Oh Nuts

  The other day at my job, a coworker taped a note to the office door with " 3 boxes of pink lemonade, had wrong attachment to the hose" written on it. I don't know if anyone figured out what it was supposed to mean, but I thought it sounded like a funny short story prompt. Since I sporadically poke around at the AI stuff, I decided to put it through ChatGPT to write a story and what I was given is below. Photo by Jarritos Mexican Soda on Unsplash Once upon a summer afternoon in a small town, a cheerful lemonade stand was set up by Lily and her little brother Sam. They had three large boxes of pink lemonade ready to quench the thirst of their neighborhood. The stand was brightly decorated, and the lemonade was chilled and ready for customers. However, an unexpected hiccup occurred: the hose meant to dispense the lemonade had been accidentally attached to the wrong boxes. Instead of connecting to the lemonade boxes, it was attached to a couple of old water tanks that had ...

As of the beginning of last week, I am now participating in Camp NaNoWriMo next month. Why? Because I can and I have an idea that I want to try out. And because every book needs a cover that attracts attention I decided to go into Canva the other night and play around with some pictures and title ideas that I have for the novel that I plan on writing. If you haven't heard me talk about Camp NaNo before, I will briefly explain what it is. It is like the regular NaNoWriMo that happens during the month of November. But with Camp NaNo, more often then not, it happens during the months of April and July. With the new website that NaNo released you can join in different groups, instead of staying in one 'cabin.' I find that having smaller groups like this makes it easier to get to know some of your fellow writers a little bit better.  Anyhow, here are some covers that I made to go with the story idea that I have and am planning on doing for Camp NaNo next month. Since I haven...

And just like that, it has been a week since NaNoWriMo has ended! This year I ended the month with 50, 168 words, but my story is far from over. Today was my region's TGIO party and the first time that I was able to make it. And I had a nice time with my  fellow writers As an ice breaker to get to know other people from the region, one of the ML's gave each person a certificate with their username on it and then we had to talk with someone that we hadn't met/talked with before and share a goal that we reach or something that wasn't related to our word count. Once we had talked with someone about the goals or whatever it was that we did then we had to sign each other's certificate and hand them back to the ML (Municipal Liason) who was handing them out. Once we finished with the ice breaker we did lunch and then the ML's started handing out the certificates back to everyone. As we got the certificates we got to pick from pencils, red pens or purple pens an...

Normally when I share anything that I have written in one of my stories, I usually try to keep it as current. But this is something that I o riginally wrote back at the beginning of March 2012. And it is from the Fairy Tale Novels Fan Forum that I was a part of for a long time and I only found this again because I decided to log on again and poke around. Title: All The World's A Zoo Characters: Freddy and Caleb the Unicorns, Edgar the llama, Frank the Alligator, Phillip the Frog, Jane the Tiger and Ned the Labrador Synopsis: After the arrival of Jane and Phillip, some of the animals at Cair Paravel are feeling a bit left out and soon things start getting a bit out of hand with the animals and only they can fix it *not long after Jane and Phillip show up* Frank: I don't think how a frog and I tiger are special they aren't fun to be with anyhow Caleb:*does a horsey sigh* I wish Sulwen would stop forgetting about me Freddy:*snorts* ...

This is another result of another picture prompt that I used. While this isn't the picture that was used as the prompt, I like what I wrote from it. Photo by  Markus Spiske  on  Unsplash As they neared the end of the race, the entire group of cyclists suddenly became tired. Unsure of what was happening to them they all stopped riding and got off their bikes. Before they could properly stand them up all the cyclists passed out on the ground where they had stopped, with their bikes laying on their feet. The people around them watching and directing the traffic seemed unfazed by what was happening with the cyclists. They continued with what they had been doing as if nothing had happened. A short time later the cyclists woke up and continued the race to the finish line. Shortly after the group had ridden away, another group of cyclists in the race came through the area and were affected by the mysterious drowsiness. These cyclists also dismounted and fell to the grou...

