Day: October 24, 2022

His Day in Court

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Gary felt as if he were free-falling, heading straight for the sidewalk below him when he awoke from his nightmare just before he splattered all over the concrete.

He sat up in bed, his sheets soaked by his sweat. He got up and went to his bathroom to wash his face with cold water and to get his bearings. Today was his day in court, and Gary was facing charges for having hatched an intricate scheme to take money from his gullible older clients by claiming he was an aficionado in the area of valuable antiquities.

Unfortunately, in some seemingly arbitrary case of bad luck, one of Gary’s victims happened to be a true expert in antiques and quickly realized that he and Gary’s other elderly clients had been duped. The man called the authorities and Gary was arrested.

Gary was out on bail, but as he stood in the bathroom looking at his reflection in the mirror, he sensed that his dream was a portend of what would happen during the trial.

Written for these daily prompts: E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (free-fall), Your Daily Word Prompt (concrete), The Daily Spur (bathroom), Ragtag Daily Prompt (intricate), Fandango’s One Word Challenge (aficionado), and Word of the Day Challenge (arbitrary).

TMP — People

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Every Monday, Paula Light, with her The Monday Peeve prompt, gives us an opportunity to vent or rant about something that pisses us off. My peeve today is: WTF is wrong with people?

Halloween is one week from today and people of all ages are getting ready to celebrate Halloween by going to parties, dressing in costumes, and going trick-or-treating.

Well, apparently not everyone. Not, at least, the people who live in this house:

WTF is wrong with people?

Blogging Insights — Definition of Blogging

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It’s Monday and Dr. Tanya is back with her weekly Blogging Insights prompt. She provides us with a quote about blogging or writing and asks us to express our opinion about said quote.

This week’s quote is from Michael Coniff. I Googled Michael Coniff and there are quite a few, but I think this quote probably came from the Michael Coniff who is a writer and producer.

“Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining ‘Blog’ is a fool’s errand.”

I think this quote is accurate, but I also think, if one is going to take a stab at defining what a blog is, the better question is how to define a good blog. So I’m going to give my opinion about what attributes make a good blog.

  • Posts should be well written, with a minimum number of typos, misspellings, and usage, grammatical, and punctuation errors. Proofreading is a must!
  • Post should engage the reader by being compelling, interesting, and, if appropriate, witty.
  • Posts should inform or educate, but in an entertaining way.
  • Posts should be easy to read. No post should require a reader to go to the dictionary or thesaurus to understand what the writer is saying.
  • Posts should tell a story, even if it’s non-fiction, because stories get the reader engaged.
  • Posts should have some visuals, like photos, videos, drawings, or something that illustrates or amplifies the text.
  • Variety is the spice of life, they say. I believe that a good blog demonstrates variety in the posts, from prose to poetry, fiction to non-fiction, serious or humorous, or anything that keeps the reader from getting bored by the same old stuff post after post.
  • Bloggers should post on a consistent basis, whether daily, weekly, or even monthly. Unfortunately, when it comes to blogging, out of sight, out of mind.
  • And finally, the best posts, in my opinion, are those that demonstrate that the blogger has a passion for writing.

What do you think constitute a good blog?

Share Your World — 10/24/2022

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Share Your World

It’s time for another Share Your World Series of questions. Di, at Pensitivity101, is once again sitting in for Melanie. Thanks, Di. Anyway, let’s get right to it, okay?

1. How organized are you? Do you plan ahead, take things as they come, or does it depend on the circumstances?

It depends on the circumstances, but if I lean one way or the other, I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of guy than I am a heavy-duty plan ahead type. My wife, on the other hand is definitely the plan ahead type.

2. How many Christmas presents have you bought already?

Sheesh, it’s not even Halloween yet. Are you kidding me with this question?

3. Do you prefer a family gathering for special occasions, or just you and your significant other?

I prefer just me and my wife. My wife prefers family gatherings and she’s thinking about hosting Thanksgiving at our place for about 15 people. See, I told you she’s the plan ahead type.

4. How many words do you think your pet understands?

Based upon the way our dog listens to our commands, I’d say she doesn’t understand a word we say.

Please share a gratitude meme for your readers.

I am not exactly a Houston Astros fan, but as a fan of the Boston Red Sox, I am grateful to the Astros for sweeping the New York Yankees in four games last night. As a result, the Yankees, the team I love to hate, will not play in the 2022 World Series.

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #190

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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 Santiago Mejia at chronicle.com.

For the visually challenged writer, the photo shows a man using a hydraulic forklift to pull a pallet of bundles of folded cardboard for recycling.

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.