Creative Copy Challenge #78
Posted: September 23, 2010 Filed under: Copy Challenges 56 CommentsToday’s words are from Leah Petersen. After you look in your dictionaries, make sure you let her know how you “TRULY” feel about these most challenging words. 😉
BET YOU CAN’T do this writing prompt. Take the 10 random words below and, in the comments, crush writer’s block by creating a cohesive, creative short story tying all of them together! And remember: after (if) you finish, 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.)
- Plenipotentiary
- Platypus
- Porcine
- Pernicious
- Platitude
- Pompous
- Plait
- Placid
- Portly
- Pregnant
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.)
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Resources you should check out:
Thesis: Best Damn Theme on the Web
Collective Ink Well: Personalize Your Thesis Theme
Third Tribe Marketing: Marketing done the right way
Story Structure Demystified: Best damn writing book out there
Writing Prompts - Creative Copy Challenge 
What? I like the words. 😉
Just kidding. I’m so glad you used these as I amazed myself with my submission which I’m posting next. It’s only when we’re challenged like this, does this site live up to it’s own name. 🙂
I would first like to say…pfui! at least I know most of these words, if not how to use them in such alliteritave way….
Make it easy, Leah, why don’t you?
Seriously, I’m going to have to look up plenipotentiary and I’ve no idea how to pronounce porcine. (Is it a ‘s’ or a ‘k’?)
I love those two words and never get to use them for some reason. 😦
pshaw! , pretty pollyana,….pshaw!!
“They’re pompous asses and don’t know it, those puny plenipotentiaries, those porcine platypuses of filth with their pernicious pomposity hurling outward like plait hand-waving tentacles, their portly guts sticking out like pregnant skunks, placid in their unjustified selfworth.”
“You’re talking about politicians, right?”
“You’re damn right I am!”
Ha! Love it. 🙂
Brilliant to get all those words into so short a piece, and so effectively.
@Fairyhedgehog: Why, thank you kindly. It flowed out like magic in under two minutes. Love when that happens.
prideful, petty, politicians practicing parliamentary procedure……peeuwww!!!
@Ma: if you keep up this p alliteration, you’re brain may get stuck that way. 😉
POPPYCOCK!!!! 😉
petty, posturing politicians practicing parliamentary procedure….plainly pounds of poop!
@Shane-here! here! or is that hear! hear! 🙂
The crowd was pregnant with anticipation, turned as one toward the doors, watching for the first glimpse of their new plenipotentiary. Pernicious rumors had circulated for weeks that the man was everything they feared. Lesser officials have mouthed useless platitudes about the honor of having a governor from the King’s own household, but the crowd this morning was restless.
A hush fell when the grand double doors swung open, soundless in spite of their size, and the banner bearing the King’s crest, the fearsome feral platypus, was carried into the room by two youths straining under its weight.
Following the banner was the man they’d longed for and dreaded, the man who would make their fortunes or be their ruin. He walked into the room, apparently oblivious to the tension in the room, placid as a mountain lake.
The crowd sighed as one in despair, finally looking upon what was surely their doom.
The man was portly, his porcine eyes set deep in the plentiful flesh of his pink-flushed face. Simple, but well made garments draped his generous frame. No rings glittered on fingers as fat as sausages. His hair was plaited about his face without the charms and jewels that should befit his rank, but with simple strips of leather, and the lack of any distraction only emphasized the massive swell of his cheeks. The gravity and silence of his step was surely a pompous display of arrogance and gluttony of self-importance. The people melted away in quiet, morose groups.
Weeks passed. Few came to petition a man of such obvious greed, who could not possibly care about others. His whole being proclaimed it. When the province prospered and trade flourished, people blessed luck and praised themselves. When the poor were quietly fed and beggars found work and homes, people remarked on the change and wondered among themselves.
But no one ever wondered if their governor who lived simply, who eschewed wealth and ceremony, who quietly went about the business of their care, might possibly be the one behind such blessings. After all, hasn’t the outward appearance always been an accurate measure of a man?
