Twenty-five writers from all over Bulgaria were given a topic and 24 hours to write a 24-page story on Saturday.

The marathon competition was organized at Maria's restaurant (Sofia City Library), where the idea originated two months ago. The same restaurant was the hosting place of prosecuted Bulgarian writers during post-totalitarian times in the 1990s.

The topic of the contest was I Have a Fox and a Purple Mobile Phone and was carefully selected by famous Bulgarian novelist Doncho Tzonchev, who was also a chairman of the contest's jury.

The eccentric event went under the motto of Day and Night Trud (after the Bulgarian newspaper). Tosho Toshev, executive director of Trud, was also a member of the jury and oversaw the event.

The rules of the marathon were flexible, said the co-organizer of the event, writer Paskal Andonov. All the participants were allowed to leave to take a nap or find some additional inspiration. Mutual cooperation was also allowed to a certain extent but stealing ideas or copying from others meant disqualification.

"Contestants were permitted to eat and drink as much as possible for them to absorb. I am sure they will all get quite drunk, to the jury's jolly and excitement at the reading later on," Andonov said.

Andonov is trying to have the event registered with the Guinness Book of World Records for the shortest amount of time allowed for writing a fictional story.

"The criteria that will be taken into consideration by the jury will be the eternal one to answer the requirements for a fictional story; to be far away from politics and to be funny or ironic to some extent," said Tzonchev.

The oldest participant in the marathon was 74-year-old Bozhidar Bozhilov from Sofia who is quite famous for his varying style and methods in writing, according to the organizers. The rest of the contestants belonged to different generations and had different personalities, added Andonov.

Vassil Sotirov, Deyan Enev and Zdravka Evtimova were all excited to take part in the "non-standard event," as they put it.

The youngest of all was 26-year-old Dimitar Matakiev, who explained that the sole motivation to be there was the money reward to be announced together with the winner's name. Matakiev enjoys writing essays of various psychotic notions without adhering to any genre. The author of the Angel's Anger explained that writing is a game of words and that he did not need any preparation to participate in the marathon. "All I needed to motivate me was the simple killing of time - a way to spend 24 hours," Matakiev said.

A short essay lover, Tzonchev would seem likely to favour a short story, but while estimating the contestants he said he would be absolutely impartial.

The winner of the contest will be announced within two weeks time, and take home a cash prize of about 1,000 leva.