I’m writing a story for a Christmas fiction project that flew like a lord a-leaping from the constantly creative mind of Jodi Cleghorn:

After a busy year with Chinese Whisperings, eMergent Publishing and Write Anything I just need a new project to get me through the festive season… so, I am offering the first nine writers to sign up the opportunity to join in a ‘mixed tape’ of short stories for Christmas. I will publish a story every two hours on the 24th of December in the lead up to Christmas Day (Eastern Australia Standard Time). I will also make an eBook version available for free download (here) midnight Christmas Day. The stories will be grouped together under the title “Mixed Tapes Volume 1: Deck the Halls” and be published in the same order as the song.

My prompt is the tenth line from ‘Deck the Halls’:

‘Hail the new, ye lads and lasses.’

You can read the whole story behind Mixed Tapes Volume 1: Deck the Halls here.

Check out the list of emerging authors I’ll be writing alongside here. I’m particularly intrigued to see what my line 10 counterpart, Trevor Belshaw, comes up with for the same prompt.

Now all I have to do is come up with a 1,500 word story based on those six words.