Date:         Tue, 29 Dec 1998 22:44:58 -0500
From: "the rags of time..." <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      [WRITERS] EXERCISE: a contest based on Pilgrimage by Zenna
              Henderson

[Before I go too far...was anyone else thinking about starting a contest in
the near future?  I know we've had Valentine's Day Contests -- killing me
softly with your love? -- and perhaps others, but if there is a hiatus in
the rain -- or is that a pause in the reign? -- anyway, if there's a break,
I'd like to run a little story contest...as follows!]

Pilgrimage

The window of the bus was a dark square against the featureless night.  Lea
let her eyes focus slowly from their unthinking blur until her face
materialized, faint and fragmentary, highlighted by the dim light of the bus
interior.  "Look," she thought, "I still have a face."  She tilted her head
and watched the wan light slide along the clean soft line of her cheek.
There was no color except darkness for the wide eyes, the crisp turn of
short curls above her ears and the curve of her brows -- all were an
out-of-focus prints against the outside darkness.  "That's what I look like
to people," she thought impersonally.  "My outside is intact -- an eggshell
sucked of life."

That's the first paragraph from Pilgrimage by Zenna Henderson.  Copyright
1961, printed by Avon books, New York NY.

Here's my challenge.

I'll post the other six opening paragraphs from the embedded short stories
in the book over the next few days.  So there will be seven opening
paragraphs that you can use.

(Why does this book have seven starting paragraphs?  One is from the framing
story, the other six are basically stand-alone short stories.)

Your job is to write stories starting from Zenna Henderson's paragraphs.

Write them, polish them, and send me your best.  No more than two stories
per author per paragraph (14 stories per author?  That's not a limitation,
that's an invitation to over extend yourself).

Length?  Short stories, remember?  So, how about 3,000 words max.

Remember, send your stories to mbarker@mit.edu so that I can repost them
anonymously.  I will also put copies on a Web page.

Closing date for the last submissions: January 20, 1999
Reading and Voting: January 21 to January 27

Two winners, each to receive a copy of Pilgrimage by Zenna Henderson.

(All right, I was looking at used books today and found two copies of
Pilgrimage.  And the idea of a contest seemed so natural...)

[there may be a valentine's day contest or some such also in the wings...if
you want to sponsor a contest during this time, please let me know, and
we'll talk about how to run things so that it works for both of us...]

and they're sharpening their pencils, flattening out the curled sheets,
almost ready to...

WRITE!

"Take me up into your mind once or twice before I die (you know why: just
because the eyes of you and me will be full of dirt some day).  Quickly take
me up into the bright child of your mind."  Edward Estlin Cummings

tink