Writing Prompts – Creative Copy Challenge #309
Posted: February 18, 2013 Filed under: Copy Challenges 74 Comments »This is a writing prompt. Bet you can’t do it! Take the 10 random words below and crush writer’s block by creating a cohesive, creative short story! And remember: after (if) you finish entering your submission into the comment field, highlight your words and click the bold button to make them stand out and help you determine if you forgot any words. (If you’ve missed previous writing prompts, we BET YOU CAN’T do those, either.) NOTE: Our bolding plugin is gone, so you’ll have to put <b> and </b> around each of your words if you want them to stand out, but NOT REQUIRED THOUGH.
- View
- Lip
- Echo
- Float
- Glisten
- Share
- Flow
- Alone
- Lose
- List
NOTE: Don’t copy and paste from MS Word. Use a program like notepad that removes formatting or just type in the comment field itself. Also, finish your submission, THEN bold the words. Thanks. (And don’t forget to tweet this and share it with your friends.)
Share. Share. Share. The echo persists. The view from here is serene. The raindrops glisten on the windowpanes, and tiny rivulets flow down when they meet and become too heavy to remain in pace. I am alone, and yet I am not lonely. I float in my own cloud of alone-ness, not troubled in the least that I am about to lose all the lip-service friends on my Facebook list. In a moment, I will delete my account.
Heh-heh. the Facebook backlash has begun!
Nice one, tanjamaltija. I was just reading about how incredibly difficult it is to really delete one’s account.
Cheers,
Mitch
…someone hacked my account and Facebook ironically accused ME of being the hacker. The only way I could prove I was the legitimate owner of the account was by asking them to compare the i.p, address of the person who began the wall, mine, and that of the third party. Problem solved. But why did I have to tell them that myself? Wasn’t it obvious?
Oi. Sorry, then. I thought it was fiction. If you really want to delete your account, this might help:
http://www.groovypost.com/howto/security/permanently-delete-your-facebook-profile-account/
It was fiction… but I put the link on Facebook anyway!
But what did you have for lunch! The people want to know! Nice work. I liked lip service friends. Very nice.
@tanjamaltija LOL!
Oh, the joy!
I like the line, ‘I float in my own cloud of alone-ness.’ sounds peaceful. Nicely done!
@Tanja: YES, YES, YES! DELETE INDEED! Well done.
Total brightness, like a television with a broken contrast knob, beckoned the passengers of the Wingohocking Cruise Lines flagship, Rainbow Fairy. At first, everyone thought it was part of the evening’s entertainment. But, as the light continued to float around their heads, a collective consciousness began to echo throughout the ballroom.
The ripples translated to panic, anxiety and an overwhelming urge to be alone. Somebody wondered aloud, “nerve gas?” Others, less inclined to introspective navel gazing, shot out of chairs, grabbed husbands or wives and made a beeline for the exits. The ripples intensified into a visible ribbon that seem to glisten and flow like a translucent ground fog.
The curious speculator put a finger to his lip. This view, noted by no one, actually changed the course of events. The fog, not used to being questioned, tried to share a sense of urgency with the mesmerized individual. This backfired into pandemonium for the already fleeing passengers; they suddenly got the nauseating sensation that the ship was beginning to list.
The fog was pissed off. That one fool caused the reaper to lose most of its harvest.
Ooooh! Creepalicious. Mitch. Do not piss off the fog.
Hee-hee. Best not to, for sure!
Cheers,
Mitch
@Mitch Titanic-sized dilemma
Indeed, Cathy. I really wanted to find a “Ghost Ship” for my blog version.
Cheers,
Mitch
When I started out, Mitch, all I could think of was the smelly, ol’ Carnival cruise ship.
My, how the mighty have fallen. I took a Carnival Cruise on my first honeymoon in the early 1980′s. It was lovely – or maybe it was the stardust in my eyes?
Cheers,
Mitch
Totally loved the thoughts of the fog.
Sentient fog. LOL Well, I had flowers that talked, ants that flew paper planes. I feel like that movie Wreck-it Ralph: all my characters have gone Turbo!!!
Cheers,
Mitch
@Mitch: Wow! I love this concept. Continue good sir!
Thanks, Shane! I think the fog invaded Earth from “The Void”, if you know what I mean.
Cheers,
Mitch
She stopped trying to list them all, though she could recount, if she wanted to, which ones had been mildly interesting. Not many of them fit that description, so recalling those was easy enough. The men were average in every way. Average intelligence, average looks, average lives. They all shared the vigorous ego of men with power, albeit limited to the leafy college campus and expressed in the slash of a red pen.
