They were playing hide and seek.
There was one spooky house no one ever dared to go.
He wasn’t afraid. The only thing was a sign about attacking chicken.
Pfff… Chicken? Seriously?
He got in and a gigantic shadow formed around him. Shaped like chicken. He was the size of a worm…
This post was written in response to the Writespiration #134 52 Weeks in 52 Words Week 40, hosted by Sacha Back.
They were visiting the Wild Western museum. During their visit, the guests could dress up.
He decided to prank her. All dressed up, he hid in one of the displays.
Stubbornly, he would only show himself after being found.
A few hours later, the lights went off and the museum’s doors closed…
This post was written in response to the Writespiration #134 52 Weeks in 52 Words Week 39, hosted by Sacha Back.
Thursday morning. Wake up.
Migraine.
Get up. Wake up the kids. Have breakfast. Get kids ready to school. Walk them to school.
Work from home. Automation won’t work, do it manually.
Stop to go to the doctor.
Come back to a meeting. Work non-stop until 3:25.
Bring suitcase down for hubby.
Pick up kids at 3:30.
Have lunch!
Drive kids to sports practice.
Stop at dry cleaner.
Back home, iron hubby’s shirts.
Shower.
Fix dinner. Do the dishes.
Help hubby pack for his trip.
Read a bit. Go to bed.
And that migraine is still there until end of day Friday….
This post was written in response to the September 7th: Flash Fiction Challenge, hosted by Carrot Ranch
If I came with a warning label, people may not like me much.
My secrets and sins would be disclosed. And that’s not good.
If a warning label would be attached to every person, then everyone would know about their secrets and sins. And get mad, and get hurt, and get away.
No, I don’t want a warning label on me. And I don’t want to read warning labels on others.
They’re to do more damage than good to friendships or any other kind of relationship.
So I keep my secrets to myself.
I go about life being true to myself, being honest when I fell like, and sometimes false, pretending to be someone else.
And I’m ok with this. And people are ok with this too, because that’s what they do.
And we get along….
This post was written in response to the Mini Writing Prompt Challenge: If I Came with a Warning Label. . . #bravewarninglabelchallenge
They were working on a new project.
Her job was to create the schedule and plan for it.
She was struggling with the project management tools, and that was impacting the start date. The team got anxious, afraid her struggles would delay the project so much that the deadline wouldn’t be met.
When she finally figured the tools out and went over to share the plan with the team, she was surprised to see the project was finished already… Before even beginning!
She threw the plans away and celebrated their on-time delivery.
She couldn’t have asked for a better team!
Image Credit: Bikurgurl
This post was written in response to 100 Word Wednesday: Week 10, and inspired by the online courses I’ve been doing on project management… ;o)
Although I’m sure I’ll be a much better manager than the lady on my story.
They met very young and were best friends forever.
Then each went on with their separate lives.
But all the time, they still had each other at the depths of their minds.
One day, they meet again.
They look at each other and see time flying backwards all the way to their childhood together.
“Hey, It’s been so long without seeing you”.
“Yes, I missed so much.”
They hold hands for the first time in ages, and from that time on, they never went apart again.
As if they were in a constant honeymoon.
Their time had finally come!
This post was written in response to March 9th: Flash Fiction Challenge, hosted by Carrot Ranch.
The story was actually taken, and adapted to fit the size constraints, from another piece I wrote a couple years ago for a Literary Lion challenge about Time. If you’re curious, here’s the full story I wrote at that time. Hope you enjoy!
When he was little, he decided he would live 100 years.
He had a happy, healthy, fulfilling life.
The day before his 100th birthday he lay in bed peacefully thinking: “One more day and I’ll be able to rest.”
The next day, after blowing up the candles, he closed his eyes and died.
This post was written in response to Writespiration #106 52 Weeks in 52 Words Week 10, with the theme: The Big Birthday.
They are newly wed and snuggle every night to sleep.
Time goes by and they realize it’s more comfortable not to snuggle.
The distance between them in bed grows in the same proportion as the problems of the daily life increase.
Soon, the bed will become too small for both of them.
