This week, signs of life are popping back into the world. Not just flowers and sunshine as winter finally ends, but also human interaction. Road traffic feels more alive, even if everyone forgot how to drive over the past two months.
But I digress. Even introverts need contact, after all, and not all stories come from the imagination. Observation is a powerful tool – as is the question, “what if…?” – that sparks the creative mind. To behold the world from a different point of view, it helps to watch others.
So come on, friends. Come one, come all, to write; to dance merrily in an unanticipated direction, from a writing prompt you did not expect. Seize a spare and take it for a whirl around the floor, and the point is to try, so who cares who’s watching, or if you’re dancing different dances?
Creation is powerful, and there’s satisfaction in its accomplishment, even for works that are never quite finished. Take a prompt, give a prompt, twirl a spare prompt if you’re so inclined. Let no genre go unexplored!
| Prompter | Prompt | Prompted |
| Leigh Kimmel | A thing that sat on a sleeper’s chest. Gone in morning, but something left behind. |
Cedar Sanderson
|
| Cedar Sanderson | “When I said weed eater, that isn’t what I meant…” | Fiona Grey |
| nother Mike | When she held the seashell to her ear, first she heard the crashing waves, then the songs the mermaids sing, and then… a timid little voice said, “Mommy? I want to go home now?” | Becky Jones |
| Fiona Grey | Your phone lights up, and the app notifies you the camera’s spotted someone at the door. Feeling lazy, you pull up the video and take a peek. It’s a giant murder hornet. And it just rang your doorbell. | Leigh Kimmel |
| Kat Ross | (Photo: house below) Why is it abandoned? Or does someone still live there? Why are you there? | nother Mike |
| Becky Jones | You step out of your front door to an altered world. Subtly altered, but altered. | Kat Ross |
I’m told spare prompts are like popcorn, one handful leads to another.
| spare | When he rolled through the door, right eye higher and bigger than the other, his nose off-center and tilted left, and those gaping teeth sticking out over his fat lips, the matchmaker whose slogan was, “There’s always someone somewhere just right for you!” took a deep breath and prepared to get down to work… (inspired by https://www.thefarside.com/2020/05/08/2 ) |
| spare | Hard hats, orange warning vests, the crew working on the roadside was so ordinary that no one gave them a second look. Two days later, though, the road… |
| Spare | “One day they go on about free will,” the woman snarled into the magic mirror. “The next day, they tell you the evil queen position is genetic.” |
| Spare | “It’s a potato clock,” your son tells you proudly, and hands you a science project worthy of the local bomb squad. |
| Spare | Wanted: Self-rescuing princess |
See you in the comments. Can’t wait to read them! And don’t forget, send in next week’s prompt submissions to oddprompts@gmail.com.
Header image by Fiona Grey, White Sands vicinity, New Mexico.
More Odds Than Ends 
[…] week’s Odd Prompts challenge came from Cedar Sanderson: “When I said weed eater, that isn’t what I […]
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I got stuck on this one, until my husband mentioned something he’d read in the news…
https://fionagreywrites.com/a-mug-of-liquid-sanity/
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LOL! Excellent! Hey, kids, go read this one! I think you’ll get a chuckle out of it!
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LOL! I love it! My grandparents traveled a lot and my grandfather always made suggestions as to what he could bring home for me. One time, he suggested a moose and said that I could probably convince my dad because the moose could mow the lawn!
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[…] time! This is Week 20 of Odd Prompts. This one comes from my own wanderings on the Oregon coast thanks to a friend of mine who owns a […]
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I love the beach. And, Mike’s prompt gave me a great excuse to revisit one of my faves on the Oregon coast.
https://profornery.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/the-beach-fixes-everything/
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Nice! Makes a person want to wander on the beach, looking for what they might find there… even a mermaid, if we’re lucky!
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[…] eater, that isn’t what I meant…” You can see all the Odd Prompts, and the responses, at More Odds Than Ends. You can even join in! Just submit a prompt to oddprompts@gmail.com and choose whether to take part […]
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I keep thinking I’ll manage this earlier in the week. But no, I am an adrenaline junky. Another segment of the Hatrack has ambled out of my brain. Thank you, Leigh, that was a great quote! https://www.cedarwrites.com/2020/05/19/the-case-of-the-perambulating-hatrack-part-14/
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Ooo, I also liked the quote and what you did with it.
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Oho! A black stone egg… and what is she going to say? Potboiling away…
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Short, but the idea of a portal house amused me.
https://undomesticatedfeline.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/odd-prompts-week-20/
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[…] week’s prompt from Odd Prompts is from Becky Jones. “You step out of your front door to an altered world. Subtly altered, but […]
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Nicely done. I’ll bet he checks the setting before stepping out, at least for a while…
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My prompt this week is that picture up there. And a little bit of thought left me with this…
Comments welcome!
That Old House (650 words)
By Mike Barker
Hank got out of the taxi slowly. He looked at the weeds, the tumbled bushes, and the house. He couldn’t believe it.
“Are you sure this is the right address?”
The taxi driver’s voice woke him up. He looked at the houses around him, the street. Yes, this was the right place.
You can read the rest at
https://mbarker.dreamwidth.org/234922.html
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The feels, Mike. The feels. As I’m told the kids say.
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Very nice, bitter sweet.
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And my effort is now up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/749886.html.
I’d hoped to be able to get the whole thing written, since i have a fair idea of where it’s going, and it looks to be short-story sized. But with the printer issue and everything else, I ended up pounding out the beginning at the last minute again.
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Which made me think of the yokai watch song… I found an English version of it! Yokai, yokai, yokai… https://youtu.be/M-gpCkikNIw
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Oh, this was very enjoyable. I can’t wait to read your other story as well.
I’m using a tsukumogami sword in the draft WIP and agree, that research is absolutely a rabbit hole. My favorite yokai might be the chickens that spit fire…
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Yokai? Yipe! One can have difficulties learning what a yokai wants. I’d love to see how this works out.
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