Final Days Of 2017 Day 4: Two Of One Or One Of Two

dragon sticker ornament

This is an ornament I made myself. If you look closely, you may recognize the Victor Bilibin image I used for the back of my handmade Tarot cards.Koscej Nesmrtni by Ivan Bilibin

This ornament was made as an example of a simple craft one could do with stickers. For this one, I took 5 rectangular stickers and placed a piece of Seahawks ribbon in the center. Each sticker is folded in half and attached to two other stickers. When the stickers are all stuck together, the outer edge can be cut into a desired shape. In this example, a ball.

Though this example is not very Christmasy and was hastily (and shabbily) constructed. The concept is sound and a fun craft to do with kids. Maybe I’ll make some nicer ones for the tree this year.

#vss very short story

Harper couldn’t figure out why her mother kept saying decapitated dragons didn’t belong on the Christmas tree. Ever since she learned the story of St. George and the dragon, she was pretty sure decapitated dragons belonged everywhere.

Today’s Poetry Prompt and Poem

Today, I’m between examining my poems from the PAD Chapbook Challenge and getting my prompts for MoSt New Year’s Poetry Challenge, so I chose a prompt from Poets on the Page. This prompt from Morgan Dragonwillow felt appropriate for today:

What inspires you?

What keeps me going, keeps me writing poetry? It is to understand life, to see it through the lens of my words, to see where they will lead.

What keeps you going?

Prompts:

What was the last photo you captured? Write for ten minutes about the photo. What emotion does it convey? What draws you in?

Word Prompts:

Inspiring
flow
capture
camera

This prompt inspired me to go out and take some pictures and I am so glad I did. The light was perfect!

Two Of One Or One Of Two

Inspiring reflection
Attempts to capture light
Ever changing in natures flow

I stand at the horizon
Neither above nor below
Feeling the vast distance the light travels

Water and sky meet in light
Mirroring mountains, clouds and trees
I see soundscapes in the patterns

Frequencies imagined by my inner ear
To hear the music of the mountain and the trees
Joined by the light on the water through clouds formed by water in the sky

Editing Focus

Inspired by: Revision And Self-Editing (Write Great Fiction) by James Scott Bell

Take a look at each of your minor characters. Make sure they are each unique with their own voice and visual distinction.

For each minor character, ask:

  • What is his purpose in the story?
  • What audio-visual markers can I attach to her?
  • How can I make each marker more unique or memorable?
  • What plot possibilities–a twist, a revelation of my protagonist, a setup, a premonition, a mood–does the character offer?
  • How can the character irritate my protagonist? Or help her in a unique fashion?

#FlashFicHive

For yesterday’s challenge, I worked on a couple of ideas for the 53-Word Story Contest over at Prime Number Magazine. The theme for the month is: A story about a box. I will be brainstorming more stories around this idea. And will post the best lines from the non-entrants for the retweet swarm today.

FlashFIC day4

graphic by Anjela Curtis

Today’s themes are:

SICK ✨ RUN ✨ STRONG ✨ TWINKLE ✨ FED UP ✨ PROTAG’S BIGGEST FEAR

monday writing events

graphic by Mica Scotti Kole

Don’t Forget To Read!

Reading short stories is a great way to get some reading in when you’re feeling short on time. I’m enjoying a couple different short story collections this month:
Five-Carat Soul by James McBride
and
The Best of Talebones edited by Patrick Swenson

What short story collections are you reading? Do you like a short story collection you would like to recommend?

Happy Reading and Writing!

October Pairings (#OctPairs): Movies & Drinking Games

happy-halloween1

My Halloween card from last year. Please print it out and put it on the fridge as some Halloween love from me! But watch out! The pumpkin bites!

Since we paired books and candy last week, I thought we’d pair movies again. And what’s better than watching scary movies with friends and playing drinking games? (Doing a wooden jigsaw puzzle at the same time? Maybe.)
drinking gamesA while back, a friend of mine gave me the book Drinking Games by Terry Burrows. I thought I’d look at the games and pair them with Halloween movies.
The games in the book are organized into four sections: Words, Actions, Cards and Dice & Coins. Since I’m not into props while watching movies, let’s see if we can’t find pairs for Words and Action games.

I’ve linked the names of the movies to where you can stream them on amazon. It costs around $2.99. So if you get really excited and want to start right now, just click on the link of the movie you want and start playing.

Words

      1. Initial Thoughts: To play this game, one player asks a question. In our emily roseversion, let’s say the question has to be about the movie or Halloween, and each player has to give a two word answer. The two words have to start with their initials. Example: If the question was What will they find in the woods? My answer could be Many Bones where Frank Clark might answer Feral Cats and Earl Thomas might answer Eagle Talons (my first thought was Eager Tyrannosaurs, but I wasn’t planning on pairing with Jurassic Park). If a player can’t answer within five seconds, they have to drink and come up with the next question. This game will most likely go well with any scary movie. Since it’s about the players’ names, I think I’ll pair it with The Exorcism of Emily Rose. You might come up with a new rule like if you can’t think of an answer with your own initials you can use E. R.
      2. rhyme or reason: This looks like another fun one that can be adapted tonightmare on elm our Halloween fun. The first player says a word, for our purposes, let’s say it has to be a word that has to do with the movie. The next person clockwise in the circle must either come up with a word that rhymes or one that describes what it does. Example: I say “axe” then Doug Baldwin says “chops” so then Russell Wilson can say either “cops” or “feeds”.  If a player can’t come up with a word that works, it’s time to drink and come up with the next word. I think I would pair this game with A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) because of that creepy nursery rhyme.

PiranhaActions

  1. fish face: Each player selects the name of a fish and lets the other players know their type of fish. No two players can be the same fish. The first player says, “I’m a (says their fish name); you’re a (someone else’s fish name). That player repeats the phrase saying their fish name and then choosing another fish in the group. Players have to talk without showing their teeth. If anyone gives the glimpse of a tooth, they have to drink.

For obvious reasons, I would pair this game with Piranha [Roger Corman’s Cult Classics].  Though if you want to expand the rules to include sharks, you could pair it with Jaws or Sharknado.

2. drinking with the simpsons: Most of the drinking games I found online were like this one. In the book version, you watch an episode of The Simpsons. The rules are simple: you take a drink any time a list of things are said or done. There are games like this for lots of scary movies. You can find one for Halloween at Film Drunkies tumblr and cheezburger.com promises The Ultimate HalloweenHalloween the movie drinking game. And here’s a post that says it’s The Official Drinking Game For Every Horror/Slasher Film. You could try it with every Scream movie or the entire Friday the 13th series.
Another online game with “drink when” rules is for Hocus Pocus. POPHANGOVER.com professes to having The Ultimate Hocus Pocus drinking game.hocus pocus
Drinkwhen.ca has this style of drinking game for a lot of great Halloween movies from classics like The Shining and The Silence of the Lambs to newer greats like Get Out and What We Do in the Shadows. As you can see there is a game for every Halloween movie.
But what if you are trying to get fit and don’t want to drink beverages all night? I even found a game for you. Over at POPSUGAR Fitness they came up with a horror movie game where they linked things that happen in horror movies to exercises. I think I might try this for my workouts the next couple weeks.

I hope you enjoy trying some of these fun October Pairings this Halloween season. If/When you’re on Twitter, please head over to #OctPairs and share some of your favorite October Pairings.

 

*I apologize that this did not get out last night as planned, but my power went out and stayed out for over 16 hours.