Prompts! This is the time of year when distractions are easily at hand, at least in the northern hemisphere. Beautiful weather, energetic people, a smattering of events — around here, every small town has its own festival — and you want to sit in front of a computer and write?
There are ways around that, of course. Walks are always good for thinking ideas through, and jotting notes to save for rainy days is always an option. Laptops, typewriters, even pens and notebooks all work in the sun. Or perhaps it’s time for a new form of creative inspiration or outlet, whether it’s photography of life growing into rapid view or nurturing that life from seedling into bloom.
Need some inspiration to mingle with what’s outside? Have some prompts!
| Poker | Poke | Poked |
| Cedar Sanderson | Sadness and Joy hand in hand | Fiona Grey |
| Fiona Grey | “Balanced nutrition includes a smattering of flies,” the professor intoned sternly. | Becky Jones |
| AC Young | Albert the Conqueror had declared himself king. | Leigh Kimmel |
| Becky Jones | The flight of dragons was low… too low. She dropped to the ground and lay flat. | AC Young |
| Leigh Kimmel | There’s only fifty-two weekends in the year. Half of them have three or four events you’d like to do. The other half don’t have anything that’s worth your time and money. | nother Mike |
| nother Mike | When the world gives you lemons, open a lemonade stand! | Cedar Sanderson |
And don’t forget the spares; they’ve got you covered even if you forgot to send one in for a trade.
| Spare | Diversity is the spice of life, so leave the dandelions alone |
| Spare | He died at the Battle of Cowpens |
| Spare | The woman had held the sword in a guard pose for centuries, silently watching oblivious tourists. Until one day… |
| Spare | When elephants dance… |
| Spare | There was a pile of packages tumbled into the supermarket aisle… |
| Spare | He pulled the sword from the cereal box, and waved it aloft! |
However you prompt, post it in the comments! We’ll see you next week.
Header image by Fiona Grey
More Odds Than Ends 
This week Becky Jones poked me with: The flight of dragons was low… too low. She dropped to the ground and lay flat.
—
The hiker stopped on the mountain trail, and took a look around. As her gaze passed over the mountains on the other side of, and further up, the valley she saw a dragon flying. Dragons weren’t an unknown sight around here, and one flying alone wasn’t really a threat as it was probably hunting deer.
Her eyes snapped back. Something didn’t quite look right. It took a second or few, but she spotted it. There wasn’t only one dragon, there were three, in a chevron formation. They were probably on a training flight or something. Probably nothing to worry about.
Then she saw the rest. It was a full flight of six dragons, in two chevrons. She was suddenly extremely wary. Everyone knew that dragons only flew in full flights when they were flying to war.
The first dragon was black, flanked on each side by red dragons. The second chevron was a blue dragon flanked by a pair of green dragons.
Not that that was particularly helpful. She didn’t know any of the dragons in the local citadels by sight. Nor did she know what territory each of them claimed. So she had no idea if she was on the wrong side of the boundary as far as the flight was concerned.
And the flight was flying low. It was flying very low. It was dropping down into the valley. It looked as if the dragons were scanning for enemies.
There was only one thing to do. She dropped to the ground, and lay flat, unmoving. She hoped that the dragons would fly over her without spotting her.
It was ten minutes before she dared to look around, ten minutes of terror, ears constantly straining to hear the sound of dragon’s breath, with the associated fire and pain, cut short by her inevitable death.
As she glanced around, she saw with relief the flight departing, heading down the valley.
She got up, and then headed as quickly as she could on foot to the nearest town. They needed to be warned that the dragons were warring with each other again.
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Dragon wars! Oh, this sounds like it could be fun. Dragons and humans and what kind of a world do they make together? So will we get to buy the book?
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I’m afraid it won’t be in the short term. At current target rates (which are better than last year’s non-MOTE rates, but still nowhere near professional speeds – I hope to be at a point where I can increase the target for next year) I won’t finish both my current works-in-progress for a fair few months, and I’ve already got the first work of another series lined up for after that.
