Category Archives: Challenges and Writing Prompts

Twittering Tales #58 – 14 November 2017


About the challenge: Each Tuesday I will provide a photo prompt. Your mission, if you choose to accept the challenge, is to tell a story in 280 characters or less. Wait….WHAT?! YES! You read that correctly. Recently, the sages at Twitter announced that they were doubling the character limit. So, of course I am passing this gift on to you! When you write your tale, be sure to let me know in the comments with a link to your tale.

A final note: if you need help tracking the number of characters in your story, there is a nifty online tool that will count for you at charactercountonline.com.

I will do a roundup each Tuesday, along with providing a new prompt. And if for some reason I missed your entry in the Roundup, as I have occasionally done, please let me know. I want to be sure to include your tale.

Finally, have fun!

And REMEMBER…you now have 280 characters (spaces and punctuation included), to tell your tales. I can’t wait to see what you do this week.


Twittering Tale #57– The Roundup


Starting us off…

“How was the bike ride?’
“Painful.”
“Didn’t you wear those padded biker shorts?”
“Yeah. Next time I’m gonna strap a pillow to my ass!”
131 Characters

From Reena at ReInventions:

“Thank God for the support springs. Or I wonder how I would have landed on my ass?”

From Di at Pensitivity101

He was the lookout, a master of disguise.
Sit on him and his springs would catapult you into space!
98 characters

From Michael at Morpethroad:

It was the saddle from hell.
Bum sore and thigh rash,
no matter how you adjusted it
It was the maker of misery.
Assigned it happily to the dump.
(141 characters)

From Fandango at This, That, and the Other:

For sale. One used natural leather bike saddle. It’s too hard and the springs are shot, but I need the money so I can splurge on a new one.
(139 characters)

From Kathryn at Another Foodie Blogger:

Grandpa, come look what we found in the woods!
The kids saw rust and cracked leather, but when Hal saw his long lost bike, it was perfection.
140 Characters

From Lady Lee at Lady Lee Manila:

On your bike
Get set, go, have fun
In summer
Till winter
As long as there’s no snow
Cycling is cool sport

(100 characters)

From Jannat007 at Be Happy:

Mom I have got the best blogger award. Where is my gift?
Baby you have been asking for a bike and now you are going to get it.
Here it is.
(137 characters)

From Francine at Woman Walks Dog:

Dorothy’s Bicycle

Its Dorothy’s bike but she’s not here   So unlike her
She’s a good egg   loves her bicycle
Her picnic baskets spilled open on the grass
cupcakes everywhere
Oh dear !

From Leena at Through my Heart Web

Cycle Road Trp,BAD IDEA!
Oh!Cm On DAD,U R Nt Dt Old
Riding Cycle Is Past Nw
So Wht?Once Rider Alwz Rider
Ok Dn Ltz Go
Wohoo,Dad n Son,Fun Mode ON.

From Jan at StrangeGoingsOnInTheHead:

A sad tale of love and ashes…
Wolf and vamp
Lovers doomed
A tragedy waiting to unfold
Riding on steeds of antique silver and garlic leather
A tryst soon ended
Life in flames
(139 characters)

From Willow at WillowDot21:

The broken saddle

If your going in to town Mark can
You pick me up a new saddle.
My old is broken and it rubs. Man
It’s like canoeing all day  without a paddle.
(140 characters)

From Kirst at Kirst Writes:

“It’s too high. I’ll fall off! Will you help me?”
“It’s easy. Come on! Your big brother can do it. Why can’t you?”
I never took to cycling.
(137 characters)

From Peter at Peter’s Pondering:

The emu skull looked great mounted on the shiny springs. The bone was acquiring a fine patina, but it was still a most uncomfortable ride!
(139 characters)


This week’s photo is from SkittersPhotos at Pixabay.com. Since you have double the characters, I’m excited to see what this fellow’s story is. If course, you can still do a 140 character tale if you’d rather. I read that even given the opportunity to write more, people were still keeping their tweets brief. There is something easy and quick about sharing snippet of thought. But then again, when it comes to fiction…how many of us have wished for just a few characters more? I know I have. The beauty of this all is that you can tell your tale in a flash or not. It’s up to you. 😊

Twittering Tales #58 – 14 November 2017

SkittersPhotos at Pixabay.com

The Lady of Emerald Inlet

He was a young salt when the beautiful lady, with long flowing golden tresses and eyes deep as the sea stole his heart.

