This week, let the prompts keep you going. A regular application of skills keeps the processes churning, providing grease to get the wheels turning, come what may. So let’s get creating – if you sent in a prompt to trade, here’s your inspiration for the week. Feeling like an extra challenge? Add extra context with your favorite holiday and see what springs forth from the synapses.
| Seed | Water | Bloom |
| Cedar Sanderson | “No, I cannot pronounce its name.” | Parrish Baker |
| Becky Jones | It was a dark and stormy night. | nother Mike |
| AC Young | The Centaur Archers are to harry the enemy lines until the enemy breaks line to chase, then the Unicorn Cavalry is to mop up. | Cedar Sanderson |
| Parrish Baker | The last time anyone saw her, she was carrying a suitcase full of seawater. | AC Young |
| Fiona Grey | The photographs were shredded and scattered around the room. | Padre |
| nother Mike | The scouts weren’t prepared to find the dead bodies… | Fiona Grey |
| Leigh Kimmel | The terrible electric tension in the air as we all waited… | Becky Jones |
| Padre | Their method of selecting their leaders was arcane and misunderstood by outsiders, but surprisingly effective. | Leigh Kimmel |
Forgot to sent a prompt this week to oddprompts at gmail dot com? New to more odds than ends? Need an extra-extra challenge? Snag a spare!
| Spare | It possesses toxic nectar |
| Spare | The pattern revealed a collaborative quilt design |
| Spare | His necktie turned out to be a live squid. |
| Spare | Interesting that it can be done, but… of what use are unicorn golems? |
| Spare | The spaceship had an interplanetary transmission. |
| Spare | No matter what, spring will come, and the seeds will sprout, and there will be flowers again. You just have to plant’em. |
Finally, let’s have an image prompt. What dreams and creatures might be found in the brief moments of fogged awakening?
That’s it for this week – see you in the comments!
Images rendered by Fiona Grey using Midjourney.
More Odds Than Ends 
https://urnasemper.substack.com/p/the-blue-man
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Mine is up: https://acyoungauthor.substack.com/p/seawater-suitcase
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Becky Jones dug out an ancient seed…
It was a dark and stormy night.
[classic! Let’s see, should we go gothic, horror, or perhaps…]
It was a dark and stormy night. Which made the morning, when the clouds broke and the sun rose, bright sunshine streaming down everywhere, even more welcome.
Of course, we had to go outside and check. The old oak tree had lost a limb, which lay across the driveway. And the garden… it wouldn’t need watering for a while. For that matter, figuring out which seeds were where was going to be a puzzle.
[blah… that’s not going anywhere, really…]
It was a dark and stormy night. Which was perfect for Arlene, as she trudged up the gravel driveway towards the old house. In a flash of lightning, she saw the whole thing. The old porch wrapped around, with three wobbly wooden steps leading up to it. A ragged vine crawled up on one side, across the steps, over the porch, and up onto the roof. Somehow, the windows behind the porch seemed to be caves of darkness, almost as if the house was looking at her.
Still, she shook her head and trudged onward. Then she climbed the steps, crossed the porch with it creaking loudly as she stepped on the warped boards, and knocked on the frame around the doorway.
It took long minutes, with the rain drumming on the roof overhead, before the door creaked open. But there was no one there, just a black void.
Arlene nodded.
“Is there anyone here? May I come in?”
Silence.
After a long moment, Arlene stepped inside. Once she passed the door, she heard it swing shut behind her, hinges squealing, and the the lock clicked.
Well, at least she was inside…
[pseudo gothic, I guess…]
It was a dark and stormy night when the visitor walked into our lives. At first, we thought he was dressed up, then when we looked closer, his necktie turned out to be a live squid. How he got it to grab onto his shirt and stay there, just squirming slightly, was a mystery to us. Almost as big a mystery as why we let him in the door.
Of course, once we let him inside, he started his spiel.
“Have you been cursed? If so, you might be eligible for compensation from the Satanic Council. But to get your compensation, you need to apply, and I’m here to help you with that! So, are you ready to sign the papers and get started?”
Somehow, despite the squid hanging under his chin, and the occasional crash of thunder outside, when he said it, it almost seemed to make sense.
[oh, that could be fun! A door to door salesman, from hell?]
[sorry, no coherent tale, just fragments this week…]
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[…] I don’t know where I’m going with this prompt from nother Mike, but I had some fun! My prompt went to Padre – check it and more out over at More Odds Than Ends! […]
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Fiona Grey offered up “The photographs were shredded and scattered around the room.”
The room was a complete wreck when Dave Peterson gingerly stepped into it. It looked like a teenage girl in a fit of rage and angst had taken exception to what her ex-boyfriend had been doing and, since she did not have him in arms reach, had attempted to destroy him vicariously by destroying his likeness in their pictures. In other words, the photographs were shredded and scattered about the room.
The pale pink walls were bare, as well. Not only were there no pictures of the boyfriend on the walls, there were no posters of boy bands, no mirrors, nothing. The light beechwood wardrobe and dresser were open and their contents strewn about the room on top of the photo shreddings, leaving very little of the light blue carper visible underneath.
Dave looked around, trying to see what could be out of place. Nothing looked odd, except…
He looked down at the hair brush that was lying at the top of the pile of clothes in front of the dresser, then knelt down to take a closer look. Yellow blonde hairs coiled through the thing, stiff plastic rods that acted as bristles in this design. It looked like the girl who had owned this room had long hair.
But, as he looked carefully around, shorter, darker hairs were visible here and there, protruding from under the shredded photographs. They probably belonged to her dog. Except, she and her family didn’t have a dog. Curiouser and curiouser. Now if he could just figure out where she had disappeared to…
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And now mine’s up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/1624561.html. It’s rough, mostly because of time pressure, but one of these days I want to finish both of those novels and get them out. Just have so many other projects in line in front of them…
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https://professorornery.substack.com/p/tense-moment
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