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You do what you can, as you can. Just keep going!
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[…] was low… too low. She dropped to the ground and lay flat went to AC Young. Head on over to More Odds Than Ends to see what he did with it. While you’re there, if you’ve a mind to, pick up a spare and […]
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Got mine up!
https://ornerydragon.com/2023/05/15/care-and-feeding/
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Y’a know, it’s more than a pinch… just add ‘em flies slow, and we’ll let you know when you get a smattering…. Fun!
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Leigh Kimmel provided…
There’s only fifty-two weekends in the year. Half of them have three or four events you’d like to do. The other half don’t have anything that’s worth your time and money.
[hum. 52 * 7 is 364, so, yep, 52 weekends in a year. Hum… what a wonderful way to use a time machine! Or maybe…]
Elmer leaned back in the old rocker on his porch, and looked over the fields. Another Saturday sunset, with the sun lighting up the clouds over the willow like a fire. He listened to the birds singing, and enjoyed the breeze playing across the porch.
He rocked for a moment, and chuckled, remembering that young salesman that had come knocking on their door last week. What was it he said? Oh, yes. “There’s only fifty-two weekends in the year. Half of them have three or four events you’d like to do. The other half don’t have anything that’s worth your time and money. But, for a limited time, I can set you up with cable television! That’s right, for just a small fee every month, you’ll have the world right here in your living room. No more wasted weekends.”
Elmer had laughed, and walked the youngster out to the edge of the porch. Then he pointed across the fields.
“You see that? I get that free every day of the year! Over here, I get the sunrise, when the day and I greet each other. Then I get the birds singing their morning song. And, of course, I get the sights, sounds, smells, and wonder of working these fields, planting… oh, corn one time, beans, all kinds of vegetables. Come evening, why, I get to watch the sun setting over the willows. My friend, I am blessed with the world all around me every day of the year. I don’t need your cable for that.”
The poor youngster was still trying to talk as Elmer walked him back to his car and helped him inside. Then Elmer waved as he finally started up his car and drove away.
Elmer chuckled again. Today, he’d plowed one field, then did a little fishing in the pond, so they had fish for dinner. And now, he just relaxed and enjoyed the sunset. A wasted weekend? No way.
[oh, I kind of like that… It isn’t the events you attend that makes a great weekend, it’s what you pay attention to!]
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And mine did slot into the weekly short story I’m trying to get done by Sunday. 8K words in 8 days… https://www.cedarwrites.com/2023/05/16/odd-prompts-committing-commerce/
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Sounds like fun! Off we go…
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[…] Whew, made it! Cedar’s prompt was sadness and joy, and mine went to Becky Jones. Go check them all out, over at MOTE! […]
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Oh, oh, oh… I hope all this goes together at some point and we get the whole story! Whew!
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Short scene this week, using my prompt from Leigh Kimmel last week.
Drak hunched over his bowl of stew. It smelled wonderful after a long day of travel, thick and filled with chunks for vegetables and meat. They had been on the road for a couple weeks and he was pretty sure that they were getting to the bottom of their food store, but it still smelled wonderful.
Vinal’s cook was a magician with food. He claimed he had come along to see the world, but there were rumors in the camp that there was more to it- something about a jealous husband or gambling debts. Or both depending on who was telling the story.
It actually didn’t matter what the truth was to most of the company. As long as you did your job, no one really cared where you came from and what you were running from. It only mattered if it caught up with you.
Most of the time that happened, it mattered to Drak. As captain of the guard, he had responsibility to keep Vinal and his goods safe from whatever threats came along, whether it was bandits and thieves, assassins hired by jealous husbands, or fathers who kept their crossbow behind the door.
He sighed. It was raining again and that meant everyone was grumpy and keeping less than a watchful eye out. He should probably go check on the guards in a couple minutes, but first… he quickly inhaled the stew. No use in letting it get watered down too much by the drizzle.
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And I finally got mine up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/1339947.html. Hasty and dashed together, but day job has me between two events right now, finishing bookkeeping on one and preparing for the next.
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