This is another Picture Prompt that the writing support group I am in did the other week and it made me think of the movie The Greatest Showman  that came out last year, and it is partially what inspired me to write this prompt. I included the picture we used as the prompt at the bottom of the post. Photo by  Becky Phan  on  Unsplash Walking along the dusty road the trio of weary travelers came across a small but strange sign placed in the ground. On the sign it said Magic Circle – Clothing Optional Area. ¼ Mile. Placed in between the words “Magic Circle” and “Clothing Optional Area” was a drawing of what looked like clothing laid out on the ground beside a cactus, the sun, and a mountain. A red arrow pointed them in the direction that they needed to head in. Curious as to what a Magic Circle with an optional clothing area was, the trio set off in the direction that the arrow pointed. After walking the quarter of a mile the trio came to a large red and whi...

This is from the same writing group video chat that I was a part of the other week. For this picture prompt, I have the actual picture that we used, though I don't know where it originally comes from. And the paragraph and a quarter that I wrote for this prompt is something that I liked and might possibly use for something in the future. But I could change my mind by then, I don't know. Anyhow, I wanted to share it with you all, like I did with the last two paragraphs that I wrote. Unknown The old house stood alone surrounded by dying trees and browning grass. No one had lived in it since the owner, a woman by the name of Miss Whitman had passed away several years before. Since she had no living relatives that people could find the house stood alone and forgotten. Until one day when a strange young woman appeared at the office of the only lawyer in town. Placing a small stack of papers on the surprised man’s desk, the young woman informed the lawyer that she was Miss Whi...

I don't remember if I mentioned this in my last post or not, but in a support group I am in for NaNoWriMo has been doing video chat groups and the other night we had another one where we did word sprints and talked in. And the first sprint that we did was a picture prompt. In the picture was a metal table with two chairs and what looked like an ashtray and a couple drink coasters on it. When it comes to writing prompts and sprints like this I tend to start writing without thinking about specific characters. Which is how I came up with this paragraph. Photo by  Henry & Co.  on  Unsplash "Sitting on the unoccupied table the ashtray felt the ambiance of the sidewalk as people strolled past minding their own business. It had made friends with the drink coasters that rested on the table with it. Emblazoned with the logo of a neighboring restaurant the coasters didn’t make a sound when patrons of the restaurant used them for their drinks. When no one was sitting at...

Typically I am not someone who readily shares stories that I have written with other people. This is mostly because I don't like the way that it turns out so I don't want to let other people read it because of that.  But today I have decided to share a short paragraph that I wrote last night while I was taking part in a video chat with other writers. The prompt for this was a picture of a loaf of bread (different than the one pictured here) and in the background was a banana or two. And since the story idea that I have for this year's NaNoWriMo is based on the Greek gods and mythology I decided to use one of the characters that I am slowly creating for this idea. So this is what would happen if the Greek god Zeus was a high school football player in the kitchen and trying to make banana bread for the first time. Photo by  Taylor Kiser  on  Unsplash "Standing in the kitchen Zeus looked at the piece of paper in his hand. Having never baked anything before in ...

I am not a Star Wars fan, but that seemed like an appropriate title for today. I have been trying to settle on a topic to write about here but keep getting stuck. Technically I had an idea for a post but I didn't get very far with it. And ironically enough it was going to be a post using the question "What Helps You To Be Creative?" as the prompt/title. So instead I shared the question to my Facebook page to see what people's responses are and I may do another post where I share their responses as well as how I get creative. Photo by  Simon Zhu  on  Unsplash While the picture (<----) is very cool I found it a little funny that on Upsplash, where I get pictures that aren't my own, the picture is titled "Man With Neon Lights Stands In Between 2 Bridges." It doesn't seem as dramatic when you pair it with a title like that. But that is beside the point. Earlier this week or late last week I did a poll on my personal Instagram stories about whet...

The day I first started blogging was November 8, 2009. Yes, that long ago, though it doesn't feel like it some times. My first blog, which has since been closed and deleted, was called "Shieldmaiden of God." Some of what I have shared here has been similar to what I had written there. taken by me in Panera Bread Part of the reason why I got into blogging was that my sister and a long time family friend both had blogs at the time and I enjoyed reading what they wrote. In the 4 years that I had my first blog, I had fun learning about creating a blog as well as finding a niche of sorts to write it. I believe credit for the name of my first blog goes to my older sister, but I don't remember if she came up with the exact wording or of she suggested some ideas and I created the wording. Either way, my first blog was called "Shieldmaiden of God." When I first created this blog my original plan was to mainly share writing-related things. And while I still ...

