A Jekyll and Hyde Kind of Day by Maria L. Berg 2023
If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I’m responding to Fear is a Monster.
Today really has been a monster, one of those days when nothing works and everything is a pain and takes way longer than it should. It was the hottest October seventh on record here. My neighbors said there was a boat crash right outside, but I didn’t see it. I was too busy fighting with my computer that kept freezing up.
But I guess it was a Hyde to Jekyll kind of day because once I finally made my filters and finished my poem, I went for a swim, and the lake felt so refreshing. And now, after diving in a couple more times and taking a shower, it feels like all those little things going wrong weren’t so bad. And I have to keep reminding myself, there’s no rush and no pressure, these posts are for inspiration.
For today’s images, I played Andy Warhol but instead of soup cans and Marilyn Monroe, I used images from classic horror movies, made transparency filters, and used them with the mirror balls.
OctPoWriMo 2023: Facing Our Fears
The square form is a real challenge but it’s so fun. Don’t forget to read it from top to bottom and left to right. 😁
This fall is Jekyll and Hyde fall brings chill, still today grinds is chill the calm when his Jekyll still calm brings the wild and today when the heat’s sharp Hyde grinds his wild sharp fangs
The Monster by Maria L. Berg 2023
Writober 2023
Logline: An alien visits Earth believing the inhabitants have been making homages to his kind as an invitation, but he finds his visit very disappointing.
microfiction: I was sent to Earth as a representative of my people. We believed that we were revered, even worshiped on that planet after a reconnaissance mission brought back images of huge structures in our image that the Earthlings spend most of their time in, and small statues of us used by many in silent meditation.
I’m avoiding reporting back. Our misunderstanding is embarrassing and will look very bad for our leaders. But that’s not the real problem. The problem with my mission to Earth is these beings won’t stop touching my head. I’ve told them it hurts; that it’s very rude; that they are doing it wrong; but they just keep twisting and twisting my squares. It’s a horrible feeling to have my eye and mouth squares moving here and there outside my control. And why are their hands always so sticky?
Fear of Monsters: Use a traditional Halloween monster in a metaphor. For example, “The world is a vampire,” the great opening line of The Smashing Pumpkins song “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.” Open your poem with your metaphor and develop it throughout your poem.
Today’s image prompt is “Design Committee” by Aaron Jasinski. Is this an actual monster or a delusion? Are those all its hands, or the horror of others manipulating its structure?
Halloween Photography Challenge
Today’s prompt “Monster” can be any kind of monster. You may think of the classic movie monsters, or the evil that lurks in humans turning us into monsters. So many fun possibilities.
Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
RIP XVIII
Here is Laura De Bernardi’s response for OctPoWriMo:
If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I’m responding to In the Twilight.
For today’s images, I used a star-shaped filter in the mirrorworld and used a lot of patience with the panoramic function on my camera to create my own twilight.
OctPoWriMo 2023: Facing Our Fears
Watch Where You Step
Cracks Cracks Cracks all those pavement cracks perils to mothers’ backs a miracle they weren’t all in traction with so many children walking around
~whoever came up with that~
must have lived somewhere with nice sidewalks without roots breaking through where there’s more crack than pavement and with every step those backs Crack, Crack Crack
Twilight Time by Maria L. Berg 2023
Writober 2023
Logline: Two sisters fight over which head to wear to the funeral.
This One Cries Too Much
Miranda threw her purse strap over her shoulder and rushed for the door expecting her sister to already be in the car, but then she saw her sitting in the living room stiff in her chair, her head next to her on the table. Miranda stopped and watched her a moment, but she didn’t move.
“Come on Moira. What are you doing? We can’t be late for our own parents’ funeral. Sitting there moping won’t bring them back.”
The head on the table looked up at her. “I don’t want to wear this one. It cries too much. It won’t stop. It’s giving me a head ache. Give me that one.”
Miranda pushed down on the top of her head as if it might jump right off her neck. “No. We had a deal. You wear that one to the funeral and then you can have this one for that party you want to go to.”
“I don’t care what we said. I’m not putting that back on. I don’t want to cry anymore.” Moira’s body stood up and took the head from the table and shoved it at her sister.
I’ve noticed a bit of a drop-off already. I hope it’s not because you’re not enjoying the prompts. Please let me know if there’s something you would like me to change. Be brutally honest; I can take it. I’m doing this because I love these challenges and don’t want them to end. I find fall as exciting as spring if not more innovative creatively, so please let me know what I can do to keep you inspired. Some people have mentioned that there are problems with linking and/or putting poems in the chat, so if you would like to email your poem, flash fictions, or photo to mariaberg@experiencewriting.com, I’ll update the prompt post and include them.
