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This is a personal Challenge to write 500 words a day. Join me on my Journey. |
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The Challenge: Write 500 words every day for a year.
Can I do it? Join me and find out! |
It looks like the 30 Day Blogging challenge ended a week early. So the next seven days it'll just be us going on our own. July we'll join an Official month of 30 Day Blogging. Today I'm going to complete one of the challenges for "The Challenge"  and write on a prompt given for day 22. The prompt is: You fall in love with a sorcerer who changes you into anything he wants, until you...I was horrified, not by the fact that I was in the form of a tiny black kitten, but because I was enjoying the stroking that...that...wretched handsome awful excuse for a sorcerer. In truth, I just couldn't believe it! How had things come to this? There was no way I could actually be attracted to the brute. But then, to my horror and mortification, a tiny purr began to rasp in my throat as his clever fingers found a spot just behind the ears that made my whole fuzzy little body melt. Two months ago, I'd been captured trying to steal Marcoff's latest invention, a series of crystals that could hold spells and be used by non-magicals. If I'd been able to snatch them, it would have changed the face of the world. Finally, the average person would be able to defend themselves from the magic class. That was the dream anyway. A dream that had died a slow sticky death at the end of his spell. Now I was an amusement to him, and nothing more. I don't know when my feelings for him began to change, perhaps it was the care and affection he gave when I was no longer a threat. Maybe it was just an unpleasant form of Stockholm syndrome. It was impossible to tell. His fingers continued their leisure scratching while he thought. I'd observed him enough to know he was thinking, and wondered what sort of things he was planning now. Before my attack, I hadn't realized how much of Kamerra he held sway over. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have taken the mission. He was a shadow walker in the truest sense. He wasn't the power behind the thrown. Oh no. He was the power behind the power behind the power in a web so convoluted that no one would ever connect him to the one pulling the strings. "Tell me Merra, if I were to return you to your proper form, what would you do?" My golden eyes narrowed, and I promptly hissed in his face. Laugh lines appeared around his eyes as he reached out to pet me again, only to draw back with a hiss of his own as my tiny claws scored his outstretched fingers. Still, anger didn't flood his features, hand he made no move to retaliate. I wasn't yet ready to yield, or admit my treacherous emotions, but I knew that all we had was time. Eventually, I wouldn't be able to keep up the fa'ade. We both knew it. Yet he continued the game none the less. I think the hunt amused him most of all. Word Count: 515 |
30 - Day Blogging Challenge (June/Unofficial Month) No prompt given today, so we're going to do a free write. Right now I'm in the middle of a grueling competition known as the Character Gauntlet. This is my third time running the gauntlet and it's going well. The character I'm using this time is a four year old boy named Toby who has a rather lively invisible friend. When I first started this, it was Ren who was the character I wanted to focus on, but because Toby is the one who interacts with the world, I felt it would be better to focus on him instead. I'm not going to tell you about the surprise of Ren right now. You'll have go and read for yourself. I'll tell you all about it when the competition is over. So far, I'm really liking the pair. Perhaps when November rolls around, I'll use what I'm doing now as the bases for a NaNoWriMo novel. I have the greater arc of the plot in my mind, and I'm not sure how much I'll draw into the Gauntlet since it is prompt based. The prompts help develop the character, but there are times when plot has to be thrown out the window to work the prompt. A great example is todays prompt, where little Toby has to kill someone. I haven't written it yet, but I have something in mind. This time around, I decided to do a child and didn't think how hard it would make some of the prompts. On the other hand, I really like trying to figure out how some of the prompts would work with such a young child. The prompt yesterday was about your character's greatest success. I'm lucky in that I have a nearly four year old boy, so I know some of the things he would find to be a great success. I went with having him make his own breakfast. At this age, nothing pleases Shane more than being able to do something himself. The idea of success is so different to someone so young as compared to an adult. We're on day seven now, and there are fifteen days in all. I'm excited to see what other prompts are to come. Even though I've done this challenge before, each time it is different. Not only are the prompts different, but the characters are different. Each one goes on a unique journey that will be completely different when compared to another character. I think that is something writers understand that those who don't write will never know. Characters take on a life of their own, and the person you write today can be the complete polar opposite of the person you will write tomorrow or next week. That's the magic of writing, and the challenge. Learning how to let those characters out, and not try to restrain or direct them. It is so tempting to force them to go the way you think they need to go. If you do that, you risk missing a path that would have led somewhere great. Word Count: 517 |
