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The winner of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 6.9: Wikileaky is kratienza for the leaked communique re the RH Bill. Congratulations kratienza! Your prize will be delivered to National Bookstore at Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati. Please claim it at the Customer Service counter within 6 months. Thanks.

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Last week we had to watch a lot of TV commercials for an article we were writing. We don’t watch television and we were surprised at how much we enjoyed our research. Among our favorites were this ad in which a 10-year-old boy meets his future self, aged 60. Which got us to thinking: If we find ourselves in the Twilight Zone speaking to our ten-year-old selves, what would we say to her?

That’s where we got the idea for this week’s LitWit assignment. Through some strange cosmic occurrence you (at your current age) find yourself speaking to the 10-year-old you. What would you say? What advice would you give yourself? Would you lie and pretend that all the wishes you had at age ten have come true? Or would you try to warn yourself and give specific instructions that might change your future (i.e. Don’t marry that one!)?

1,000 words or less, due at noon on Sunday, 18 September 2011. The prize:

Ransom, David Malouf’s vigorous and moving rendition of an episode in the Trojan War.

Start talking to yourself.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.

So while the former US Ambassador to the Philippines was appearing on variety shows and dancing on local TV she was firing off cables to the State Department full of nasty putdowns of Filipino officials.

And you’re surprised?? It’s her job! Join me in a great big DUH.

Since the media is all over the Wikileaked documents re the Philippines, let’s jump in! Your assignment for LitWit Challenge 6.9: Write us some secret dispatches from Manila assessing the Philippine political scene and its leaders. Cables marked “For Your Eyes Only” because you’re not supposed to say those things about your “friends” in public. (Basically it’s your chance to say awful things about the people who were/are in power, through a ventriloquist’s dummy!)

1,000-word maximum, in Comments by Saturday, 10 September 2011 at 11.59 pm. The prize is highly-appropriate reading:

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore, and that’s no secret.

Thanks to Zombadings, “ng”, “nang”, your love for Jon Snow and your distrust of Danaerys (Baka pag-interesan ng hitad ang aking irog!) the winner by acclamation is MANILA BEANS! Congratulations, Manila Beans!

Turmukoy mag-usap tayo, baka gusto mong mag-kolum (Koya Sireks??). Manila Beans and Turmukoy, let’s have coffee next week so we can hand over your prizes? Let me know what day you are free. Shangri-La, 2pm?

Update: Ha! We are the only people with free time around here. Manila Beans and Turmukoy, you can pick up your prizes any day starting Friday, 9 September at the Customer Service desk, National Bookstore, Power Plant Mall, Makati.

Meanwhile:

Maraming, maraming salamat, mga bakla, babaeng bakla, babaeng hinatak ang mga kaibigang lalake sa sinehan, waging-wagi tayo! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Isang taon rin nating ibinenta ‘to, noh. Ang ating maliit na pelikula ay nagwagi sa takilya! Soplak! Awaaaaaaard!

Pero hindi pa tapos ang sabunutan! Please tell all your friends to see Zombadings and tell them to bring all their friends and relatives. And spread the word outside Metro Manila: Zombadings 1: Patayin Sa Shokot Si Remington is now showing at SM Cinemas nationwide.

Raymond, kailangan natin ng party with Remington and Jigs!
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As everyone has gone into vacation mode including ourselves, we are accepting entries to LitWit Challenge 6.8 until 12 noon on Wednesday, 31 August 2011. Meanwhile enjoy turmukoy’s excellent Danaerys story in the form of a letter to Auntie Janey Xerex. (Rated NC-17, read in Comments).

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From the HBO series: Robb and Bran with their direwolf pups.

For his sprawling fantasy epic A Song of Ice and Fire George R.R. Martin has been called The American Tolkien. We love the Westeros novels and approve of the HBO series; we’ll even condone Martin’s readiness to kill off major protagonists we are fond of as long as that sexy dwarf Tyrion Lannister makes it to the end.

This week we’re giving away a brand new (with that fresh ink smell!) copy of the newly-released fifth volume of SIAF, A Dance With Dragons. If you were wondering at the absence of our beloved Tyrion and our candidate for the true king Jon Snow from the fourth volume A Feast For Crows, it’s because the events in DWD were supposed to be included in the fourth book. However, Mr. Martin decided to divide the fourth book in two—a wise decision as the whole volume would’ve caused shelves to crash everywhere. The division explains why the events in DWD are simultaneous with those in FFC.

(DWD also reveals the fate of one you have wished ill upon since the third volume, a fate so horrendous you find yourself pitying him. And then Martin spins it so you actually start rooting for him. That’s impressive.)

A Dance With Dragons weighs in at 1,020 pages and is thick enough to serve as an extra coffee table. Do you want this book? Of course you do. Yes the e-book is lighter but it won’t tone your biceps, stop doors (or bullets), or signal to other Song of Ice and Fire devotees that you inhabit their universe.

We bow to GRRM’s mastery of plot, but find much of the prose a bit cringe-worthy. Then again, we wish there were more action in In Search of Lost Time, because Marcel Proust does go on about madeleines.

Your assignment: In 1,000 words or less, rewrite any scene from the SIAF books in your own words. The finding of the direwolf pups? Danaerys’s controversial wedding night? The “crowning” of that bitch Viserys? The shocking killing we didn’t think would happen until we read/saw it?

Post your entry in Comments on or before Sunday, 28 August 2011 at 11.59pm.

This year’s model barbarian: Jason Momoa. As Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones or as Conan the Barbarian in the new movie, Jason Momoa makes all other men look like little girls.

P.S. Our cats wear the colors of the Great Houses. Koosi, being blonde, is a Lannister. Saffy, dark, is Stark. Mat, white, is Targaryen.

P.P.S. Yes, you may write yourself into the novels. So bring on your weddings to Khal Drogo, Jon Snow, Robb Stark, Jaime Lannister, Jorah Mormont (We know someone), Loras Tyrell, Sansa Stark, Asha Stark, Cersei Lannister or the madwoman breastfeeding her four-year-old.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.

annemp and here is the winning entry. (For the rules of LitWit 6.7, look here.)

It happened on a rainy Wednesday night – not that it matters since it was the sort of thing that did not pick a date. I was on my way home from a friend’s house, aboard a jeepney that was carrying four or five other people. It was the latest I have travelled on a PUV alone, and the roomthily sparse passenger carriage made me jittery. The jeep being the most plebicolar form of transportation in the area, it catered to a variety of passengers you’re never sure what to expect of – irate menopausal women who refuse to help your fare reach the driver, teenagers so engrossed in their blateration that they almost miss their stop, and among them, hooligans waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on their prey. (Trust issues and stereotypes – the trademark of the sodalitious. Of course, the elite have their own robbers; although they do not pounce, the gentle perpetrators.)
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The winner of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 6.6: Let’s hear from the villains is amoysafeguard. Clever and succinct always beats melodramatic contortions.

Congratulations, amoysafeguard, please post your full name in Comments (It won’t be published) and we’ll alert you when your prize is ready.

Update: amoysafeguard, your prize will be ready for claiming on Tuesday, 23 August at the Customer Service counter, National Bookstore, Power Plant, Rockwell, Makati. Enjoy your books.

Your challenge this week is to save words from extinction. Visit savethewords.org and look at the words that are in danger of being dropped from the English language. Then use as many of those words as you can (a minimum of 5) in a 500-word story about anything.

No tricks. The story cannot be about words. No “I adopted the words pamphagous and jussulent” or tales of the Spelling Bee, please. The words have to mean something.

Deadline: Sunday, 21 August 2011 at 11.59. The prize is this thesaurus (of course).

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.