Level B - August, 2002,  Dog Days Exercise     

”Dog days” for me always conjured up a vision of legions of loose dogs wandering the streets, long tongues hanging in the heat,  searching for water and mischief.  

Wrong, but the image still lingers. 

"Dog days" is the name for the most sultry period of summer,  from about July 3 to Aug. 11.  Named in early times by observers in countries bordering the Mediterranean, the period was reckoned as extending from 20 days before to 20 days after the conjunction of  Sirius (the dog star) and the sun.  Sirius, you may remember is the brightest star in the sky, although Alpha Centuari is the closest. 

The key word is 'sultry'.  It's hot, the world is a little crazy.  Old time newspaper reporters say more zany stories pop up during dog days than any other time.  The term "flying saucer" was coined during dog days.  The Roswell incident happened in July.  They make movies like "Body Heat" (1981: She taught him everything she knew - about passion and murder...)  Zoweee! 

Level B for August is about dog days.  A spaceship, low on neutrons, is stranded near Sirius...  hot sex in a lonely cabin on Key Largo... legions of loose dogs wanderi-- But I don't need to spell it out for you.  I'm sure a story has already begun to form in that brain of yours.  Hit CTL-N for a new page and get started!   

General Guidelines and Information: 

Deadline:
August 31st, 2002, uploaded to Writing Exercises Library 6.  

Size:
A maximum of 5000 words.  (approximately 30,000 bytes)  

File name:
DOG.XXX <-- replace XXX with your initials.  If you upload a second exercise, use DOG2.XXX 

SPECIAL NOTE: Be sure and include your name, CIS userid number and copyright notice on the file description AND AT THE TOP of the exercise. 

The file EXERCISE.FAQ, located in Writing Exercises Library 6,  contains general information on these exercises.  File UPLOAD.SIX  located in the same library will give you most of what you will  need to know for formating and uploading exercises to the library. 

Here are a few additional hints tailored to the exercises that will make your exercise easy to read on any text editor/reader, will prevent it from having to be reformatted, and make it easy to find and identify. 

Margins:
Set your margins for 64 to 70 characters per line. 65 to 68 works best on almost all word processors and text readers. This prevents sentences from being broken up when they word wrap.  This file is set for 65 characters per line. 

Paragraphs:
Use single spaced lines and either indent your paragraphs or put a blank line between paragraphs. When you don't, some text readers turn the whole thing into one long paragraph. 

Save:
You must save your file in straight text ASCII text and make sure there is a hard return at the end of EVERY line.  Word Processor files, ZIP files or other compressed files will not be merged to the libraries. 

Copyright:
THIS IS A MUST!  Put a copyright notice: "Copyright 2002 -(Your Name / CIS user ID)- All Rights Reserved" at the top of your exercise. This tells everyone that you retain rights for you story.  It is also a good idea to put the same notice in the library description. 

Exercise Title:
Also at the top of the body of your exercise put the line: "Dog Exercise - (Title of story) - (Your Name)" either just above or just below the copyright notice. 

Library Description:
Title line: "(Title of story) (Your name)"
Keywords: "August Dog EXERCISE (your first and last name)"
Description: Three or four lines describing exercise.
Copyright notice: (same as listed above)
Material Warning: If the exercise contains adult language or situations, excessive violence, add a warning of such.

 

For questions and problems contact:
Paul White 76340,477
Co-Section Leader, Writing Exercises