Blog @ Work

Three prompts a day

First day of "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  [13+] for November. I will use my blog to follow three prompts for three different forums to spice up my days.

Talk Tuesday! With Christmas right around the corner (there are only eight more Fridays 'til then!)...do you pick up gifts here and there throughout the year, do you try to get as much as you can in as few trips as possible, or are you a last-minute shopper? And if you don't celebrate Christmas, tell us about your favorite gift-giving occasion. (30-Day BC)

I am a bargain hunter so I am on the lookout throughout the year for Christmas gifts. Up until last year, we always celebrated Christmas at my father’s house where he and his wife would entertain us. We usually went to have dinner out and presented gifts around the Christmas tree. We, being the three kids and my sister’s two boys. So we were a group of seven each year.

My father died very suddenly and was buried the day before last Christmas. So we never celebrated Christmas last year, as you can imagine. I was full time at my stepmom’s house for fourteen days helping out and supporting her in those dreadful times.

This year I invited my stepmom at my place for a stayover of both days (we celebrate two days of Christmas in my country). I am going to cook for her and we have a dinner out the following day. So there is only the two of us, we are not celebrating with the rest. Perhaps I’ll invite my brother who lives nearby for the first Christmas day, but I am not sure yet. My sister lives very far away and cannot come, and her boys have other plans I am sure.

I already bought two gifts for my stepmom. The celebration this year will be a frugal one because it is the first year of my father’s dead.

Use these random words to discuss something on your mind: drip, clinical, regret, contemporary, greed, power, and balloons. It's your blog; make it a rant, a poem, or a story. Have fun. (BCoFs)

A few weeks ago I had my bi-annual clinical breast cancer exam. I had put the date out of my head and postponed it three times because the whole thing spooked me. I already in advance saw myself lying down in a contemporary hospital bed on a drip of fluids for my chemotherapy. I was that terrified by the whole idea of having to deal with breast cancer. I felt a loss of power. I was totally freaked out for a few weeks just thinking about it, something I now regret because it made my life miserable for a short period of time. It was those greedy thoughts of survival and a touch of hypochondria that made me feel this way. Since there was nothing wrong at the end, it was a total waste of time. I put out balloons to celebrate though and made myself a promise not to go those places in my mind worrying when the time is not yet right to do so. I hope to put that into practice in a short while since I am up for another bi-annual exam for cervix cancer in one month. I keep my fingers crossed!

Prompt: What elements can a writer use to make his work in the horror genre scary?(BC)

See my blog "How to start a scary story" . I am writing a duo piece at the moment with another member of the Rising Stars Project and we are following the guidelines written in that blog. I think a horror/scary story is very difficult to write due to the building up tension and the element of surprise. But I am submitting stories to SCREAMS!!! sometimes, just to get the hang of it.