Tag: #writingchallenge

Posted in Flash Fiction

Right Place, Right Time

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“Janice, you did it again,” Stan cried.

“I’m sorry, Stan,” Janice said. “I didn’t mean to overfill the cup.”

Stan, the cook, was thinking that he was going to have to fire Janice. She just was not a good waitress.

The diner was full for lunch. Many professional people grabbed lunch at Stan’s Diner and he liked for his service to be impeccable. Janice was sloppy with her work, but she was not an experienced waitress. He was just giving her a chance because she couldn’t find any other job.

Meanwhile, Janice was embarrassed. She really needed this job. She was serving a woman in a booth alone. She was so nervous, afraid she would do something wrong. Suddenly, the woman she was serving spoke to her.

“Young woman, could I speak with you?”

“Yes,” Janice replied.

“Is this your chosen career?”

“No. I was an English major in college and can’t find a job.”

“I’m a writer,” the woman said. “Why don’t we talk about you working for me?”

Janice started to smile.

 

174 words

Posted in Non-fiction

Jiffy

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Jiffy How funny. When I went to the Daily Post to see what the “word of the day” was, this was a word I never expected to see. The word “jiffy” means a moment, even a second. Like “just give me a moment.”

When I saw the word “jiffy” this morning, I had an immediate flashback of my mother. My mother has been gone for almost 17 years. But, when I saw the word “jiffy,” I could see her standing at her kitchen sink, her back to me, and saying something like, “Supper will be ready in just a jiffy.” My mom is the only person I can ever remember using the word “jiffy” and it’s a good memory for me of her. It was nice, on this Sunday morning, to have a good picture of my mom in my head. That doesn’t happen often enough.

Interesting to me is that this is the colloquial use of the word jiffy. It is an actual unit of measurement in physics, computing, and electronics. It is a measurement of a unit of time in all three disciplines, this word that is very much used in the vernacular in the English language. Who knew?

 

Posted in #weekendcoffeeshare

#weekendcoffeeshare 8/12/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Good morning to everyone! If we were having coffee this morning, I’d ask you to meet me at our local coffee shop. It has a wonderful patio area and the owner sets up a wonderful buffet for the #weekendcoffeeshare people. Today’s offerings are the best blueberry muffins I’ve ever tasted and banana bread that I’m going to taste. He is also going to offer us bread pudding! Yes, bread pudding for breakfast which is very decadent!

There is a nice selection of tea, including a wonderful raspberry tea, along with a selection of green tea and two black teas including one called “Paris.” Coffee this morning is a regular coffee along with expresso and a nice cafe latte.

Let’s all sit down and talk! I would love to hear how each and every one of you are doing. It’s been sort of an odd weather week where I live here in Kentucky, U.S.A. It’s still rather hot during the day, but one can tell that fall is coming. The summer flowers are definitely fading. The nights are getting cool. We’ve had so much rain this summer. We’re way above our average. There is a feeling of fall in the air. September and October really dry out if it is a usual weather year. There is nothing about 2017 that has been normal about the weather here. Have you experienced the same where you live?

How has your blogging and writing been going this week? I haven’t been blogging as much as usual. That’s because I’ve been trying to finish one part of the novel I’m writing. I did finish it, but it just means I’ve now started on the next part that is the actual “meat” of the book. I hope to finish this part before I go to Florida for the winter. I’ll leave here for Florida in early November. The part of the novel I’m working on now requires about 60,000 – 70,000 words. That’s what I’m facing between now and early November! I won’t be blogging as much as usual!

The other really important thing I’m doing between now and when I leave for Florida is training my little dog, Hanna. When she came to me, she was a blank slate. No one had done anything with her. Hanna is now five months old and doesn’t even know how to walk on a leash. I’ve trained dogs before, but when they were much younger and amenable to training than Hanna. So I’m employing professional help! Hanna starts private obedience training classes on Tuesday with a very good dog trainer in my area. She will learn the basics like how to walk on a leash and socialization skills. She is so very shy. She was clearly not around people at all until she came to me. She will have as many private lessons as she needs. Then, she and I will join a puppy obedience class for more socialization and to learn the basic obedience commands. After that, if there is time, she will join an adult obedience class.

