this is a page for
Browsing Tag: #writingchallenge
I was born with eight brothers and sisters. One of my sisters didn’t make it. I was the runt, but you can’t tell it now, can you? My mother was fawn colored, with little patience for us and our needle teeth. She tolerated us until she didn’t have to anymore. Her relief was visible. I only knew my father from a distance. He was massive, and kept behind chain link on concrete. His ears were docked, and he was the color of a ten-year old nickel that had been carried in many pockets. I thought he was magnificent. One day, the man who feeds us brought another man and I was picked straightaway. I was happy to be held, and my ears rubbed. Nobody had ever given me singular attention before. He put me in a box on the seat of his pickup, and I promptly jumped out. He let me ride on his lap to my new home. It was so exciting to be somewhere new! All the smells! All the sounds!! All the people!! I was loved for a time, and then the family all left. I was put in a black cage. It was lonesome. I missed my brothers and sisters who were always climbing all over me. There were two other dogs there, but neither were extra friendly. One was downright hateful, and I think the one who was grey like the fog was not hitting on all four…
Because one writing challenge isn’t enough. I’m gonna try to run two as long as I can stand it. Seeing as I’m starting this one over a week late, we’ll see if I get burned out before I ever get caught up. For these prompts, I’m choosing to take a more realistic approach. Of course, being only one word, they are much easier to manipulate than the almost full scenarios the other challenge presents me with. I promise to do the best I can to entertain you. ********************************************************************* It was one of those days I didn’t want to get out of bed. I just knew if my feet touched the floor, I was either gonna throw up, cry, or fall down. But things had to be done, so I slowly peeled the covers back, relishing the feel of cool air on my clammy skin, and began to ease out. I kept a hand on the bed for reassurance and I crept, gingerly now, along the side towards the bathroom. When I got to the corner of the big tester bed that had been in my family since they came over on the Mayflower (not REALLY, but just about), I gripped the post and breathed deeply through my nose. “You are not sick, you are not sick,” I chanted. I squinched my toes against the dark plank scuffed hardwood. “You are not sick, you are not sick…
Happy New Year!!! 2019. Hmm. I’m challenging myself to write more this year. Last year I set a goal of reading more, which I achieved, but not the number of books I wanted to read (75, I only got to 63). I took up a digital farming game back in the summer and unfortunately my reading fell by the wayside. Anyway, a couple of years ago, I got a Kindle book: 1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts. I was skimming through it recently and found out they are, indeed, awesome. I’m starting haphazardly at the 9% mark and will be flitting around to wherever suits me. Or I might get all brave and do a blind selection. Anyway, this particular prompt that piqued my interest is in the Flash Fiction section. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, so I’m learning already! Flash fiction is either a word count maximum or a maximum time you’re allowed to write on the subject. Or I guess both! It sounds truly challenging for me, as I tend to get carried away, but perfect for the first day of the year when we’re all laying around after foundering on shrimp & cheese grits, cornbread, and collard greens. I still have all my decorations to put away. Except the big tree. It was dead as a hammer so I took care of it Sunday. So hopefully this will get me back in…
January Writing Challenge, Day 1 Unopened. There lies one present under my tree. It is unopened. It belongs to my cousin, and since I don’t see her very often it will probably remain unopened until next year. Does that make me sound cheap? I’ll probably find something else between now and then that I will be unable to resist buying, so no worries. I also had to open one of Johnny’s presents today-an audio book i bought by accident instead of the paperback he wanted. But it’s ok, he was still really excited about it. Even after we realized I had bought book 2. I mean, how bad can I screw up a simple gift, I ask you? Evidently pretty badly, because it was an MP3 that won’t even play in a CD player so now I have to burn it onto my laptop to put over on a CD. Did I mention it came after Christmas, to beat all? Christmas presents sure can be a lot of trouble. I also ordered him part one today. So he’s got another present on the way to open. Last year I got my mermaid phone cover after Christmas, and it’s been one of those enduring gifts that make me smile every time I see it. Strangers really like it, too. She’s fabulous. Anyway. Unopened. I guess that’…
November Writing Challenge Day 28 I turn the page. I have not had a book in my hand in dayyyysssss. Days, I tell you. I’ve been too busy decorating, cleaning, cooking, and working. I’ve even done a little shopping. I can’t concentrate long enough to read, because I’m so far behind on blogging. (For instance, it’s the 30th. I just finished the 27th and now here I am on here). Our book club is meeting here tomorrow night and I haven’t even cracked open the first page of this month’s selection. I have been working on the Holly Madison book for over a week. I figured I would have it read in two days, I’ve been looking forward to reading it forever and a day! Not to mention all the others I’ve started and abandoned. I’ll mention them, maybe someone can tell me whether It’s worth pressing on: The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace, Eve, by William Paul Young (same guy who wrote The Shack), Dragonfly in Amber (2nd Outlander…they’re just so enormous It’s daunting), Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, and the Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates. It’s shameful! I can only console myself in that I’ve been very busy doing worthwhile or necessary tasks. I’ll catch up in February when I leave…