@Leah: That was an excellent, enjoyable read. Love your style.
Very nice. I like the moral of the tale!
pleasureable to peruse. pampering us on paper.
@Leah-excellent use of your crazy 10! 🙂
TO: CREATIVE COPY CHALLENGE/LEAH PETERSEN
FROM: PLENIPOTENTIARY for MS. PAULA PAULSEN, PEORIA
RE: PENDING PRESENTMENT
Dear Ms. Petersen,
I put pencil to paper on personal account of Ms. Paula Paulsen to pontificate about the pompous and porcine puzzle recently posted on the CCC portal.
The pernicious competition perpetrated by Ms. Petersen has peeved Ms. Paulsen to the point where this once placid and pregnant person has pivoted into a portly poisonous platypus with a propensity to pierce the plaits of small prepubescent persons in plenary preoccupation with the letter ‘P.’
Problematic and preposterous yet a perfectly perceivable platitude. Pending our prevailing presentment, you may wish to ponder a payoff to pass up on poor publicity.
Profoundly,
Proponent for Paula Paulsen
@R.B: OUTSTANDING! I’m going to bronze that one. Made me chuckle out loud. Thank you.
I blame Leah. And apparently “Ms. Paula Paulsen” does too. 🙂
@rbwood :p
profound pronouncement!
@R.B. Genius-loved what you did with such a challenging 10!
The pernicious, pompous plenipotentiary of porcine proportions paused in preparation of his platitude filled premeditated presentation, practiced to perfection, preposterously prancing pre-trial.
But the judge, a placid, pregnant and portly part-time prelate of pentecostal predilection, pursed her platypus– like lips, primped in the mirror, pulled on her plait
and pronounced him a prick.
@Ma: That’s a wonderful write. You went with the p alliteration, too. Well done.
@Margaret HAHAHAHA! That was awesome.
Margaret; Fantastic! You P’ed all over this one
but I’m papertrained!
@Margaret-you hide your alliteration affliction so well. 🙂
Just a quick hit-I’ll be back tomorrow or this weekend for the previous challenge-had to test this one out. Nice, Leah. 🙂
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It started with a simple egg and grew into a mammoth food-producing machine. He was the plenipotentiary king of all things eggs. But, oh how it’s changed.
From his mass, egg-producing Iowa farm, he came before Congress with a platypus-type waddle, this balding, porcine purveyor of salmonella, a pernicious disease that sickened so many. All in the name of greed.
His empty platitudes of innocence could not hide the pompous arrogance. The urge to plait his tongue with his hollow words was overwhelming. It started with one little egg and brought down the portly, the young and the placid, who did not know the danger they faced.
And with a pregnant pause, we give thanks that no one died. All in the name of greed.
@Cathy: Well done. Now where was that half-eaten Egg McMuffin I had. 😉
potentially poisonous plates of (un)palatable protein……painful! (good story, Cathy)
@ Margaret-Puh-leeze 🙂
@Shane-I’m sorry, I think I ate it. 🙂
Portly Peter Piper, placidly picked a pregnant peck of peppers
With pompous plenipotentiary, a peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked
If Peter Piper picked a Plaited peck with pickled peppers
Where’s the peck of pickled porcine peppers Peter Piper picked?
Caution! This tongue twister reeks with platitude and can cause your lips to morph into the likeness of a platypus. Pernicious? You bet your sweet Peter Piper pickled pepper picking ass it is.
@A: Super, duper write. What an enjoyable read.
I can tell you thoroughly enjoyed writing that one.
plainly punitave, perhaps a preponderance of purely pandering p(h)onics!