This post was written in response to the Writespiration #103 52 Weeks in 52 Days Week 7 hosted by Sacha Black, for which we’re supposed to write a piece with 52 words, that includes the theme: The distance between…
The pictures were borrowed from https://sawbuz.wordpress.com/tag/relationship-sleeping/ and mat be subject to copyright by their owners.
We were doing a paint project outside when daddy came to pick the kids up for the weekend.
He looked uptight, she was all dressy.
I was covered in paint, tangled hair.
She had a frown and seemed uncomfortable on her stilettos early in the morning.
I had a big smiling face.
This post was written in response to Sacha Black’s challenge Writespiration: 52 weeks in 52 words.
This is the first time I try to participate and this week’s theme is:
That moment you see your ex with their hot new bit and you look like a turd.
The monkeys jumped from branch to branch among the forest trees. Nice, but it wasn’t like flying.
Sometimes they would climb all the way to the top of the tallest trees to look at the sky and dream of flying high.
Every time the lucky eagles would come by, they would ask them to tell the stories they saw from up above.
One day, the eagles decided to surprise the monkeys. Each one of them took a monkey on their claws and took them away for a ride.
The monkeys were in ecstasy! They were flying monkeys at last!
This post was written in response to the November 2: Flash Fiction Challenge, hosted by Carrot Ranch.
They were best friends ever since they can remember. It started at toddler years and their friendship only grew with time.
They would laugh together, cry together, suffer together, be happy together.
But time went by and their lives parted.
Each had their own families and had a great happy time with them.
She had a loving amazing husband and 3 wonderful kids.
He married the best wife of the world and with her he had two awesome boys.
But time was still going by and at some point, the time came that their families dismantled.
The best wife got sick and time was up for her.
The loving amazing husband was suddenly not so loving anymore and decided to spend the rest of his time loving someone else.
They had a hard time after that. Though times, actually.
But, as always, time went by and they got over the pain and back into their ordinary lives.
But all the time, they still had each other at the depths of their minds.
Then one day, they meet again.
It was the birthday party of one of her daughter’s best friend. The birthday girl was dating a new boy and the families were all invited. Actually, in boyfriend’s case, just the dad, because mom’s time on earth had ended long ago.
They look at each other and see time flying backwards all the way to their childhood together.
“Hey, long time no see”.
“Yes, I missed you big time.”
“Me too.”
They held hands for the first time in ages, and from that time on, they never went apart again.
Their time had finally come!
This post was written in response to the Literary Lion writing challenge, with the week’s word being Time.
I look outside of my window and I see pretty globes.
They are blue, some tinted with a bit of purple too.
But they are not solid globes. They’re made out of tiny blue/purple flowers.
Hydrangeas! that’s the name I was trying to remember, but the name may not matter to you, right?
I see hydrangeas of purple-ish blue color amongst light green leaves.
There are lots of them and they look very nice and bright in contrast to the darkness inside the house.
Beyond them I see walls.
A short wall made out of big rocks with little bushes on top of it.
The bushes are Azaleas (in case names do matter ;o), but they’re not flowering righ now, so they look just like small leafy bushes.
Some green, some brown, one almost leafless.
Behind the bushes there is a fence, partly white, partly of natural wood color, marking the end of the backyard.
The wood colored has the neighbor’s backyard on the other side.
Beyond the white part is the outside world.
But I can’t see it from where I stand.
This post was written in response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Lookin’ Out My Back Door.”
Trying on a writing challenge once again (have I ever mentioned that the only occasion when I write is when I decide to take these challenges?).
This time, it comes from the Literary Lion and the word of the week is King.
I never lived under a King or a Queen, I don’t like war and battle histories and movies too much. But I have been listening to Imagine Dragons a lot and for some reason, the song Battle Cry came to my mind when I saw what was the theme for the challenge.
So I went for it, with the image in my mind that’s created when I hear the song.
I didn’t really try to tell the story of the song (where the king is actually crowned ;o), but was still influenced by it somehow.
So here it goes, I hope you enjoy.
The invading horde came crashing down.
They are fierce.
They are strong.
They are heavily armed.
They are determined.
Our king was in the front line.
He needs to protect his kingdom, his people.
But the numbers were off.
They were much more, much stronger.
