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Writing Prompts – Creative Copy Challenge #272

Posted: August 27, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Copy Challenges |85 Comments

Our own Justin Germino chose today’s words. In his own words:

This time in the Creative Copy Challenge, I am asking for entrants to put on their poetry hat and see if they can create a poem with the 10 words provided in this challenge.  It can be rhyming, free form, multiple haikus, shadorma or any form you wish to write but let’s call it an additional challenge!

As I just released my first audio poetry volume on Wanderer Thoughts, I am also going to do a special and read aloud everybody’s poem entry and am willing to send it to you as a mp3 file just for fun.

If anyone is interested they can check out my first audio poetry volume which has 102 recorded audio tracks here:
http://www.wandererthoughts.com/buy-wanderer-thoughts-poetry/

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.)

  1. Rumination
  2. Determine
  3. Ostentatious – Pretentious display meant to impress others; boastful showiness
  4. Illogical
  5. Memory
  6. Cohorts
  7. Excess
  8. Timidly
  9. Notorious
  10. Admonishing

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.)

85 Comments on “Writing Prompts – Creative Copy Challenge #272”

  1. Shane Arthur says:
    August 27, 2012 at 5:54 am

    Loved this. Did this one in under two minutes:
    Glorious Ruminations
    ~~~
    It’s a rumi-nation; lots of open spaces.

    Determined folks, ratting the races.

    Ostentatious is such a waste.

    Illogical with no taste.

    Memories fill with determined grit

    Cohorts, opportunities lost, and some bullshit

    Excess time, can’t remember vividly

    Hustle with no time to think timidly

    Life is notorious

    And admonishing … but glorious.

    Reply
  2. Liss Thomas says:
    August 27, 2012 at 7:55 am

     
    Poem . . . . Riiiiigghhhhtttt!
     
     
     
    Timidly staring at nothing at all,
     
    A rumination and hope that words will fall.
     
    Determined to prove to Cohorts and not,
     
    A poetic side Liss Thomas has got!
     
    No ostentatious show or excess of words,
     
    But a memory admonishing harmonious cords
     
    Notorious for fantasy light and dark,
     
    Hard pressed to succumb to a rhythmic art.
     
    Admonishing doubt with an illogical smile,
     
    Poetic confection could take me awhile!
     

    Reply
  3. Justin Germino says:
    August 27, 2012 at 8:39 am

    Okay, leave titles for poems if you would, I would like to have each poem titles for the recording.  

    Reply
  4. Mitchell Allen says:
    August 27, 2012 at 10:35 am

    DEMONIC RAT

    Determine where nutrition lies
    Excess garbage, buzzing flies.
    Memory on automatic
    Ostentatious, emphatic
    Notorious epicure.
    Illogical to waste this food
    Cohorts, come, and bring your brood!

    Rumination, introspect
    Admonishing this neglect
    Timidly ask, “Won’t we get fat?”
     
    ***
    This was a wonderful surprise! Thanks for this super challenge, Justin!
     

    Reply
    • Shane Arthur says:
      August 27, 2012 at 10:45 am

      @Mitch: Splendid! To add an additional layer of difficulty as you did just puts this over the top cool. I love this community!

      Reply
    • Justin Germino says:
      August 27, 2012 at 10:52 am

      Enjoyed reading this one Mitch, the two non-rhyming lines threw me off a bit while recording but I think I added the pauses to make it sound great.  Let me know what you think, and like all the others you can click the download link and own the audio file at the top http://soundcloud.com/dragonblogger/demonic-rat-poem-by-michell

      Reply
      • Mitchell Allen says:
        August 27, 2012 at 11:30 am

        Justin, I enjoyed listening to it! This is too much fun.
        I sweated over the non-rhyming lines, but it’s a technique I use when Acrostics split unevenly.
        Your pauses were perfect. Thanks for the download!
         
        Cheers,
         
        Mitch
         
         

        Reply
        • Justin Germino says:
          August 27, 2012 at 11:32 am

          I thought it was a fun thing to do and raise awareness for my audio poetry which I have been doing for a while now and just put a volume together.  Unfortunately the last few months I pay more per month to host my audio volume for sale than I was making in sales, so kind paying to keep it hosted.

