Creative Copy Challenge #83

Today’s words come to us from Chris Garrett. Show him some love, and if you have not read his stuff, make sure you do so.

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.)

  1. Trembling
  2. Passivity
  3. Torturous
  4. Freaking
  5. Awesome
  6. Nibbling
  7. Ebullient – Zestfully enthusiastic; Boiling or seeming to boil; bubbling.
  8. Plonk – Cheap or inferior wine; to drop or be dropped, esp heavily or suddenly
  9. Vivacious – Full of animation and spirit; lively
  10. Dynamo –A generator; An extremely energetic and forceful person

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


86 Comments on “Creative Copy Challenge #83”

  1. Shane Arthur says:

    To plonk a cold plonk down your gullet like a freakingawesome, drinking dynamo, you must be vivacious and ebullient.
    No torturous passivity will do, no trembling doubt allowed.
    No nibbling on the glass, either. Open wide, pour it down, and tell Chris Garrett he’s buying the next round.
    “`
    Another short form. Thanks for the inspiration Chris.

  2. margaret says:

    Watching her was unbelievably torturous.  He sat there trembling with hesitation and passivity, like a jello mold that was not quite set. She was so freaking awesome….a vivacious dynamo of ebullient charm and sexual energy. He watched as she made the rounds, like a butterfly landing for just a brief moment and then fluttering on.  What would he say….what would he do….if he got the chance and courage to speak to her? He began to fantasize,distractedly nibbling on the straw in his drink as though it were a carrot stick. Suddenly he became aware of somebody standing over him. OMG, it was her!!  Something went plonk in his shorts.

  3. KathleenL says:

    Standing Up… A Fine Example (snicker, snicker)

    Her anger grew. As her trembling blossomed into a full body quake — any thought of passivity was left behind. Her mind was filled with torturous acts; freaking awesome acts of pain inducing nibbling maneuvers with a blade.
    “Gotta love a dull rusty knife,” Isabelle said with ebullient zeal as she allowed the rounded tip of the knife to exit the flesh of his bicep. “See if you ever offer me Plonk again!” disgust dripped off of each word laced with a chuckle. Picking up the bottle up-ending it she vivaciously poured the swill on his bare arm, enjoying his squirms and contorting face as the sugary poor-excuse for crushed grapes burned in his fresh slash marks that exposed muscle and bone . “Not the dynamo you thought you were huh!” she left him with her rhetorical question and the sight of her gleeful prance out of the room.
     

  4. Kelly says:

    EVEN THOUGH UNCLE ZACH SNORES

    Time to pay the bill. Zach and I weren’t in any hurry, though. Well, at least I wasn’t.

    After a torturous bike through the backwoods, this little taverna appeared on the horizon like a vivacious, but well-worn lady, inviting us to drop our dirt-caked jackets on the back of her cheap caned chairs and tease her into thinking we might stay. She made me laugh with her yellow-plaid curtains that couldn’t ever have been welcoming, bits of cobwebs clinging to them that even the spiders had abandoned long ago. She was soft and languid, and hey, she was cool with escapees like us. But the plonk we were drinking could only hold us so long, and there was still 20 miles ‘til we’d get to the two equally tawdry motel rooms I’d booked us for the night.

    In the cold light of the motion detector out front, I watched autumn’s last trembling leaf shake and shimmy on a creaking maple tree. It made me feel a bit poetic, but Zach stopped my warming glance with a stare of his own.

    “Dude, let’s go. Can you believe how crowded this place is, even on a Monday? After hearing nothing but the wind blasting my helmet all day I kinda can’t stand the noise.”

    After work on Friday it was Zach’s idea just to hop on our bikes and start going. We had a few favorite places to stay, and we’d work them into the trip, but mostly we’d be making it up as we went. A week off, no women (you know women…), no reason… a real adventure.

    I must be getting old, though. I couldn’t get into it like Zach. Heck, I couldn’t even get into it like me. I was nibbling at the edges of enjoying it… but here I was, belly full of steak, blood full of wine, and bones? Full of ennui. Not exactly the ideal ride buddy, and I knew it. My passivity wasn’t going to thrill Zach, so I kept up the patter to the best of my exhausted ability. I was enjoying the crowd, full of local hunters and flannel-clad wives, visiting each others’ tables as if they hadn’t just seen each other yesterday at church, hanging out too long at the front with the owners. I listened in on as many conversations as I could: the lady who fell into the place an hour ago to grab some gas at the pump out front, and stayed because she couldn’t stop talking; the couple who swore the fishing this weekend was the best of the year; the nervous-looking bunch of boys in leathers more encrusted than our own, hoping the waitress wouldn’t recognize them and would grab them a pitcher of beer. Please.

