Cedar Sanderson

Week 19 of Odd Prompts

Welcome to a new week of the wild and wonderful worlds that exist within our minds!

Here’s how it works, if you’re new ’round these parts:

You send in a prompt to oddprompts@gmail.com. That prompt is put into a spreadsheet, and then on prompt day (which is Wednesday, because Jan 1 2020 fell on that day of the week) the prompted column is randomized to assign the prompts to someone other than yourself (and that did happen, once. We check, now). You come by the blog and check to see what you drew from the magic spreadsheet, and then you go strike sparks from your imagination with it until something comes out. Most of us are writers, but we get prompt responses of fiction, essays, snips of something, poetry, and even art. Creativity knows no form or boundaries.

If you want something with less commitment, check out the spare prompts at the bottom of the post. And feel free to submit spare prompts!

Prompter Prompt Prompted
Cedar Sanderson Time is relative and there are no rules. Except for this one rule. What is it? Kat Ross
nother Mike The fire breathing dragon looked at the candles on the cake, and tried to figure out how to blow them out. Everyone was waiting for him to try! Leigh Kimmel
Fiona Grey A 3-D printed spaceship
Cedar Sanderson
Kat Ross Sunrise at Cemetery (Photo Prompt) Becky Jones
Leigh Kimmel “I thought I was in Heaven. But I was stumblin’ through the parking lot of an invisible seven eleven. “ Fiona Grey
Becky Jones My prompt: Going through the pile of vegetables (pick your favorite veggies) at the farmers market, you feel something push at your hand. Looking down, you see a small face looking up at you. Who’s hiding in the veggies and why? nother Mike
Kat Ross’s Photo prompt: Dawn in the Cemetery.

And here are the spare prompts, for those who aren’t ready to commit to the full prompt challenge experience. Take one, take two, heck, take ’em all and weave them into something weirdly complex!

Spare Battle Flute
Spare Challenged to: Bagpipes at Dawn!
Spare The kitten strikes at dawn…
Spare The new authors were surprised when the older writers warned them to watch out for the critics using trebuchets to throw potatoes…
Spare The first two children were Sears top-of-the-line models, but the third boy was a K-mart blue light special, almost as good but a lot cheaper. After that, they stuck with the high price version…
And a spare photo prompt from the lovely and talented Becky Jones.
Photo by Becky Jones

20 comments

  8. Double-Header! Under the Cabbage Leaves AND Don’t Mind The Pupae (900 words)

    My prompt came from Becky Jones:

    Going through the pile of vegetables (pick your favorite veggies) at the farmers market, you feel something push at your hand. Looking down, you see a small face looking up at you. Who’s hiding in the veggies and why?

    Hum… Who’s hiding under the cabbage leaves? Is Gil shopping? For home? With his dog?

    Some possible ideas. Gil finds three baby fairies/pixies? Harold finds a giant Caterpillar alien? Somebody finds greenbacks, escaping migrant workers, hiding in the vegetables?

    Under the Cabbage Leaves (450 words)

    By Mike Barker

    Gil enjoyed his day off. He took Monster, the three headed dog, with him to the farmers market in the park nearby. The sunshine was warm, and he laughed, because he never knew just what he might find there. Last week, someone had black carrots. He bought one bunch, and shaved them into his salad all week. It looked like beet shavings, but tasted like crunchy carrots.

    This week, they seemed to have a lot of mushrooms. He liked mushrooms, but he was really looking for leafy greens. Then he found a table covered with green. Lots of lettuce. Oh, cabbages!

    He lifted one of the cabbages, and something moved. He remembered finding a big slug on one of the cabbages here, so he wasn’t too surprised. But he pulled back his hand anyway.

    Then the leaf lifted, and a tiny head poked out. Tousled hair, bright green eyes, a little button nose, a wide grin, and ears… Spock had ears like that, didn’t he? What?

    Then the little head spoke.

    “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”

    You can read the rest over here (and watch out for the second one! Hyperlepidoptera?)
    https://mbarker.dreamwidth.org/234588.html

    The third one hasn’t quite hatched yet!

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