This
meme was started by Delores a long time ago. Computer issues led her
to bow out for a while. The meme was too much fun to let go, and now
Words for Wednesday is provided by a number of people and has become a
movable feast.
Essentially
the aim is to encourage us to write. Each week we are given a choice
of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image. What we
do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, a
poem, or treating them with ignore... We can use some or all of the
prompts, and mixing and matching is encouraged.
Some
of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on
their own blog. I would really like it if as many people as possible
joined into this fun meme, which includes cheering on the other participants. If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.
This week's prompts are:
- Clawing
- Sunglasses
- Landscape
- Grandee
- Anodyne
And/or
- Descriptive
- Resilience
- Country
- Slice
- Finger
Hilary also offered us some 'extra' words:
- Rainbow
- Coriander
- Falling
- Art
- Exhibit
- Sage
Charlotte (MotherOwl) has given us Turquoise Blue as the colour of the month. If you can also incorporate it into your stories she (and I) will be grateful.
Have fun.
This is Hilary's last week of providing the prompts. Next month you will find them at the blog of Charlotte (MotherOwl)
Hi everyone ...
ReplyDeleteThe grandee with the turquoise blue sunglasses gazed hazily out over the landscape … suddenly a seagull swooped clawing at the ice-cream lazily held by said aristocrat …
From the first set ... cheers to you all - Hilary
Hilary Melton-Butcher: That will teach him not to hold his ice-cream lazily. Gulls are opportunists.
DeleteFun! :)
DeleteSandra sandracox.blogspot.com
Now, that's the difference between certain "grandees" and a gull, eh?
DeleteI know of outdoor venues which use nets to keep the gulls away from the food. You have to watch them.
DeleteThanks Sandra, Sean and Messymimi ... well I could describe a few other differences Sean?! They're using gull deterrents now ... which seems to work. Cheers Hilary
DeleteI've seen a gull take a hot dog right out of a family member's hand, lol. We were at Disney World of all places, which means we had to wait in line forever for that thing... lol. I guess the bird found a way around waiting. ;)
DeleteI love your words, Hilary. Great job and your little story is fun. It makes me think of "If you snooze, you lose."
Delete2nd set:
ReplyDeleteOoh! … Ouch! … blood everywhere he'd sliced his finger – a bit was hanging off … but he''d been brought up in the country and was used to cuts and slashes inadvertently self-inflicted.
His resilience showed up … but he needed to finish his English project – the prompt was a descriptive piece … I wonder what he'll write about … perhaps also what he'll remember in the future.
Thanks for joining in with my words ... cheers to you all - Hilary
Hilary Melton-Butcher: I hope his assignment goes well - and feel sure that he will have a scar to remind him of his misadventure. Great use of both sets of your prompts.
DeleteI hope he had good bandages available. Maybe he could turn his accident into an essay.
DeleteTwo good bits of writing for Hilary!
DeleteThanks Messymimi - he needed something to mop the blood up didn't he; thanks Janie - cheers Hilary
DeleteOuch. Ouch. Ouch. Excellent description, Hils.
DeleteSandra sandracox.blogspot.com
This one is great, too. It's so much fun to write tiny stories.
DeleteRae chose to enrich her largely anodyne life with a rainbow of rich and descriptive fantasies, a slice of lives she would never know. These harmless excursions gave her the resilience to go on.
ReplyDeleteA dashing Grandee from Portugal (a country she had never visited) cast a suave and dashing figure against an imagined landscape. His sunglasses were as dark as the eyes they concealed, and his intentions even darker.
A practical mind popped in at intervals and planned her shopping list. Sage and coriander seeds needed to be included. NOT coriander leaves, the smell and the taste made her feel sick. She couldn’t put a finger on why one part of the plant was fine and the other anathema, but it was true.
There was an art exhibit she longed to see too. Chihuly glass. Hyacinth Basket in a sensuous turquoise blue was perhaps her favourite. Even on screen her immediate reaction had been akin to falling in love, and she couldn’t wait to see the translucent majesty of his creations.
It was crowded in her head, and the synapses fired in a multitude of directions. Perhaps the fantasy, the yearning and the practicality should have been fighting and clawing for supremacy but the endless variety worked for Rae, and no-one else knew or needed to know about it. Where would her mind take her next? Rae didn’t know, and didn’t care.
Wonderful use of the words ... I'm so glad you used Grandee from Portugal - clever. Chihuly glass too ... and an art exhibit full of glass ... I'm now worried about the synapses firing!! Thank goodness it was only her brain letting her mind wander - interesting take EC - thank you ... cheers Hilary
DeleteWow, that was a challenging set of words - well done! :-)
DeleteWell done, EC. Drew me in and made me take an interest in the protagonist.
DeleteSandra sandracox.blogspot.com
No wonder, many heads are crowded, these days, eh?
DeleteSean Jeating: Mine certainly is.
DeleteIt's often the daydreams bring a bit of sunshine to life.
DeleteI like the way you used Chihuly glass to work with the words. Very good, EC!
DeleteThis is so good, Sue. I am in awe.
DeleteI can relate to a crowd in the mind. Great figurative language/imagery in the whole of the writing. Well done, my friend, per usual. :)
DeleteSue, your writing on this one seems poetic. Love it.
DeleteThese will be a kicker, give me time, something will happen. Maybe indigestion, but something (joking, of course).
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, Hilary, for providing the words this month.
messymimi: I am of course looking forward to seeing where they take you.
DeleteOkay, it will be over here.
Deletemessymimi: It was excellent. Thank you.
DeleteAs always, fun to read :)
ReplyDeleteDeniseinVA: Thank you. I hope there is a lot more fun to come.
DeleteOops. Hilary pointed out that the title of this post is incorrect. This has been a very long month for me, and despite the fact that it feels like it, it isn't the 38th day. I am going to leave my error up though.