November Writing Challenge Day 27 I have plans. I’m also a liar. I have no plans. It’s something I say in jest, like girls in the 80’s said they had to wash their hair. Whenever someone asks me to go do something outside of my hermit shell, they probably get this stock response. I mean, I have general plans, like, I’m going to write a blog every day for a year, whether I have pictures to go with it or not, I’m going to read a minimum of 52 books a year (I’m not above cheating. If I knock out a Stephen King, I’m probably gonna read something short and sweet to counterbalance time lost), and I’m going to see my stylist Friday. I’m gonna need a new vehicle within a year or so, so I’m kinda planning on going looking at Nissans soon. I’m already married, so I don’t have plans on the romantic front unless you count where we’re going to eat Friday night. I’m fairly content in this house, so I don’t have plans to move. I even like my job just fine, so I’m not looking for anything elsewhere. I haven’t carried a day planner in years. Of course, I don’t have much to plan. Board meeting once…
November Writing Challenge Day 26 Liar. I know a whole bunch of ’em, don’t you? One in particular springs to mind that would have cost me my job if Co-op if there hadn’t been so much evidence to the contrary of what he was saying. You’re supposed to live your life so that if anyone ever said anything bad about you, no one would believe them. Well, this guy did…so it didn’t look so good for the truth tellers (already enemies) when the chips began to fall until the truth came out. “The truth will stand when the world is on fire.” People who had known me for ten years shunned me. For months I was truly an outcast among friends and FAMILY. But I kept my head high and my eyes straight ahead as things got worse. I spoke the truth and I knew it and God knew it and that was all that mattered to me. I remember going to lunch by myself for weeks because no one would have anything to do with me and I just cried and cried. People thought I cost him his job. No, that was years in the making. A file an inch thick. I’m sure there are people who still don’t believe what was proven but that’s fine. I threatened to have t-shirts printed…
November Writing Challenge Day 24 Something was off. It’s understandable. Everything had been so on for so long it was a relief, actually. It was the TV. Thank God. It seemed as if I had watched every sporting even for the past ten years. It could have been worse, it could have been hunting shows. The only thing more boring than watching men sit in blinds all day was watching men hit little bitty white balls all over gently rolling green hills. And golf I could sleep through, so really, it wasn’t that bad. So the TV was off, and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I realized something else was off…the house had a very distinct abandoned feeling. I crept down the hall. There was dust on the floor. How long had I been asleep? Not just the TV, but everything was off. No whirring of the fridge, no air unit thermostat clicking. Then I noticed the windows were open. No, that wasn’t right, they had been blasted out. Glass shards lay everywhere, like they had just exploded from…what, exactly? And then I remembered. Oak Ridge had been bombed. But…I had survived? How was that even possible? I had counted myself lucky since I was little that if something happened at the Lab, I wouldn’t know it. Life is but a vapor, indeed. I was secure…
November Writing Challenge Day 23 Whispers. It had been a challenging day. The house was full of relatives and their noise and needs. But that’s what Thanksgiving is all about, right? Everybody under one roof, pitching in or watching football, opinions about everything possible being vented. The sisters were into it in the kitchen, this time over mashed potatoes. One wanted them creamed, because the others made them too lumpy, one kept adding more salt much to her siblings dismay, and one wanted more butter to the point they would be yellow. The sisters never agreed on anything, from to where to eat to what their husbands were thinking. The husbands in question were scattered around the living room, watching them placidly. They knew better than to get involved in any debate-those women would eat them alive. The only one that could do anything with them was their blessed daddy, who was snoozing in his armchair. Their mother just made them worse. Dinner eaten, too much wine consumed by one sister and her husband, and now they were having a whispered conversation about her by the sink. Three were grouped together, talking low and clandestine while the fourth cleared the table of crumpled napkins and smeared dessert plates. She didn’t know her sisters had noticed. She wasn’t aware the sisters knew about the affair. She was oblivious to the worrisome glances they kept shooting her way while…
November Writing Challenge Day 22 Distorted sounds. When you’re sitting at work and there’s a crash-boom-bang and it’s 50 pieces of toprail rolling off the pile after the guys cut the band. Or you’re there by yourself and something keeps popping and you think somebody is messing with you but it’s just the metal roof contracting as the sun melts the frost. Or you’re home alone and something falls in the closet and you jump out of your skin and belatedly reach for your pistol, even though you would be dead by now if someone was coming in. Distorted sounds will make you crazy if you let them. …
