This week’s Trifextra Challenge was a fun variation on the usual. We had 33 words for our entry, and were instructed to include a palindrome (either a single word, or a palindromic phrase). I found one that I’ve included at the end of my piece.
“Revolt”
Kisses will be given, not stolen. Stories will be shared, and dreams realized. Wounds will heal with the passage of time, and we’ll gaze with amazement at our progress. Won’t lovers revolt now?
This week’s Trifecta Challenge gave us the third definition of the word “worm” and a strict limit of 33 words. Here’s my entry.
“Promises to Keep”
I know you wanted to worm the information from me. I wasn’t about to give you the satisfaction, not even close to giving in and breaking the trust.
I owed her that much.
This week’s Trifecta Challenge gave us five words to use as the end of a piece. We were to provide 33 more to lead into that conclusion. Here’s “That Wasn’t What I Meant.”
Remember when I said that I was going to be okay? When I said I could do what you asked me to do? When I said it wasn’t going to be a problem?
That wasn’t what I meant.
It’s an appropriate week for this Trifecta Writing Challenge. We were given the word “funk,” and the standard range of 33 to 333 words to tell a story including the “slump” definition of the word. Here’s “Funk.”
“Funk”
Writer’s block is a miserable thing. You’ve had great ideas in the past, and surely you will in the future, but for whatever unknown reason, you’ve got nothing now. Maybe something happened that caught you off guard. Maybe you’re just tired and need to put down the coffee mug and take a nap once in a while (because naps are beautiful things that we shrug off as children for some godforsaken reason and struggle to embrace again as we grow older). Anyway. Something happened, and now you, the great writer that you are, are in some sort of terrible funk. The way out isn’t immediately clear, so you stop writing.
Bad idea. I know it seems counterproductive to write when you don’t have any ideas, when the cursor is just blinking at you, and you’ve been staring at the computer screen so long that you don’t even notice the blinking. I’ve been there too. Hell, I think everyone who has ever thought about being a writer has dealt with a shortage of things that they deem “good” ideas.
What do I do? I take a breather. I go for a short walk around my apartment complex, or play a game of D&D with my friends, or draw a picture of a character I created back in elementary school. Just change my brain’s pace for a little bit. It may not help immediately, but it gets me out of my funk. That way I’m not just sitting around my bedroom doing nothing all day.
If nothing else works, I free-write. No plans, no obligations, just me and a pencil and paper. Writing by hand helps me clarify ideas anyway, so doing a bit of stream-of-consciousness writing is a perfect way to chip away at whatever is keeping the ideas from flowing. Ideas will come when I least expect them, but there’s no guaranteed way for any one person. Find what works best for you, and put it to use. Good luck, and happy writing!
Our latest challenge from the good people over at Trifecta was this. Construct a 33-word story about love gone wrong. The catch? Don’t use any of these words:
For three years we’d shared everything. We’d met family, taken vacations, and grown practically inseparable. Tonight I came home to find all of her things gone, “goodbye” scrawled in lipstick on the mirror.
This week’s Trifextra Challenge gave us this photo. We were told to write 33 words inspired by the image. My piece, The Café, can be read below. It’s flash fiction from photography, for those of you who love alliteration as much as I do.
Photo by Thomas Leuthard. Found here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasleuthard/5678203035/
“The Café”
Evie could be found at her favorite café table with a stack of books every day at three.
Every day at three, Marcia walked past the café, gazing longingly at the reading girl.
This week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge gave us the “quaint” as our required word. Here’s my 333-word microfiction response.
“Quaint”
“I came here once, at least once, when I was a kid. Maybe more. My parents brought me here, but I don’t really remember the details of it. Regardless, I know that I love the atmosphere here more than pretty much any other bookstore we’ve ever gone to.”
“I like it,” Jason replied. “It’s quaint. In a good way, I mean,” he added, catching the frown that crossed my face. “Not weird, just, I guess, old fashioned.”
I waved my hand at the uneven shelves stacked with worn volumes and well-loved tomes. “That’s the best part! You don’t find classic indie bookstores anymore. I mean, the chains wiped out the little guys, and then Amazon came along and did the same thing to them. These guys have been around for almost forty years, and they’re still going strong.”
“And that’s impressive as hell, really. I love that they have the whole retro thing going for them, though I suspect that’s not entirely intentional. It’s a really cool store, but it just doesn’t have the same impact for me.”
“I guess not,” I sighed, pulling a copy of Swords Against Death from the shelf. “I liked this one. Too bad they don’t have the first of these in stock. Lieber’s characters are some of my favorite.”
