Tag: Challenges

  • Self Care September – Theme Reveal

    \"Calligraphy

    I don\’t have to tell you that this year has been challenging. Between the pandemic, learning new terms for windstorms like \”derecho\” (which is a land hurricane, if you hadn\’t heard it before, and occurred in Iowa and left devastation in its wake), the fires in California, not one but two hurricanes in the Gulf, shootings and protests and rioting, it\’s a wonder that any of us can sleep at night.

    Which brings me to my theme for this month: Focus on what I can control.

    I can\’t fix the weather, and I\’m not a doctor so my job as regards COVID is to stay healthy and stay out of the emergency medical system to the extent that I can – which means, wear a mask, social distance, and avoid travel. I haven\’t really left the house since March other than to walk, go to the community garden, and essential shopping – and I\’m stir crazy!

    Which got me thinking: I can\’t be the only creative, highly sensitive person out here with these challenges! I suspect there are a lot more of us than any of us realize, partly because when we\’re overwhelmed we don\’t communicate as loudly about our personal reality as we might during times when things aren\’t falling down around our ears.

    And thus, the image at the top of this post. Did you know, there\’s such a thing as \”faux calligraphy?\” Here\’s how it works:

    • Write out a phrase or statement, leaving extra space between the letters than you normally would.
    • On the descenders of the letters, draw a second line next to the line of the letter and then color it in – I used the same color for my letters but you could get really fancy and color in the spaces with different colors, even using a colored pencil!
    • When you cross the \”t\’s,\” be extra intentional and make a wavy line. You could even add flourishes if you felt called to.
    • Voila. Calligraphy. Who knew it could be that easy?
    • If you try it, please link me to your Instagram or other place you share your images; I\’d love to see!

     

    And in the meantime, tell me in the comments – what does \”self care\” look like for you? And I\’m not talking here about mani-pedis, necessarily. I\’m talking about really caring for yourself. What does that look like?

    And be sure to come back throughout the month while I share some ideas, challenges, and suggestions so that we can make September a great month together. And on September 3rd, I\’ll be back over at Delilah Devlin\’s blog for a guest post – watch for the link to come visit with me!

  • Friday Flash – Fishtank

    At our prompt group the other night, one of our prompts involved writing a snippet with sentences of only seven words. It came from Ursula LeGuin\’s amazing book, Steering the Craft.  I highly recommend it.

    The fish swam around in their tank.  red, green, orange, blue, even pink flickered.  How many times Jack watched them?  How many fish had he raised?

    Over the years, he counted hundreds.  He named them all, but forgot them.  His ledger kept track for him.  Silent, leather-bound, it held names in trust.  It did not judge.  It did not accuse him of forgetting.

    Its job was to remember.  Like a happy puppy, it did so.  No questions or argument, it recalled.  Recollections intrigued Jack.  Since the accident, he had few.

    Little more than flickers, his memories died.  Like his brain, broken now.  The accident, they said with somber voices.  He didn\’t need their pity.  He didn\’t remember the accident anyway.

    Ebinezer!  The pretty purple one was Ebinezer.

    You want to try?  Set your timer for 15 minutes and write a paragraph, but using sentence of no more than seven words – it can be fewer, but no more.  Feel free to share with me in the comments!

  • Welcome to the Summer Solstice Blog Hop!

    Welcome to the Summer Solstice Blog Hop!  I\’m glad you stopped by.  I\’m Noony, and I\’ll be one of your hosts during your visit.  Remember to stay inside the hop; if at any time you lose the navbar then go back to the website, here, and start over.  Be sure to comment on each blog to be entered to win a number of prizes, including a NOOK Simple Touch with Glowlight!

    For this hop, I decided to accept Alanna Coco\’s challenge and use the JustRomance.me scene generator!  It gave me the following scene:

    These are your characters:
    Veterinarian, Butler, Astronaut

    These adjectives describe them.
    Assign one to each character.
    Wise, Creepy, Sweet

    This is your setting:
    Studio set

    See if you can guess which adjective I assigned to which person.  Have fun!

