The Friday Challenge - 1/8/10

And so here we are, a week into the New Year already. The candy has been eaten, the wrapping paper recycled, the credit card bills are coming due, and the few remaining leftover Christmas cookies could be chipped like flints and used as spearheads. The stockings which just a few weeks ago were hung by the chimney with care are now stuffed back into a storage box for another year's hibernation in the attic, and that tree and all those ornaments really should come down and get packed away one of these days.

First, though, there is the little matter of the 12/18/09 Friday Challenge, which as you no doubt remember was to write a Christmas story—any Christmas story. Fact or fiction, enlightening or appalling, we don't care, so long as it's entertaining and in some way involves Christmas. And with those as our sole bases for judgment, here are the entries we have received as of the deadline.

Torainfor, "Sinead's Christmas Wish" (posted at drop.io)

Miko, "A Christmas Offering"

Passinthrough, "Christmas tree Hunting"

Patrick Henry, "Christmas 1948"

(At least, I believe these are the entries. If I've missed any, let me know.)

As always, even if you haven't submitted an entry this week—even if you never submit an entry in any week—you're invited to read, comment on, and vote for your favorite. Don't be shy about leaving feedback on the authors' sites, either. Writers thrive on knowing that someone out there is actually reading their words.

However, if you are absolutely hopelessly shy, there is still a way for you to make your opinion known, and that is by voting for your favorite in the little ballot box widget that should (fingers crossed) be visible in the left column. Because of the sweeping scope of the 12/18 challenge, we are giving you a full week to read the entries and vote. The winner will be announced on Sunday, January 17.

And with that said, it's time for this week's Friday Challenge.


A Two-Bit Inspiration

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Where do writing ideas come from? Sometimes they drop on you like a thunderbolt from out of the blue. Sometimes the Muse speaks in a gentle voice whispering on the wind.

And sometimes they come like this week's challenge, in the clatter and jangle of change from a vending machine. I fished the quarter out of the coin return slot, glanced at it and shrugged—Nevada, eh?—and started to slip it into my pocket.

Then it struck me. Nevada? The land of Liberace, Las Vegas, Reno, the Porcine Elvis in his final form, and slot machines as far as the eye can see, and the best they could come up with for their state quarter was a couple of horses galloping across the desert? How remarkably....

Lame.

Okay, some states got it right. Colorado put what appears to be Pike's Peak on the back of their quarter. Wisconsin put a cow and a block of cheese; I guess they didn't have room for a case of beer and couldn't come up with a good engraving of Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer. But most state quarters show a total lack of imagination.

Ergo, this week's challenge. Pick a state—it doesn't have to be the state in which you live—and write a one-paragraph pitch describing the far more appropriate engraving that should be on the back of that state's quarter.

As always, we're playing by the loosely enforced official rules of the Friday Challenge, and playing for whatever is behind Door #3. The deadline for this challenge is midnight Central time, Thursday, January 14.

P.S. For the purposes of this challenge, the District of Columbia counts as a state, as they also have a quarter—with Duke Ellington on it? Two hundred and thirty-plus years of very colorful history and that's the best D.C. could come up with? Duke Ellington? Sheesh, they weren't even trying...