Hanna and I have work to do!

As you can see, I’m going to be busy between now and when I leave for Florida in early November.

Tell me what’s going on with all of you in the comments. You’re my friends and colleagues!

Posted in Flash Fiction

A Solitary Life

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Janice was glad to get out of the house. Her weekly trip to volunteer at the Red Cross was one of her only activities where she actually went somewhere. Not only did she feel useful there, but she had other people to talk to.

Janice had caught the city bus at the bus stop near her home. She lived alone. Janice’s husband passed away two years ago. She had little extended family and they didn’t have much interest in her. She had some friends, but she didn’t expect them to babysit her. She tried to fill her time the best she could. She didn’t even know her neighbors.

When she got to the Red Cross office, she sat down at her desk and started doing the administrative chores she was assigned. It was rewarding. As volunteers came in and out, she got to talk to her friends. One of her friends asked her to go to lunch later in the week. She happily accepted.

She took the bus back home at the end of the day and resumed her solitary existence. She was a reader, a writer, and she did beautiful needlework. She supposed it was enough.

Posted in Challenges, Writing

One Liner Wednesday

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Sixty years ago today, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing 70,000 people. A few days before, a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States, killing around 150,000 people. The plane that dropped the bomb was the Enola Gay and the Commander was Robert Lewis.

Commander Lewis said he saw Nagasaki simply disappear. When he did, he wrote one line in his journal. That line is my contribution to One Liner Wednesday. Commander Lewis wrote:

My God, what have we done?

Posted in weekendcoffeeshare

#weekendcoffeeshare – 08/05/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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I’m sitting in the coffee shop where we’ve been having our #weekendcoffeeshare, with my friend, Jenn, going over today’s menu with the owner. We’re early so we can get the menu worked out for our colleagues. I’m reflecting back on the week.

“Here they come,” Jenn said.

I could tell she was excited. So am I..

Our blogging friends, and friends of theirs, came in,

“Come on in,” I said. “The owner of the shop has prepared the best cinnamon rolls for us. There is hot tea – green, black, and herbal. The specialty coffee today is chicory. Have a seat anywhere.”

I’m so glad to see all of you today! I hope you’ve been well and that you’ve been prolific in your writing. This has been the busiest and most frustrating week for me. I guess we all have them.

The first order of business each day is training my new puppy, Hanna. She will be five months old in just a few days. She’s smart and trainable, but I don’t want to put too much on her all at once. Slowly, but surely, she is responding to her name, housebreaking, and a plethora of words and commands. She went through a period of trying to be the “alpha” around the house. I stopped that quickly! I bathed and groomed her for the first time this week. Hannah is having a lot of “firsts.”

I fear my writing has suffered this week. I haven’t written as much as usual. I love blogging here on WordPress, but I’ve had to work on my novel, which is not on this platform. I’ve gotten some done on my novel. I’m rewriting some material, which is hard. But, I think changing my style and doing some rewrites was definitely in order. However, I haven’t been very prolific. Some weeks are better than others, I guess.  How has your writing gone this week? Very well, I hope.

How many of you have made a career in freelance or staff writing? I have, but in the past. During my time teaching, for a time, I had too careers. Professor and freelance writer. I wrote for online and offline magazines and websites. I’m thinking of launching that career again. Freelance writing is different now with more competition, but that doesn’t bother me. The only thing that does bother me is that it would be a huge time commitment. I would enjoy the extra income at this point in my life. Living on a fixed income in retirement doesn’t really suit me. If I do this, I’ll be blogging here on WordPress, writing a novel, and freelancing. Even to me, that sounds exhausting, but fun! What say you? I’d love your comments.

I just got back from our local farmer’s market. This is the prime time of the year for good vegetables where I live in Kentucky, USA. People line up to buy them. My haul included green beans, more tomatoes than I can possibly eat, corn, and green peppers.