    Please struck me so funny. When you don’t need to say please anymore, because the waitresses are tired of looking at birthdays that remind them of their Dads, you start thinking it would be awesome to be that age again. Freaking out inside… the age where you don’t know whether you’ll be able to pull it off or not.

    Darn it, verging on poetic again…

    The lady with a dynamo of a daughter, who’d been at the table next to us (probably causing Zach’s impatience), was still at the front counter when Zach convinced me to get off my tired butt and head for the door. The bits I’d heard of their conversation told me they were from out of town, too, and headed home; unlike me and Zach, neither of them seemed to be in a hurry to leave the dim restaurant-slash-gathering place behind. The owners were catching them up on the latest news along with a crowd of gas-paying or dinner-finishing townies. It meant nothing to mother or ebullient child, but they both managed to look as if they were actually interested, even while the daughter was in fifteen-places-at-once, as any kid in a new place might be. Their faces had a glow I wished I could muster. I nearly tripped over the lady’s purse, plopped casually on the ground next to her, as I followed Zach’s beeline through the citizenry and out the door; I apologized profusely for no real offense, and took off for our bikes.

    5 miles into our ride Zach motioned for me to pull over.

    “I left my phone on the table,” Zach said. “Gotta go back. You can go on if you want.”

    “Nah, that’s fine, I’ll ride back too.” As tired as I was, I just couldn’t get excited about hitting that motel.

    Pulling in just past ten, the atmosphere had changed. They must turn off the gas pumps, I guessed. The town seemed to use this little place to decide when it was bedtime, and they’d dutifully wandered off to tell each other stories in their own homes.

    Luckily, the taverna wasn’t quite locked up yet. Looked like the bar was still serving a customer or two, though the dining room and the front counter area were almost silent. The owner’s wife was sitting with the out-of-town mother and daughter on the window seat. I stood awkwardly nearby, and motioned to Zach as he dipped inside.

    “Forgot his cell phone,” I said, feeling apologetic again. The owner’s wife gave me an angry look.

    “Don’t worry, you can use ours,” she whispered to the mom. “Hang on a sec.” She went to have a word with her husband, and I looked more closely at the two on the window seat. Something I saw… maybe I was feeling like a poet again, but I moved in close, as slowly as I could, as if…
     

    “As if you was afraid of scaring us away,” said the rapt five-year-old on my lap.

    “Yes. As if I were afraid of scaring you away. Am I boring you?”

    “Not much,” she said, honest as ever, snuggling in to hear the ending. “Then what?”

    “Then I.. I don’t know why, I reached out my hand. Took my thumb and brushed a tear off your mother’s face. I kinda whispered, ‘Why are you crying?’”

    “Didn’t you know Mama’s purse was gone?”

    “No, silly, I didn’t know. Serves your mother right for leaving it on the floor with only a munchkin to watch it go, too.” I gave her a tickle.

    “Dumb boys prob’ly took it. Dumb boys do everything.”

    “Uh-huh. Well, this dumb boy slept with Uncle Zach that night so you’d have a room to stay in while you figured out what to do about Mama’s stolen purse, whaddya think of that?”

    “Guess that was nice,” she mumbled, ready for me to cart her off to bed.

    “Best sleep I ever got, too,” whispered the former stranger from the taverna as I tucked her in, and she responded, in half a dream

    “Even though Uncle Zach snores.”

  5. Cathy Miller says:

    Boy-getting the big boys to play. 🙂 I’ll be back later to catch up all the good reads.
    ==========================
    Death & the Detective Series
    ==========================
    Murder is always personal. The latest even more so. Detective Brett Connors leaned back in his chair, eying his murder board.

    The first murder victim was an unidentified Jane Doe who appeared to know her way around the drug scene. She was found in a coffin, the lid off and resting in Mission Bay sand, as if dropped by the sea’s trembling hand. A carved message of Die Whore in the side of the coffin was not the only macabre puzzle piece. The coroner made the grisly discovery that the victim’s tongue had been cut out.