It was almost comical how Margaux flummoxed them in class with a studied question, then approach after class, leaning in too close, touching the spot behind her ear, just there, on her neck, where the men saw promise glistening. She saw hope float before their eyes as she wanted to know if the author meant to use that particular symbol to paint a caricature of the impotent hero.
Margaux watched their eyes go soft as they viewed what they imagined would be their own particular and especial, tawdry and poetic act. She could summon the echo of a blush on her creamy, innocent cheeks, and they were hers.
Alone, the men said the same average words, in their average voices, their throats bobbing with guilt and shame and clutching a wish for more. They said, “I have so much to lose.” And she murmured, stroking greying temples. They said, “If my wife…” and she swallowed the words with her lips. on theirs.
She laughed to herself, that kind of desperate, painful laugh, back in her dorm room. She was already knocked up, and she was young, and small, and the small bump on her belly was charming and youthful, they thought. They were so rapt with themselves, they never thought they were anything but special. They never thought this young, young, young woman anything but the purity they wanted. The small, young, endearing bump, lush and promising to them, meant she had no worries of producing more average male professors. But it wasn’t funny. What did she have to lose, she wondered. Doesn’t that matter? She knew the truth.
Years and years and years later, anytime Margaux and Esme argued, which was often enough, she let these memories flow before her, as a punishment, a sort of penance for the sins of the mother.
Ack! with the bold.
Jen, I’m loving this style. Power limited to the slash of a red pen. Wow!
Please tell me this is a work in progress, coming soon to a huge bookseller near us.
Cheers,
Mitch
Yup. Let the royalties and the accolades begin! It is my second novel, and I hope it will see the light of day. Thanks!
{Clapping}
Ole!
Woot!
Cheers,
Mitch
@Jen They all shared the vigorous ego of men with power, albeit limited to the leafy college campus and expressed in the slash of a red pen. Great, great line!
Thank you. Power is power, right?
Your words are so powerful, like your thoughts can only use higher words to describe the ordinary. I wanna be like you!
Aw, thanks, Liss. *blushing*
LOL – I realized @Liss that you meant the comment for Jen – and I agree. Now, I am REALLY blushing
Nothing like hijacking Jen’s compliment. 
Well, I think we are all amazing, so the compliments all around! Thank you, Liss. If you really want to be like me, you can come over and help me sort the never ending laundry!
@Jen: What Mitch said!
Hey! You guys! This week, one agent requested the next 50 pages of my first novel, and another agent requested a full ms. It’s nice, if nothing else, to get a little pat on the back.
That’s awesome, Jen!
Cheers,
Mitch
A shrouded view silenced the sinister sneer and curl of his lip. Voices were an echo of menace, left to float on a path of pain and destruction. The glisten of a blade he was bound to share winked in conspiracy as he listened to the flow of distant traffic.
Alone. She was alone. Tonight was hers to lose and the list was his to hold.
And WOW! Short, scary and schadenfreudey. (German for I want to know more!)
Cathy, I enjoyed every hand-crafted word of this.
Cheers,
Mitch
Thank you kindly, Mitch. I enjoyed crafting them.
Whoa! I’m nervous for her. The curl of his lip is awful. And awesome.
Thank you, Jen. I do appreciate it.
Eeek! I just locked my doors and windows. I like the ‘glisten of the blade he was bound to share winked in conspiracy’
Thanks, Liss – that was meant for me, right?
…with friends like him… brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…..
Exactly, @tanjamaltija
@Cathy: What I love most about your writing is you waste no words, with each packing a lovely punch!
@Shane – going for the knockout
Thanks, good buddy!
Jill and Robbie walked hand in hand through the woods. Jill had no intentions of going back to class with Officer Billy lurking there with his new friend. She’d decided to inform Vrag of his reappearance. He would know what to do. Soon they reached a clearing where an antique oak stood alone towering above the other trees.
Jill heard the faint sounds of traffic and viewed a busy street beyond the tree line.
“I’m sure that street connects with my neighborhood. I should go tell my uncle what’s happened,” Jill said.
“Not yet,” Robbie said. He held on to her hand and twirled her back against the sturdy oak, his arms folding around her waist. Jill felt her mind floating as his lips brushed against hers before he captured her mouth completely. Her heart thumped in a frantic rhythm against her chest and echoed through her ears like a base drum. Tingles flowed from the roots of her hair to her finger tips when he licked his tongue across her lips tasting her cherry cola lip gloss. She gripped his shoulders and held him close, never wanting to lose this feeling. Her heart had no shield against this new sensation and it filled up to the point of bursting.