For 40 years he fished the brackish waters of the inlet hoping to see her again.

They say ‘twas old age that stopped his heart that night. Some say she returned.

(280 Characters! Wow! That was fun!)

~kat


Save Your Prayers

‘Away, come away:

Empty your heart of its mortal dream.’ – W.B. Yeats

save your prayers, please, just save them
words of pious supplication
apathy’s justification
reason scorned, and truth forsaken
save your prayers
don’t tell me your heart is breaking
over pain of your own making
hoarding grace, from others, taking
hearts afraid of shadows, quaking
save your prayers, please
just save them

~kat

Today’s quote for Jane Dougherty’s A Month With Yeats is from his poem ‘The Hosting of the Sidhe’.


Through the Breach of Tar and Pebbles

‘He made the world to be a grassy road

Before her wandering feet.’ -W.B. Yeats

Through the Breach of Tar and Pebbles

iron spires wrapped in nettles
splintery oak and knobby pine
iron spires wrapped in nettles

facades eroding, lost to time
penetrating every crevice
splintery oak and knobby pine

tendrils snaking ‘round a trellis
ghosted spaces, gently greening
penetrating every crevice

vibrant once again and teeming
blooms emerge and bumbles fly
ghosted spaces, gently greening

traces of human touch, disguised
Gaia’s voice calls forth the living
blooms emerge and bumbles fly

bursting forth from clay forgiving
iron spires wrapped in nettles
Gaia’s voice calls forth the living
iron spires wrapped in nettles

~kat

A Terzanelle for Jane Dougherty’s A Month With Yeats -Day Twelve Poetry Challenge inspired by the verse above from Yeats’ poem, ‘The Rose of the World’.


The Earrings

Charlie still had brief glimmers of recognition when Eileen came to visit, especially when she wore the emerald earrings he had given her so many years ago.

She’d had her eye on those beauties at Bloomies, dropping by every day on her lunch break.

Charlie worked the jewelry counter then. He looked forward to her daily visits. When Eileen finally agreed to go on a date with him, he brought along a secret weapon to win her heart; those earrings. Smart man, that Charlie.

Now, they were Eileen’s secret weapon.

“Hello Emmy,” he beamed.

Eileen smiled. Charlie’s heart remembered.

~kat

99 Words for Friday Fictioneers (a few days late…busy week) based on the PHOTO PROMPT © MARIE GAIL STRATFORD.


Drain The Swamp

‘And he saw how the reeds grew dark
At the coming of night-tide,’  W.B. Yeats

Drain the Swamp

a congress of reeds congregates in the shadows
corrupted, its oil glutted rodomont brims,
impassable moat churning pristine and brackish
host to edge dwellers too fearful to swim

as murky gray fog settles round its foundation
turbidity swirls, fire tangoing with ice
the tide ebbs disturbing its frail underpinning
sweeping them into all manner of vice

this haven for hoards of crude middling beasties
conceals crawling shape-shifters, long-legged fowl
slimy, amphibious, hideous predators
hiding sub-surface, always on the prowl

~kat

Today’s Prompt Verse for Jane Dougherty’s A Month with Yeats – Day Ten Poetry Challenge is from Yeats’ poem, ‘The Host of the Air.’ I resisted looking up the poem this time, before writing my own, because I wanted to focus entirely on the words of the verse. At first glance I imagined sunset rouged, tidal wetlands, with tall sea wheat and cattails; the day surrendering to evening. But when I looked up the word ‘reed’  I discovered it has a myriad of possible definitions; one in particular that caught me eye...from Webster: a person without strength of character. Oh…it went on…doorman, jellyfish, namby-pamby, pushover, weakling, wimp, coward, milquetoast, mouse, nebbish, nervous Nellie (or nervous Nelly), pussy [slang], wuss (also wussy) sheep. Not the idyllic scene I first imagined, but hey…I went with it, with a melding of the two. With so many reeds to inspire me on the world stage these days, how could I resist?!