Day: September 27, 2021

Get Your Act Together

Fandango19 Comments

“This is it,” Beth said, tears streaming from her cheeks. “I told you that the next time you came home inebriated that I would leave you. You promised me that you would quit drinking, but now I’m calling your bluff. I’m packing my bags, grabbing the kids, and going back to live with my parents.”

“I’m sorry, Beth,” Kevin said. “The guys were celebrating the 300 game David bowled at league night. Everyone was toasting David. You can’t blame me for joining in. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

“Your promises are worthless. Too little, too late. Kevin,” Beth said. “You need to make a major adjustment in your life and I don’t think you’re capable of adjusting.”

“Shoot, Beth, won’t you give me one more chance?” Kevin pleaded. “If not for me, for the sake of the kids. Please.”

“Kevin, you are truly clueless,” Beth said. “I would have been amenable to making this work if you had agreed to counseling or to going to AA meetings, but you stubbornly refused, claiming you could resist alcohol’s temptation on your own, but clearly you can’t.”

“Beth, please,” Kevin cried.

“You need help, Kevin,” Beth said sternly. “You need to get your act together. Prove to me that you can do that and maybe we can reconcile down the road. Until then, I’m outta here.”

Written for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (inebriated/late), Ragtag Daily Prompt (bluff/amenable), The Daily Spur (bowl/shoot), My Vivid Blog (blame/temptation), Word of the Day Challenge (adjustment/clueless)

Share Your World — 9/27/21

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This is Melanie’s last Share Your World prompt for September 2021. That means we are about to enter the fourth and final quarter of the year. My oh my how quickly time flies. Anyway, let’s get to it.

1. What’s your favorite way to exercise? (If you do or don’t. Exercising one’s mind is a valid answer IMHO, because that’s my favorite).

In my old age, I live a rather sedentary lifestyle. I suppose, body-wise, my most common form of exercise these days is going on briskly-paced walks with my wife. And mind-wise, reading and blogging is how I attempt to exercise my brain.

2. What’s more important to you – family or friends?

Friends are important, but family is most important. At least to me.

3. Have you ever voted for someone (in whatever venue – politics, contests, school elections) based solely on how they looked?

Other than voting for my favorite contestant in a wet T-shirt contest during a spring break in Ft. Lauderdale when I was in college, which was many decades ago, my votes are way more than skin deep.

4. (silly one) How could carousels be spiced up so they are more exciting?

First, make it adults only (i.e., 18 or over) and second, require everyone to shed their clothing before getting on the carousel. That would make it more exciting. Or possibly more frightening!

Blogging Insights — My Audience

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Dr. Tanya has decided to change things up a bit for her weekly Blogging Insights prompt. Instead of using the Q&A format, she provides us with a quote about blogging or writing and ask us to express our opinion about said quote.

This week’s quote is from Margaret Atwood, a Canadian poet and novelist probably best known for her book, The Handmaid’s Tale.

“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”

This week Tanya follows up the quote with the question, “Who do you write for? Yourself, your readers, or posterity?”

My answer is yes, I write for myself, for my audience, and for posterity.

When I first started blogging in 2005, I primarily wrote for myself. It was a way for me to get my thoughts out “on paper.” My blog allowed me to express my thought, opinions, and perspectives. I was primarily writing for myself, with little expectation that anyone else would read my posts.

And very few people did during my first eight years of blogging at Blogger and TypePad. Then I moved my blog to WordPress in 2013 and suddenly I found an audience. Or they found me. After two years on WordPress, I had acquired close to 3,000 followers and was getting lots of daily views, likes, and comments. I was thrilled to be writing not just for me, but for an accepting and appreciative global audience as well.

In the spring of 2015, for personal reasons, I abruptly shut down my blog. I still wrote, but my writings were for my eyes only. Then, in the spring of 2017, I returned to blogging with this blog. And, once again, I found an audience of other bloggers who seemed to like and comment on my posts.

I still write for myself in order to share my thoughts and to exercise my imagination through flash fiction. But I also write for other bloggers by hosting a handful of writing prompts aimed at inspiring them to write on their own blogs. And I love writing for my audience of readers and my almost 4,800 followers — some of whom actually read my posts.

But I am also writing for posterity. I hope that after I’m gone, my children and grandchildren will have something to remember me by, a means of knowing what my thoughts, my opinions, and my perspectives on issues of the day were. And that they might enjoy some of the tales I wove in my flash fiction posts. I hope they will love reading my posts as much as I love writing them.

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #137

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Welcome to Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge. Each week I will be posting a photo I grab off the internet and challenging 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 Sarolta Bán Photography.

For the visually challenged writer, the surrealistic image shows a man and a boy walking among large trees that are crowned with paint brushes with bristles covered in white paint dripping from the clouds above.

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.

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

FOWC with Fandango — Inebriated

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FOWC

Welcome to September 27, 2021 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “inebriated.”

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.