Back in January, during one of the many snow storms that we had, I was sitting on the couch scrolling through my phone when the name Sybil popped into my head. Besides the name, the only other information that this character gave me is that she is an orphan/in foster care. Photo by  Álvaro Serrano  on  Unsplash While I haven't done much with this character yet, I plan on figuring out the details so that I can begin writing the story. One thing that I had started doing, shortly after the character idea came to me, was to start writing down the names to instrumental songs that I was listening to on Spotify. The idea that I had for that was to incorporate the titles as the names of the chapters and then base the scenes, etc. off of that. Whether it will work or not I don't know since I want to do research into different settings and such before I begin writing the story. And I may save this idea for November and NaNoWriMo so that I can have time to prepare and gather ...

While it took me twenty-eight days to do it, but I won NaNoWriMo this year. But the writing of my novel is far from over because there is still quite a bit that I would like to add to it. Now that NaNo is finished I need to find the motivation to finish it and not let it sit and collect dust on my USB drive. During the month of November there was one day during the beginning and then two days this past week where I didn't reach the daily word goal of 1,667 words. But I managed to make it up by writing anywhere between 1,000 and 3,000 words each day to keep moving forward. Since all writing platforms (eg Google Docs, Microsoft Word, etc.) all have slight variations on what they consider words, like hyphenated words and that sort of thing. According to Word, numbers, when they are written out like 1234, are counted as words, which I thought was interesting but I kept it. And when I went to validate my novel after reaching 50,048 words the website added a few more words making t...

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers and NaNo-ers from the US. I hope everyone enjoyed reading the two articles that I wrote and shared the past two weeks as well as the first NaNo update I shared. Because this can be a busy holiday for people here in the states I know that the word counts won't get added too, but I thought I would share some encouraging words today with a brief update on how I am doing. Photo by  Element5 Digital  on  Unsplash In my last update , I mentioned how I had made a calendar with a personal word goal for each day on it as well as using an outline and doing research on several different topics. Well, I have managed to keep up and still stay on top of my word count even though I started my job at Kohl's last week. Over the past couple of weeks, I have noticed that I tend to write the most at night when my family is starting to either head off to bed or sit in a different room quietly reading. Typically that happens between 9:00 - 10...

This is another article that I wrote for I&F, which is now called Fellowship and Fairydust . And this article is, as the title says, about Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys books. Photo by  Nicole Honeywill  on  Unsplash In 1926, the dearly loved Hardy Boys books were created by Edward Stratemeyer. The year 1930 saw the creation of Nancy Drew, the greatly loved girl detective by Stratemeyer as well. Both series were ghostwritten under the names Franklin W. Dixon and Caroline Keene. Most of The Hardy Boys series was actually written by a gentleman named Leslie McFarlane, and the Nancy Drew series was written by a lady named Mildred Benson. When Edward Stratemeyer first brought up the idea of the Nancy Drew series to the Grosset and Dunlap publishing company, who were publishing The Hardy Boys series at the time, he suggested that they call the series Stella Strong stories , Diana Drew stories , Diana Dare stories , Nan Nelson stories , Nan Drew stories or H...

Originally I wasn't going to share an update. Instead, I was going to do a couple of posts, like I did back in September, where I shared the pictures I am taking during another Instagram photo a day challenge that is NaNo related. But after I thought about it I changed my mind and decided to give you an update instead, because they are fun to write and while it doesn't count towards my 50,000 words I still enjoy writing here and filling you in on most things NaNo related. So here is my update on how things are going! Normally when I do NaNo I jump right in on the first and just start typing my ideas out without planning or doing research. And about halfway through I end up stopping and giving up because I am out of ideas or I feel like I am just repeating myself. Then last year I tried using an outline that I created and I was able to follow it for the most part before I just gave up and fell behind like I always do. But this year I actually put more effort into it and did...

This is something that I put together years ago for an online magazine that I used to write for called "Ink and Fairyfust." And I just recently rediscovered it while I was cleaning out a lot of old docs in my Google Docs. Since it is NaNoWriMo now I figured it was a good time to share it. Photo by  Yeshi Kangrang  on  Unsplash “Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?...If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!” ― J.R.R. Tolkien “At all ages, if [fantasy and myth] is used well by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. But at its best it can do more; it can give us exper...