30 - Day Blogging Challenge (June/Unofficial Month) Today's prompt is by: Janine   - June 21, 2014 is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. After June 21, the days will get shorter until the Winter Solstice. Some people celebrate the solstice. How will you celebrate the longest day of the year? Will you write verse? Will you write prose? Will you have a BBQ? Will you protest? I don't often think about things like the summer or winter solstice. So celebrating is a bit of a stretch. I guess I celebrated the longest day of the year by taking a three hour nap in the middle of the day and waking up to it still being bright and sunny out. I will say that I'm glad the days will begin shortening again. Daylight savings is still a while away, and I hate going to sleep when it's still bright outside. Sure, I could get blackout curtains, but have you ever gone curtain shopping? Those people are highway robbers! It is crazy expensive, and that was looking at prices for several years ago when we first bought our house. It's absurd how much they want for window coverings these days. Because of that, we still have several windows in our house that have no curtains at all. We had to take the blinds out of Shane's room because he kept pulling them down. In fact, that boy is about to have nothing in his room but a pile of blankets and stuffed animals. He started pulling down all the pictures we had up. So those went. Then he tore all of the jungle borders off his wall. He's torn up his mattress for his bed, not to mention cracked the wooden frame. And, he's started using his dresser as a launching pad to jump off of! For some reason, he refuses to sleep in his bed. Even though I put him there every night. Come morning, he's made a pallet on the floor of his blankets and is sleeping there instead. Most kids are terrified of the monsters in their closet, and my silly child likes sleeping in there. I don't know if girls are as destructive as boys, but I can say that Shane would make a great product tester. If your product could survive a month of him playing with it, then it is a great product. There's a myth about the summer solstice that states that on this day of the year you can balance an egg on its end on a table. I vaguely remembered this myth, so when we got the prompt I decided to look it up. It appears it is just a myth and with enough time and patience you can set an egg on its end on any day of the year. I did see an impressive demonstration where a kid was able to balance three coins on top of each other. That would be a difficult trick to perfect and I'm sure it took more than a few hours to get right. Word Count: 511 |
30 - Day Blogging Challenge (June/Unofficial Month) Prompt by: 💙 Carly  -- If you could be any kind of animal what would you be and why? "A little lion, small and dainty sweet, with sea grey eyes and lightly-stepping feet." -- Louisa Eicher Of all the animals to be, I would most prefer to be a house cat. Cats have always been my favorite, but it goes beyond that. Cats are perhaps one of the luckiest of the domesticated animals. The humans have had a hand in developing breeds, but they've been largely left alone in terms of altering them. Also, they've retained their spirits. When you look at dogs, very little of the wolves they once were remain. We've taken them and twisted not only their bodies but their hearts and minds as well. I heard a fascinating theory while watching a show called Fatal Attractions, where people have wild animals as pets, about dogs. One of the major alterations we made to dogs is that we bred out their ability to grow up. Not that they don't grow physically, but we removed their mentality for becoming adult in their hearts and minds. There was a very good reason for this. An adult wolf is no longer a puppy, and as such, it is driven to take over the pack or fight for a higher position in the pack. By maintaining the puppy mentality, we ensure that we won't come home one day and be attacked by a dog who's trying to take over the leadership position in our pack. We want them to remain puppies forever. That's one of the reasons dogs lick your face. It is the puppy instinct to beg for food from a higher up pack member. Cats, on the other hand, have retained most of what it's always been to be a cat. Unlike most of their canine counter parts, felines are far more likely to survive if they are turned out of their human homes. They're better equipped mentally to return to the wild life than overly domestic dogs. Of course, that isn't true for all cats. Some of the breeds have become as pampered and ill equipped to survive without their humans as dogs. But, in general, that is the case. They also kept their independence. Cats do not warship the ground their human's walk on. They're more like friends or roommates than actual pets. I've always gotten the sense of feline independence from my cats. Even from the most loving, they come to humans on their terms or not at all. The most amusing thing about cats is that they might not even like their humans. When we were growing up, we had a little feral cat that my dad picked up one winter night. She was a kitten, but she'd never forgotten her first months as a wild cat. Even though she lived to be 13 years old, she never wanted anything to do with us. We were little more than the suppliers of food and shelter. Still, we loved her. That is the power of cats. Word Count: 514 |
