Welcome to 2024! If you’re feeling creative this year, or looking to try something new, why not try your hand at writing? Find life within the chill, or if you’re someplace warmer, the stirrings of new blooms amidst the chaos of our usual dull lives.
Want to join? Email oddprompts at gmail dot com with an idea, and get tossed into the randomizer. Call it a spare, and watch from the sidelines. Or grab a spare and play along that way – and we’ll be excited to see what worlds you bring to life.
| Prompter | TelePrompt | Teleport |
| Cedar Sanderson | The lean cat wore two white stockings and a pair of long white gloves | Fiona Grey |
| Fiona Grey | Fireflies sparked from her hands and briefly illuminated the darkness. | Leigh Kimmel |
| Becky Jones | The still, cold dawn greeted the raiding party. | AC Young |
| AC Young | New Thessaly kept track of both Galactic Standard Years and Local Years. To avoid confusion Local Years were labelled using letters. This New Year marked the change from LY nu-mu to LY nu-nu. | Padre |
| Leigh Kimmel | As the glittering ball descended to mark the midnight hour… | nother Mike |
| nother Mike | When the first cell phones exploded, everyone thought it was a manufacturing problem with the batteries. Then we learned… | Becky Jones |
| Padre | “Oh, no. Here it comes again.” | Cedar Sanderson |
| Spare | Telltale lights glimmered as the board came to life… |
| Spare | The tunnels led only to madness and despair, until the offworlder came exploring. |
| Spare | Sea change took on a whole new meaning when… |
| Spare | You have reached our support line. All humans are busy. Do you want to talk to an AI? |
| Spare | When the AI scripts for some movie series started, no one noticed… |
| Spare | When the moon cracked and the claws started coming out, the scientists were amazed… |
Post your links in the comments, and chase off whatever 2023 demons may try to follow – it’s 2024, and it’s time to start anew!
Header image by Fiona Grey
More Odds Than Ends 
This week Becky Jones prompted me with: The still, cold dawn greeted the raiding party.
—
Sir Louis de Wareham gave the order, and the party mounted their horses. As the sun rose behind them the group rode over the ridge and he saw the river and the bridge under reconstruction before him.
The raiders broke into a canter, their horses’ breath creating steam in the cold, still air. It looked as if the Count of Est Sernia hadn’t ordered any defences put in place – the bridge, what there was of it, was unprotected. Perfect.
Sir Louis’ father was a Duke, the Duke of Croshin, and his territory was bounded on the west by the river, with one little exception. The town of Gelerin and the surrounding area was not part of the duchy, but was instead part of the County of Est Sernia, itself part of the Duchy of Sernia. The Dukes of Croshin had long considered Gelerin to be part of Croshin, not Sernia, and had been looking for an opportunity to claim the town for themselves for generations.
The recent floods had given them their opportunity. The bridge on the main road between Gelerin and Sernia had been washed away. If it could be kept unrebuilt, then come the spring his father could invest Gelerin and claim it for his own duchy, and the Sernians wouldn’t be able to send an army across the river to stop them.
Hence the purpose of this raid. To burn or otherwise destroy the wooden supporting structure before the single-span arch could be completed, taking down the partially rebuilt bridge once more. If the stonemasons rebuilding the bridge could be driven off (ideally not killed, although if no blame accrued to the de Warehams his father wouldn’t be too disappointed should any deaths result).
To minimise the likelihood that the Duke of Sernia could justify an accusation against the Duke of Croshin, none of the raiders bore any heraldry.
Sir Louis led the party down to the partially rebuilt bridge. They cantered up the near side and leapt over the gap where the keystones were intended to go, before cantering down the far side.
The group came to a halt before the workers’ camp. It was shockingly unprotected and unguarded. The buildings had been constructed out of wood and hide.
Dismounting, torches were lit using flints and spears readied. The raiding party then proceeded to go through the temporary settlement.
All of the hide roofs were holed with the spears multiple times, and many of the walls were set alight. Many of the workers fled from the raiders, but the party left them alone.