OctPoWriMo 2023: Facing Our Fears
Childhood Fears: Write about something you were really scared of as a kid that seems silly now. Write as your child self warning your adult self, and/or your adult self explaining what you know now to your young frightened self.
This might work well with the Puente (bridge) form. Here is a Puente I wrote in 2020:
When Concept Comes to Form
straight to work her hands hurry with nervous impatience each step clear she feels the possibilities
~when concept comes to form~
she sees the intolerable specks of dust inside the lens glaring in the light but they are her signature they are evidence of honesty
Today’s image prompt is Untitled, by Monika Mostowik. Is this how the scene looked when your character entered the room, or had they been in conversation only a moment ago?
Halloween Photography Challenge
This is the second new this year prompt that syncs up with A. Rich Writing‘s Writober prompts, so you may want to find more inspiration over there.
Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
RIP XVIII
Hi Maria,
What an AMAZING job you are doing. Thanks for your personal response to me. I hope this is okay! Warmly, Laura De Bernardi (from ModPo)
Mont Blanc is shrinking
so is the planet Mercury
I hear, I’m getting smaller
too, at a faster pace I fear
My ego barks, I matter -
but I think they matter
more.
In the scheme of things,
a mountain, a planet,
a climate system,
all matter vastly
more.
Or, does it matter
if I cannot endure
for much longer?
And, does it matter
if humanity too is
staring at its own
end game?
Why does persistence
existence matter
so much?
What's so wrong
with endings...
If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I’m responding to Every Word a Treat.
For today’s images, I used two of my filters from last year with my mirror balls in the new pool noodles on the lake. It’s a gorgeous day today, so I treated myself to a walk while treating the grass to a mow and my body to a lot of exercise while treating my ears to the fabulous voice actor Sean Crisden reading Big Machine by Victor LaValle.
OctPoWriMo 2023: Facing Our Fears
I didn’t choose to use the suggested form today because today’s prompt is a difficult fear for me to face, and the fact that I got something down at all is a very good thing. Later, as in the end of the month or years from now, I may work it into a rondeau, but not today.
When the Wind Blows ~When the wind blows, and the mothers talk~Tears for Fears
The hurricane will take everything love, home, people, pets and all the years of collected objects and the flood it leaves brings disease and rats and poisonous snakes mold and rot and pollution spoils the soil which continues to destroy
But then come the judgers the ones who believe and choose to say They deserved it through human behaviors they label sin the victims who died and those who survived were thus known to God and He had had enough
Somehow the condemners skip the story of Abraham and the end of Noah forget the story of Job and cling to Gomorrah including everyone in most of a state in their hate so they can believe they are better that there was a reason that God wouldn’t do that to them approves of them
That’s why I’m afraid of tornadoes they take away the anonymity of the many destroyed cities bringing God’s finger down on one house, but skipping the next flattening one side of the street yet jumping the other sucking up one cow, one tractor, one truck and tossing it into the next town That swirling, violent finger is personal
Candy Apples by Maria L. Berg 2023
Writober 2023
Logline: A woman going through the change catches fire while dancing in the sand with the ocean licking her feet.
You know what’s weird fun, is when I picked that image, I hadn’t thought about the possibility of it being a real horror—more supernatural—but knowing a hot-flash with hormone unpredictability; I can imagine salt-water dancing leading to that. 🥵😃
microstory: After making the terrifying decision to quit her job at fifty-two and reach for her dream, Nariana went to the beach to let off steam. She danced in the waves like no one was watching, and since it was October no one was when she set aflame.
Today’s OctPoWriMo prompt got me thinking about weather horror movies to watch today. I woke up to a thick fog outside so I thought of The Fog and The Mist. And my poem made me think of Twister.
Klecksography in the Mirrorworld by Maria L. Berg 2022Jack-o-acorn by Maria L. Berg 2021
OctPoWriMo 2023: Facing Our Fears
Fear of natural disasters: For today’s poem think of the extreme weather that scares you the most (You don’t have to have experienced it). Why is it the most frightening? Imagine experiencing this weather event. Write about all of your sensory experiences. Is this weather event a metaphor for something else you are afraid of?
Today’s suggested form is a Rondeau. Check out “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar for an example of a Rondeau.
Today’s image prompt is another character; this time a dancer. Fire in water is something that I find horrifying like burning buildings in a flood.
