Summer’s heat is upon us here in the northern hemisphere. With it comes the enervating heat, lazy vacation days, and a lingering unwillingness to work at… anything, really. Drag a notebook and pen over, and scrawl a few words, anyway. Persistence wins in the long run. The sprints of writing come and go, but the prompts are always here. As the years go by, the writers and creatives who come back week in and week out are accumulating a pile of work to show themselves that they can do this.
| Post | hoc ergo | propter hoc |
| AC Young | Unexpectedly stumped. | Cedar Sanderson |
| Becky Jones | The giraffes were piling up. | Padre |
| Nother Mike | There were teeth in the clouds. | Leigh Kimmel |
| Leigh Kimmel | Wait, there’s one more thing we need to pack…. | AC Young |
| Padre | Despite everything, their flag still flew high, waving in the breeze. | Nother Mike |
| Cedar Sanderson | The hiccups were more annoying but… | Fiona Grey |
| Fiona Grey | The horse named Uber | Becky Jones |
If you want to be a professional, then you must persist in your discipline. And if you are an amateur, then you do it for the love, and why would you avoid what you love?
| Spare | Eco-soap…was not what it claimed to be |
| Spare | There was a suspiscious noise in the room where the kitten was |
| Spare | Spaceship drag races |
| Spare | He paused and asked “Just how deep do roots grow?” |
| Spare | The letter fluttered in the draft |
Grab a prompt, take a spare, do something with it… and report back in the comments. Send in the next weeks prompt, and remember, even if you can’t manage it because life exploded in your face, there will be next week, and the week after.
More Odds Than Ends 
The letter fluttered in the draft
LikeLike
Def in the amateur class, but partial response to one of the spare prompts:
That visual prompt just needs to have the words “elf” or “medieval” in it….. 🙂
LikeLike
This week Leigh Kimmel supplied me with: Wait, there’s one more thing we need to pack….
—
“Finally!” Alexandra cried.
She and Georgina, George, her friend and colleague, had been packing their things for the big exercise for over an hour. But now, everything was in one or other of their packs, and the packs had been fastened. They were ready to head out of the door.
George was reviewing the list of things that had to be brought once more. Alexandra, Alex to her friends, wasn’t too fussed. They’d both been over the list several times, so Alex was confident they’d packed everything. Alex picked up her pack and started to head out the door.
“Alex, wait. There’s one more thing we need to pack.”
“What?”
“The first letters of the items of this page of the list read ‘Becket’s Theory of Rank’.”
“That’s a two-volume work. Each 700 pages long. Where do we find the space?”
“We don’t have a choice. ‘Not bringing everything will cost each pair points, the value to be determined based on the item or items missing.’”
“And they’re probably cruel enough to place a special premium on the hidden item.” Alex put her pack back down. She then left the room, and took the two-volume tome down from the shelf in the study they shared.
Returning to the living room, she found George had opened both of their packs once more.
“Where on Vulcan do we find space for these?”
“There seems to be more space in yours. So we’ll force them into yours, and then try to fit everything we’ve had to take out in mine.”
Alex agreed with George’s suggestion, and they set back to work. It took them another half an hour, but finally they were done once more.
Both of them put their packs on, and made their way to the departure point. They were just in time.
That evening, at the start of the exercise, their packing was reviewed by their instructors. Alex and George had managed to pack everything. They were the only pair to do so, and as Alex had feared, the large, heavy tomes of Becket’s Theory of Rank, came with very expensive penalties for those pairs that hadn’t spotted the requirement.
—
AC Young
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those sneaky instructors! And I’ll bet they told anyone who complained that it was right there on the page…
LikeLike
Using one of the spares:
Kittygami
“Honey, where’d you put Betty’s 4H origami project?”
There was a suspicious noise in the room where the kitten was.
———————————–
That seemed a bit short, so I gave it another go.
Sleepover
“That’s just Aunt Agnes,” Jill answered. “She walks in her sleep. Once she even made a sandwich in her sleep. She was so mad in the morning when she found the liverwurst was gone. She wouldn’t believe she’d eaten it herself.”
Ann bounced on the foot of the bed to keep herself awake. “What if we sneak up on her and go Boo!”
“You never do that to a sleepwalker!” Jill was horrified. “They could have a heart attack and die!”
“I didn’t know,” Ann apologized. She stood up and brushed her cookie crumbs on the bed into her paper plate.
Lucy shook her hair back, “Can we see what she’s doing, or will that wake her up?”
Jill listened to the door a minute. “If we talk softly,” she whispered, “And if we don’t turn lights on, she doesn’t wake up. Last night she went to the parlor. I tiptoed out to see, and she was sitting in the moonlight in the sun room, with a book in her lap and her head leaning against the shelf.”
“I found a flashlight!” Lucy held it up.
“No, get the old one on the dresser. That LED is too bright.”