The king knew it would be in vain, but he stands up for his land and his people.
There is fierceness on him too.
And strengh.
And determination.
But the numbers were off.
They came crashing down.
The king tried.
He resisted
He fought.
But they were bigger, stronger, better prepared.
And the numbers were off.
The king is down.
The enemy is upon us.
The king lies lifeless in the battle field.
Our land is not ours anymore.
Could this be?
Nobody can save us now.
Time stops for a while.
Feels quiet, silent…
The only sound is the battle cry.
Today I was planning to try to write my second 6th grade essay, as promised in my previous post Writing Challenges, Frogs and Trumpets. But then I got so immersed on creating the graphics that will accompany it, that I almost ran out of time. I’ll still try, but pardon me if it’s not great. I’m sure it could be better if I had more time (need to pick up kids in school soon).
It’s summer!
I’m spending vacations at my grandparent’s country house. I looooooove it. I play outside, I help with the gardening, the crops, the animals, I swim at the pond, and at night time I open the windows so I can hear the froggies playing their music until I fall asleep.
Only one thing is funny. I can hear the froggies, but I never saw them. Why? I’ll ask Grandma tomorrow morning, now I’m too sleepy.
…….
The sun is up, time for another fun day. Hey! I almost forgot I have something to ask grandma.
“Hi grandma. Why do I play all day long outside but I never got to see the frogs that play music when it’s time to sleep?”
“It’s because they sleep during the day and are active from dusk to dawn”.
I have an idea! Tomorrow I’ll wake up early and come see them at dawn.
……..
Yaaawnnnn… 5:30… Why did the alarm rang so early??! The froggies!
……..
Tommy changes his clothes and goes outside. He guesses the frogs may be getting ready to sleep now in their stump house by the big log at the margins of pond. He gets there and indeed sees the frogs getting ready to bed. He sees mamma frog reading a book to her daughter, while papa frog joins his friends to play a lullaby so the little froggies sleep well. Just like he does with the frog’s wake-up music every evening…
Good morning froggies! Sleep tight!
Last week, the writing challenge here was to create haikus. I don’t usually write poetry, at all, but I took the challenge and created 5 of them: Mt. Rainier, Elephant, Meditation, Sunset and Beach.
Then this week, on Monday morning, the guy who organizes the morale events in our team, sends us an email announcing the date, time and place for our end-of-year team lunch and giving us some details of the event, that typically included lunch and a white elephant gift exchange. This year, though, he added one more kick to it, to try to make it even more fun. The name of the restaurant we’re going is Haiku, so we said that everyone should bring a haiku of their own to read it aloud at lunch and the intensity of applause would tell the winner of the contest. I’m still deciding which one to read next Friday (feel free to vote on one by leaving a comment, if you’d like ;o)
I thought it was so cool that he came up with this suggestion right a week after I wrote my first haikus ever! So I replied to all with a link to a website that helps with the counting of syllables and with suggesting some synonyms for some of the words you wrote, just in case…
My manager is a funny character. She, like me, is an immigrant in the country and a non-native speaker of the English language. But I guess her difficulties with the language are much bigger than mine, and she seems aware of that. I say that because every time she cannot understand something on a document, be it from work or from her kid’s school, she comes to me to ask for help.
Then, when seeing my reply about the haikus, she first said there is no way she could do one (I guess she can, actually, but oh well) and then she asks me to help her come up with an idea for a creative writing essay for her son. Me? Creative? ok, ok, I’m probably more than she is. I did feel flattered with the request, so I decided to help.
Here’s more or less how it went at the beginning:
By the way, do you have any idea for writing a creative story for 5th/6th grade?
Hum…. Creative? You know… my sister is a writer, I chose to be a translator.
So she’s the one with the creativity, I’m the one with the technique… (I also used to review her books until I became a mommy and had no more time to spend on it… ;o)
But I can try to think of something, though…
What’s the kind of stuff/story your daughter like?
Something mystic, scary, romantic?
I guess you/she could start by selecting a theme, based on her interests first. It’s easier when you write about what drives your passion.
