Truesday: You Got A Good Christmas Story?
*The views expressed in Truesday are those of the author and do not represent Austinist as a whole. Thank heavens.* -The Editors
I bet you DO.
So it’s the holidays, and people are cheering with cheer and whatnot. Lots of eggnog getting sloshed on your under-aged cousin’s workboots and such. Your aunt booted her meds and has already stripped down and dry-humped your artificial tree. Twice. Dad was putting lights on the house and somehow managed to take out your Mom’s azaleas and his left knee. So you painted his cast to look like the trampled azaleas and that caused your Mom to rage like a stuck bull and she drop-kicked a honey-roasted ham through the back door window. Your sister got caught masturbating with two of your younger out-of-town cousins, and she had white-boarded diagrams and a Powerpoint presentation on technique like it was a well-practiced roadshow routine in a Santa hat.
Where was that needly-armed little hooker when you needed some rubbin’ advice, eh? EH?!! Merry Christmas indeed.
Yes, the holidays have arrived. And you’ve got stories. So, so, so many stories. You got any good stories?
I’m a big fan of stories. Especially Holiday Stories. I like telling them. Helping write them. I enjoy hearing them. And I especially savor the idea of humans sitting down to write them for each other.
And that’s why I’m taking this Truesday to ask you to submit to me, us, the Ist, a short Christmas story which I will post up here for all to read on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (some posted on each day). It needn’t be long. 5 – 500 words, +/- whatever. You can use a pseudonym, or not. I recommend pseudonyms for those who will be telling true stories. You might want to mask that for the sake of familial peace (trust my experience here).
For fiction, you can write whatever you want. No holds barred. Go apeshit. Express. I’m not putting any explicit limitations here. If you’ve read any of my columns, you should already know that I’m not big on limited expression (for better, or worse). So don't fear the hatchet.
Short-short stories can tell superbly deep tales. Take the mythical Twain/Hemingway/Faulkner/whoever 6-worder: “Baby shoes for sale. Never used.” Yeah, it’s depressing, but it’s amazingly badass in its soultastic deepness of expression (though not a Christmas story, per se). Hell, if you can figure out how to write a negative-word story (not a negative, word story), then I will personally high-five your bare feet with my face.
So do it!
Once I’ve cobbled them all together and combed through them as best I can for basic editing/formatting, I’ll post all the stories, as edited as I can get them, here on Austinist on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I’ll need them all by December 22nd in order to insure that I’ll have time to get things situated!
I do, however, reserve the right to dismiss anything I deem inappropriate. But I will still list it in my post along with my reason(s) for censure, no matter what it is.
Submission summary:
-- Submit your fiction or non-fiction Christmas story!
Submit 5-500 words.
-- Submit in the body of an email, NO DOCUMENTS PLEASE!
Submit by Saturday, December 22nd.
-- Submit to truecraig [atttttt] austinist.com
Submit! Submit! Submit!
There’s nothing to win though. But if everyone wants to go out and get drunk afterward, dutch-style, I’m totally down with that.