    Then there was Jane Doe #2– her sightless body dumped on Dr. Maggie Sweeney’s balcony. The openings that once held her eyes did little to erase the vacant stare of the dead from Brett’s mind. His own narrowed stare defied his body’s outward passivity. The tortuous journey to death of these two Jane Does brought them now to Brett.

    Maggie Sweeney – the department’s resident shrink and Brett’s uncomfortable obsession. Instead of freaking out at having a murdered woman dumped on her balcony, the cool lady doc held it together. More than one stressed-out cop challenged that awesome control of hers – especially Brett.

    Nibbling on a toothpick, a poor substitute for the cigarette he constantly craved, Brett picked up his phone to harass the crime tech, Mark Johnson.

    “You got the time, we know the crime,” came the ebullient voice.

    “Cute, Johnson. You ought to have that stitched on a pillow.”

    “Detective Connors. I didn’t know you were into embroidery. I suppose you want to know something more on the vic that went plonk on the Doc’s door.”

    “Well, as much as I hate to change the vivacious topic, yeah, I’d like to know about the victim – her identity would be a good start.”

    “No can do, yet, but I’m working on it. There was something else I found out though.”

    “So, when were you going to tell me?”

    “Patience, Detective. I just got the information, no more than five minutes ago. Our little dynamo got a piece of this guy.”

    “You have DNA?” Brett felt his adrenaline punching up.

    “Looks like. I need to run it, but do your job and we’ll seal the deal.”

  6. His heart throbbed urgently. He had been frozen in passivity outside the hastily fabricated “Dynamo Lounge” for a good hour.
    “What am I doing? I am a writer not a rum runner!”. Fearful as he was of his situation, he knew things would get much worse if he backed out now.

    Trembling, Shane overcame his torturous anxiety and approached the “bar”.
    Vivacious party-goers were standing between him and his moment of truth, nibbling finger-foods as if at a fancy cocktail party, rather than the basement of some warehouse in a shadier part of town.
    As he approached, the hideously deformed brute of a judge looked down his nose, genteelly swirling a glass of smoky dark liquid.
    “So?”, Shane managed to squeak.
    A pause. Another swirl.
    Finally the bar manager took a deep breath.
    “Two words fella … F.A. Freaking. Awesome”.
    “Really?”.
    “Oh yeah, much better than the usual plonk you try to pass off, mate. Smelled better at the bottom of the moggie’s crap box, I ‘ave. Nah, this? This is class. Class in a glass. Ho ho.”
    Ebullient,  Shane fist-pumped forcefully, aiming for the air … but managing instead to catch the bar owner’s chin.
    Hours later as Shane came to he made the decision to go back to writing. This new venture was just not working out …

    • Shane Arthur says:

      @Chris: Oh my god, Chris! I may have just laughed out loud harder than I ever have here at the CCC.
      Thanks for choosing the words and stopping by to do the challenge.
      What did you think of it? Man, I sure hope you do more of these.
      I’ll add your name and url to our CCC community page now.

      • I’ll certainly try – shouldn’t be long before things settle down and I have the brain-space 🙂

      • Cathy Miller says:

        @Chris – Welcome to CCC!

        As you leave us trembling with laughter, any thought of welcoming passivity goes right out the window. Although the 10 get more and more tortuous, what everyone does with them is simply, freaking awesome.

        With a nibbling of humor and a murder or two, the ebullient CCC cannot contain its excitement as we welcome you to our humble home. Here we take the challenging 10 from plonk to the finest, vivacious Cristal.

        CCC is the dynamo of the creative word. Y’all come back now, ‘ya hear?

        Welcome!

        @Shane-I may be hanging out with Bayou Billy too much. 😉
         
         

    • Patsi says:

      Chris, Welcome Mate.  Love it! Made Shane’s day, it did.

    • Kelly says:

      Chris—You’ve shown me a side of Shane I never suspected. Thanks for the laugh and for the inspirational words. And welcome to CCC!

    • sylvia r. says:

      That is really hilarious. So much talent here.

  7. Stacia says:

    Toblerone
     
    “So see you at 7?”
    “See you at 7 🙂 Can’t wait!”
    “Me too. Bye!”
     
