin Awards Book, they incorrectly spelled my name;
  10. I have stood in the room where Winston Churchill was born;
  11. I drove for half a kilometre the wrong way down a busy one-way street in Belgium;
  12. I have had a 5000-word short story published about the death of a family member. It’s a comedy;
  13. I have appeared as a street fighting homeless person in a rap music video;
  14. I have eaten snake soup;
  15. I stole a divot from Augusta National Golf Course during the Monday practice rounds at The Masters;
  16. I was once qualified to instruct both flatwater canoeing and small vessel sailing;
  17. I once stayed awake for four and a half days;
  18. I once had a non-speaking role in a TV commercial for a financial institution;
  19. I have been a teacher’s assistant for English as a Second Language children (ages 6-10) with behavioural problems;
  20. The teacher’s assistant job was a block away from the most crime-riddled area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada;
  21. I have broken or cracked the following bones: toe beside the big one on the left foot, left foot/ankle/tibia (from the same accident), left arm (radius AND ulna), left pinky and middle fingers (separate breaks), several ribs, right ankle, right wrist, right pinky finger, nose, head (stitches), and brain (multiple concussions);
  22. I have driven my car to the publicized geographic longitudinal center of Canada;
  23. Last year of high school I did not take notes or use anything but a pencil to write assignments or tests in Calculus. I got 88%.  My last year of university I studied more for my Calculus 3 course than any other subject.  I got 51%;
  24. Speaking of scholastic honours, I once wrote an exam for a second-year university course (Electricity & Magnetism 2) and failed so badly I would have received a higher grade had I skipped the exam altogether (if you no-show on an exam they gave you a default mark for averaging purposes. Spoiler alert: it’s well below 50);
  25. In university, we covered in 9 hours what took Sir Isaac Newton over 20 years to uncover and write down about calculus (granted, he had other things going on).

Welcome to 2014

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Happy New Year!

2014 is going to be a big one for me on a couple fronts, not the least of which is that I’ll have a book out. My first novel, No Fixed Address, was finished at the end of November and editing and rewrites begin in earnest sometime in the next few weeks. If I can get it traditionally published I’ll go that route, but it will be available electronically one way or another, I promise. I’m actually looking forward to my first rejection letter. Is that odd?

I’ll also try to finish novel #2 (tentatively titled The Book of Good) sometime before October. I picked this timeline for a couple reasons:

  1. It will give me time to edit and polish the first novel, 
  2. It will leave me with the month of October to outline…
  3. So I can participate in NaNoWriMo again – this time to finish No Known Cure (the sequel to No Fixed Address). 
Also on the writing front, I’ll be posting every Sunday again on a whole whack of topics, but with the majority touching on my experiences as an up-and-coming writer and what it’s like to live and interact with all these crazy strange interesting crazy writer-type-folks. 
Courtesy Stuart Miles at http://freedigitalphotos.net 
Speaking of crazy writer-type-folks, I am happy to announce that I have teamed up with author Gordon Bonnet to run a weekly flash fiction contest! Here’s the basic low-down on how it will all unfold:
  • Every Wednesday we will post a prompt; sometimes just a word, sometimes a sentence, maybe even a picture
  • Then, you leave a comment giving us 500 of your best words. It can be any genre or format that you wish but it must follow the prompt and it must be totally made up (please, let’s give ourselves a break from the real world for a few minutes, okay?) 
  • The next week Gordon and I will give a shout out to the entries that we liked the best and we’ll issue another prompt
  • Lather, rinse, repeat
Since both Gordon and I have blogs (Gordon’s is called Tales of Whoa) what we’ll do is alternate the hosting of the prompt and capturing of the comments. Don’t worry though, when you come to either of the blogs there will be a redirect to the one hosting the prompt. We figured this would cause less confusion than starting up a whole separate blog just for this. Plus we would have had to come up with a fancy name for it and that seemed like a whole lot of work.
Oh, I forgot the best part! Every three or four months Gordon and I will comprise a short list of about 10 of the entries from that period and we’ll put up a poll and have readers vote on which one they liked the most. After a voting period (exact amount of time still to be determined) the winner will receive free stuff! It will likely be free books written by either Gordon, myself, or someone who’s graciously donated one for us to give away. 
You could win books! Not these books though, they are my daughter’s.
This pic, links to posts and other fun stuff can be found on my Facebook page 
You might be saying to yourself, “Self, I’m really interested in everything that Andrew guy has on the go for 2014. There couldn’t possibly be more, could there?” 
Ah, but there is!
A friend of mine, a writer and fellow creative, D. Savannah George, posted to Facebook the result of her attempt at taking a picture a day. She got well over 200 done, and I was suitably impressed; both with the dedication it required and with the resulting art. So, in the waning hours of 2013, and prompted by a few friends on Facebook (shout outs to Dana, Terre, Sami, Eleni, and DS!), I decided I would give it a shot this year. I started on January 1 as that’s the only day my OCD would allow. 
Check out my Picture a Day Tumblr blog for progress (I’ll definitely take a picture every day, but we’ll see if I manage to post one every day too).
That’s it for now, look for the very first Potato Chip Math / Tales of Whoa flash fiction contest on Wednesday, January 8!
~ Andrew