As I said I’m not a writer, but I do blog, and I must admit all my posts are around the same basic themes, because that’s what I know what and how to write about (they’re more descriptive than story-telling….). And that’s why sometimes I adventure myself on the writing challenges (like the one I participated last week to write haikus), to get a bit away from my comfort level.
But when I was in school and I had to write creative stories, I remember I used to always write mystery/fantasy stuff. Like something weird happens to kids and they have to investigate why and what happened.
Hope it helps somehow…
;o)
Thanks. The assignment is to write a essay between 100 and 250 words, using any form of three of these five words in a creative story: stump, trumpet, water, tire, dawn. I guess the hard part is about a creative idea what to write. This is for my son. Do you have weird things for kids? He can pretty much write down things that he familiar with and things that happened, but lack of “creative” idea that is fresh…
Ok, now things seemed easier. We had a size constraint and, the most important, words that would help think of something.
The tire was the hard one. But stump, water, dawn and trumpet made me think of frogs, after all they do live by the water, they do like to hide in stumps and they’re more active at dusk and at dawn, when they croak, which could be compared to a trumpet.
So I wrote back with a cute picture of a frog playing a trumpet and the following idea:
Frogs are active at dusk and down, and they like to live by the water.
So he could go either poetic or silly (or both ;o) and talk about frogs playing the trumpet at down from their stump homes by the water….
But the boy apparently likes stories that are more scary or intense than froggies playing trumpets by a pond… we chatted and she explained that he has already written one, but some people who read it thought it not to be too creative, so she was trying to help him write a second option. The first story was about a nightmare that seemed real. Yeah, yeah the world is full of stories about realistic nightmares, but to be honest I see no issue on having another one. If the nightmare itself is good and interesting, then why not?
But I still felt I could help him a bit more, with some less lame idea that would be more fit for his personality
Another one, (much) darker, which seems to be more in sync with him (but still using my froggy)
Car hit’s the tire on a stump, rolls, falls into the water of a pond. People are trapped, unconscious, inside. Car sinks. Bubble, bubble bubble. Then silence, broken only by the frogs playing their trumpets on what sounds like a funeral march…
Later at night she sends me his essay. Cute. He did take the idea of the car hitting a stump and falling in water, and he did include some froggies at it, but he changed enough to make me actually fell proud of him for allowing himself to change a suggestion freely.
I won’t reproduce his essay here, because it’s his and not mine to share, but that made me want to create an essay of my own.
So I made this my own writing challenge: to write a essay using 3 of the 5 words: stump, water, dawn, trumpet and tire. Here it goes:
The radio plays some old Beattle’s song
“She loves you, yeah yeah yeah…”
Chris is driving home after a hard day of work. He feels tired and eager to get home and crash on his bed until the next morning. Then it would start all over again: wake up still tired, get to a boring and badly paid job, work all day, come home tired again to have a bite and fall asleep again.
The road between work and home is dark and winding, going along some woods and a lake.
There had been a small wild fire a few months back that cleared the woods a bit. In some parts the old trees gave place to burnt stumps and the lake could be seen from the road. That was in summer.
But today it is fall and it’s raining hard. The rain makes it even harder to see the dark path. Suddenly, Chris hears a big bump. The car’s tire had hit a stump. In the impact Chris hits his head and go unconscious. The car rolls several times and falls into the lake.
Chris is trapped, still unconscious inside. The car starts to sink. It sink slowly, but the area is deserted, no one sees it and comes to help. Chris does not wake up. The car is still sinking. More and more, until it goes completely under water.
Bubble, bubble, bubble…………………….
Now there is silence, broken only by the frogs’ croaking, like trumpets playing a funeral march…
Yeah, ok, that’s a bit of a sad story. I did not really want to have Chris die, but I decided to be true to my own suggestion.
Later, she also sent me the original first essay, the one about the dream. The guidelines were different and on that one he was supposed to write a creative story that included the following two phrases, one to start the story and the other to end it.
I must admit I like the dream one better than the froggie one. I did feel happy that he took my suggestion, but in the end, I still liked his original one more. Maybe it does reflect his personality better than having to write based on someone else’s idea…
In future posts I’ll try to create 2 more essays: another one, much lighter, for the trumpeter frogs, and one for the second option in the school exercise.
Creative Busyness 