    “Channel five news tonight with Cari Ann Layton and Steve Talman. In suburban Redwing today…”

    Chandler tuned out the rest of the droning voice as it went through the litany of the day’s highlights. He didn’t like the unfettered negativity. He came around the corner of the snack table and almost ran into Sandoval.

    “Pardon me, sir. I didn’t see you there.” Sandoval’s hands, full of four neat stacks of papers clipped with black binder clips, spread in apology.

    “Do you need a hand with that stuff?” Chandler reached out to catch the top pile as it leaned toward the floor.

    “Thank you.” Sandoval smiled, his brown eyes tired. “They’re for Mr. Kincaid’s butler.”

    “Oh.” Chandler tried to keep the distaste out of his voice. “I see.” The trouble with that lay with the fact that Chandler didn’t want to see William, the butler, but avoiding him meant he’d lose out on spending time with Sandoval.

    Sandoval, though, seemed oblivious. “Well, you have a nice evening.”

    Chandler slipped the top stack off the pile and held it. “I’ll come with you and help.” He started walking, just to get Sandoval moving. “What is all this stuff, anyway?”

    “Breeding records for the stable that Mr. Kincaid is thinking of buying. I’ve been chief veterinarian there for the last eight years and have all the records since its founding.” He paused, mouth twitching like he’d frown. “It took me three hours to copy everything, but I didn’t want to give any of the originals to William.”

    “Wise thought.” Chandler glanced at Sandoval out of the corner of his eye, trying to be subtle, and caught Sandoval watching him. The vet flushed a rich red, like a strawberry margarita, and looked away.

    “What brings you to the station?” Sandoval asked.

    “I had an interview today about my time on the shuttle.” Chandler scratched his chin, the makeup they’d made him wear still itching even though he’d washed his face. Twice.

    “Your skin bothering you?”

    “I wore that crap they make you wear on camera and it won’t seem to come off.”

    Sandoval watched him for a few steps and then looked down, as though he wanted to say something but didn’t quite dare.

    “What is it? You can trust me.”

    “I have something that will help, if you’d let me use it on you.” Sandoval flushed again. “It’s not like it…” He trailed off. “It’s a facial steam with some herbs.”

    A facial steam? What did Sandoval think he was? Of course, his skin really itched. Then the light bulb went on. They’d get to spend time alone together. In Chandler’s bathroom. Alone. “Okay.” He tried to act casual, not let on the way his heart thumped in his throat or his palms started to sweat. Casual.

    Right.

    Man, that butler better hurry up.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog during the blog hop.  Be sure to visit our other participating authors over the next several days.  The hop runs from Wednesday, 06/20/2012 through Sunday, 06/24/2012.

    Happy Summer Solstice!

  • A Little Somethin\’

    In honor of Monday, I thought I\’d share a little piece of flash fiction.  It\’s posted on the Writer\’s Retreat Blog. I hope you\’ll stop by and take a peek. Happy Monday!

  • Challenge – Noir Friday

    I was challenged on Romance Divas this week to write a story a\’la 1930\’s noir fiction. The challenge was:

    Your story should include the following: a dirty taxi, a missing councilman, a Dick Tracy watch (radio included), and should take place in the 1930\’s.

    Here, then, in honor of Flash Fiction Friday, is my story. I think it might work out to be a Chapter One in a possible novel; what do you think? Shall we continue? Read on and decide for yourself. (I should warn you, because of the time period, there is profanity and racism in the writing, so please don\’t continue if you\’re not comfortable with either.)

    Taxis these days are abysmal. God damned pig-shit Irish think they run the place, and they can\’t even keep the damn taxis clean. Damn Cermak, anyway, for getting shot when it should have been Roosevelt. World\’s Fair comes here, you\’d think they\’d clean up the damn things.

