Susanna Leonard Hill’s Holiday Writing Contest

Every now and then, much to her readers’ delight, Susanna Leonard Hill holds a writing contest on her blog. The entries are always a joy to read, and the prizes are pretty much amazing (this time it’s picture book manuscript critiques!). This is the first time I’ve entered one of these contests… and I want to say right now, I had a lot of fun writing this entry! The rules are thus (copied and pasted from Susanna’s blog — follow that link for the linky list to all the entries): Write a children’s holiday story beginning with any version of “Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh.”  You may use that actual opening, or you may change it to any similar version “[Verb of your choice]ing through the [any substance you choose] in a [conveyance of any kind].”  For example, “Dashing through the sand in a two-wheeled donkey cart” or “Sloshing through the swamp in a green and white canoe” or “Flying through the air in a striped hot air balloon…”  You get the idea, I’m sure 🙂  But “Dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh” is completely acceptable too – whatever works for you 🙂  Your story may be poetry or prose, silly or serious or sweet,  religious or not, based on Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever you celebrate, but is not to exceed 350 words. So… here I go, verb-of-my-choicing through the any-substance-I-choose…