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 |
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… |
More Odds Than Ends 
[…] Week 19 of the More Odds than Ends prompts. Hard to believe I’ve been doing this consistently for 19 weeks! My plan is to say the […]
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Go read it! Read the short story, then read this week’s writing! Very nicely done!
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Thank you, Mike!
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[…] piece. Ok, not likely to do that last. Or… I could say I wrote 329 words yesterday, and I can link back to the prompt post, and my weekly challenge would be fulfilled as […]
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I posted my prompt response as part of a longer post about goal setting and tracking at the MGC today. I was stumped how to work the 3D printed spaceship into the Hatrack story, at least where I am in that story. However, it was an interesting spark!
https://madgeniusclub.com/2020/05/09/mental-exercise/
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Cedar’s prompt almost melted my brain. Not from trying to figure out what to write, but from trying to stop myself from chasing rabbits down into the warren while doing my research. But I managed to resist (mostly) and did come up with a story (eventually) and I learned a few things (sorta).
https://undomesticatedfeline.wordpress.com/2020/05/10/odd-prompts-week-19/
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I’m sorry? 😀
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Are you familiar with the expression “Pleazze don’t throw me in that there briar patch”?
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I am! And that is a great story you wrote. Chilling!
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I knew before I started that I wanted a Twilight Zone style ending, it became a matter of letting the story unfold to that ending.
Looking up Dr. King’s assassination, and the conspiracy theories, and photos was very interesting.
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That’s very Twilight Zone…be careful what you wish for! Very good!
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[…] this week’s Odd Prompts challenge, I prompted Cedar Sanderson with a 3-D printed spaceship. Leigh Kimmel gave me the ZZ Top […]
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Writing and music both this week? How did I get so lucky?
https://fionagreywrites.com/headphones/
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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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A twofer, and both fun!
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Thank you!
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I like those! I’ve always liked the idea of a polite alien.
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My response is now up at my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/745666.html. Now I need to go back and fill in the stuff that happens between this segment and the first one.
It’s interesting how working in the garden, whether vegetable or flower, can get the ideas moving.
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….dragons speak Southern!
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Nice! I especially like the way it brings in the age factor… young dragons struggling to control their abilities to fit into society. Good!
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