Halloween Photography Challenge
The images at the top of this post are the photos I took for “Treat” in 2021 and 2022. In 2021 I was about to treat myself to making squash soup and put a bokeh jack-o-lantern face on the squash. In 2022 I created an inkblot bokeh filter. Come back later today to see how I treat “treat” this year.
Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
For today’s images, I found the filters I made last year and played with the fairy lights in the mirrorworld. It was sunny outside, so I also took some pictures with mirrorballs in the yard.
OctPoWriMo
I really enjoyed the Villanelle form with this prompt.
When You’re Feeling Afraid
When you’re feeling afraid close your eyes and breathe and it all goes away
Sometimes the dark plays tricks that you see when you’re feeling afraid
but shine a light’s rays on the things that can’t be and it all goes away
Sometimes a foggy day gives you the creeps when you’re feeling afraid
but the sun soon will break through and beauty reveal and it all goes away
Sometimes you can’t evade the monsters all set free when you’re feeling afraid
but each can be slayed just attack where they’re weak and they all go away
Don’t let fear stay on long lonely nights when you’re feeling afraid know it all goes away
A Trick with Mirrors by Maria L. Berg 2023
Writober
Logline: A man in a very strange suit appears in the yard, but after confronting him to find out what he’s doing, I wonder if he is a man at all.
Something in the Air
I was at the kitchen sink washing lettuce for my salad lunch when the bright yellow of his suit caught my eye. His huge bulbous middle bounced up and down as he walked across my back yard head down as if searching for something. After searching back and forth, covering every inch of the grass, he looked up. Looked right at me. Or at least it seemed like it. I couldn’t see his eyes through the dark lenses in the mask that covered his whole head. His mouth was long like a muzzle ending in a perforated disk like a shower head or a watering can. I should have been scared or irritated, but I was too curious.
I left the lettuce in the sink and flung the back door open. “Hey!” I yelled. “What are you doing in my yard? And what’s with the crazy outfit?”
He said something, but through his crazy mask all I heard was Wah wa wah wah like an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon. He pointed at the ground by his feet. All I saw where he pointed was my grass.
“I can’t understand you. Could you take off that mask?”
He shook his head. He pointed up and then down at the ground again.
“Look buddy. If you won’t take off that ridiculous contraption and give me a good reason for being in my yard, you’re going to have to leave.”
Today’s prompt was adapted from a prompt in The Poets & Writers Complete Guide to Being a Writer called “Help Yourself.” It says that the trick to reaching goals is to give advice to others. So with the goal of facing our fears write a poem that gives advice about how to face fear in general, or a specific fear, or fears.
To keep this advice in the form of a poem, you may want to try a Villanelle.
Today’s visual prompt is another scary character. Is this just a suit, or a strange creature in a suit? If it is just a suit, why is someone wearing it? What does it protect against? What does it do?
Halloween Photography Challenge
The image I made for “trick” last year was an experiment with printed transparencies. I still haven’t mastered this technique and want to do more with it, but I’m not sure what trick I’ll use today.
Link your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
For today’s images, I played with some rubber bats I found at the Grocery Outlet. They are supposed to stick to any surface by the little rubber discs under their wings. They don’t, but I still like them.
OctPoWriMo
My Sad Heart Circles with the Bat
I don’t remember the sound of the giant fir falling falling across the end of my driveway tearing tearing down the power lines or being pulled pulled by the others that fell further down down it fell unbelievably safely without blocking blocking the road or causing harm, and I
I don’t remember when the power went out outside the neighbors began the work working their chainsaws through the limbs limbs that had been so high in the sky I I hadn’t seen what had made them into homes homes now shattered on the pavement where I
I don’t remember what woke me that morning that morning of shock that I hadn’t heard the sound the sound of the falling crashing giant fir and I I wondered how I didn’t feel the earth shake in response response to such a devastating loss when I
I don’t remember the violent, powerful wind wind like that must have shook the house the house that usually howls when wind blows blows through the giant firs and the seal-less panes panes that have shattered in lesser storms storms that have never taken down a giant fir before when I
I don’t remember when my father arrived arrived with his chainsaw to join with the clearing clearing away what was tree now is wood wood discussed and doled out to the neighbors neighbors who acted as one without words words would have only slowed down the action and I
I don’t remember the exact time I came in inside the house when the clean up was done done to even my father’s satisfaction, but I was surprised surprised at the time because it was still morning morning had clung to the day like sweat to our limbs —limbs were where all of this unmemory began and I
I don’t remember when I first noticed the bat the bat that passed each of my windows as I sat sat staring and wondering how I hadn’t heard heard the wind or the falling of the giant fir giant fir tree that the bat was also grieving grieving he circled we circled still living
Today is also Poetics at dVerse Poets Pub. Kim from writinginnorthnorfolk.com provided an exciting prompt befitting the season that she called “Dead Poets Society”. The prompt is to respond to a dead poet’s poem. She supplied three fabulous poems to choose from. I chose the one I hadn’t read before, When I’m among a Blaze of Lightsby Siegfried Sassoon 1886 (Matfield, Kent) – 1967 (Heytesbury, Wiltshire).
