Welcome to the 2008 Holiday Project at Cafe Writing!
In the month of December we have so many celebrations – the Solstice, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve – that it seems wrong to ignore them – but one thing all share is an element of the mystical or magical.

There’s so much bad news in the world today, that rather than focusing on individual holidays, the theme for this month is HOLIDAY MAGIC. It will run through the first weekend of the New Year, I think.

(As an aside, if the quotes seem Christmas-heavy, that isn’t meant to push a personal agenda, and certainly I don’t expect your writings to be Christmas-centric.)

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Option One: Seven Things

That’s the thing with magic. You’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.
~Charles DeLint

1. It’s a Magical World, by A~Lotus
2. Indistinguishable from Magic, by Melissa A. Bartell
3. Seven Magical Things, by Becca
4. My Magic Seven, by Bobbi
5. Seven Magical Things, by Janet
6. Seven Magical Things, by Sister AE
7. Seven Magical Things by Zan

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Option Two: Pick Three

Kindle the taper like the steadfast star
Ablaze on evening’s forehead o’er the earth,
And add each night a lustre till afar
An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth.
~Emma Lazarus, “The Feast of Lights”

1. Was Jesus Born on Christmas Eve?, by Bobbi
2. Fascination, by Tiel Aisha Ansari
3. Scene on a Winter Evening, by Melissa A. Bartell
4. Hold This Law, by Richard
5. Playing for Pleasing the Moon, by Gautami Tripathy
6. La Vie en Rose, by Lissa
7. Dream or Reality, by Anu

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Option Three: Can You Picture That?
Use the following photo to inspire a piece of writing in any form (poetry, prose, whatever).
(Please remember to copy the image to your own server, and include photo credit when it is known.)

Photo Credit: Konstantin Yuganov

1. The Wonder, The Magic, by Bobbi
2. Oh, Wonder, by Niebla

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Option Four: Poetry

If we opened our minds to enjoyment, we might find tranquil pleasures spread about us on every side. We might live with the angels that visit us on every sunbeam, and sit with the fairies who wait on every flower.
~Samuel Smiles

1. My Angel, by Bobbi
2. Haiku, by A~Lotus
3. Living with Angels, by Tiel Aisha Ansari

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Option Five:Fiction

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.
~Laura Ingalls Wilder

1. Christmas is Green, by Bobbi

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Option Six: Timed Writing

The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
~Francis P. Church, “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus”

1. Unseen Wonders, by Bobbi
2. Unseen and Unseeable Wonders, by Gemma

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Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it.

HAPPY WRITING & Happy Holidays

This is the Participants Page for the 2008 November/December Project: Jewels. It will be updated until the Project closes..

Option One: Pick Three

Fewer and fewer Americans possess objects that have a patina, old furniture, grandparents’ pots and pans, the used things, warm with generations of human touch, essential to a human landscape. Instead, we have our paper phantoms, transistorized landscapes. A featherweight portable museum.
~Susan Sontag

• Cat Views, by Tiel Aisha Ansari
• What Letters Are Made Of, by A~Lotus
• Brittle Yesterdays, by Gemma
• Jeweled Letter, by Niebla
• Time Tested, by Becca
• Pieces of the Landscape of My Youth, by sister AE

* ~ * ~ *

Option Two: Can You Picture That?

Photo Credit: Janet Spering

• My Three Girls, by Bobbi
• Dancing Through Time, by sister AE
• Something Old, by Melissa A. Bartell

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Option Three: Poetry

Let us not be too particular. It is better to have old second-hand diamonds than none at all.
~Mark Twain

• Heirloom Damonds, by Tiel Aisha Ansari
• Like Second-Hand Diamonds, by Gemma
• Second Hand, by sister AE
• Got Holiday Spirit?, by Linda
• Frozen Foods and Filly Friends, by Linda
• Different Kinds of Blood Diamonds, by Richard

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Option Four: Fiction

All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.
~Federico Fellini

• Autobiographical Art, by Snack
• Broken Promise, by Medhini
• The Pearl Bracelet, by Rob Kistner/li>

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Option Five: Timed Writing

I don’t want to own anything until I know I’ve found the place where me and things belong together. I’m not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it’s like…. It’s like Tiffany’s…. Not that I give a hoot about jewelry. Diamonds, yes. But it’s tacky to wear diamonds before you’re
forty…
~Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s
(spoken by the character Holly Golightly)

• My Grandmother’s Pearls, by Melissa A. Bartell
• This Place, by James Steerforth

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Option Six: Seven Things

Some men’s memory is like a box where a man should mingle his jewels with his old shoes.
~George Savile

• Memory Box, by Bobbi
• Box of Me, by Melissa A. Bartell
• Stranger, by Rob Kistner

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Don’t forget to comment here with your name, the title of your piece, the selected option number, and the direct link to it. Also, please note: since the database was destroyed and I’ve had to reconstruct, you’ve ALL become first-time posters again, so your comments will be queued for approval.

Also? There’s still time to submit to this Project. Follow this link for the actual prompts.

HAPPY WRITING

Option One: Can You Picture That?

