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This week: Edited by: shaara
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About this Newsletter
As one of your Fantasy editors, my goal is to challenge you to think outside the KNOWN and to help you inject your tales with fascinating facts while jagging left and right through troublesome frolics and teethe-writhing dilemmas.
Perhaps we can help each other to safely jog through these twisty turns of radical thought, alternate viewpoint, and dynamic detail. Come! Let’s head down the Path of Dimensions, untextured by any earthly array.
In other words,
let’s drop out of reality for awhile.
Shall we?
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December 31
The day grows cold. The night grows old.
December is gone; its baby comes on.
Whiskers of age turn a brand new page.
What will it bring, this seasonal fling
When time does its yearly shudder?
Suppose that the New Year were more than just the passing of time. Suppose it were rife with superstition. What would that look like? Could the New Year be a time of violence, an unsettling rite to be passed through with chants and spells? Would your characters writhe in fear, hide under the bed, light candles and tremble? Or would they dance on slippers of joy, frolicking through the hours?
Even in this world the New Year is wistful, nostalgic, sometimes happy, sometimes sad; it flip flops emotions – producing for some, a night of change, for others accountability. The luckiest see only babies of possibility. They are the ones who celebrate..
What would the customs and superstitions look like in your fantasy -- in that land so distant in space or time?
This month’s CHALLENGE concerns the New Year . I would love to read your fantasy or science fiction story or poem where superstition takes hold of the night and runs toward a different dimension.
Please e-mail your tales to me with the following heading: New Year Challenge.
If you do so, I guarantee a review and, if your tale enchants, a posting in February’s Fantasy Newsletter.
To help you get started: the following is a list of superstitions you could play with. Read them and pick one to use -- or better yet, invent your own New Year’s Superstition:
Loud noises to scare away evil spirits
Eating black-eyed peas
Kissing at midnight
Lending money
Work or else
Don’t ever cry
Opening windows & doors
Don’t take out the trash
To read the details, you can go to the following article: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/510715/top_ten_new_years_day_superstiti...
In a webpage on Greece, I discovered that coins are important for theNew Year, as are onions and pomegranates. http://livingingreece.gr/2007/12/31/new-years-greece/
In a tale of Mexico, I learned that the color of your underwear is extremely important for theNew Year, . And to do things right, I should walk around the outside of my house with a suitcase, something I probably won’t do since my neighbors think I’m already a bit strange. (Who else brings piles of tests home to correct every weekend and then spends their evenings typing away on the computer, night after night?) http://www.mexicoinsmallbytes.com/january2.html
In the last article -- http://www.reformer.com/food/ci_11316993 – the one that stopped me cold, I learned that DROPS are often part of the New Year rite – pickle drops, apple drops, peach drops – even carp drops. I’ll pass on the last -- and in spite of the author’s enthusiasm for chocolate covered pickles, I think I really would prefer to make up my own traditions. (Of course, that’s why I write science fiction because as strange as humanity is, it’s always fun to think up something even more bizarre -- more bizarre than chocolate covered pickles? Well, let me think about that for a while.)
Meanwhile, ponder on that story of yours. I am really looking forward to reading about New Year’s Eve or Day.
Until next time –
Have a Happy and Imaginative Fantastic/Sci-Fi New Year!
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Last month’s challenge was to write a story of 2000 words or less in which reality blended into fantasy. (I went on to explain that I wanted the story to begin real, to go on with real, and then to suddenly twirk into something that just couldn’t be.)
The following were my outstanding entries!
There are some pieces that give you goosebumps. They’re so eerie they’re believable, like something that couldn’t really happen, yet somehow they whisper in your mind.
All that is true, especially for this piece. Enjoy!.
Can you image a modern day fireman, water hose in hand, fighting a fire-breathing dragon? This author followed the challenge marvelously!
Other interesting pieces for the month are as follows. I hope they make you shake, rattle, and roll – or at least dive into an alternate landscape where anything is possible!
Talk about an obsession.
This story makes me look at rainbows in an entirely new light!
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Here’s the opportunity to step into someone else’s imagination. Feel like an encounter with the magical?
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This story makes me think that maybe I don’t want to sit beneath a tree and quietly read a book. Ack!
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The author tells us:”So it isn't entirely finished, but as this work is some intense fantasy, I figured I would give it a shot to have it put in this newsletter. I have been working on this series for ten years. I have thousands of handwritten pages of outlines and I am working really hard to put all of it on Writing.com! It would be awesome if this was chosen to be shown in the newsletter.
Thanks!
John” bred_for_healing 
How could I resist. He’s off to such a delicious start! When the seer fell and began ranting of the future, I was intrigued , but when the author wrote these lines, I was enspelled: “As Theol spoke, Monica saw in her mind images of a kingdom that looked torn and battered, nearly all buildings half in rubble. She saw children holding the bodies of their parents for only a second before both child and parent were sucked into shadow. It was revolting and painful and without hesitation, her answer came strong, I will help you save your world.”
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for some excellent reads and some good, old-time fun submitting your piece of fantastical fantasy.
 And last, but hopefully not least, is one of mine. In this tale, I played with fantasy, stroking it, hinting at it, letting the reader choose how deeply to allow its magic to entice the soul. | | | Invalid Item
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
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The fantasy newsletter is always my favorite. I love how you guys take something mundane and everyday and give the aspiring writer new ideas that twist them in nontraditional ways. Thank you for the constant string of inspiration!
~Lee Joshiahis
Thank you. I really appreciate hearing from you. It is so nice to receive comments. I’m delighted that this newsletter is your favorite. That’s especially thrilling to hear!
Please, would the rest of you let us know what you’re thinking?
So I can't come up with a short story where fantasy and reality intertwine, but I just added a story I wrote 11 years ago that I feel fits the bill. It's called "The Rainbow" and I believe it is an unusual take on stories about rainbows which normally inspire happiness or love. Mine does not. Hope you enjoy.
{suser: 333rd_legend}
I’ve included your piece of rainbows in the next section! Thanks for the recommendation. I really enjoyed the read, and I think the other readers will, too.
Really like the newsletter. It just so happens that I am writing a piece with just this in mind.
Late night, Guy gets into accident, walks through park, sees tree move and fairies, they remember him from his youth, etc. . .
Joe 
It’s so exciting to have readers comment on the newsletter. Thanks for submitting a story for me to read. I enjoyed it and included it, also, in the next section.
This was a great newsletter. I don't have time to participate in any challenges right now but I think it is a great idea to post your own challenge in a newsletter.
Keep up the good work,
Ash Ash
Wow! Thank you, thank you. I’m still dancing with the praise. (It’s not a bad dancer either!)
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Fantasy: December 31, 2008 Issue [#2800]
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