Once the workers’ settlement was ruined, the torchbearers walked into the river and prepared set the temporary wooden understructure alight. The remainder, led by Sir Louis mounted, and cantered back across the bridge leading the torchbearers’ horses by the reins.
The torchbearers proceeded to set the understructure alight. When it was well lit and blazing merrily away they rejoined the rest of the party, and remounted their steeds.
Sir Louis waited until the understructure collapsed, and the stones of the bridge fell into the river. Then he turned the raiding party around and they headed back to his father’s castle.
God willing, he thought, the bridge would now be down until after the campaign season started in the spring.
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Vivid descriptions. ❤
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Thanks.
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[…] You can find all of the prompt responses, or join in on the fun yourself, over at More Odds Than Ends. […]
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I wrote a full 5K word short story for the writing challenge I’m doing with a friend, where I’ll do this three weeks out of the month. But I used the prompt. so a snippet of the story winds up on my blog: https://www.cedarwrites.com/odd-prompts-djinn/
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Time to download!
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[…] This was fun, but ideally, I’ll be back to storytelling with words next week. In the meantime, check out more over at MOTE – or play along if you so desire! – and see… […]
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[…] we’re off on another year of Odd Prompts! I was something of a slacker at the end of 2023, but I plead long days of travel and hanging out […]
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Leigh Kimmel proposed…
As the glittering ball descended to mark the midnight hour…
[I’m late, I’m late… all right, quick sketch of the key moment?]
All around the imperial ball, the young Cinderella’s sighed, looked at whoever they happened to be dancing with, and hiked up their skirts to get ready to run. Of course, their shoes started slipping, so that there would be plenty of chances for their true love to try to track them down tomorrow. Then, as the glittering ball descended to mark the midnight hour, they start dashing out. Through the doors, into the street, where mice and pumpkins rolled out of their way, and they formed a grand marathon on the middle of the night, streaming through the city to their humble homes…
[the idea being, of course, that there are more than one young lady playing Cinderella with a fairy godmother…]
[ugh, that’s bad… okay, back to the new year?]
As the glittering ball descended to mark the midnight hour, all around the normally noisy intersection, people stopped and watched. They counted down, slowly. Four… three… two… one… the ball touched down, and a streamer of light rose to the heavens. Many cheered, but others wept. Somehow, marking yet another year around the sun also marked the fears, the frustrations, the angst of the last year. And raised a flag of hope, wavering and misty, for what might come in the year ahead.
Angela was one of those with tears. And a slow smile, as Jim tenderly wiped her cheeks with his handkerchief. Maybe….
[ah, now that’s a bit better…]
[Cheers!]
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I’m kinda liking the Cinderella Ball idea, maybe a twist on the old Sadie Hawkins dance – if they favor the gentleman they leave the slipper.
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And now mine is up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/1464568.html. It was great fun — and exciting to get a bit of a novella that I’m using as part of a mid-level tier reward for my Kickstarter for a collection of 100 flash fiction and short stories that got their start in writing challenges.
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AC Young suggested, “New Thessaly kept track of both Galactic Standard Years and Local Years. To avoid confusion Local Years were labelled using letters. This New Year marked the change from LY nu-mu to LY nu-nu.”
“I don’t get it. The system you all use is confusing.”
“It’s not that bad once you get used to it.”
“Seriously, letters rather than numbers?”
“Of course. It keeps them separate. We use both systems simultaneously.”
“So, this is Local Year Nu-Nu.”
“Yes. And the year before was Nu-Mu.”
“And next year is Nu-Omicron.”
“Of course.”
“You do know that this opens you up for a bunch of really bad jokes, right.”
“Of course. We were cracking comments about the new Nu years for decades. And this is the new, new year, of course.”
“Ouch.”
“It could be worse. 25 years ago, the entire female population of the colony put on Hawaiian robes for the new year. Including some who should never have been wearing them.”
“Why? Oh, because it was Mu-Mu. And they decided to wear muumuus.
“Yes.”
“That’s… horrible.”
“As I said, you get used to it.”
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