Category Archives: Challenges and Writing Prompts

Twittering Tales #45 – 15 August 2017

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About the challenge: Each Tuesday I will provide a prompt, and your mission, if you choose to play along, is to tell a story based on that prompt in 140 characters or less. If you accept the challenge, 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. Have Fun!

Twittering Tale #44 – The Round-Up

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Photo from Pixabay.com

From Kalpana at Gemini in the Sky:
Flaws, egos appear magnified when scrutinized under the lens.
Errors like straws float on water, he who yearns for pearls must dive below.

From Reena at ReInventions:
“Do we focus on the core or surroundings?”
“See only the impact of the environment on the core. Everything else is irrelevant.”
(126 characters)

From Michael at Morpethroad:
He looked closer. There they were.
Undiscovered microbes.
Waving enthusiastically.
One held a sign.
We can change your life. 
(139 characters)

From Fandango at This, That, and the Other:
You won’t believe what I saw when I put that sample of water under the scope. Please don’t drink anymore of that crap. It will kill you.
(138 characters)

From Sight11 at Journey:
Under scrutiny
Vision Originate..
Sigil, Animation
Detrimental, Essence
Perplexed, Demiurge
Anthropos, Execution

From Leena at Soul Connection:
“The finding I thought will gve lyfline to ppls took lyf of my old frnd who agreed for test.SORRY FRIEND”He said n burried Him in Dark Ngt.

From Susmita at Uniquesus:
Little Joe curiously peered at the microorganisms through his father’s microscope and a whole new world was discovered before his eyes.
(135 characters)

From Kitty at Kitty’s Verses:
Things get blown out of proportion at close quarters.A step back,yes this scary little thing could be an antidote for the dangerous disease.
140 Characters

From Martin at Martin Cororan:
Initially, being accidentally shrunk down to the size of an amoeba sucked, until he discovered other scientists the size of atoms and took up residence as their god.
139 Characters

From Radhika at Radhika’s Reflection:
Endless years of hard work made Dr. Nicholas the most famous scientist worldwide. But it also made him a recluse confined to his laboratory.
Character count :139

From Peter at Peter’s Ponderings:
Looking up, it saw a huge green eye.
It wasn’t the usual lady; it liked her body odour.
This one was pungent and rancid. Not nice at all!
(137 characters)

From Sandi at Flip Flops Every Day:
Excited about the new microscope, he told his son to find something for the slide. The boy laughed, “I picked a good one, guess what it is”

From Lorraine at In 25 Words, More or Less:
The returning Mars probe carried within it’s capture chamber microbiological proof of life on the forbidding enticing alien world, Earth.
(140 characters)

From Kathryn at Another Foodie Blogger:
Sue spent 26 hours straight painstakingly staring into the scope looking for clues of interstellar life. Wait! I see Waldo? Time to go home.

From Di at Pensitivity101:
The message clearly said ‘Hello Mum!’ She was stunned.
In the other room, Mike was etching ‘April Fool’ on another slide.
120 characters.

From Vivian at Smell the Coffee:
Dr Casi had found the cure!
He peers eagerly as his sperm cells kill the cancer cells.
His alien DNA was mankind’s answer!
But who to tell?
(Twittering Tale -140 characters)

From Deepika at Deepika’s Ramblings:
Microscopic vision of thoughts and words magnifies your outlook manifold. So examine your words minutely, before you speak, dear, said Mom.
139 Characters

From John at Broadsides:
Look close, closer still for the unexamined life is not worth living

From Francine at Woman Walks Dog:
Aha the gene therapy worked, at last a human- spider hybrid. Think of its spiderlings spinning, sprinting, hatching a hundred eggs at a time. Power at last!

 

and mine:

Dr. Cole was convinced he’d found the antidote, but the virus was resistant. He assembled his notes with a warning for those who’d find him.
(140 Characters)

Bravo! And thank you, everyone, for dissecting the challenge this week! Once again, another great round of tweet-sized tales. Who says awesome doesn’t come in microscopic packages! 😉 Be sure to click on the links and visit your fellow tweeters. I often find the comments as entertaining as the tales! It’s all in the details you know…finite and brilliant!

Welcome to Twittering Tale #45! I found this interesting photo on pixabay by a graphic artist who goes by the alias 5arah for this week’s round.

It’s strange looking at first, but I found the more I looked at it, the less strange it seemed. Which, of course is what a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” is hoping for. Or maybe it’s just a cloning experiment gone wrong…Poor Dolly lost her head in a petri dish!

