Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek,

shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit moulding her body, which was as warm

as seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like

bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood;

she was a woman driven -- fueled by a single accelerant -- and she needed a

man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the

right road: a man like Alf Romeo.

-- Rachel Sheeley, winner

The hair ball blocking the drain of the shower reminded Laura she would never

see her little dog Pritzi again.

-- Claudia Fields, runner-up

It could have been an organically based disturbance of the brain -- perhaps a

tumor or a metabolic deficiency -- but after a thorough neurological exam it

was determined that Byron was simply a jerk.

-- Jeff Jahnke, runner-up

Winners in the 7th Annual Bulwer-Lytton Bad Writing Contest. The contest is

named after the author of the immortal lines: "It was a dark and stormy

night." The object of the contest is to write the opening sentence of the

worst possible novel.