@A-ahh…another simple nursery rhyme for children everywhere-what better place to test it out than CCC? 🙂
The Saga of Bayou Billy…
So I’m sitting on the front porch eating a big ol’ bowl a’ gumbo and the bayou was so calm it reminded me of that there movie I did saw called Lake Placid. That there’s the movie wit Betty White and she done said a curse word so Kelly had to cover The Kid’s ears so she couldn’t hear it. Ya’ll remember Betty White? She was on that geriatric show with that there pompous woman who thought she was the bee’s-knees. Actually, I thought she wuz just a tramp who spread two things really easy – pernicious diseases and her legs. But lord a-mighty that little old lady had an answer for everything. “Picture it Sicily, 1922… Saint Valentines Day”. Yessiree bob, Sophia is the empitome of “been there, done that”. Now old Sophie, who was actually younger than the rest of the cast, didn’t exactly like her daughter’s ex husband. She thought he was just a portly porcine who thought his crap didn’t stink.
Now my favorite was Rose. She reminded me of my mudder. Not because of how she talked, but they both told stories about herring. And Hans. And Lars. Come to think of it, she had a cousin named Sven. Maybe Rose and me mudder were related somehow? Anything’s possible out here in the bayou. Hey look, a Duckbilled Platypus swimming in the bayou! Now that there animal shows God musta been smokin’ some wacky-tabbacky. It’s a friggin’ beaver with a bill. Ain’t good for nuttin except makin’ fun of it.
Speakin of making fun, my wife, my sweet Yvonne, she done told me her brother’s sister father’s son got promoted to a government job. No lie! He’s the Minister of Plenipotentiary. I ain’t gots no idea what in the hell that is so I asked him three or two days ago and he done told me it had some to do with a lot of cows. I guess when they asks him how much milk the farmer’s gots he says they gots either plenty or potential dairy, so that makes him the Plenipotentiary Minister. I ain’t makin’ this stuff up – it’s as real as the plaits on Pippy Longstockings hair.
Golden Girls, Pippy Longstocking and useless jobs… sounds kinda like a family reunion on the bayou. Speaking of family reunions….
Ummm, I claim the fifth….
It was the fifth jug of homebrew that done did me in.
That’s when I said to myself, “Self,” and I recognized the voice right away cuz it sounded just like me. “Self,” I said, “How come is it you ain’t been hanging out on the CCC for such a long time?”
I already knewed the answer so I guess I should share it wit ya’ll…
I’ve been working in a pizza shop and writing a book. Well… actually, I’ve been typing a book cuz I can’t write none too good. My handwritin’s so bad even me doctor can’t make it out. It’s takin a long time to write too cuz I have to type really slow… most a my kin can’t read fast.
I done told Shane abouts the book and he asked me if it was gonna be a platitude of prose. Hell I don’t even knows what that means but it gots the word pros in it so I guess I’m a professional or sumthin like that.
Anyways, that’s about it for now. I’d like to stay and chat but like I done told cha three or two times before, Yvonne wants to get pregnant tonight so I guess I should be there for it.
Talk to ya’ll later and remember… We may live in a Facebook and Twitter world, but the pizza still gets to your house quicker than the police!
@Kenn: LOVED IT, MAN. LOVED IT! So glad to see Billy back in action. Can’t wait to read the book either.
Perhaps procrastination prevented partner billy from participating prior to present, but pursue poignant parodies, please!!!
@Kenn – oh yay!!! Bayou Billy’s back! And if you can put a word like Plenipotentiary in Bayou Billy’s tale, you know no boundaries. 🙂
No one knew what the platypus was doing there in the morning. It was two continents away from the waters from whence it hatched, looking wholly unsatisfied with its newer, dryer surroundings. It looked around the apartment. It saw no other platypus with which to fraternize and promptly began to conduct itself with a gratuitously regal, almost pompous, sense of pride in its own existence, as it was suddenly not just unique amongst the mammal family but unique amongst its surroundings.
The Australian plenipotentiary woke first. She wasn’t sure why the platypus was there either. Her associates tried to explain the situation, but for the most part, they failed. “There is a platypus in the apartment we are subletting,” one said.
“I don’t think the person we are subletting from okayed the platypus,” said the other.