Photo Credit: Jef Poskanzer

• House, Perhaps Abandoned, by Tiel Aisha Ansari
• Lost, by Rob Kistner

Option Two: Poetry

Witch and ghost make merry on this last of dear October’s days.
~ Author Unknown

• Bloody Sue (Reprise), by Rob Kistner
• Reaper Groom, by Rob Kistner
• Of Witches and Ghosts, by Bobbi

Rules? (In Which Jeremy Ignores Them, to Good Effect), by Jeremy

Option Three: Fiction

“There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.”
~ George Carlin

• Feral Love, by J.C. Montgomery
• Family Dinner, by Lissa
• #22, by Wine Dark Sea
• The Howling Moon, by Bobbi
• Judgement of the Moon, by sister AE

Option Four: Timed Writing

Halloween wraps fear in innocence,
As though it were a slightly sour sweet.
Let terror, then, be turned into a treat…
~ Nicholas Gordon

• Rosy Encounter, by Medhini

Option Five: Seven Things

“Where there is no imagination there is no horror.”
~ Arthur Conan Doyle

• Fear of the Dark, by A~Lotus
• Seven Things That Scare Me, by Bobbi
• Seven Fears, by Medhini
• Seven Scary Things, by Janet

Option Six: Pick Three

A house is never silent in darkness
to those who listen intently;
there is a whispering in distant chambers,
an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window,
the latch rises.

Ghosts were created when the first man
woke in the night.
~ J. M. Barrie

Project words: awoke, chamber, distant, ghost, house, listen, still, whisper, window

• Haunting, by Snack
• White Chamber, by Niebla
• Day of the Dead, in La Paz, by Susana
• Whispers, by Janet
• Haunting, by Tiel Aisha Ansari
• Ghostly Moans, by Bobbi
• White Cats, by Richard Wells
• Scented, by Melissa A. Bartell

Option One: Pick Three

Spring scarce had greener fields to show than these
Of mid September; through the still warm noon
The rivulets ripple forth a gladder tune
Than ever in the summer; from the trees
Dusk-green, and murmuring inward melodies,
No leaf drops yet; only our evenings swoon
In pallid skies more suddenly, and the moon
Finds motionless white mists out on the leas.
- Edward Dowden, In September

Pick at least three of the following nine words, and write a paragraph, scene, flash-fic, essay, blog entry or poem using them. It’s fine to change tenses, or pluralize if you want to, but please bold the words you choose.

drop, evenings, glad, mist, motionless, murmur, pallid, rivulets, swoon

1. Knight on Bended Knees, to His Beloved, by Leonard Blumfeld
2. Nine Words, by Janet
3. Carcosan Idyll, by Tiel Aisha Ansari
4. All the Women in the Family, by Melissa A. Bartell
5. Autumn of Life, by Medhini
6. A Rainy Evening, by Sumi
7. The First Drizzle, by Anu

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Option Two: Can You Picture That?

Use the following photo to inspire an entry in any form - fiction, essay, poetry…

Photo Credit: Goldmund at iStockPhoto

1. Latter-Day Variant of an Older Story, by Niebla

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Option Three: Poetry

silence
seeks the center
of every tree and rock,
that thing we hold closest-
the end of songs
- Michael McClintock, Letters in Time

Using the quotation above as your inspiration, write a poem (any form is fine) about silence.

1. Pleistocene Remnant, by Tiel Aisha Ansari
2. Silence, Take 1 (and Take 2), by Mike
3. Addie Bundren’s Posthumous Sermon, by the scôp
4. Bread Rises, by Richard
5. Fisherman, by Gordon

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Option Four: Fiction

She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last.
- Willa Cather

Write a flash-fic, scene, or short story involving either standing in an orchard.

1. The Old Orchard, by Bobbi
2. Herakles in the Hesperides, by Tiel Aisha Ansari

* * * * *

Option Five: Timed Writing

He is outside of everything, and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window.
– Henry James

Take nine minutes (use all nine, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of being outside of everything.
This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format - fiction, essay, verse - is acceptable.

1. Being outside of everything (defined), by A~Lotus

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Option Six: Seven Things

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
– Samuel Johnson

In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever].” We are not going to go around in a circle here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

So, give me seven tastes or scents that define autumn for you.

You are not required to provide any explanations, but it’s more interesting for readers if you do.

1. Seven Tastes or Scents That Define Autumn, by Janet
2. Feels Like Fall, by MissMeliss
3. Welcome, Autumn, by Bobbi
4. Seven Tastes/Scents of Autumn, by Michelle
5. Seven Tastes or Scents that Define Autumn for Me, by Tamy
6. Seven Things, by Sister AE
7. Seven Tastes and Scents of Autumn, by Mike

Don’t forget to comment on this post with the direct link, title, and selected option for each piece you create. Happy Writing!

First, thank you all for your patience while I’ve been absent this summer. You’re all amazing people and great writers, and I’m happy to be reading your stuff.

Second, at long last, here’s the participants list for July and August. Remember that submissions are open for July/August until the September prompts go live.

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Option One:

1. One Liners: My Shadows, by A~Lotus
2. Seven Shadows, by Leonard
3. Seven Things That Chase the Shadows Away, by Lirone
4. Chasing Shadows, by MissMeliss

Option Two:

1. Eight Words, by Janet
2. Azure Flight, by A~Lotus
3. My Society, by Linda
4. Far Afield, by Linda
5. A Difficult Kind of Dance, by James
6. Alone, by Lissa
7. The Present, by Linda
8. Fondest Imaginings, by MissMeliss

Option Three:

1. Can You Picture That?, by Susana
2. Two Female Moods, by Niebla

Option Four:

1. 6,000 Steps, by Rebecca

Option Five:

1. Muddy Waters, by One More Believer

Option Six:

1. Unopened, by Melissa