          Reply
          • Mitchell Allen says:
            August 27, 2012 at 11:49 am

            You mean, even though you’re selling it from your site, you have to pay to keep the download available? Or do you just mean the usual hosting fees? If somebody is charging you up, maybe I can help? If you just need free server space, email me.
             
            Cheers,
             
            Mitch
             
             

          • Justin Germino says:
            August 27, 2012 at 12:03 pm

            The actual audio book is being hosted on e-Junkie.com which handles the transaction.  I had no way to confirm purchases and allow download only if purchase confirmed if I hosted the files from my own WordPress site. So e-Junkie.com charges me $10 per month to host a product for sale there whether I make any sales or not, since I charge $3 for my 102 track audio poetry volume, I need to sell 4 per month to make a $2 profit over my $10 e-Junkie fee.

          • Mitchell Allen says:
            August 27, 2012 at 8:54 pm

            I have an inactive e-junkie account for that very reason. I switched to FastSpring. Vernessa Taylor told me about it and I’m very happy with it. No monthly fees! But they do take a % of each sale. You could also try Gumroad.com…

            Cheers,

            Mitch

             

          • Justin Germino says:
            August 28, 2012 at 6:46 am

            I will look at these, one issue I had was the file sizes were too large (150mb for zip of 102 audio mp3 files) for most of the ones that offered free hosting and charged a fee at sale time.

          • Shane Arthur says:
            August 28, 2012 at 6:50 am

            @Justin: Do you use Audacity for your audio? And what quality setting to you have it set to? Just curious. I use Audacity for sound clips and put them into Camtasia Studio, and use Camtasia’s production process to produce files of different sound quality. Camtasia Studio even lets you listen to how the final output will sound before you actually produce each version.

          • Justin Germino says:
            August 28, 2012 at 6:56 am

            I use audacity to record them, but I have a custom audio program to compress the audio as lossless as possible, each audio file is down to about 300kb-400kb average, but 102 files adds up, I did get it to 50MB for the 102 audio, but the 150mb is the max file size I was referring to.

            I couldn’t figure out the best way to produce the audio poems, and make them downloadable as an album or a track, the music companies don’t really do for poetry like the do for music albums, so CDNOW…etc doesn’t give same options and too expensive.

            Amazon Createspace would be great when I do a written volume, but I don’t know when I will get around to one.

            I use Camtasia Studio too, but not typically for just audio files though I should test the compression and see how it comes out. 

          • Shane Arthur says:
            August 28, 2012 at 7:00 am

            @Justin G: Sounds like your workin’ your sound files quite nicely already. Cool.

    • Shane Arthur says:
      August 27, 2012 at 10:57 am

      @Mitch
      Determined was he
      Excess challenge a breeze
      Memory filled with vast words
      Ostentatious, no, but awesome to the absurd
      Notorious of wonderment
      Illogical to think any different
      Cohorts sing his praise

      Rumination, yes I’ll have another
      Admonish, I could never do so to my CCC brother
      Timidly, I fear one day, he’ll fail to come back.

      Reply
    • Cathy Miller says:
      August 27, 2012 at 2:02 pm

      @Mitch-I’ve said it before – I love your mind! 🙂

      Reply
    • K says:
      August 27, 2012 at 11:18 pm

      This was cool. I would’ve never thought of writing an acrostic. 

      Reply
  5. Jen says:
    August 27, 2012 at 10:37 am

    I chaffed against this here poetry challenge: 

     How She Was
     
    She did not walk timidly 
    like her corhorts, with their notorious
    fear and fecklessness. 
     
    She was not illogical in her excess 
    of confidence, she was steady strong and 
    possessed of determination. 
     
    They disapproved, admonishing with 
    hollow eyes, with colorless dismay.
    Ostentatious with distaste. 
     
    My ruminations of her take me away, 
    the vapor of memory cast 
    like a shadow on the wall of my mind.  

    Reply
  6. Cathy Miller says:
    August 27, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    The rumination of another time

    A time we thought we knew 

    What’s lost we cannot determine

    As the ostentatious masks our shame

    What once we embraced

    We let go in illogical haste

    Our memory a fading past

    The cohorts of excess smile in triumph

    As timidly we let them be

    The notorious mock us

    In an admonishing loss of faith.

    Reply
  7. Briony Coote says:
    August 27, 2012 at 9:09 pm

    My first attempt at Shadora:

    Memory
    of outrageous
    excess of
    waste at the
    ostentatious Roman feast –
    so notorious!