Lucy grimaced at how dim the old heavy flashlight was. She shone it in her face and spread her eyes wide.
“I’ve never seen a sleepwalker,” Ann said. She held her arms out in front with hands limp and closed her eyes and gronked out fake snores. She shuffled across the floor. Her arms missed the low dresser, and she yelped when she bumped into it.
“You only snore lying down,” Jill corrected her. “When Daddy sleeps in the recliner, he doesn’t snore at all.”
“Can we go watch?” Ann begged.
Jill turned out the light. “Shh. Tiptoe.” She opened the door and the three girls snuck out into the hall.
At first they heard nothing. Jill whispered that sometimes her aunt would stand in one place for a while.
“I hear something in there,” Ann pointed to the second door on the right. “That’s Daddy’s office,” Jill said. They tiptoed to it and opened the door. Lucy turned the flashlight on, shining the dim light through her fingers.
They didn’t see anybody.
Jill slipped around the desk to look behind the filing cabinet. She jumped and barely kept her “Ouch!” quiet. “Reynardine, don’t do that!”
Reynardine meowed and leapt to the chair. The kitten scrambled a bit but finally got aboard the swivel chair.
“Did we wake her up?” Ann whispered. They listened. Someone was shuffling in a room down the hall. “No,” Jill sounded relieved. “We’ll have to be quieter, though.”
“We?” Lucy sniffed.
They left the kitten in command of the office and closed the door behind them. “Don’t let it get out. If it jumped on Auntie…”
As they crept down the hall again, they heard someone turning a knob.
“Quick, in here,” Jill whispered. They crowded into the room opposite the office, which turned out to be the bathroom. Somebody started coming down the hall.
Ann tried to sit on the edge of the tub, but slipped and started to fall in. Lucy grabbed her, dropping the flashlight as she did. Luckily the flashlight landed on a soft bath mat and only made a thud rather than a clatter.
Jill said, “I don’t hear anybody anymore.” She opened the bathroom door. Nobody was in the hall.
There was a suspicious noise in the room where the kitten was.
LikeLike
Sleepwalkers! And then…
LikeLike
Padre signaled…
Despite everything, their flag still flew high, waving in the breeze.
[There’s the national anthem, and of course, 4th of July reminds everyone of the fight for independence… or maybe…]
The freshmen class at Swardsmare Magical Academy were proud of themselves. First, they had managed to swipe the senior class cape, right out of the locker where it supposedly was safely locked away behind magical barriers enforced by all of the senior class. Then they raised their fortress, right out in the middle of the front lawn, covered by snow at this time of year. And they held off the seniors who attacked, again and again.
Simple snowballs rained down on the fortress, mixed with hellballs of magical energy that should have easily torn through the snow walls that the freshmen had built. But, no matter what came, they held on. And fired back barrages of slush, snowballs lofted high and falling, and of course, their own magical balls of energy. More than one senior had felt the impact from hard packed snowballs or even magical vortexes that they swore no freshman should be able to generate.
So, as the day passed, despite everything, their flag, the stolen cape, flew high, waving in the breeze.
The teachers shook their heads and chuckled. They remembered a day like this, when they had stood off the seniors. And then the teachers smiled, because that flag still waved…
[hum, pretty short, but… I kind of like it… so let’s try expanding it?]
Chet looked down the hall, and hoped no one would come out and ask him what he was doing. Most students, especially freshmen at Swardsmare Magical Academy, walked quickly down the halls and into classrooms, they didn’t hang out i the halls. But today was a special day, and if Herman and Bill pulled it off…
And there they were. Walking down the stairs, with big, big smiles. He waited a moment, then seeing that the hall was still empty, he walked towards them.
“Got it?”
Bill grinned, and slapped his book bag.
“Got it! Slick as butter on a biscuit.”
They turned, and walked out of the building. Then they trotted quickly to the snow fortress that the other freshmen had built on the front lawn of the academy.
They walked in, and the gate closed behind them. Then the wards rose, with the power of all the freshmen behind them.
Bill walked to the flagpole that they had built the fortress around. Then he laughed, and opened his book bag. He reached in, and pulled out the black cape that represented the senior class. He waved it, for a moment, and the others cheered. Then he clipped it to the rope on the flagpole and rapidly pulled it up into the air, where it waved in the wind.
It couldn’t have been ten minutes later that the seniors started pouring out of the school, and yelled as they saw the cape blowing in the wind. The first ones started running toward the fortress, and were hit with snowballs and balls of magical energy. Several of them fell down in the snow, but bounced back up and started sending their own flights of snowballs and magical balls toward the fortress.
Chet watched yet another wave of snowballs and hellballs, magical balls of energy, fly at the fortress and fall. Many of the freshmen had bruises or other marks, but they held on. And they fired back barrages of slush, snowballs lofted high and falling, and of course, their own magical balls of energy. More than one senior felt the impact from hard packed snowballs or even magical vortexes that they swore no freshman should be able to generate.
