Mummies For Christmas -- Again? Let's Have A Challenge!

The Lead-In

I’ve been having so much fun reading the entries to my Holidays/Holy Days contest that I decided it was about time to start another one. That one will end tomorrow, by the way, so if you haven’t gotten an entry in yet, you still have a little time. You can do it!

With that in mind, I can tell that everyone is hankering for a Christmas-themed contest. But let’s face it, you want more than just any old Christmas writing contest, right? You want something fun. You want something exciting. You want something unusual. So let’s instill a little bit of a fun twist to your setting. Let’s make it Christmas . . . in Egypt . . . with mummies!

Now, you can interpret that prompt any way you like. Some version of Christmas, some version of Egypt, some version of mummies. The sky’s the limit. But the important thing is: Have fun!

So here's what I'm thinking this time:

The Challenge

Write an original story or poem of any length between now and Christmas (December 25th, for the uninitiated). Any genre will do, and any style. It can be fiction or nonfiction; I'm easy.

The key is that it has to include the aforementioned concepts: Christmas, Egypt, and mummies.

But, we’re going to put an extra spin on things with the prizes. The prizes will be: $2 for first place and $3 for second place. Yes, you read that right! You’ll be trying with all your might to win 2nd place! Fun, right?

And in addition to those prizes, I will also mention the winners on my Twitter/X and Facebook pages.

The Rules

• Each entry must include a reference to Christmas, Egypt, and mummies (and yes, there must be more than one mummy for it to count. Just one would be too easy!).
• Entrants must leave a comment below, with a link to their published story, and each entry must include a link back to this original post. It took me a minute to figure out how to do this when I first tried entering these contests myself, so here's the deets: When you're writing a story, there's a little plus sign that appears on the left side of your writing area when you go to a new line. If you click that, you can choose "Embed link." At that point, you will simply copy the link from this page and post it into the bar that appears under the "Embed link" area. Then click Enter. Voila! Like magic, a link to this page will embed into your page!
• Entries can include any stories that you have written for Vocal Media at any time. I recommend writing new stories for this contest particularly, because it may seem forced if you try to make an old story fit into these parameters, which may decrease your odds of winning the contest, but that decision is ultimately up to you. If you think you can do it, go for it!
• You can enter this contest as many times as you like! Who knows, maybe you can even win first and second place!

Depending on how many entries there end up being, it will most likely take me a while to get through them all, so please be patient. A hard deadline for me to choose the winners will be January 20th of 2025, but I expect to have chosen before then. I will be paying out to winners via the Tips feature on Vocal, so please verify that your Stripe account is in good standing and that you can receive tips. Thanks so much!

Tips

I tend to be a fairly critical reader, so here are some recommendations for keeping my interest:

• Be sure to use spell check and give the story at least a once-over for grammatical issues (I can get past some typos and grammatical errors, but I assure you that it will affect my judgment if any remain, at least on a subconscious level).
• Try to give me something somewhat unpredictable to read (I'm not saying that a predictable story absolutely won't win, but it probably won't).
• Give enough description to keep my interest, but don't go into too much detail about what color and sharpness the blades of grass are (unless there is some actual purpose to that in the story).
• Please use dialogue tags every once in a while when people are talking (I'm easily confused, and I don't want to have to keep going back to where I knew who was talking and then start counting to figure out who is talking now).

And In Closing

This should be a fun contest for everyone! Be sure to read through some of the other entries and leave a comment on here letting us know what you thought. Also, share the contest here and there so that everyone has a chance to join. I look forward to seeing what you all have to say!

Author's Note: It’s been wonderful fun reading all of the entries in the Holidays/Holy Days contest, and I look forward to reading your entries in this one. I truly hope you enjoy writing them as well! If you'd like to show your support, please feel free to leave a comment, click the heart, and subscribe!