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 ...

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 ...

At 12:00 am this morning, this thing called National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo started. I have mentioned it multiple times before and I will probably continue to mention it multiple times again this month as well as for the next few years. As we begin this month of insane writing here are a few memes and writing prompts that I have found on either Pinterest or Facebook and decided to share here. Enjoy!

1.) Last weekend was a lot of fun. On Friday the house phone went out, Saturday evening the air conditioning went out and on Sunday the power went out for a couple hours. At least there was a bit of a breeze outside, which helped with the heat a little. 2.) Saturday evening I hung out with some friends and watched Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals. It was a lot of fun. On Monday Amanda and I met up with the same friends from Saturday to watch Game 6. Since I am from the Midwest it was exciting to see the Chicago Blackhawks beat Tampa Bay in games 5 & 6 and win the Stanley Cup. 3.) This writing prompt is one that I want to use at some point in my writing. 4.) Because everyone needs a picture of an adorable picture of a kitten to smile at. 5.) Since we had a decent amount of rain over the weekend and on Monday some of my siblings said that it was the Midwest version of Monsoon weather. While I enjoy rain with a little bit of thunder mixed in, I am not a huge fan ...

Here is the blank mad lib that I mentioned last week in  this post. As soon as I finish filling it out and if I remember too, I will post my version soon. Dark and Stormy Night Mad Lib It was a dark and stormy _________ (noun); the rain _____ (verb) in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was ______ (verb) by a ___________ (adjective) gust of ______ (noun Pl.) (For it is in __________ (place) that our scene lies), rattling along the _________ (noun, Pl), and _____ (adjective) agitating the ______ (adjective) flame of the ______(noun) that struggled against the _______(noun). Through one of the _______(adjective) quarters of ______(place), and among haunts little loved by the ______(noun) of the ________(profession), a man, evidently of the lowest orders, was _______ing (verb) his solitary way. He _______-ed (verb) twice or thrice at different _______(place) and ________(places) of a description correspondent with the ______(noun) of the quartier in which they w...

Tonight, last night, or whatever time it is when you read this, but anyhow tonight my college had a Night Write In for NaNoWriMo. Even though I was the only one who showed up for it I was surprised at how well I was able to focus on my writing, though I did take a short break here and there to check things like Facebook. The lady who was running the event was really nice and she told me that at the kick off party that they had at my college for NaNo there was ten people who showed up. Where they were tonight I don't know, because they missed out on free treats. Besides the free treats there was also some writing prompts to use in case you got stuck. One of the writing prompts involves using M&M's for it and even though the little spread sheet that I recreated doesn't look as nice as the copy I have here are the writing prompts.  Blue: The new M&M color makes you want to do something new – add something new to your next scene, sending someone on an unexpe...

This probably the time where I usually go a little more in-depth about what I am thinking about doing for NaNoWriMo , I haven't decided if I actually want to do it this year or not, while doing school. On Pinterest I started a board just for writing prompts and here are a few that I like and would probable use in my writing.