These people know their Jingle Bells. Check ‘em out:

 
       Happy Holidays my Lords and Ladies! Kweeny here, writing from the Winter Palace; it’s so damn cold that I’m starting to feel like a regular old Ice Queen! I hope you are all keeping warm in whatever ways you know best, or for you southern folk — well you all just suck. Enough with the stories of going to the beach and enjoying the warm weather, ok!? Thank you.

       Now then — they say that this is the most wonderful time of the year. Well I want you to prove it, and we have a few challenges with which you may do so:

Challenge A
       Let’s be materialistic for a moment. What is the best present you’ve ever received? No, it doesn’t have to be material and it doesn’t have to be a Christmas present. But tell us about it. Who gave it to you? Why was it so wonderful? If it was a thing, do you still have and use it today?

Challenge B
       A good ol’ list for this one. Give us your top ten reasons why this is the most wonderful time of the year. Do it however you like, in words or pictures or stories or songs or poems or…

Challenge C
       Write a bit of poetry or prose describing your favorite memory (or wish) from the season. Take some liberties with this one. Enjoy!

• Have your entry set to public.
• Link to either this site or the blog ring.
• Come back to this site to let me know that you have posted for this challenge. I will then link to your entry. Rec your entry. Leave you eProps.
• Have your entry done by December 31st.
• Have fun. 

Happy writing! Be sure to check out everyone’s entries. I’m sure they appreciate your feedback.

       Free your mind — check out what these participants had to say:

Zeal4living

BubblysLife

BubblysLife (II)

peacenow

XxXDarknessismyonlyescapeXxX

moss_icon

       Several years ago Kweeny became fascinated by this relatively new sport called Parkour, also called free running. No! Hardly for myself. It’s just fun to watch. Anyway, the purist definition calls it “the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one’s path by adapting one’s movements to the environment” (from Wikipedia). If you’ve ever watched a traceur (a parkour participant) in action, you know how efficient, graceful, and frankly awesome their movements can be. (If you haven’t witnessed the sport we highly recommend doing a quick YouTube search to check it out.)

       The same principle of efficiently overcoming obstacles can be applied to several things, but we find it highly useful in a writing exercise called “free writing.” No, it’s probably not going to be quite as acrobatic as free running, and like any exercise you only get better with practice, but it can be used as a warm-up or as a tool to help overcome writer’s block. The results can be quite interesting, sometimes even impressive. You just put pen to paper, or fingers to keys, and go. So in that vein, our challenge this month, from a suggestion by silkenbutterfly, is this:

       Set a timer for five minutes. Put your fingers to the keyboard and write exactly what you are thinking. Don’t make yourself start out on a topic, just go. Keep your fingers moving for the whole five minutes and see what comes out. Don’t edit, don’t polish. Except for maybe some of the inevitable typos. Just open your mind and let it flow out. Five minutes. Have fun!

• Have your entry set to public.
• Link to either this site or the blog ring.
• Come back to this site to let me know that you have posted for this challenge. I will then link to your entry. Rec your entry. Leave you eProps.
• Have your entry done by December 14th for Prime Time Action, but I’ll keep linking posts through the 31st.
• Have fun. 

Happy writing! Be sure to check out everyone’s entries. I’m sure they appreciate your feedback.