They tried to find words to describe the situation. Repeatedly they mentioned their anxiety concerning the animal’s stinger. “I’d rather not be stung by the platypus,” the first one said.
“It has a stinger instead of a heel. That is inexplicable and terrible,” said the other through Facebook chat, as he feared attracting the animal’s attention by speaking out loud. He later described both Facebook chat and the platypus‘s general existence in the apartment as pernicious, unlike the stinger itself, which seemed far more pressing and precarious in the short-term, and unlike the animal the platypus had mysteriously replaced – a fish named Richard – who was as placid as the waters in which he mostly slept.
“I wish Richard hadn’t disappeared. He was a good fish,” the first said, thinking wistfully about the animal as he typed back.
The plenipotentiary wandered into the kitchen, where bacon was being chopped into one-inch batons on a pig-shaped cutting board. The second of her two associates was then taking the batons and putting them back on the porcine slab, substituting for the wooden pig shape’s belly region from where the bacon was cut. “That’s a morbid thing you’re doing,” she told him as she undid the plait in her hair. His love of pork products had rendered him portly. At one point in his early twenties he purchased a three-pound slab of pork belly for a dinner party, but ended up eating almost all of it himself. He didn’t feel bad about it. He had friends who were vegetarian and vegan, but he felt like their arguments had degenerated recently into platitudes and he no longer felt sympathetic to them in his early thirties.
The plenipotentiary ate the bacon. “This is good bacon,” she thought to herself. The platypus tried to eat some of the bacon, but it fell over along the way. It squealed as if it were trying to express some sort of intense discomfort, like what one might feel upon being uprooted from one’s home suddenly and violently and without good reason or any choice or say in the matter. She approached the platypus. She picked it up and placed it in the bathtub. Along the way, she realized that the platypus had had a strand of dental floss tied around its foot, connecting it to a brick. “We had no idea either,” the brick read.
The first of her associates stared at her in confusion as she tried to comfort the unhappy animal, whose mood had swung so violently in the last fifteen minutes. At some point it produced an egg. “It’s pregnant,” she said before pondering the inconvenience of this fact.
@Nathan: Excellent first submission. That was quite creative indeed, and this word list was probably the most difficult we’ve had since we started. Everyone welcome Nathan to the addiction. I’ll add your name and url to the CCC Community Links page.
Some back story folks; Nathan contacted me about including a twitter plugin that shows all tweets about writing. I thought it would be cool to try it, but I figured I’d bribe Nathan with a “do a challenge and I’ll tinker with it,” and lookie here, it worked. Thanks for stopping by and doing a challenge. I’ll add the plugin in a bit.
@Nathan-Welcome to CCC!
Welcome to the place that bestows plenipotentiary rights to all who visit. So burrow into our creative shores like the Australian platypus along a river’s edge. We welcome your words in porcine delight with a pernicious appetite and will sing your praises without a single platitude.
There is no pompous attitude at CCC. We revel in what all have to offer as you plait the challenging 10 into your own special style. But beware, do not take a placid approach, as the addiction takes on a portly proportion as you take a well-timed pregnant pause before delivering the next winning submission.
Welcome to CCC!
The pregnant child laid placid against the wall. Her face filled with platitude, as if she could foresee the pernicious events that were upon her.
Her pompous, luxurious life was over. She knew that, from now on, she would be sent away, to the care of her strict, portly aunt, at least until the baby was born. Her family wouldn’t bare the situation, she thought.
She grabbed a plait of her hair and wondered what would have been if she wouldn’t have been on that bus where she met that handsome stranger who used her and left her all alone. Filled with regret she remembered all her hopes and dreams, she was going to be a teacher and change children’s lives, prepare them for the world.
Now, she didn’t even know how to take care of her own world. Not only will she be fat like a porcine, but she will now be baring the Scarlett Letter. Because of her looks, everyone will know she had sex and judge her because of her age. Filled with shame, she started to cry.