ReplyDeleteThis month has been so busy that it seems as if it's the 38th day to me.
DeleteI thought maybe we had to wait until the 38th to post. I might need Dr. Who and his time machine.
DeleteHi EC et al - life has lots going on ... glad the 38th will remain! Cheers H xo
DeleteMay one be a grandee, may one be a sage: When pointing a finger at someone, three fingers are pointing at oneself.
ReplyDeleteWell, a sage wouldn't. Neither would he wear turqoise blue sunglasses when watching a rainbow.
Or SHE, or SHE!
Dear readers, guess in which country nowadays you get he and she and LGBTQIA+ in almost each sentence several times? Clawing for gender-speak.
Wide is the landscape of stupidity, Coriander might once be an exhibit, a pars pro toto for descriptive resilience.
How anodyne. A slice of falling art of living.
Sean Jeating: How lovely to see you joining us again. I had never thought about the pointing fingers thing before - and how right you are. Thoughts to ponder. Thank you.
DeleteMy English teachers would have pitched fits about the use of the singular "they" in formal writing.
DeleteHi Sean - this is wonderful ... making me think - it's an area I try and avoid in any writing I do. Certainly not anodyne ... cheers Hilary
Deleteanodyne: my dictionary says "any medicine which allays or mitigates pain"- thesaurus says "opiate, narcotic, sedative" etc, so I may use one of those words instead.
ReplyDeleteRiver: Mine said not likely to cause offence or disagreement and somewhat dull.
DeleteAs a noun, it means medicine to allay pain. As an adjective, it means not likely to cause offence. Since Hilary didn't indicate whether it should be used as a noun or adjective, i used the noun meaning.
DeleteThe sunglasses didn't hide who the Grandee was as she was clawing at her botched landscape while waiting for her anodyne.
ReplyDeleteMike: And now you have left us hanging. Who is the grandee?
DeleteMike - The grandee must be waiting for her premium ruby port so that landscape can get a rosy glow ... cheers Hilary
DeleteEC - Do you want to be the Grandee? The title is waiting for you. You may need to get a landing strip cut to qualify.
DeleteNicely done!
DeleteRunning too late to write or more to the point think of something with the words...did read some of the tales first and enjoyed.
ReplyDeleteTake care.
Margaret D: I am glad. You look after yourself too.
DeleteI stepped out into an impressive LANDSCAPE, adjusted my SUNGLASSES and congratulated myself on being in this part of the COUNTRY. The dog was CLAWING at my leg and I concluded that I had better take him with me, even though his rambunctious ways could interfere with the quiet enjoyment of nature. I had a RAINBOW of emotions as I pondered my good fortune. When I was invited to display my ART I had no idea that so much would sell from a modest EXHIBIT, and for the kind of money that enables me to be here. I had always wanted to visit the remote regions of the Spanish Pyrenees and I felt like a GRANDEE surveying his domain. This was ANODYNE of the very best kind. The smell of wild SAGE pervaded the air, epitomizing the RESILIENCE of this ancient landscape. Even as I drank it all in, the dog ran between my legs, knocking me off balance. As I was FALLING I SLICED my FINGER on a rock. I gasped in pain, exuding the odour of the CORIANDER that had embellished last night’s dinner. Despite that, I lack the DESCRIPTIVE skill to adequately describe my euphoria. Life is good.
ReplyDeleteDavid M. Gascoigne: This is excellent - though speaking for myself if I could smell coriander I would not be a happy bunny. Just the same, I could see and picture this delightful vignette.
DeleteYou either love or hate coriander (cilantro), it seems. We adore it. No, we ADORE it!
DeleteI'm glad the small incident didn't ruin his mood and thus taint his time away. Nicely told.
DeleteExcellent, David. My daughter is an artist, so I was especially glad your protagonist's work sold:)
DeleteSandra sandracox.blogspot.com
Hi David - fun ... probably a good thing your descriptive skills were curtailed, as the sage might have been overpowering.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you should exhibit some more art ... though I suspect it wouldn't be as good as some of the exquisite art and sculpture you show us.
Life is good ... cheers Hilary
Fun reading through everyone's entries!
ReplyDeleteNas: I think so too. I am blown away each and every week.
DeleteIt doesn't look like it's going to be the end of the story yet! Mine has been published here.
ReplyDeleteCindi: I will be over to read it in just a bit.
DeleteEveryone had so much creativity with their words and storytelling.
ReplyDeleteRomance Reader: They did - and they do each and every week. Which is lovely.
DeleteThanks to you all for entering all your entries and comments during this month when I was the challenger with the various word prompts I found from somewhere!! Cheers and see you next month - Hilary
ReplyDeleteI must admit the words Grandee & Anodyne are new to me.
ReplyDeleteHaddock: The people setting the prompts often challenge us with unfamiliar words.
DeleteClawing away her
ReplyDeleteSunglasses to enjoy the
Landscape
Grandee found it richly
Anodyne!
Cloudia:I like that the Grandee found her anodyne in landscape rather than possessions. A lot.
DeleteSusan Kane wrote:
ReplyDeleteWhen Grandee Alice died, her grandchildren were devastated by her loss.
Annie and Jack had walked the countryside with Grandee, where she led them along the landscape. Annie held Grandee’s hand, feeling her fingers brush along the sage bushes that littered the fields. Jack gasped after seeing a rainbow.
The sun was into the dusky night. They headed back to Grandee’s farmhouse where she brought slices of watermelon to the porch, juice soon running down faces. Grandee looked off to the farm. Resilience was part of her life, what she left behind was in Annie and Jack’s hands.
Gazing at them, she drank in the art of God’s creations.
Another talented and very different use of Hilary's prompts.
Delete