Thursday August 17th, 2017

The exercise:

Write about: late breaking news.

Work was pretty good. The day passed very quickly at any rate. No major adventures, just trying to stay on top of things.

Also trying to keep the comment backlog here reasonable but that's proving to be a challenge.

Mine:

Good evening all.
Just a quick heads up:
The world is ending...
So you best get spending.

Buy all that you want:
The cars, the bling, the toys.
The price don't matter now,
So forget the why and the how.

Unaffordable? Who cares?
Soon there will be no one left
To knock on your door to collect
Your massive, out of control debt.

Anyway. Farewell to you
Watching at home -
It's been a wild and crazy ride,
But now it's time to say goodbye...

Wednesday January 12th, 2011

The exercise:

Tell us a story about: the newspaper boy.

Finally bought a towel rack for the bathroom this morning. Haven't actually installed it yet, but at least there's one in the house. Chopped some more wood this afternoon, otherwise took things pretty slow. It's that time of year.

I also got around to adding some pages to the blog. If you look over to the left, you'll see a new section for Writing Quotes and a Contact Me page. I'll probably add one or two more pages in the next few days. That's the plan, at any rate.

Mine:

The ink-stained cloth bags were full to bursting as he heaved them onto his shoulders, one after the other. He wore them like saddlebags, their straps criss-crossing across his chest and back. I wasn't sure if they weighed more than he did or not, but it must have been pretty close.

I watched him shuffle away, his shoes scraping across the pavement. I could see the straps biting into his shoulders but he didn't complain, didn't even wince in pain. He just wanted to get to the first house on his route so that he could start lightening his load, one paper at a time.

Mr. Allen would probably yell at him for being late. Mrs. Henderson would likely have her vicious dog loose in the yard. The Anderson's were guaranteed to have left their gate locked, forcing him to clamber over it in order to leave their paper in their mailbox. And not a one of them would appreciate the poor kid and what he went through to bring them their daily news.

Nope, the job really hadn't changed much in the years since I had done it.

Tuesday February 10th, 2009

The exercise:

I'm half asleep at the moment, so I'm going to go open Google News and pick the first interesting word I find as today's starter. Fingers crossed it's a good one.

And... here we go: Timberwolves. That was harder than it should have been - my brain is finding very few things interesting right now.

Mine:

In a forest somewhere
A hare is unaware
Of its doom coming near.
His ears cannot hear
Slow moving padded feet;
He eats his leafy treat.

Watching with hungry eyes
Their prize of meaty thighs,
The wolves descend as one.
Hare runs but knows he's done;
The ground splashed with his blood,
The flood reddens the mud.

The wolves dine savagely,
Then free howls so ghostly.

Sunday November 16th, 2008

The exercise:

Swing by Google News and pick one or two words that jump out at you from the headlines to use as your starter.

Mine:

My words: Space Station

Alarm ringing off the walls
Soldiers running down the halls
Knowing nothing they can do
Wishing someone will pull through

But the radar screen won't lie
The rocks continue to fly
The collision will come soon
On the dark side of the moon

At the observation deck
They await the coming wreck
And in that final red glow
I pray that peace they will know