First thing this morning, at 7:00, I deleted 87 comments that had made their way to my spam folder while I was asleep.
At 6:00 tonight, 11 hours later, this is what I found:
That’s right. 207 new spam comments in eleven hours! Those spammers love my blog.
Sadje asked an interesting question today. She asked, “Does writing need to have a purpose?”
My short answer, which is actually more of a question, is doesn’t everything we do need to have a purpose? If not, why would we do it?
But let’s stick with the topic of writing. And for purposes of this post, I’m using “writing” and “blogging” as synonyms because almost all of my writing is for my blog.
My purposes for writing are several. First and foremost, I enjoy writing. It satisfies my need to occupy my time doing something I enjoy. Another purpose is to keep my mind sharp. Blogging does that by offering challenging prompts to exercise my brain and to stimulate my imagination. At my advanced age, I need to do everything I can to keep my brain active and my synapses firing.
And finally, blogging enables me to be part of a worldwide community of other bloggers. And in these times of social distancing, being able to interact with others who enjoy writing and blogging is, to me, priceless.
Frank, aka PCGuy, has published another one of his Truthful Tuesday posts, and this week Frank wants to know…
When it comes to movies, do you prefer watching them in the comfort of your own home, or would you rather go to a theater?
If we could go back in time to 2019, my answers would unequivocally be a movie theater. But it’s 2021 now and it’s been more than a year and a half since I last set foot in a movie theater. COVID is not under control. Infections and hospitalizations are on the rise. I’ll be damned if I want to go to a crowded movie theater and be surrounded by a bunch of potentially unvaccinated, unmasked people.
I’ll take the comfort — and safety — of my own home, thank you.
“Dad, do you remember a few years back when we read The Hobbit?” Stevie asked his father as they were walking toward his father’s office in the center of Laketown. It was Take Your Kid to Work Day and Stevie was thrilled to be spending the day with his dad. Whenever anyone asked him what his father did for work, Stevie would hem and haw and mutter something about how his father talked with people on the phone and worked at his computer, but he had no idea what his dad actually did at work all day long.
“Yes, Stevie, of course I remember,” his father said. “You loved that book. Why do you ask?”
“The dragon,” Stevie said. “Smaug, right?” Stevie grabbed his father’s hand and squeezed it tight.
“Yes, Stevie, the dragon’s name was Smaug.”
“What happened to Smaug, Dad?”
“Don’t you remember?” Stevie’s father said. “Bard the Bowman learned of Smaug’s one weak spot, a bare patch on the dragon’s belly and with his last arrow, Bard killed Smaug by shooting his arrow into that spot.”
Stevie looked at his father and said, “I think the bowman missed and Smaug survived.”
“Why would you say that, Stevie?”
Stevie pointed to the top of the building in which his father worked. “Because I think Smaug is perched on the top of your office building and he looks pretty angry.”
Written for Sadje’s What Do You See? prompt. photo credit: Sean Thomas @ Unsplash.
It’s time for my weekly Story Starter prompt. Here’s how it works. Every Tuesday morning (my time), I’m going to give you an incomplete “teaser” sentence and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to build a story (prose or poetry) around that partial sentence. It doesn’t have to be the first sentence in your story, and you don’t even have to use it in your post at all if you don’t want to. The purpose of the teaser is simply to spark your imagination and to get your storytelling juices flowing
This week’s Story Starter teaser is:
If you care to write and post a story built on this teaser, be sure to link back to this post and to tag your post with #FSS. I would also encourage you to read and enjoy what your fellow bloggers do with this teaser.
And most of all, have fun.
