Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Lies, Damn Lies, and a Contest

Patti Abbott, the Derringer Award-winning short-story writer and creator of the Friday “forgotten books” series, has challenged me to participate in the latest meme wending its way around the crime-fiction blogosphere. This Bald-Faced Liar (aka “Creative Writer”) Award meme was kicked off last month by Arizona library manager and book critic Lesa Holstine. Since then, an assortment of clever and crafty bloggers have participated, including Evan Lewis, Keith Raffel, Laurie Powers, Bill Crider, the pseudonymous le0part13, Randy Johnson, Paul D. Brazill, and Loren Eaton.

The rules are pretty simple:

Thank the person who gave this to you. (Merci, Patti.)
Copy the logo and place it on your blog. (OK, done.)
Link to the person who nominated you. (Check.)
Tell up to six outrageous lies about yourself, and at least one outrageous truth - or - switch it around and tell six outrageous truths and one outrageous lie. (See below.)
Nominate seven “Creative Writers” who might have fun coming up with outrageous lies of their own. (Check the end of this post.)
Post links to the seven blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you have nominated them.

Most folks who’ve tackled this meme so far have chosen to conceal one true statement about themselves within six falsehoods. Being the maverick that I am, I’ve decided to go in the opposite direction--to deliver six truths about myself, plus one fabrication. Think you can tell the difference? Keep in mind that what sounds like an obvious misrepresentation of fact might in fact be true: I have led an often interesting life.

Which one of these statements is not true?

1. I once dined with Buckminster Fuller.

2. My father’s boyhood pal grew up to be George Bush’s spy chief.

3. One night, many years ago, when my apartment building caught on fire, I escaped through the flames clutching the manuscript I was working on at the time--but forgot to put on shoes.

4. I once helped to send a friend to prison.

5. I once sat beside Amy Adams on a cross-country flight.

6. I once fell asleep right in the middle of interviewing a famous English economist.

7. A cabbie in Tijuana offered to sell me his sister. Cheap.

To make guessing at the correct answer just a wee bit more fun, I’m going to turn it into a contest.

Author Kelli Stanley’s publisher, Minotaur Books, has offered to send two free hardcover copies of her wonderful new historical crime novel, City of Dragons, to Rap Sheet readers. If you would like to win one of those, you must first decide which of the aforementioned seven “facts” is a phony, and then send your response (along with your mailing address) to jpwrites@wordcuts.org. And please write “You’re a Liar” in the subject line. You can make only one guess, but you have until next Wednesday, February 24, to make it. At that time, I’ll collect all of the right answers (presuming anyone gets it right), and randomly choose two people to receive free copies of City of Dragons.

If you’d like to take a stab at identifying my one true statement without entering the giveaway contest, you can do that, too. Simply leave your response in the Comments section of this post.

One final thing: I’m supposed to tag seven other bloggers to take up this challenge themselves. So here goes (no hard feelings if you would prefer not to play):

Dan Fleming of My Year in Crime
Art Taylor of Art & Literature
Linda L. Richards
Declan Burke of Crime Always Pays
Ali Karim of Existentialist Man
Paul Bishop of Bish’s Beat
Mike Dennis

Don’t forget to check back here next week to see how good I am at lying, and who wins those free copies of Kelli Stanley’s new book.

3 comments:

pattinase (abbott) said...

#6-As dull as economists are, I don't think you would have nodded off.

Keith Raffel said...

The business in Tijuana sounds too cliche-d to be true. (Kelli's book is definitely worth fighting for.)

Paul Bishop said...

I've taken up the gauntlet here:

http://bishsbeat.blogspot.com/2010/02/lies-damn-lies-and-statistics.html

And as for your lie, I don't see you helping to send a friend to prison.