Then, something amazing happened, something as wonderful as mundane and real. She laid her hands on her belly and realized that her baby will grant her happiness for the rest of her life. She would become a mother and that made her feel special, plenipotentiary and fulfilled, she will be a woman.
She had always felt odd, set aside by her family, like a platypus, never knowing which was her place in the world. Now she knew, she would be a mother, the care taker of a human being. A world filled with hope and opportunity laid in front of her.
She smiled
@jj: Welcome to the CCC. Well done 1st submission. I’m sure the CCC folks will like you. Everone welcome jj to our addiction.
Oh man-I have to use these 10 again? 🙂
@jj-Welcome to CCC!
Even though I think Leah has plenipotentiary hold on my welcome challenge, I’ll stop flapping like a platypus on some wild juice and get down to the serious business of welcoming you to CCC.
You’ll find yourself releasing porcine snorts of laughter and trembling at the pernicious evil of the nasty villains lurking throughout our site – the characters – not the community. Just sayin’
We welcome you to the best community a monitor has ever seen. That’s no platitude – it’s a sincere invitation of all we have to offer. Bring your pompous, your meek, your funny, your sad. We love it all. As you plait your next intricate plot, you’ll find you cannot remain placid. You’re hooked on the addiction of CCC. It sure beats being portly and pregnant – until you realize the birth of your creative little child.
Welcome to CCC!
THE COURT OF UNCOMMON PLEAS
“Enter!”
There was a pregnant pause while the portly plenipotentiary examined the petitioner. A platypus could not have seemed more out-of-place among the pompous personages assembled in the portico to hear pleas.
The petite young lady, her yellow plaits perfectly smooth reflections of her usual comportment, waited placidly to approach. Her porcine keeper knew no platitude would suffice in response, once he permitted her speech, so he held off as precious minutes peeled off the clock, with a vaguely pernicious smirk about the corners of his pursed lips.
At last, the powerful, yet impermanent ruler, played his card.
“What do you want?”
“Peter, Mom said you were in charge for the afternoon, not king for the day. So give me some of those cookies or I’m telling that you had your friends over instead of doing your homework!”
Peter’s playmates looked a lot less puffed-up after Peggy popped their preposterous fantasies of preteen supremacy.
@Kelly: Superb! Nuff said. Kelly, if you can find a way, write fiction for a living.
Shane–Hee hee hee, do you have a patron of the arts in your back pocket? What a nice second… third… 11th career that would make!
Avenged in Blood Part 35
“Well Mr. Stamper,” he began, “You were very pernicious in your eradication of that pompous ass Cabrese. I need someone like that. I understand you are taking small odd jobs trying to make ends meet. I have a somewhat better offer. I want you to be my plenipoterntiary here in the city. I want you to accept a very nice salary, protection and power.”
His platitudes were growing tiresome. After a pregnant pause, I swallowed hard, trying to find words that would sound placid but not commit me to anything. “I don’t know.” Was the lame phrase that came out of my mouth.
“I can give you anything you could ever want.” Mueller said, calmly plaiting his bonds with which to bind me. What could I ever ask for that would be too much? A roll in the hay with a porcine woman? A warehouse full of Jack Daniels? Platypus burgers? I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to be stuck with Mueller either.
“Mr. Mueller,” I began, “I can’t work for you. I will not be associated with anyone any more. No cops, no anyone. I appreciate the offer though. I’ve got no beef with you. Perhaps I could do some freelance work for you, but I won’t be your plenipotentiary.”
His jaw tightened and the portly guard to his right moved. “You’ve got some stones on you Stamper. Think on my offer, you don’t want me for an enemy.” “No Mr. Mueller I don’t want you for an enemy, or a boss.” I stood up. “Thanks for the drink, we are done for today.”
I pulled all of the fortitude I could summon, turned, and walked to the door, fully expecting to be shot in the back.
@Justin: Stamper does indeed have some balls. Love that guy.