    The cohorts
    are admonishing,
    but they will
    hush up and
    timidly determine
    on rumination.

    Reply
    • Shane Arthur says:
      August 28, 2012 at 3:37 am

      @Briony: A must excellent first attempt at Shadora. Write on!

      P.S. Thanks for the tweet. I”m trying to follow you, but Twitter currently thinks I”m following too many people to follow more. Once you hit the 2k follow count. I guess I have to have more people follow me before I can follow back. Sucks.

      Reply
    • Justin Germino says:
      August 28, 2012 at 6:50 am

      Loved the read, the flow was challenging so I tried 3x to get the flow right to where it sounded good to me.  It didn’t have a title, so I titled it Memory and I hope I pronounced your name right.  Listen to the recording here and you can download it from the top button http://soundcloud.com/dragonblogger/memory-poem-by-briony-coote

      Reply
  8. K says:
    August 27, 2012 at 11:10 pm

    Man, this was hard, but it did test my skills. I tried.

    Ostentatious disguises
    Overwhelms me and surprises
     
    How anonymity shrouds society
    Which people conform to its proprieties
     
    Derived from their prejudices, their admonishments are hypocritical
    Cohorts and notorious enemies alike, cynical
     
    Zeroes and ones determine everyone’s identities
    They enter a world where limitations freeze
     
    Some timidly reveal their names to friends
    While many don’t hesitate to express their opinions and press send
     
    Technology rules in most aspects
    But not as much as affluent connections
     
    Illogical verdicts rule in favor of the mastermind
    No excessive punishments for people of their kind
     
    After some rumination if memory serves, this is the life line the world has given me
    Where one’s influence determines the outcome; society’s key
     
    There is no truth
    There is no proof
     
    Uncover the veil of lies obscured in anonymity and good name
    And maybe things won’t remain the same
     
    Perhaps the minority will triumph over the majority
    The small congregations will emerge from their spots with their heads held high, unswayed by the city
     
    This is no mystery
    It’s time to re-right history
     
     

    Reply
  9. Mitchell Allen says:
    August 28, 2012 at 7:27 am

    EVERNOTE: A writer’s good friend. Since I was just telling K about the other poems in the acrostic form, I decided to quickly update the public notebook with the submission for #272.
    Justin gave each of us the MP3, which I decided to paste to the end of the poem. Imagine my delight when it started playing as soon as I viewed the note!
     
    @Justin, I put up some links, including a picture that you use to link to poem #97. The picture, if anyone happens to click on it, will take them to your sales page. Let me know if this or any other link is okay or needs to be modified or deleted.
     
    @Everyone – Evernote rocks. Check out a small facet of its rockiness:
    https://www.evernote.com/pub/anklebuster/creativecopychallenge-mitchellallen
     
    Cheers,
     
    Mitch
     
     

    Reply
  10. Lebbie says:
    August 30, 2012 at 1:21 am

    Reunion

    Distracted by rumination
    Blinded by excess
    Determined to win the battle
    Ostentatious in appearance
    A notorious reputation
    Admonishing glare freezes
    Begger timidly retreats
    Illogical past shared
    Cohorts of the youth
    A forgotten memory  
    Two worlds briefly reunite

    Reply
  11. Rebecca says:
    August 30, 2012 at 6:15 am

    I love poetry! Good job everyone. 🙂

    Reply
  12. Rebecca says:
    August 30, 2012 at 6:27 am

    Determine what you want out of life no matter how illogical it may seem,
    Listening to your cohorts is the easiest way to crush your dreams.
     
    Dive into your memory and remember a time when you didn’t timidly go along with the crowd,
    Rumination can be good for your soul and move you forward in life.
     
    Refuse to buy into what ostentatious people are selling because they could be full of hot air,
    Seeking the approval of others is like excess drinking – it will kill you in the end.
     
    Don’t allow the notorious fear mongers in your life to talk you out of what’s best for you,
    Sometimes, admonishing others is the only way to find your voice, to find freedom.
     

    Reply
  13. Anthony Smits says:
    August 30, 2012 at 10:03 pm

    I stared.
    Damn his rumination; 
    couldn’t he determine, 
    wearer of that ostentatious wig,
    an outcome?

