Day: July 20, 2020

The Monday Peeve — Donald Trump

Fandango80 Comments

I wasn’t going to post a response to Paula Light’s Monday Peeve prompt today because I got a really good night’s sleep last night and I wasn’t really pissed off about anything in particular.

And then I saw this headline in my morning paper.6F041C6D-D617-40B4-9BAD-A6BDB9088940The audacity of Donald Trump is stunning.
3E3A82D8-70A2-49B8-8869-358ABA4E6340In an interview with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” Trump refused to publicly commit to accepting the results of the upcoming White House election. He scoffed at the polls showing him lagging behind Democratic candidate Joe Biden, saying it’s too early to make such an ironclad guarantee. “I have to see. Look, I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either.”

Well, there went my decent mood. That the sitting President of the United States could equivocate about accepting the results of the upcoming presidential election was enough to send me over the edge. If the President can’t commit to abiding by the outcome of an election and to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses, democracy in America is kaput.

Share Your World — Body Odor or Wet Dog Odor

Fandango21 Comments

Share Your WorldMonday is Melanie’s day to post her Share Your World prompt. And this week’s questions are rather odd ones, in my humble opinion.

Where do you not mind waiting?

Well, my glib answer is that I don’t mind waiting when I’m in a waiting room of some sort because that’s what the purpose of the room is — to wait. But the truth is that, as long as I have my iPhone with me and there’s internet access, waiting, even in a waiting room, is not intolerable. I can write and read blog posts, I can read articles on my newsfeed, I can play solitaire, or read a book on my Kindle app.

What is in your fridge right now?

A picture is worth a bunch of words, right?FE1F5560-5334-4E10-8952-5532BAC4FDDA

If you could only speak one word today, what would it be?

I don’t know if this is a word, but it would be “Shh!”64D5378B-B359-4F10-9B00-1E5FD42313A7

Would you rather be trapped in an elevator full of men with BO or three soaked dogs?

At the risk of sounding like a grammar Nazi, this question is awkwardly worded. It seems to be asking if I’d rather be trapped in an elevator full of men with BO, or if, instead, I’d prefer to be three soaked dogs. Since I can’t actually be three soaked dogs, or even one, I’m going to assume Melanie meant the second option to be trapped in an elevator with three soaked dogs. My answers is neither. I’d rather take the stairs.

Blogging Insights — I’m a Prompter

Fandango28 Comments

Blogging insightsThis week’s edition of Blogging Insights, a series of blogging Q&A’s that Dr. Tanya, over at Salted Caramel, started about a year ago, is all about prompts. She asks us:

What is the value of running writing prompts to your writing in general, and your blog in particular?

I pretty much answered this question a couple of months ago in an earlier Blogging Insights edition. But I suppose it bears repeating.

When I first started this blog in May 2017, I never had any intention of hosting any writing prompts. But one of the things I really liked doing on my blog was honing my flash fiction writing chops by posting short tales in response to the WordPress Daily Post one-word prompts.

But then the folks at WordPress decided to stop posting the daily prompt at the end of May 2018 and I knew I was going to miss those daily writing challenges. I thought that other bloggers might also miss them, so I decided to start my own daily Fandango’s One-Word Challenge, aka “FOWC with Fandango.”

FOWC with Fandango was very well received. And over time, I added other regular writing prompts:

  • Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge — a weekly prompt on Mondays where I post a photo and challenge bloggers to create their own posts based upon the photo I selected.
  • Fandango’s Provocative Question — a weekly prompt on Wednesdays where I pose what I hope is a provocative question that will get bloggers to think, to be creative, and to response.
  • Fandango’s Friday Flashback — a weekly prompt on Fridays where I reach back into my archives and repost something I posted on the same date in a previous year and encourage other bloggers to do the same in order to expose their newer readers to some of their earlier posts that those newer readers might never have seen, or to remind their longer term readers of posts that they might not remember.
  • Fandango’s Who Won the Week — a weekly prompt on Sundays where I encourage bloggers to look back at the week that just ended and to select who (or what) they think “won” that week and to write their own posts about who/what they chose and why.

What is the value of hosting these prompts? Well, almost overnight after starting FOWC with Fandango, I doubled the traffic to my blog and got a bunch of new followers. And it’s heartening to have people respond to my prompts on their own blogs. I really enjoy the creative, imaginative, ingenious, witty, and even poetic posts bloggers have published in response to my prompts.

So for my blog and for me personally, hosting writing prompts has been a very positive, very rewarding endeavor. And I hope others have enjoyed participating in these prompts.

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #75

Fandango7 Comments

FFFCWelcome to “Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge.” Each week I will be posting a photo I grab off the internet and challenge bloggers to write a flash fiction piece or a poem inspired by the photo. There are no style or word limits.

The image below is from Google Hub Photo Frame.EB006804-9C87-410F-8D1F-D1F635DCAF37For the visually challenged writer, the image shows a landscape with scattered fir trees growing on dirt and clay-covered hills.

If this week’s image inspires you and you wish to participate, please write your post, use the tag #FFFC, and link back to this post. I hope it will generate some great posts.

Thanks to all of you who have participated in these challenges. Your posts have been very creative. Please take a few minutes to read the other responses to this photo challenge.

Please create a pingback to this post or manually add your link in the comments.

FOWC with Fandango — Equivocate

Fandango15 Comments

FOWCWelcome to July 20, 2020 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “equivocate.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.