Love Letters (Results)

15 min read

Deviation Actions

GeneratingHype's avatar
Published:
116 Views
I'm probably behind in reading and commenting on your journals and deviations: please forgive me.
---
Pip's Top Ten of 2006 (literature) can be found here.
---

Pip's favorite photographers of 2006 can be found here.

---

Show some :+favlove:!

Though the judging was difficult, reading each new love letter was a wonderful reminder of all the ups, downs, and in-betweens of any romantic relationship.  Whether sad and longing, angry and bitter, or sweet and sincere, these letters touched the entire spectrum of emotions and brought to life the passion of an amorous affair.  As such, we would like to thank everyone who participated and offered their aide--most especially Mithgariel and secondmagpie, who donated prizes, diamondie who offered an excellent prize suggestion, Ebonessa who stepped in as a judge, and Riangel and coshdaddy for their incredible support.

And now for the results (also in an awesome news article)!

:winner:  1. :iconnegated: Negated


for the boy I try to forget

If there's one thing the judges were looking for, far beyond grammar and perfect conventions, it was sincere, stirring emotion; we found it in Negated's beautiful would-have-been.  There's not one line we can highlight or one thing we can say: this letter is simply deeply-felt and painfully real; it touched each of us, and we're sure it'll touch you.

Prize:

:pointr:  a 12-month subscription or a print up to $30;
:pointr:  a 3-month subscription from EveningDownpour;
:pointr:  a 1-month subscription from GeneratingHype;
:pointr:  a small (A5) print from Mithgariel's gorgeous gallery; and
:pointr:  a choice of either David Lowenherz's The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time, A. S. Byatt's Possession: A Romance, or Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day.


:trophy:  2. :iconlucidonion: LucidOnion

Her Love LetterDearest Alec,
I've been so worried about you since you were reassigned to Baghdad. There's so much bad news on  TV. I don't want to watch, but I keep hoping I'll see you.
Yes, Tyler and I both love the videos you sent. He can't get enough of seeing you and your friends driving around in that Humvee.
No, he's not talking yet. He points, drools, coos, and grunts. I think "bleeta-deeble-blum" means Daddy because he points at you on the screen and says it.
I'm so proud. I fixed the front door by myself. Now it closes tight and the wind doesn't blow under it.  Thanks for telling me how to fix it. See? You really do help me out around here. I couldn't have done it without you so lighten up on yourself. By the way, Dad put a new battery in the minivan so watch out world - Tyler and I are back on the road!
I read your letter over and over, crying the whole time. Don't start feeling guilty about that. I'm a girl, I'll cry when I please. I didn't get upset about Jamaal, the e

Her Love Letter

Regardless of what you might think about war, there's no denying that it deeply affects us all.  In Her Love Letter</a>, LucidOnion takes an honest, heartbreaking, resolved approach, describing one woman's struggle to balance the bigger picture against her own grief and love.  There's also a companion piece, His Love Letter, which is worth a look.

Prize:

:pointr:  a 3-month subscription from secondmagpie;
:pointr:  a choice of one of the lit mugs;
:pointr:  a choice of either David Lowenherz's The 50 Greatest Love Letters of All Time, A. S. Byatt's Possession: A Romance, or Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day.


:trophy:  3.  :iconrenaissance1912: renaissance1912

Letter to be Sent by CometDear pilot of mine,
It's not as if I'll ever send this, because it's merely self-indulgent crap written on a coffee break. The others don't know what I'm doing, and they won't look over my shoulder, either, because I'm an administrator and you don't do that to administrators. Not even those who have had so many cups of coffee (espresso, too) already that their hands are starting to shake.
It's a bit hard to type but this is for you, dear.
We both know by now that it was all lies that they told us. Not that they meant to lie to us, or anything, it just turned out that way – because we all really believed this was the future of humanity, didn't we? I suppose so. I certainly did. Fifteen when I came out here, young and naïve and full of my own petty problems, and I thought the stars would bring miracles. We all did. You could see it in each fresh load of students they brought in. And they'd sit in their classrooms for hours on end and pay impossibly good attention, charting their t

Letter to be Sent by Comet

This letter was original, the speaker's voice was authentic, and the writing was stellar.  Letter to be Sent by Comet is a wonderful journey through the pangs of heartache and the silly things we do for love--with quite a bit of grounded philosophizing on the side.  It reached us on an intellectual level as well as an emotional one.

Prize:

:pointr:  a 1-month subscription from GeneratingHype and
:pointr:  a choice of one of the lit mugs.


(All winners will be featured in Riangel's journal.)