A bright light flashed around them like a warm cocoon. It’s energy moved around them until it faded to nothing. Jill still felt Robbie’s arms tight around her. She opened her eyes and gasped. The woods looked strange now, as if the trees themselves had changed. Oddly shaped flowers she had no name for blanketed the ground and a chill blew leaves of spectacularly unusual colors around them. Her world no longer surrounded her but what did caused her floating heart to turn to stone in her throat. Wolves. They formed a wide circle around the couple, snarling and snapping their jaws with hunger.
Jill looked into Robbie’s eyes and saw the betrayal.
“You brought me here?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, I had no choice,” he said. Jill tried to wrench herself free but he held fast.
“Let go of me!” she screamed.
“No! Please. I can protect you,” he said. Jill fought him until she broke free from his grasp. Her mind listed and reeled against what her heart felt only seconds ago. They’d shared something special and new but now, her heart felt like a crystal glass shattered to dust. Jill fought at the tears. She couldn’t afford to cry. She backed away from her betrayer and eyed the wolves as they closed the circle around her. A large gray wolf shifted and stood upright. He eyed her with a smile, his muzzle pulled back to show fangs glistening with saliva in anticipation of their prey. He manifested a staff and threw in the circle near her feet.
“No!” Robbie shouted. “Don’t fight them!”
Jill threw him a hard look before she scooped up the staff just as the first of the wolves attacked.
Eww, @Liss – I need more – I want to know what happens -well done!
That Robbie is a low down dirty double crosser. Here’s what I like about your writing: It is both humanly real and mystically interesting. The name Vrag does this, and the way the normal becomes “ab” normal in a blink. Well done.
Thanks!
Robbie’s not so bad, he’s just in a no win situation. Check out the previous post.
Enchanting!
I’m loving every minute of this. Nice first-kiss scene!
Cheers,
Mitch
@Liss: Jen put it beautifully – humanly real and mystically interesting.
She chose to ignore the list of reasons she had for sitting alone more nights than not.
“I will not lose sleep over those who think I should share –with others, with strangers – the burdens I shoulder,” she said as she poured more of the crimson liquid into the hand painted steam wear.
While setting the green bottle on the patio floor, beside her chair, she forced her hands to become steady. Satisfied she would not waste the liquid she lifted the glass to her lips.
“After all,” she sighed as the room temperature Sarah began to run across her taste-buds. “The hubby and the oldest daughter haven’t stayed around,” she thought as she allowed the wine to warm in her mouth.
As her tongue played in the liquid a thought floated through her mind. She began to bite her lip ever so lightly.
If there had been someone sitting with her they would have view the glistening flow that was traveling from the inside corner of her eyes toward the corners of her mouth.
“We can’t find him,” echoed in her ears as if it hadn’t been 29 months since she heard it the first time.
Wow @KathleenK – powerful read!
Cathy — Thanks…
intrigued.
Jen –Thanks… I am writing with a working Title of “Mind-ful Conversations” But this one fits in. I will reveal more.
Kathleen
Kathleen,
Time has no meaning to the memory of loss. Its only redeeming grace is its ability to rub the sharp edges smooth.
Mitch
Mitch — Thank you. Beautifully said causing me much comfort.
I admit, there are now days, days that sit side by side even, when then sharp edges do not poke so hard. I do not bleed every day anymore. And I know that the coming closing of this (the sentencing) will dull a few more edges.
Thanks for being here with me through this rough ride. I hope you’ll know it means the world to me.
Kathleen
Kathleen, I’m here.
Mitch
@Kathleen: I feel the power and emotion in these words. I hope you understand how cool that is.
“Pay attention. Having that view about life, you condemn yourself to a life of misery and isolation based on your appearance. Wake up. I had thought you had risen above the influence of the social media and shaped your own perception of the world. Well, today I share some words. No, don’t turn your back on me. To spectate the pathetic sight of you losing your way, I direct disgust at myself in not having said this earlier: it’s okay.
It’s normal to feel what you try to discard. It’s only unnatural and uncomfortable because you perceive it to be like that and because it’s a foreign idea. Still don’t believe me? Let me list some reasons as evidence. Yielding yourself to the sights, you float around those places, lingering if necessary. Even with the slightest glance or comment, you beam, and your eyes glisten with happiness, though you say you can’t explain the inexplicable occurrence. Most likely in your case, that voice echoes in your head while you pound it in frustration. Face it. That person has melted your heart, and now, you decide to grasp the concept, being the last one to know.