    She quickly clicked onto another chat window, telling her best friend about her hot date tonight.
    “I’m really gonna quit working here someday. This is torturous!”
    “Yeah, it’s no fun to be you, huh? Whacha gonna do if he notices your flat butt after sitting at the desk all day?”
    “Stop bitchin’ baby. I’ve been workin’ out.”
    She  stood up to strike some booty poses in front of the digicam. Her friend couldn’t wait to hear what would happen tonight.
     
    What they didn’t realize was, the man was still watching her.
     
    “Boy, I can still see her. And her panties.”
    “You serious? That’s hot, man.”
    He was staring beyond the screen. He was sitting rigidly on his chair, stoic as a rock.
    “By the way, I gotta bounce. Congrats for getting promoted. Enjoy your private office now.”
    “What?”
    “I’m leaving your privacy. Come whenever you want, mate. LOL”
    “Stop it! You’re freaking me out.”
     
    He was watching her nibbling her Dark Chocolate Toblerone. He couldn’t help but hold his stare for what seemed like hours, until the clock hit 7 PM.
     
    She’s getting a surge of adrenaline rush. Every. Single. Bite.
    “Girl, I’m getting a food orgasm. Please let me go and make me look awesome tonight.”
    “You idiot. I’m coming over.”
    Her friend carried her out of her cubicle. She literally dragged her hands off those red triangular wrappings and still had to listen to her  say:
    Oh, this is sooo good.
     
    Dusk fell. Stomachs now full, but their night was still young.
    The ebullient mood made it all a fleeting moment. After bursts of laughter they’ve had for the night, then came silence.
     
    He hugged her tight in the cold night air.
     
    She’s couldn’t possibly be trembling because of those little breezy winds! It’s because he was holding her that way. It was just the way she had always imagined a man holding her.
     
    He looked up to the full moon. She’s really something, he thought as he was smelling her shining hair.
     
    What he saw up there among those stars was her vivacious smile.
     
    The next day, her friend and his friend were having a chat of their own.
    “What do you think? He’s the one for her, isn’t he?”

    “Absolutely. She can actually compensate for his passivity, you know… Give his stuff a little plonk. Like a dynamo or something.”

  8. Karetha says:

    In order:

    Trembling, I allow passivity to guide my feet toward the door.  This tortuous journey reminds me that I have failed again.  I overwhelm myself with thoughts of freaking out at the crucial moment.  My mental image of the situation says I possess the skills to do an awesome job.  However, anxiety and trepidation keep nibbling at my self-confidence.  Instead of the ebullient personality that I long to portray, my boldness lands with a plonk somewhere below my wobbling knees.  I watch wordlessly as a vivacious dynamo breezes past me and seizes the opportunity.

  9. Plonk! Grenin lay trembling on his mat, unable to reach the awesome fortune that lay in the bag dropped mere inches from his nose. His ebullient benefactor, Jared, was offended by the apparent passivity.
    “I bring you enough gold for the operation, all at once, and all you can do is sit there nibbling on the dynamo lines?” Jared, normally vivacious, scowled darkly.
    “My arms,” wheezed Grenin. Trying to talk was torturous. “Someone stole my freaking arms!”
    “I can see that, you old bag of bolts.” Jared’s scowl dissolved. “I’ll put you in the cart and take you to Maintenance.”

  10. Hi Shane!

    That’s precisely the image I was going for, I’m glad you liked it!

    The Korg is an awesome machine; one day “real soon now” I will learn how to use it properly (“ooh, what does this button do?”). Check out the whole band at http://noise-in-the-basement.com sometime.

  11. Paul says:

    Something about these words conjured up an unpleasant character (or something about me did!)
    ===============================
     
    Jimmy is a bouncy little bastard. He hops and chirrups around the place like he’s stuffed full of gerbils. Sally likes him, of course. Sally always likes who I don’t like. Jimmy is running in circles around a plastic clown in the corner of the fairground, nibbling the crust off a toffee apple. Sally clocks my drooping jaw.

    “Don’t be like that. He’s just ebullient,” Sally says.

    “Irritating,” I say.

    Vivacious,” Sally says.

    “Vomitous,” I say.

    “You really are a freaking grump, aren’t you?” Sally waves over at Jimmy. Jimmy waves back and skitters over toward us, giggling and firing shards of toffee from his mouth into surrounding haircuts, cokes and baby faces.

    I take a swig of plonk from my hip flask. Probably best not to let Sally see my hands trembling.

    “How long have we got to look after this idiot-dynamo for? It’s torturous,” I say.