At any rate, I know you will put on your thinking caps and get to the bottom of this freak of nature. And of course, as always have fun! We could all use a little more fun these days. See you next week at the Roundup.

Twittering Tale #45 – 15 August 2017

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Photo Prompt by 5arah at Pixabay.com

Explore 6 landed on Kepler-438b. Capt. Dean sent live feed to Command.

“Wow!” they gasped, “a wolf-sheep!?”

Dean screamed, “No! A bird-sna…”

~kat 😉


Green Sky

leafy baldachin
shady forest hideaway
here the sky is green

~kat

For Haiku Horizons poetry challenge, prompt word, Sky.


Optical Illusion – A Haiku

I found this week’s photo prompt by TJ for his Household Haiku Challenge a bit perplexing. Blame it on my astigmatism! I stared long and hard trying to decide whether I was looking down at a reflective pool or through a rocky portal…hence my chaotic little out-of order Haiku. What do you see, now that I’ve planted that perspective in your head? Things are not always what they seem! 😉 This week’s prompt words with the synonyms I used for this week’s Haiku in parentheses are Chaos (muddle) & Order (tranquil).

Photo of the Rock pools on the coast of St Malo, Brittany, by TJ Paris

tranquil tidal pools
or glimpse through Valhalla’s loam
muddling puddles

~kat

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The Girl Who Dreamed of Flying


Once upon a time…you know where this is going. You might even think, this is one of those ‘fairy tales’ and dismiss it straight away as a myth, but I can assure you it is truer than true. For it is true that everything in this world has a once upon a time; even you, if you think about it, when you burst purple, wet into this place, gulping your first breath, eyes squinting at the bright glare of life.

And so it was for Clarissa. Born in a humble wisteria-draped cottage in a dingle village long, long ago, Clarissa emerged from the Guf laughing, eyes wide and bright. The midwife declared, “My my, but this is a special one!” Never had a truer thing been uttered, as time would tell.

As soon as she could walk, Clarissa set about exploring every cranny and nook. Birds and bugs, whirlygigs, cottonwood fluff and witch’s gowan wishies…flying things, were her favorite things of all. She spent hours studying them, quite unusual for a youngster, and gibbering to them about this and that, as if they were listening. She dreamed of flying like her airborne friends. One day she did. It was the saddest of all days the dingle had ever known.

On that dark and dreadful day Clarissa managed to escape the watchful eyes of her doting mum to wander up the mountain trail to the lookout ledge. She stood there for a moment, feet clinging to the rocky crag, arms extended, her fiery red curls dancing in the wind, and she laughed so loudly it caught the attention of every living thing below. They watched aghast as Clarissa lept into a swooping gust and flew for a short, too few magnificent seconds.

Frantic to save her, every winged, wispy thing surrendered their feathers and wings, whirligigs and fluffy, puff wishies to the wind, hoping to break her fall her by blanketing the dingle in feathery fluff, but they were no match for gravity’s power, drifting helplessly in the air. Clarissa fell right through them, landing in a horrible thud as the last echo of her laughter faded in the distance.

Now you may not notice it when it happens but I can assure you it’s true. Every time a child laughs a bird sheds a feather or bug its wings. And sometimes Maple tree whirligigs, cottonwood fluffies and dandelion wishies take to the wind too. All to remember Clarissa, the girl who dreamed of flying, and to add another moment’s wonder and happiness to children everywhere. For it is also true that their magnificent innocence, like Clarissa’s ill-fated flight, fades far too quickly, like echoes of laughter in the distance.

~kat

A Folktale for Jane Dougherty Microfiction Challenge inspired by Jeren of itsallaboutnothing’s poem that you can read HERE.


You Can Call Me Terry

“Geologists have a saying – rocks remember.” ~Neil Armstrong

Photo by © CEAyr

“Hello there.”

“What?! Who said that? Who’s there?!”

“I’m down here.”

“But, you’re a rock!”

“That’s right! My name is Terrance A. Cotta, the 1003rd, but you can call me Terry…get it? Sheesh! Humans are so dense!”

“I’m going crazy!”

“Oh, get over yourself! You and I are made of the same stuff you know. You’re just mucilaginous. I was once a mountain. I soared so high I danced with the clouds.”

“Mucilaginous? What’s that mean? Never mind. I’m outa here!”

“Oh well, off you go then. But I could tell you things, if you’d listen. I could tell you things…”

~kat

100 Words for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers 100 Word Story Challenge prompted by the photo above by CEAyr.