The day ground slowly on. Of course, classes were canceled or skipped, and the teachers joined those watching the continuing snow fight.
The freshmen persevered. Despite everything, their flag still flew high, waving in the breeze. That black cape, stolen from the seniors, flew over it all.
[still petty sketchy, but… it’s a start!]
LikeLike
Good fun.
LikeLike
[…] More, over at MOTE! […]
LikeLike
Bless you! And carry plenty of tissues! By the way, that poor little coon didn’t steal that wallet, he found it and was carrying it until he could find its owner…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks. And what a polite fellow!
LikeLike
[not one of our prompts, but I was mulling over one of those memes about your teacher teaching you about frogs is not grooming you to be an amphibian, and got to wondering about what might happen if we could turn people into amphibians… a rough snippet…]
The sign was small, but flashed green and yellow to catch the eye. “Have you ever considered life as an amphibian?” If you scanned the QR code, you found out all about the history of armed forces intended to fight in and from the sea, the seals, the marines, and all those rough and ready folks. And now, of course, you could volunteer to join the frogs! The government paid for the transition and medical care, and you too could become an amphibian, ready to swim and fight anywhere the oceans ran, and they ran everywhere! Then, after your service, you automatically qualified for special work in the international hoppers, an elite group of ex-frogs. So, look at those frogs and think about it! There’s a life in the ocean waiting for you!
Hank looked at his friends, then shook his head.
“I’m gonna do it! Man, amphibious forces is the only one I want! Under the sea…”
The other boys just grimaced, and walked away. Hank turned, and walked into the small waiting room. The poster there had a big green Uncle Sam smiling and pointing at you, with the headline “Uncle Sam wants you to be a frog!” Hank grinned, and looked at the man… wait, he was wearing a helmet full of water, and a wet suit dripped around him. Okay, the frogman sitting behind the desk…
LikeLike
Just don’t go down the “Desert Scorpion” route. That comes with a real sting in the tail.
LikeLike
LOL!
LikeLike
And now mine is up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/1369906.html. I’d wanted to carry it through to connect with the scene of her riding on the celestial horse, but with InConJunction as a working convention last weekend (both as a vendor and as a panelist), there just wasn’t the time. I have the notes, and at some point I’ll start fleshing things out and connecting the pieces to create a cohesive whole.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bravo! A very nice transition, from the mechanistic motorbike through the elfin magic to… teeth in the clouds and a Chinese dwelling…
LikeLike
Becky Jones hit me with “The giraffes were piling up.” Not bad, and a bit of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse at the end.
“Come on, guys! We’re on a bit of a time crunch here.”
I grumbled to myself a bit. Who did my brother think he was, ordering us around like that? Who had died and made him God?
I used my shepherds crook to encourage another pair of sheep up the ramp. I wasn’t sure how many we had already pushed up the ramp, but it was certainly more than the two tradition dictated. On the other hand, it was a clean animal, so maybe seven pairs were needed.
I glanced back over my shoulder and down the long line of animals. All kinds of creatures were in the queue, waiting to get onto the giant three-story boat that loomed high above me. I didn’t understand exactly why we were doing this, but it had seemed like a lot of fun when my dad had proposed it.
“Come on, kids! It will be fun! We plug in and get to experience all our favorite Bible stories as if we are really there!”
It really had sounded fun at the time. We had considered David and Goliath, but decided it was too violent. Elisha and the She-Bears sounded just as bad. Unfortunately, too many people wanted to do the Exodus, so it wasn’t available. But the challenge to fill Noah’s Ark before the rains began? It seemed like a great way for us to spend quality time as a family.
But it wasn’t working. We were having issues. We were not acting as a good team and the animals didn’t want to behave. The lions were leering hungrily at the antelope. The tigers were prowling around, not wanting to get into their cage and my sister seemed too timid and afraid to get them to go in. And the couple seconds I’d taken to look around had caused even more issues. The giraffes were piling up behind the goats, the cows were stamping impatiently just behind them, while the rhinos and the hippos were looking restless a couple pairs back.
“Get up there!” I shouted at the goats and the line began to move again. I got a few more animals up the ramp and then looked around again. I saw rain clouds beginning to pile up on the distant horizon. We weren’t going to make it…
“The giraffes were in a jumble Piled up with porcupines
While the lions were leering and licking their lips
At delicious deer that could not be their dinner.
But Noah with his knowledge got the animals nestled
All snug in their stables and settled in their stalls
Then the Lord shut the door as the downpour began drenching
The world outside Their warm and cozy vessel.
LikeLike
Ooh! Role-play your favorite bible stories and see how it all happened! Wow… Y’a know, there might be a whole series of stories in that. Fun!
LikeLike