{"id":389,"date":"2015-12-10T11:38:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-10T10:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/?p=389"},"modified":"2015-12-10T11:38:58","modified_gmt":"2015-12-10T10:38:58","slug":"alphaday-5-season-xii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/alphaday-5-season-xii\/","title":{"rendered":"Alphaday 5 &#8211; Season XII"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Alphas,<\/p>\n<p>Welcome to Alphaday 5, Season XII, the last one in 2015. I hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this last part of 2015 and first part of Season V as much as I have. We\u2019ve worked hard, we\u2019ve played hard \u2026 and in the process we\u2019ve touched on so many different topics that have stimulated our creativity or briefly whipped up an ephemeral, but passionate polemic. How that\u2019ll help us become better writers I\u2019ve no idea; but it\u2019s the best strategy that I know of.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll need a break now, I think, and luckily that\u2019s precisely what the Alpha calendar has planned for you. Next Alphaday is on the 7<sup>th<\/sup> of January 2016, which is in four weeks\u2019 time.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy yourselves as you celebrate whatever makes this solstice-based festivity special for you.<\/p>\n<p>The Alphaday 5 agenda will, I\u2019m sure, live up to your expectations and, why not, exceed them with a string of writerly delights. As follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This bulletin from me<\/li>\n<li>The results of the \u2018save our planet\u2019 challenge from Morgen<\/li>\n<li>The collated entries for the \u2018list\u2019 challenge from Sally<\/li>\n<li>The brief for the next challenge from Suzanne<\/li>\n<li>The LOG from Sally<\/li>\n<li>The Writers\u2019 Reads column from Morgen<\/li>\n<li>The ALPHA CHRISTMAS QUIZ from Olaf<\/li>\n<li>Perhaps even a Showcase piece from Suzanne<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You might need more than four weeks to fully enjoy (nice one!) such a wealth of writerly treats. Newbies need to know that Olaf\u2019s notorious Christmas Quiz comes with a health warning. It\u2019s very addictive, and it\u2019s so \u2018almost\u2019 impossible to solve that you almost wish it simply was impossible so that you didn\u2019t keep coming back to it. If we have Alpha traditions, Olaf\u2019s Christmas quiz is one of the sacred ones. The other one is our Virtual Cup, of course!<\/p>\n<p>Many thanks to the Alphas who\u2019ve been busy serving up all these treats for you. Some have been on double \u2013 even triple \u2013 duty to serve you. The main part of every slot, column, item on the agenda (or whatever you like to call them) is, however, what\u2019s inside them. So thank you all for joining in with your fascinating contributions and making these slots lively and buzzing with writerly goodies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><u>General news:<\/u><\/p>\n<p><u><\/u>It doesn\u2019t look too good out there in the world. Depressing really, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p>Artists \u2013 or at least <em>some<\/em> artists \u2013 do have a positive outlook and I loved the winners of the Turner Prize this year. <em>Assemble <\/em>they call themselves, and they achieved fame by saving ordinary houses that were condemned to be demolished and turning them into works of art which people can live in. They\u2019re not <em>an artist, <\/em>they\u2019re a group of people with a vision and the DIY skills to make their artistic vision of beauty into reality. Recycling is good for us, we know that, but this is the type of recycling with a \u2018the sky is the limit\u2019 attitude that to me is a truly uplifting story.<\/p>\n<p>Then this headline caught my attention:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTurner Prize: A sign of our deeply embedded housing crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Why do some people love being wet blankets?<\/p>\n<p>Christine<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Alphas, Welcome to Alphaday 5, Season XII, the last one in 2015. I hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this last part of 2015 and first part of Season V as much as I&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alphaday-bulletins","tag-alphaday-bulletins-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alphawriters.net\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}