    I shrugged.
    Illogical to expect witness memory
    to make a difference;
    The prosecutor’s cohorts
    wanted blood today.

    I sighed. 
    This was a case of excess;
    Timidly, one of them rose to
    Explain it all away:
    It was a lie.

    I smiled.
    Notorious,
    But finally uncovered,
    His judge was not asleep;
    An admonishing descended.

    Reply
  14. Rebecca says:
    August 31, 2012 at 4:00 am

    @ Shane… Lol! I have some that haven’t been published on the CCC. You’ll be missing out. 🙂

    @ Justin… That was cool! Have you thought about doing voice over work? You have the voice for it.

    Reply
    • Justin Germino says:
      August 31, 2012 at 4:43 am

      Lol, I wish!  I would love to be the voice of a CGI or animated character on a show.  I don’t know if I would be good at it, and don’t even know how to get started.  I don’t think I have a great voice, my NY accent is pretty thick and takes a finely crafted settings on my mixing board + mic + audacity clean up to get my voice just to sound the way it does in those poetry readings.

      Reply
  15. Rebecca says:
    September 1, 2012 at 5:39 am

    @ Justin… If you want to get started, you could hire a voice coach and check out the local casting agencies in your area. For example, Good Faith Casting in Phoenix, AZ is a fantastic casting agency, and they hire people for voice over work. You could make $1,000 or more for reading lines for a few hours. Not too shabby. 🙂

    If you record anymore of the postings from the CCC challenge, you could always use them as samples.

    I forgot about books on tapes. You could be the voice behind the best-sellers.

    Reply
  16. Bobbert says:
    September 4, 2012 at 6:21 am

    As I thought about this challenge, it occurred to me that I don’t know what poetry is, nor how to write it. So what better to keep things interesting, right? When I saw the word “illogical”, it made me think Spock on Star Trek. So here’s my attempt. Someone that understands poetry can tell me if lack of rhythm or rhyme rules this out of the category, or whether the formatting is a good enough fake! 😉

    TRAPPED BY THE MOMENT

    Excessive rumination is illogical, said Spock
    I thought his cohorts detected an ostentatious hint
    Scotty, notorious for speaking his mind, admonished him
    But timidly because of how the others might abuse
     
    Spock raised an eyebrow at the comment, in usual fashion
    and then clearly struggled to determine an answer
    Confounded by his human side, he struggled too long
    for now he had proven the point with his excess rumination
       
    Leaving an uncomfortable memory that he would never live down 

    Reply
    • Justin Germino says:
      September 4, 2012 at 8:57 am

      I am not one to talk, I just write poetry without having any formal training in it.  Poetry doesn’t have to rhyme, free verse is quite common.  One of the things I love about poetry is you MAKE IT how you want.  No rules, no reason, you just write.

      I recorded your poem, and when read aloud it sounds like a poem to me, listen here:
      http://soundcloud.com/dragonblogger/trapped-by-the-moment-a-poem  

      Reply
      • Bobbert says:
        September 4, 2012 at 12:52 pm

        Wow Justin, I can’t believe how nice you made that sound. Seriously, novelists should be chasing you to do audiobook recordings. This was really just a few minutes of throwaway words to describe a thought, but when you read it, I really like it. That goes way past the sound of your voice. It’s something about “the way you handle the words” that makes it so good. You have a real talent. Thanks!

        Btw, is it possible to download the mp3s from that site? 

        Reply
        • Justin Germino says:
          September 5, 2012 at 7:09 am

          Thanks for the compliment, for all of the recordings for this contest I enabled the “download mp3” feature, you just see the button at the top of the recording that says “download”.

          Only the ones for this contest are downloadable, so if you see the ones older that are my own poems, they don’t have that download button enabled.

          My 20+ years of running Dungeons and Dragons Adventures being the DM  and telling stories to my kids plus listening to dozens of audio books kind of give me the right sense of timing, inflection to add to voices when reading stories.

          I don’t think I am that good at doing vocal work, don’t really like the sound of my own voice but I enjoy reading work aloud and am making a point to feature other poets and writers work as tribute.  I have been doing it for other poets too not related to Creative Copy Challenge just for fun and sending them the link as well. 

          Reply
    • Shane Arthur says:
      September 5, 2012 at 7:26 am

      @Bobbert: That was a trip! Outstanding!

      Reply

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