    \”Move it!\” my driver shouted out the window, his cigarette in danger of landing his lap. He shook his fist at some Black kid trundling a huge cart of flat cardboard boxes from sidewalk to sidewalk, wrestling the dumb thing up the eighteen-inch curb.

    Progress. That\’s what they call it in the papers. Just an excuse to beat up on the little guy, like always.

    \”Go left at the next street,\” I told the driver.

    \”Look, buddy, you really don\’t want –\”

    \”Just do it!\”

    God damned pig-shit Irish, thinking they\’re better than good honest Americans. Come over here with their potato famine and their accents and think they run the place. Stupid Cermak; why\’d you leave us like this?

    \”Let me out here.\”

    The driver\’s blue eye gazed at me in the mirror, his disagreement plain on his freckled Irish face. His nose didn\’t show the signs yet, but they\’re all drinkers. Irish whiskey, Scotch, it didn\’t matter. They say God invented the stuff so the Irish would never win a war.

    And now they\’re in my town. Thanks a lot!

    I got out around the corner from forty-seventh, smack in the Black Belt. Lieutenant Dziedziecz thought I was nuts for coming here, but here is where the witness lived.

    \”You\’re a nice White boy, and Polish to boot, Lapinsky. How you gonna go to the Black Belt at night and find a tinker\’s damn in the place without getting shot or worse? The Councilman sure as shit ain\’t in the Black Belt, for Christsakes!\”

    \”You wanna find the Alderman, or not?\” Dziedziecz came from New York, by way of Poughkeepsie. Couldn\’t get it through that brick he called a brain that Chicago had Aldermen, New York had Councilmen.

    He kicked me out of his office with his characteristic profanity, and I gave as good as I got.

    There are benefits to being a gumshoe and not a cop, chief among these is I don\’t have to take shit from a Pollock no matter how rich he was. Still came from Warsaw, or at least his pop did, same as me.

    My watch chimed and I glared down at it. A Dick Tracy radio watch, the genuine article! My kid bought it for me as a birthday gift last month. God damned comic book hero, and my kid thinks that\’s what I do for a living. I\’d leave the thing at home but the wife says it makes me a better father.

    Because of a watch?

    The bar I wanted was three doors down. And I mean down – the thing lived in the basement of a three-storey brick number. The three-flat housed two famous Black Jazz musicians and what was reputed to be a famous Black madam, but I didn\’t care about that. I wanted the bar.

    The hulking bouncers loitering by the cast iron fence and smoking promised to interfere with that plan…

    I pulled out a cigarette and approached. \”Got a light?\”

    The one closer to me turned to get a better look at me and then stared. \”Lapinsky?\”

    \”Joe Brown? What the Hell you doin\’ all the way down here? I thought you was going to Los Angles!\” I lit my own damned cigarette, since neither of them showed any sign of doing it.

    \”Los Angeles,\” Brown drawled, spreading out the syllables like a Spaniard. \”When you gonna learn another language besides Panglish?\”

    His buddy made a sound somewhere between a cough and a snort and covered his mouth with one huge black fist. If he could have turned red, he would have. Hell, maybe he did; with the night around us, Hell if I could tell if Black skin reddened.

    \”What are you doin\’ here, man?\” Brown asked me. \”This is Reggie.\”

    Reggie nodded but said nothing, so I sketched a salute in his direction. \”I\’m lookin\’ for the Alderman. Word is, your Bartender could help me.\”

    Reggie straightened, no longer blushing. Brown motioned him back and he hesitated, then leaned against the fence again. Except this time, I had his undivided attention.

    \”Police send you?\” Brown wanted to know.