I am suspicious that fall is coming early to my part of Kentucky. Even the fall flowers, like the black-eyed susans are just about finished blooming. The summer flowers are completely done. Things are starting to look fall-like. I’ve noticed the sharp shadows at the end of the day where the angle of the sun has changed.

It’s been great to be here this morning. I’d love to hear from all of you!

 

 

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 08/05/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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The #SoCS prompt this week is high/low:

If you’re a writer, you’re accustomed to experiencing the highs and lows of the profession. Think of the lows in the form of all those rejection slips from print publications and emails from online publications you may have received. If you’re a novelist, make that form letters from agents or publishers. You undoubtedly have a portfolio of unpublished material in the bottom drawer of your desk.

The highs. The obvious ones happen every time a publication accepts an article or a story you have worked so hard to write and source to appear on its pages. It’s exciting to have a story or an article to appear in a publication that is unpaid, particularly if you are a new writer. When you start getting paid for your work, receiving those checks, no matter how small, is truly exciting. If you work really hard, you may be able to make a living as a writer. Perhaps you can become a staff writer for a publication. I prefer to be a freelance writer.

If you write a book and an agent represents you so you can get it published through traditional publishing, it’s a real high. Finding an agent is just as difficult for a novelist or a writer of non-fiction books as finding a publication to accept a non-fiction article.

Self-publishing is becoming increasingly acceptable and if your work is marketed correctly, you can do very well selling your book, although there is no doubt that it is more difficult than traditional publishing.

All careers are full of highs and lows. I contend that a career as a writer, whether non-fiction or fiction, staff or freelance, is particularly so. With the ease of using email to query publications and agents, there is more competition in the marketplace. It takes hard work and long, hard hours and is not for the faint of heart.

Posted in Challenges

Compassion

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Ben said, “I’ve rounded up the last of the flowers. I just stuck them in these containers.”

The employees of the flower shop were resting in the back room at the end of a busy summer weekend. Every flower in the shop had sold except these two arrangements.

 

The door opened and a woman walked in, crying.

“My mother is so sick. She loves flowers. Do you have anything? The cases are empty.”

The employees all looked at each other and Ben walked to the back. He got the arrangements and handed them to her.

She left the shop, smiling.

 

Photo credit to Dale Rogerson

 

Posted in Challenges

#weeklysmile 83

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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I was lucky enough to witness an event that gave me a huge #weeklysmile this week! I live in a cabin in the Daniel Boone National Forest, moving here almost 19 years ago now after some trauma in my life forced me to seek peace and tranquility. I didn’t take me long to realize my house was built right in the path that white-tail deer used in this particular part of the forest. We have a huge herd of deer in my state and they have a terrible time finding enough food. I started to feed them. That was in the winter.

By the time the winter was over, I had a herd of deer at the feeding trough. By the time July came, I had a wonderful surprise and that surprise has fascinated me year after year since. It’s my #weeklysmile this week. The does brought their fawns to my feeding trough to teach them to eat.

The fawns are no bigger than large dogs and have their spots. Many does have twin fawns, with the male being slightly larger than the female. It would make anyone smile to watch them try to eat cracked corn out of the feeding trough, corn flying from either side of their mouths while they struggle with it. These beautiful, special babies are true miracles of nature.

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 7/29/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Double-Jointed…..Much?

All of my life, within my family, I have heard the term “double-jointed.” That’s because on my paternal grandmother’s side of the family, this rather rare characteristic ran in the family. It was passed down to my dad, then to me.

Being double-jointed doesn’t really mean you have two sets of joints. The proper name is hypermobility syndrome. A person with this syndrome looks like they can stretch a limb farther than they should be able to. Instead, it actually is the ability to stretch the ligaments and tendons around the joint that cause the hyperextension of the bone possible. The person can hyperextend the bone without the pain that a person without the syndrome would feel.

An example is someone who can easily touch their toes. In both my dad’s case and mine, we could/can lay our palms flat on the floor with absolutely no effort and no pain. Sometimes, this “double-jointedness” is due to shallow hip or shoulder sockets. People with this syndrome are often very limber and move very easily.

Often, as a person with hypermobility syndrome grows older, arthritis becomes present in the joints.

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