    “Only an hour longer.”

    Awesome.”

    “And shut up, Mr. Passivity. You’re jealous of an eight-year old kid. Enough, he’s coming over.”

    “Hi there, Miffter Allen,” says Jimmy through a mouthful of sticky apple. He thrusts out his pudgy arms and hugs my waist, leaving a layer of wet candy and drool in his wake.

    “Hello, Jimmy.”

    I look at the greasy line on my shirt. That settles it. We’re taking Jimmy back to the orphanage. We’ll test-drive another one next week.

    • Shane Arthur says:

      @Paul: Outstanding submission. They’ll love you here for sure. You get bonus points for using chirrups. I have not seen that word in decades. 🙂 I’ll add your name to the CCC Community Links page next.

      • Cathy Miller says:

        @Paul – Welcome to CCC!

        With the trembling joy of a lovesick puppy, we welcome all to our CCC community. It won’t take you long to recognize there is no passivity in this group – just lovely, tortuous and freaking awesome words. We love words – little nibbling words, big dictionary-defying words and everything in between.

        What we do at CCC with words leaves an ebullient trail of creativity as we plonk away on our keys in the vivacious dynamo offered in all the possibilities of words.

        Welcome!

    • Patsi says:

      Paul, Welcome! Love the unpleasantness of all characters!

    • sylvia r. says:

      I think this takes the cake. A tale written so well, I can just see it unrolling like a film before my eyes.

  12. Patsi says:

    He was a sexual dynamo. As soon as he started nibbling on the back of my neck I started trembling.  He told me that my passivity was freaking him out and he may have to go to extremes. I never dreamnt it would be this. I was bound to the bed, my eyes wrapped in silk. His mouth continued down my right shoulder and around to my back. His tongue flicked across, over, up down. He picked me up in his arms and plonk, on the bed I landed. His fingers were vivacious. He overlooked not one crevice of my body. I felt dizzy and my nerve endings were sizzling, my blood ebullient, my body raptured, and my mind gone. This was pure physical pleasure. His tongue lapped at the small of my back. He was torturous and evil and I wanted more. The sexual arousal that stormed through my being was nothing short of awesome. I wonder what our second date will be like.

  13. Paul says:

    Ha – thanks, Shane! *chirrups appreciatively*

  14. Shane Arthur says:

    programming note:
    Remember to tweet these guys(Chris Garrett, Jon Morrow, etc), too. They probably read their tweets before anything else. 😉

  15. sylvia r. says:

    Dear Molly,

    So sorry to do this with a letter, but I don’t think I can stand another minute of your company, even for something as brief as telling you that I am done with you and this torturous relationship.
    Done with your too girly, often weepy conversations over cheap plonk; you nibbling on your “petite salade”, me wondering if I’ll ever see you eating any real food.
    I’m done with your passivity during our most private moments, knowing full well that your trembling arises not from ecstasy but from fear that your passions might carry you away.
    What I’m trying to tell you is this:
    I need someone in my life who makes me say ‘this person is freaking awesome!’
    An ebullient, vivacious lover who’s not afraid to grab life, and love, with both hands and hold on tight.
    I need a change, desperately.
    In short, I think what I need is a guy! A hot-blooded dynamo of a guy.
    What else can I say besides wishing you all the best…

    Rosie

  16. Avenged in Blood Part 40
     My hand was trembling as I dropped the pieces of sassafrass root into the ebullient water to make tea. I had seen Lola in the dim light of the kitchen stove. She was incredible. She was vivacious, and just begging to be….wait, this was the same woman who was ready to kill me not 2 hours past.
    This was tourturous but I had to maintain passivity. Who knew where this was going. She sat down as gracefully as a cat in one of the worn kitchen chairs. I knew that her own passivity was probably an act though, she struck me as a real dynamo.
    Finally the tea was ready and I poured into two cups, offering her the choice as well as the bear full of honey. She took a cup and the honey and began to prepare her drink. “You know what would go great in this?” she asked. I looked at her quizzically. “Burbon.” She said. Awesome I thought as I smiled and reached behind me for the bottle.
    I turned back and she was looking over her shoulder, suddenly tense. What I wouldn’t give to be nibbling on those…”Somebody’s here.” She said. Freaking bastards. Give me at least a moment or two with this girl. I rolled out of the chair and slipped on something causing my butt to plonk on the linoleum.


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