    \”I told Dziedziecz where I was going.\” I paused. \”He said I\’d get my ass shot off.\”

    Brown laughed, a loud bray of sound that echoed through the street even over the sounds of Jazz coming from the place on the corner. \”You might at that, you crazy Pollock. You might at that.\”

    I narrowed my eyes. \”That mean you\’ll let me in?\”

    Brown glanced at Reggie, who shrugged. He turned back to me. \”Yeah. You can go on in. Ask for Marve.\”

    \”Thanks.\”

    \”And Pollock,\” Brown added, \”be careful.\”

    Great. First the Lieutenant and now Brown. You\’d think I was shakin\’ down Capone\’s place or something, and not some Black dive bar in the middle of the Black Belt.

    Progress, my ass.

    I took a final drag on my cigarette and tossed it into the gutter. The steps led down to a black door. Here\’s hoping they led up again.

  • Association Meme

    Have you ever played the word association game? In that game, someone will say a word, then the next person says the first word they think of. Each person who follows simply says what ever word comes to mind, based on the previous word.

    For instance:
    Person 1: red
    Person 2: bull
    Person 3: pasture
    Person 4: grass
    etc.

    For the meme, it would look more like this:

    Alice said excitement

    Hootin’ Anni said thrill

    Mari said ride as in roller coaster

    Here are the rules:

    1. Anyone can play, whether they have been tagged or not.

    2. Include the rules and logo in your post.

    3. Copy out all the responses that were made before you.

    4. Link to each of the people who responded before you.

    5. Put in your response. Your response can be as little as a single word or as much as 100 words. It can be a word, a phrase, an image, a song, a video, a story, or a short rant.

    6. Tag anyone you would like to challenge to play this game. You do not have to tag anyone.

    7. You can do this any time you run across it, even if you were one of the previous responders.

    If you have done this meme on your blog, you are welcome to put your link in here. Be sure to link to the specific post, and welcome to the Association Association.

    Want to simply jump in? You are welcome to start with the word “Excitement”, or to take off from any of the responses you find among the players listed below or from anywhere you see this meme.

    Alice said I remember riding the “Batman” roller coaster in Great America. You dangled from it with your feet hanging down. There was a pile of shoes under it and a sign warning that if you lost them, you wouldn’t get them back. So my response is “shoes”.

    Noony said:

    Shoes remind me of shame, of having my feet measured by some stranger and then having to wear clunky, ugly Famolare\’s to school. When I got there, though, my shoes became cool and so it didn\’t matter as much. But I secretly harbor the desire to wear fancy, flashy, electric-pink shoes. So my response is \”yearning.\”

  • Wiggins: A Cop Tale

    What do writers do when we’re bored or seeking inspiration? We do what any self-respecting sports fan would understand: we challenge each other to duels!

    Originally posted on the Romance Divas forum, one of the top writing-related forums on the internet, this challenge came about because I failed to step backward fast enough when the Captain asked for volunteers.

    That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it!

    Well, okay, this is my story, but hope you enjoy!

    Original Challenge, issued by Jess Granger, Thursday, January 07, 2010:

    “Your hero/heroine just got a job working in supernatural law enforcement. Lately they\’ve been having some trouble with Leprechauns running a money laundering scheme for a bunch of investment bankers/vampires. Your hero/heroine is just about to meet with a new partner for the undercover operations when she/he suspects someone is following…

    Please include a feral cat with a notch in his ear, a wedding invitation, and the phrase ‘sweet butter on a biscuit.’”

    “Thank you for calling Chicago 311 Emergency Response. Please state the nature of your emergency.” Calysta, the nametag read, sounded heartily bored.

    I resisted rolling my eyes. First week on the job and it didn’t do to make waves, particularly about employee attitudes.

    “A what, ma’am?” Calysta blurted, interrupting my train of thought.

    I met her eyes and she moved the gum in her mouth over to one cheek, like I wouldn’t be able to tell she had it in her mouth.

    “Jessup! In here!” my lieutenant shouted from her office.

    “Yessir!” I answered automatically.