:megaphone:  Special Mentions:

LOVE LETTER
Dear Terrel,
You and I are in different worlds. You have a life of your own. I don't even think that I was ever a part of that world of yours.
Your mother means well when it comes to you. When she's around others she's so sweet looking, so proud, so motherly and so caring. But I know you know better. She was extremely cruel to me, and she looks down on me because I am poor.
I don't want to be with you for money, I don't care about money. I've always liked you for you. I really hope you know that.
To be honest, when your mother started being cruel towards me, I hadn't even thought about looking at you that way. But during this last month things have changed. I am seeing you in a different light. I have no idea why I haven't seen you like this before since you've always been in front of me, and we've known each other for so long. Maybe I'm just an idiot, I don't know.
I love the way you make me laugh, I love your cheeky smile, but most of all I love you whole. There is absolutely nothing


Lilithia's LOVE LETTER landed in Ebonessa's Top Five picks for its sincerity and touching account of a love that's lost but not really gone.  The recognition is well-deserved, as LOVE LETTER builds on wonderful characterization and a believable back-story to make it both an enjoyable read and the tantalizing start to what just might be an incredible plotline down the road.

Sincerely, MaddyMy dear,
    I have read that a person reads with a greater awareness when they are in love with the writer.  Their understanding of nuances and potential meanings is more acute; they read between the lines, so to speak.  If that is so then it is safe to say that I love you, for I find myself reading every word you write to me again and again to find any meaning that I might have missed.  I want to know so much more than is revealed by the face value of your words.
    In your letters of late I have noticed something that causes me some disturbance.  Our correspondence has been going on for some years now and your letters have always been warm and always personal, until this past month.  What is it that troubles you?  Have I said something wrong?  I like to assume that a person also writes more particularly when they are writing to their beloved, but it's possible that I have f
:thumb48022404: :thumb47871711:

The letters that stuck with EveningDownpour were JessaMar's Sincerely, Maddy, lovetodeviate's Rajeev, and lilmoongodess's Love letter.  Not only does Sincerely, Maddy show the desperation of a long-distance affair, but it also represents something realistic and aching--and mature.  Rajeev, which provides insight to a writer's mind, builds an amazing story with a troubling-but-honest ending.  Love letter, in a similar vein, inspired real tears from a wife who often grapples with the possibility of losing her beloved too soon.

Love LetterI will speak to you in terms we both know since you seem ignorant of other words, such as 'crush' and 'infatuation' and 'adoration.'
We would make the perfect equation.
Our reactants and products wouldn't need balancing with coefficients because we're already in equlibrium.
Our mol to mol ratio would be one to one.
There would be no need for any stoichiometry, because we would transition into any joule, meter, or liter flawlessly.
We would be exothermic, as a thermite reaction.
Our protons and electrons and neutrons would coincide because we are the same element.
We would be radioactive, but in the best way possible.
If we were evaporated, we'd follow the Ideal Gas Law.
The van der Waals equation would be useless.
Our Calorimetry would be so hot that a calorimeter would just melt.
Hess's Law need not apply.
Solubility would be thrown out the window.
We would cling together like bad surface tension.
Our molecules would be bonded: not just London Dispersion, but H-bonding, and ionic bond


joecifur found Pinkatron2000's A letter to my Husband a simple, cute example of the fact that you don't have to write a novel to write a love letter.  Above all, he could definitely see it taped to the 'fridge, computer monitor, or underneath someone's breakfast bowl.  Another stand-out was oh-no-heather-jo's Love Letter.  Clever, it applied a scientific theme very well without sounding stilted or overly forced, and it had a strong, rhythmic 'spoken word' feel to it that was surprising to see in a letter.

Friend and more by xAristax :thumb48180650: Love letter by quackling
  
GeneratingHype would like to recognize a few love letters that made him smile (or even laugh out loud): Friend and more by xAristax and Freiheit by ColdContactKiss were definitely enjoyable entries. Also, Love letter by quackling is worth a look for its creative presentation and sincere sentiments.

~*~

While our winning entries are absolutely wonderful, we would like to take the time to recognize each person who participated; the response was a little overwhelming.  Please have a look at their submissions, which can be found here.  (We promise you won't regret it.)

Thanks again, congratulations to the winners, and have a happy St. Valentine's Day!

:heart:,

:iconebonessa: Ebonessa
:iconeveningdownpour: EveningDownpour
:iconjoecifur: joecifur
:icongeneratinghype: GeneratingHype

Judging Guidelines

Or, before you complain about the winners (or why you're not a winner), please read the information here.



(All winners should be contacted within 14 days to discuss the prize distribution.)

---

My name is Bill, and I am a punctuation junkie. Please click the link for a list of my pet peeves (and for some idea of what I look for when I first critique your work): generatinghype.deviantart.com/… .


Have a great day!

© 2007 - 2022 GeneratingHype
Comments26
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Lilithia's avatar
A special mention! :D I'm very happy with this result!