Forum / New challenge: Flag Day

• 
  Kevin Myrick

  Apr 05, 09:37pm

  Dear Fictionauts,

  With all the patting on the back we did for ourselves and others for the April Fool's Day Challenge, and after I finished up doing a lot and lot of writing last Thursday, I spent the balance of the evening drinking bourbon and thinking about what to do next.

  It kept bothering me, like a itch in the middle of your back you can't quite scratch. And I thought to myself, "it would be fun to moderate something patriotic. Something that not only is good reading, but might also promote something that seems missing from all the countries in the world right now, pride."

  But, as some fine writers pointed out to me, Memorial Day and Fourth of July here in the states are not good times to be setting up challenges. People go on vacation. (As an aside, I scratch my head and wonder why I end up being the only guy around who isn't on vacation during these holidays... I guess someone has to cover the parades.)

  But what other holidays that no one really celebrates could I have a patriotic challenge? Something to rally the people? Then it hit me: Flag Day.

  For those of you unfamiliar with the holiday, Flag Day according to Wikipedia, is as follows:

  "In the United States, Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777."

  (Another aside: If it took this long to decide on an official flag for the U.S. - some two years into the revolution - I think we can look at the job done on health care and say the process went by quickly in comparison.)

  So here is the challenge everyone: take up the cause of freedom. The blood of your fictional martyrs can water the meadows of France. Characters can die on the battlefield. Or it can be something completely different.

  This challenges key words that must be included in the story must be: "flag" and "patriot."

  Note that all work must be ORIGINAL for this challenge. Winner will be determined by the number of faves a story gets, and will have the opportunity to suggest the next challenge if they so choose.

  Entries will be due no later than June 14 at 11:59 p.m. local time.

  Volunteers for reviews, like the April Fool's Challenge, would be appreciated.

  Here's a link to the group: http://www.fictionaut.com/groups/flag-day-challenge-2010

  Good luck!
  -Kevin Myrick

• 
  Linda Simoni-Wastila

  Apr 06, 06:17am

  Flag Day. Hmmm... this is INDEED a challenge. Thanks for throwing the gauntlet again -- I think I'll be able to play this time. Peace...

• 
  Susan Tepper

  Apr 06, 12:28pm

  Kev, this sounds original and interesting.
  And provocative. Here is my question: must the stories be "patriotic" in the traditional sense of that word? Or can they incorporate your 2 key words while being stories of protest?

• 
  Kevin Myrick

  Apr 06, 12:53pm

  I'm open to anything and everything.

  -Kev

• 
  Estelle Bruno

  Apr 09, 03:43pm

  are you allowed to submit only 1 story?

• 
  Kevin Myrick

  Apr 09, 03:57pm

  Estelle,

  For fairness purposes, I'm going to say that you can submit only one story. Not that I think there's anything wrong with writing more than one story, I'm just kind of thinking that if there's a lot of work that gets posted that day, it'll be hard for me to read it all, comment, fave and review on more than one story per author. (Though technically, I didn't do that the last challenge either...)

  Another slight adjustment to the challenge process is that protest stories - as Susan likes to call them - are also allowed for the challenge. (She announced this earlier in a separate thread, which I thank you for doing since I forgot to.)

  A page for the challenge will be set up on my website, kevinmyrick.com, like last time. It will be up in the coming weeks.

  I'm going to apply the "most faves" rule to the winner of this challenge again, just to make that clear. Though, I like to think that there are no real "winners" or "losers" in these sorts of things. Just lots of awesome, awesome reading to do on Flag Day (I hope.)

  -Kev

• 
  Kevin Myrick

  Apr 09, 04:12pm

  P.S. - since I posted this in a thread to the Flag Day Challenge group, I thought I would post this here too. So we're all clear on things here. -Kev

  Hey Everyone,

  Some questions have been popping up about the challenge, and I felt the need to go ahead and address them so we can be well organized for Flag Day and can pull it off without any major problems.

  1) Protest stories are allowed.

  2) Only one submission per author, please. If you don't like the story you submitted and wish to submit another, take the previous story down before 11:59 p.m. June 14 local time. Remember, all stories must be original.

  3) The story with the highest number of faves at the end of the challenge "wins." After all, there are no real winners and losers to these challenges, just excellent reading.

  And finally...

  4) Be creative. I say "patriotic" and I don't necessarily mean it has to be about soldiers fighting in wars or veterans having flashbacks of combat. It can be about the flag hanging in the neighbors yard and how it reminded you of this girl in an American flag bikini you saw on vacation that one time, or about some other countries flag and people.

  As moderator, I don't feel like I'm here to try and box you into writing about one specific thing.

  (An additional thought not in the other post)
  While I think I'd like to see what writers could do in modern times with a strictly patriotic theme in mind, whether it be protest, satirical or even war-themed, I am not against any stories that get posted to the group so long as they have "flag" and "patriot" in them.

• 
  Estelle Bruno

  Apr 10, 09:07am

  you made it all very clear. Thanks.

• You must log in to reply to this thread.