Stop it. Stop those conjectures from flowing from your mouth. Being pretty, beautiful, who cares? If you play your cards well and wear your identity on your sleeve, people will respect you for your character and not base their judgment on looks just as others regard you now. There’s no doubt that person sees you for who you are, too. If that person rejects you, well, you will learn something from that experience. Don’t force yourself to be alone, and cast the emotion away as nonsense since life does not exist without it. What are you waiting for? Go for it.
With a few people milling in the hallway around their lockers, I approach mine and crouch down. I toss my binders inside, grab my textbook for calculus, and shut it. As I rise to my feet, someone tickles my side. A gasp escapes my lips as I look down the hallway. As suspected, he disappears from sight. Here’s my chance. Gripping the book tighter in my arms, I rush out of the hallway.
“Jack!” I call him out, tailing behind him. He whips around and greets me.
“Hey, Sarah.” Of course, that would be my cue to do something I would regret. I trip on the uneven surface of the asphalt, sending me to the ground. Stunned by the turn of events, I drop the book, and my face smashes into it. I wince but nonetheless, collect myself from the ground. Embarrassed, I hide the lower portion of my face with the textbook.
“Jack, I wanted to-” Instead of responding with sympathy, Jack bursts into laughter, fishing something out of his schoolbag. This makes me feel more self conscious by the second. Maybe I shouldn’t have approached him in the first place. “It’s not funny. It really hurts.”
“I know. You’re bleeding. Here,” Jack remarks, handing her some tissues. “I was holding onto these since it’s flu season, but I guess a nose bleed is close enough.
“Oh.” Prodding my nose, it stings as if a bruise formed, and blood stains the pad of my finger. I accept the tissues and hold them to my nose. “Thanks.” Silence reigns afterward as the wind rustles the trees and bushes.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jack sees me off.
“Wait!” I shout after him. This doesn’t deter him in the least. Unable to catch his attention, I try to regain face by admitting it in front of no one in particular. “I like you.”
“I know,” Jack responds. I lift my head to see he hasn’t departed. In fact, he remains a couple of steps away from me. A nose bleed and a headache can really mess up perception, eh? “See you tomorrow, Sarah.” Grinning, he waves without another word and leaves. I stare at the sky for an answer, but it whispers of the next day by carrying a tune with the wind.
It is far easier to push a boulder uphill than to admit one’s true feelings.
Your story brought back all those awkward schoolboy memories (we had it tough, too…)
Cheers,
Mitch
One of the truest things I’ve ever heard. What were some of your embarrassing memories?
I revered girls. They were goddesses. Therefore, I was tongue-tied and stupid around them. But, raging hormones demanded that I profess my deep “liking” for them LOL. Needless to say, stupid and hormones don’t mix.
It didn’t help that, even in a school for geeks, I was the uncool one. (Or so I thought. Years later, my FB contacts tell a different, kinder story. Oh, well.)
There is a bright side to this. Two, really. First, because of the reverence – I felt I was only ever worthy of being friends. Therefore, I became TRUE friends with many girls – no agenda. I suppose I was a breath of fresh air for all those harried ladies. LOL
Second, when I did get the nerve to tell one or two girls how I felt, I wound up with a nice, albeit temporary, “girlfriend” – one in 8th grade and the other in my senior year.
Here is a true story about my 8th grade crush:
http://morphodesigns.com/the-miracle-of-the-red-dress/
Cheers,
Mitch
@K: Powerful, revealing stuff. That’s what I like about your writing. Carry on!
[...] Writing Prompts – Creative Copy Challenge #309 [...]
[...] Originally appeared on CreativeCopyChallenge #309. [...]
Kelly, cover the kid’s eyes!
Wow. Look at this view down here. It’s true – lips can be like sugar kisses.
Is that an echo I hear floating around in there? Sorry, that’s just a funny joke I once heard. Where was I?
You’re glistening. You’re a doll for sharing your flow — thanks, ‘cause I hate practicing this alone.
Just lose yourself as I tongue an alphabet-list.
Shane, the Story of O has got nothing on this!
Cheers,
Mitch
Catching up on all my missed poems today, here is another one.
Meeting your Maker
From this view
the lip of a mountain
her echo seemed to float
then flow down the canyon
alone with nothing to lose
a bucket list still to fulfill
you share a quick moment
become one with your gods
watch the snow glisten once more
then jump to meet your maker
@Justin G: Love your style, man!
Thanks, it just comes out, I like my poems to tell stories.
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