Bad writers, hear up — impress us!

Remember this sentence? "As Wrangler Johnny lay there in the hospital bed, feeling the fresh puncture wounds in his chest, he suddenly understood what the unicorn had meant when it said, 'This ain't your kind of rodeo, cowboy."'

What about this one? "The rug lay upon the floor like a supine lion, only it was not alive, and this was not Africa."

Or this? "If there had ever been a time (and there probably had been, or if not, there probably would be) for reflection and contemplation, this may well be the time, and if it was not the time, it might be sometime soon."

How about this? "She tossed her head lightly in a subtle yet fetching manner, black hair shimmering in the glow of the campfire, dewy brown eyes rimmed with feathered lashes, a coy smile playing about her full lips, and the realization walloped Maxwell upside the head after 65 days alone with her and 200 head of cattle on the high-desert plateaus of Arizona that Ruby was really a fine-looking mare."

All four were winners in last year's annual (and incredibly famous) Deseret Morning News Bad Writing Contest, which is based on the annual (and even more incredibly famous) Bulwer-Lytton contest, www.bulwer-lytton.com. Created by professor Scott Rice of San Jose State University (go, Spartans!), the contest aims to keep alive the memory of Victorian author Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who secured himself a special place in literary history when he began a novel with the phrase "It was a dark and stormy night . . . "

We here at the Deseret Morning News are eager to do our part, which is why we invite you to create a memorable sentence of your own and send it to us. Here are the rules.

1. Your sentence must be original.

2. Your sentence must be a sentence. Not two sentences. Or three. I taught English for a while, so (trust me) I know the difference. The judicious use of semicolons and colons is fine, but keep in mind that uber-long sentences are daunting to our judges. Shoot for under 50 words.

3. You may submit more than one sentence.

4. Your sentence can be rooted in any genre: romance, horror, children's fiction, historical, contemporary literature, mystery, thriller, western, sci-fi or fantasy, adventure, whatever.

5. While we're at it, let's have a "Dark and Stormy Night" category.