“That’s the Gray Mouser guy, right? The one you based your old rogue on?”
“Yup. I used to get a lot of inspiration for D&D characters from this guy’s books. Guess my love for old sci-fi and fantasy is another one of those ‘quaint’ things about me.”
“And I love it,” Jason laughed. “Come on, then. This place is perfect for you. Why don’t you show me the rest of the store?”
I slipped the book back into place, carefully shifting those on either side of it. “Okay, but first you owe me a coffee.”
“Deal,” he said, pulling me away from the shelf. “And maybe I’ll even buy you a book after that.”
“Sounds like a deal.”
This week’s Trifecta Challenge is based on the third definition Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary provides for the word “whatever.” Clocking in at exactly 333 words, here’s “Whatever.”
“The delete key is dangerous, you know. It’s why I like to write with a pen and paper. Pen’s better than pencil, too. It’s harder to throw writing away permanently when it’s not just 1’s and 0’s.” Marion smiled at me. Her arm was resting on my chest, rising and falling with each of my breaths.
“I know what you mean,” I replied. My fingers caught briefly in her hair and I pulled them free. “Sorry,” I muttered as they found her neck.
“S’okay. Didn’t hurt.”
“But I know what you mean about the delete key. That’s the hardest thing for me, when I’m writing something on the computer, anyway. I hate knowing that a single button press can wipe out any idea that didn’t strike me as immediately working.”
“Exactly.” She shifted slightly, leaning against my shoulder. Neither of us were really paying attention to the show we’d put on the TV. Our conversations had the tendency to shift toward work anyway, whether we intended for them to or not. “It just bugs me that I could lose an entire piece as soon as one ‘Whatever!’ moment hits me.”
“Papers can be pulled out of the trash. You know, provided you don’t set them on fire…”
“One time. That happened ONE time. Besides, I apologized for that. But you,” she said, slapping my chest, “won’t let me live it down.”
“Only because you set off the smoke alarms. We’re damn lucky we got the dorm aired out before the rest of the building alarms went off. Last thing we needed was for the RA to catch you drinking that night.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Still, I could always give you crap about the things you got caught doing on campus.” Marion flashed her Cheshire grin.
“Touché, love. I suppose it’s best to quit while I’m behind.” I pulled her close to me, kissing her forehead.
“I love it when I win.”
“That’s why I let you get the last word.”
“Thanks.”
This week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge is simple. For the site’s 99th Trifextra Challenge, we were asked to provide our New Year’s Resolution in three words. Tempting though it was to take the Chuck Wendig route and say that mine would be “Art harder, motherfucker,” I decided to be a little more original. Here it is. Three simple things I plan to do more of in 2014.
Read. Write. Love.
Happy New Year, everyone. See you in 2014.
This week’s Trifecta Challenge gave us the “companion” as our word. The definition we had to use can refer to one who is employed to live with and serve another. So, here’s “Companion.”
Confession time. I hated Royce. Loathed, even. Everything about him drove me insane, from the pretentiousness of his name to the stupid coat he wore year round. It wouldn’t have been so bad had there been any other kids our age for us to interact with, but we didn’t have that luxury. Growing up in the labs, we were lucky just to have another civilian family around. Of course, the worst part wasn’t anything that I had any real control over. My parents had been hired years ago that Royce might have another child to serve as a companion.
I guess there were a lot of reasons for me to have resented him. I was eight when I first met Royce and his parents, and Armstrong Base was full of scientists conducting research. Royce was the only child of the sole civilian team there, and he was spoiled rotten from day one. I mean, he grew up with the goddamn moon for his back yard. I grew up in Cleveland. Not exactly comparable.
Then my parents were contacted. “Our son is lonely. Can you help?” I know that the money Royce’s parents offered up wasn’t the only reason they shipped me off. I was going to get an education, the best learning environment in the solar system. Only one catch. I was stuck with Royce for life.
“It’ll be okay, Hans,” they said on my arrival. “Your parents are only a call away.” For the first few years, things went well enough. Then Royce started to realize that he could order me around, and thanks to the surveillance around Armstrong, I had to comply. Fifteen more years of that, day and night. “Hans, fetch a water. Hans, I dropped my fork. Hans, I have more money than your pitiful family could ever make in a lifetime.”
I mean, you can’t say it wasn’t pre-meditated. Just cliché as hell. I mean, honestly. It boils down to “the butler did it,” only on the moon.
The Swords of the Ancients 