    Crap. ‘Sir.’ I called her sir! Nothing for it. Just getcher ass in there, Jessup, but sweet butter on a biscuit was the Lieutenant sensitive about her rank and place in a male-dominated department. Even if I was female, I’d cut no points for calling her ‘sir.’

    I felt the presence the minute I stepped in the room and froze in the doorway.

    “Della Jessup, this is your new partner. Wiggins, say hello to Della.”

    “Hello…” The voice whispered and hissed through the room like a nineteen fifties bad monster movie ghost voice, eerie in all the right places. I felt a shiver travel up my back, around my neck, and down my front, tightening both nipples on its way by.

    Gods I hate that!

    “I want you to take Wiggins to the meetup, Jessup.”

    “Lieutenant, there’s nothing here!”

    “Oh?” a voice asked. And it wasn’t the Lieutenant.

    Frickin’ ghosts. Never should have allowed them on the force. Damned ADA regulations stipulated no discrimination on account of any disability, including the bodily challenged.

    “All right, Wiggins. Come with me. We have to meet –” I broke off, mid-sentence, because I saw it again. The same black-haired waif I’d been seeing everywhere since yesterday, following me in Trader Joes, following me to LA Fitness, following me to my carport, following me!

    “Jessup?” Wiggins murmured.

    “Do you see it?” I realized the second it left my mouth, how is a ghost supposed to ‘see’ without any eyes, but I let it stand.

    “What?”

    “The kid, there…” I pointed, but of course, poof, no black hair. No waif. No stinkin’ kid! “Come on,” I snarled instead, leading the way back out to my cruiser, first stopping to pick up my sidearm from the security lockup.

    “Sign here, Della,” Sergeant Whiska ordered.

    “Sergeant, when did you get an earring?” I scratched my nose. Earrings were non-regulation on duty, just like gum, but…

    The feline grin that appeared after my question startled me and I had to resist the urge to step back. His teeth looked sharp! “Like it?”

    “Um…”

    “Beautiful,” Wiggins susurrated.

    Whiska flicked all of his fur in a wave down his back. The glossy reddish brown flashed in the light and I had to physically put my hands in my pockets to avoid petting him. After the evolutionary jump that let cats speak, they now had equal status with humans. One did not pet a fully accredited Sergeant of the Chicago Police Department.

    Not if one wanted to keep their hand, anyway.

    Whiska handed through another piece of paper and I took it automatically. Then I looked at it; the loopy calligraphy beautiful. And pink. Pink? “What’s this?”

    His grin widened. “Jezebel agreed to marry me! That’s your wedding invitation!”

    “When’s the shower?” I asked curiously, eyes on the invitation.

    He hissed. “I don’t like water.”

    “No, silly. The wedding shower?”

    “Oh. I don’t know yet.”

    “Maybe we’ll throw one for you,” Wiggins put in.

    On that note… “I have to run, Sergeant. Thank you for this. I’ll see you later!”

    My car had chilled to ice in the hour it sat in the lot, thankfully free of the snowstorm. First Blizzard of the New Decade, the news called it. I rolled my eyes.

    “Where are we going?” Wiggins asked once we sat down.

    Uh, once I sat down. Wiggins… wafted, I guess. “National City Bank, then the Bank of Ireland. Seems the regulators want some police presence. We’re close to an indictment.”

    “On what?”

    “Money laundering.”

    “Mmm.” Wiggins sounded thoughtful, though I still couldn’t see anything in the car with me. “Perhaps you should not tell them of my presence.”

    “How come?” I asked.

    “I could be of some use, perhaps.”

    “Sounds good.” I shivered as I pulled onto the main street, clogged with new snow. Here’s hoping Wiggins didn’t give the bankers the… well. What was I supposed to say now? Willies?

    Yeah, I did that, and Lieutenant would find me a trained ape by that name for a partner.

    Nevermind. Forget I thought it.

    We turned onto Columbus Drive, both lost in thought.