Welcome to the transition between Summer and High Summer, at least in my hemisphere. I suppose in the Land Down Under, it is drawing nearer spring. And in the places where there be dragons?
There are prompts!
| Prompter | Prompt | Prompted |
| Becky Jones | You are lost in thought, staring at the photographs on your shelves. After about a minute it occurs to you that the people in the photos are moving around, just like described in Harry Potter books. Wait. What? | nother Mike |
| nother Mike | Someone had tossed a cellphone with a puzzle piece taped to its back into the car. | Becky Jones |
| Fiona Grey | The essence of noir: A man with a slouched fedora and hands shoved in overcoat pockets walks down a road, aware he’s being followed. Streetlights flicker into darkness as he walks by. | Anne and Jim |
| Anne and Jim | They needed to find a house. They had no idea how monumental the task before them was. (comedy/farce) |
Cedar Sanderson
|
| Leigh Kimmel | In Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter asks “How is a raven like a writing desk?” Meanwhile, Edgar Allan Poe is writing “The Raven,” with its famous line “Quoth the raven, Nevermore.” | Fiona Grey |
| Cedar Sanderson | Was that a spider? No, too many legs. What…? | Leigh Kimmel |
If you’re new here (hi!) or just not ready for a full on prompt challenge commitment, check out the spare prompts!
The same lack of rules applies. No wordcount limit, it doesn’t even have to be words: art, photography, or whatever sparks your imagination to creativity satisfies the Odds around here. Then come back and post a link (images must be a link, the comments are derpy that way) or words below.
We look forward to seeing what you produce!
| Spare | The only thing in the special delivery package was a violet mouse. |
| Spare | The strange seeds that came in the mail were labeled Ear Studs. Oddly enough, when they planted them, the pods that the vine produced contained Ear Studs. |
| Spare | When the young boy said his rubber ducky was possessed, no one believed him at first. Then… |
| Spare | Transparent fish, and the mermaids who love them |
| Spare | There, tucked between dozens of other books was… not a book. |
Remember to send in your prompt for the challenge to oddprompts@gmail.com, or send in a spare with ‘spare’ in the subject line.
See you in the comments!
More Odds Than Ends 
Well this is peculiar. Our prompt is a description of Jim. That might have interesting results.
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Do you remember Pigpen from Peanuts? Was that the kid that always walked around with a cloud of dust around him? Wasn’t there a cartoon figure that always had a storm cloud overhead? This seems to be that kind of character, all grown up, with lights going out when he passes…
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We think we’re going to write part of a story we’ve been talking about for quite some time.
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[…] Kimmel challenged me in this week’s Odd Prompts. “In Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter asks “How is a raven like a writing desk?” […]
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Heads up, just over 2K. A bit longer and continues Lady Death’s story. https://fionagreywrites.com/sanctuary/
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Woot!
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[…] we got the prompt from Odd Prompts this week, we were really startled. You see, this could easily be a description of Jim, and we’ve […]
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And so the stars aligned, and the first snippet of R.I.P. Meets the Supernatural is actually complete. There are a couple of other little bits partially written, which we’ll clean up for you all to see soon, but this is as good an introduction as any. https://firesciblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/03/week-31-of-odd-prompts/
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I’ve been playing with my blog, and you may not be able to click through on the link above. Here’s the new link.
https://scorchedimagination.com/2020/08/03/week-31-of-odd-prompts/
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I promise I’ve never stalked Jim to know what he looks like!
Both links worked for me, and I can’t wait to read more. 🙂
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The hard part of planning things is that Jim does more of the basic concepts, and I do more of the development, so I have to prod him and see what comes out. There are a few things we’ve been planning together for a while, like the actual intro to this week’s story, but mostly we’re just taking things as they come.
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Becky Jones prompted…
You are lost in thought, staring at the photographs on your shelves. After about a minute it occurs to you that the people in the photos are moving around, just like described in Harry Potter books. Wait. What?
I’m not getting much done this week, somehow. Here’s one stab at it…
Windows into another world?
By Mike Barker
I got to the dentist’s office on time, and checked in with the nurse at the reception desk. She nodded, checked off something on her computer, and asked me to sit down. She said it might be a little while.
So I sat down and glanced around. I really hate waiting rooms. Children’s books, old magazines… Huh, they had National Geographics? I don’t think I had seen any of those for years. Oh, well.
So I leaned back and glanced at the picture hanging on the wall. Then I blinked. Wait a minute. The man in the picture waved at me? What?
I got up, and walked over. He laughed, silently, like a demented mime, and pointed to his right. I looked. There was another picture there, and the woman in it was waving! I looked back and forth, and they waved at each other. Then… she walked out of her picture, and a moment later, appeared in his picture.
The nurse looked over at me, and said, “Those are pretty pictures, aren’t they?”
I looked at her. Then I glanced at the pictures. Now the man and the woman were holding one finger up in front of their mouths, obviously telling me not to say anything. But…
“Uh, yeah. They’re pretty. Um… are they special pictures or something?”
The nurse laughed. “Sure. I got them at Goodwill, a buck a piece.”
I glanced at the people in the frames, and slowly nodded. “They’re unusual, I’ll say that.”
The man and woman in the pictures wiped their foreheads. Then they looked at each other, and nodded. The man gestured. What was he trying to show me? Oh, spread my pocket out? Sure, why not?
I spread it out, and they backed up, then ran forward into the frame, and jumped. A moment later, my pocket dropped, as if someone had dropped weights into it. I looked down into it, and their little faces looked up at me.
The man said, “Just don’t say anything and we’ll talk about it later, okay?”
I nodded, and wondered just what I had done. Then I looked at the frames. Empty landscapes…
My pocket bulged as they wiggled for a moment, then settled.
This was not what I expected when I walked into the dentist.
(maybe?)
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Mike, this just begs so many questions! Great into to… something?
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Yeah, that’s about where I am. What the heck? Lilliputians jumping out of pictures? I wonder what they are going to tell him? Wow, the stack of beginnings is getting out of hand…
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[…] hit Philly, so I’m writing and listening to the rain. It’s rather nice. We are now in Week 31 of prompts at More Odds Than Ends. I am still having a hard time believing that I’ve been doing this for more than half the […]
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This is going to be some story! Great!
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I had a sick day. But it’s not the kind of sick that kept me from writing! And with the help of my husband bouncing ideas on how the heck to fit this plot into Hatrack, I think I did it. At this point it’s like playing roulette. One of these weeks the prompt is going to blow me right out of the story LOL
https://www.cedarwrites.com/2020/08/04/the-case-of-the-perambulating-hatrack-part-25/
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You rocked that one. I totally would have done some kind of outtake or written a chapter out of order.
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Thanks! I really considered the out-of-order thing until we worked out how to manage it.
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I now have mine up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/792618.html. It follows pretty directly from last week’s part of the Big Messy Project, and ended up being a lot longer than I’d expected it to be.
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