When I Think of Darkened Haunts
When I think of darkened haunts with jukebox leaners and oldies crooners and sweaty oglers slurring taunts and the dejected rejects in life-ruiners, Sometimes I remember more sequined wants and feel this life’s lacunas
Your dream of a glowing space alone with books to keep as friends is where I live and call my home and each full day safely ends Though a bit of me, it longs for night and the dangerous within it the rest of me in fear takes flight content with my reading chair’s fit
Kitchy Bats in the Kitchen
Writober
Logline: A young musician nervous about a musician searches for an easy way to be great, because he doesn’t believe that practice is enough.
To Have What It Takes
Jonah threw his bow to the floor, and instantly regretted it. He put his cello in its travel case then gently lifted his bow. “I’m sorry,” he said, loosened the tension and secured it in its place in the case. There was no more time. He had to leave for his audition. His last chance. He couldn’t take another rejection and there was nowhere left to reject him. If he didn’t get this, his life as he dreamed it was over. With his grandfather’s cello over his shoulder, he looked at his filthy closet apartment and sighed. Then he turned all the locks and trudged down the stairs.
Of course it was raining. A cold drizzle mingled with his nervous sweat made him sticky and moist. His hand-me-down suit couldn’t have felt more uncomfortable, his pant legs twisting between his thighs as he hurried to the subway station, his cello bumping and aggravating the people he passed.
The platform was crowded, but as he waited, trying to visualize his perfect performance, he felt entirely alone. And in his personal life, he was. Farhad, the last of his friends, had stopped calling after he blew off his wedding because he was practicing. He had texted two days later on his honeymoon just to say, “Practice isn’t making you perfect.” And that was the last he had heard from anyone. Music was his only friend, and even his cello had betrayed him.
I hope you’re having as much fun as I am. See you tomorrow!
Feeling Batty by Maria L. Berg 2021Bat on the Blood Moon by Maria L. Berg 2022
OctPoWriMo 2023: Facing Our Fears
by Cara Hartley / Ornery Owl
Cara Hartley, a.k.a. Ornery Owl, who joins us from Dark Hearts Love Too on blogspot made the lovely banner above and offered it for use with our posts.
Today’s prompt explores how fear affects memory. Think about something scary that happened. Now, list everything you don’t remember about it. Write a poem about these specific things that you do not remember.
Today’s suggested form is a Loop Poetry. Here’s a Loop Poem I wrote for OctPoWriMo 2020:
Harmonic Old Friends
How, why and when would I separate, separate my heart from my head? Head and heart are best in union growing, growing wiser and stronger together. Together they temper, soar and explore, explore comfortable silences and raucous noise, noise that one can feel and one can pattern to music, music through symphonic union framed. Framed intention joins both to focus, focus the tether from depth to apex point, point out each other’s strengths and faults, faults that push and buckle to creation, creation of quakes or volcanic eruptions, eruptions of ecstatic insights ripe with feeling. Feeling inspires thought and they sing together.
Flash fiction is a great way to experiment with different writing techniques, characters, settings, and subjects. I spent some time looking back over my posts from October 2020 because that year I put in links to journals that publish flash fiction. I found this interesting Judges Report for a flash fiction contest at Reflex Fiction in 2022. The judge’s thoughts are followed by the three winning entries. Tonight He’s Alive; Cuffing Season; and Sharps. Each of these flash stories shows a unique approach to writing flash fiction.
Today’s image prompt is “Dirge” by Ian Llanas. This image introduces another interesting and frightening character, a musician.
Halloween Photography Challenge
The images at the top of this post are the photos I took for “Bats” in 2021 and 2022. For both of the images I used the same sheer fabric with bats in it: the first year as a head covering, and the second as a bokeh filter. This year, I’ll try something else batty.
Please link to your creations in the comments. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.
RIP XVIII
I picked up some DVDs of horror movies I hadn’t seen from my local library. Nightmare Cinema was a pleasant surprise. It’s an anthology with five stories by five different directors. I really appreciated the unexpected reversal on a slasher in the first segment.
Experience Writing 