30 - Day Blogging Challenge (June/Unofficial Month) Prompt from Noyoki  ' If you were a mutant what would your power be and why?"Mutation. It is the key to our evolution. It is how we have evolved from a single-cell organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few millennia evolution leaps forward." - Professor Charles Xavier What leap would my mutation take? I would have to take an alteration of another mutant, Mystique. Instead of shifting into other people or objects, I would be able to transform into animals. I think that would be an amazing mutation to have. When I was a child, one of my favorite book series was Anamorphs. They were given the ability to change into any animal that they came into contact with. Their bodies were able to take a sample of the animal DNA and then they were able to take that form. There were some limitations. First, they couldn't change into anything they hadn't touched, and second there was a time limit of one hour. I wouldn't care for that limitation. If they stay in animal form for longer than an hour, their bodies would become stuck in animal form forever. There was another series that I found wonderfully intriguing as a child. They were The Immortals series by Tamora Pierce. In these stories, a young girl named Diana has what is known as Wild Magic. She has a deep connection with animals, and is able to communicate with them. As she grows older, this ability grows with her. She learns how to slip her mind into the minds of her animal friends and use their senses to see or hear what's going on wherever the animal is. One of the things I really like about this series is how much thought the author put into the different personalities and thought processes of the animals. She also had a number of different challenges she had to overcome. For books for young teens, they were well written and I still own them. There are a number of different animals I'd love to try and be. Flying would be amazing, and being able to turn into a bird and fly away would be a great advantage. Then, of course, would be the advantage of turning into something small. A mouse or other little animal would make the perfect spy. Even though there are a lot of advantages, there are also many dangers. First would be the risk of being overwhelmed by instinct and not being able to remember my human form. Then, there would be the real danger of predation by real animals if I'm in a form that would be at risk. There are also simple accidents that could happen. I don't think I'd ever want to run around as a deer for example. Too much of a risk of ending up as a head mounted in some hunter's living room. Aside from that, I think this would be a great power to have. Word Count: 512 |
30 - Day Blogging Challenge (June/Unofficial Month) Prompt by PandaPaws Licensed VetTech -- Have you ever been a volunteer for an organization? What was the most fulfilling volunteer opportunity you have done? If you haven't really volunteered for anything, what would be your ideal volunteer job?I don't volunteer for anything, but there is an organization that I donate to. I heard about this organization on the radio and thought that it was great. It is OURescue.org and their mission is an important one. They go around the world and rescue children that have been sold into sex slavery. This is a major problem worldwide, and it's one that the various governments don't seem very interested in helping with. One of the major problems that stand in the way of governments doing anything is that the people who commit these crimes are notorious for crossing borders. By doing that, they insure that they won't be pursued because they know that governments are rarely interested in working together and it will get lost in the battles between jurisdictions. One of the nice things about this organization is that they keep you updated via text messages when they are about to go on a mission and let you know how it went. Because of this one little thing, you get to see the real results of your support. Another nice thing is that they don't have any preferences. Any child in this devastating situation is one that they will try to save. They are not working for one country or another. They are working for all of humanity. When looking to help people closer to home, I have two charities that I donate to. The first is United Way. One of the unique aspects of this organization is even though it is nationwide, the money you donate can be allocated to your community if you want. Their mission is to advance the common good in every community. The way they do this is through education, income and health. They strive to help children and youth achieve their potential, promote financial stability and independence and improve people's health so that they can have a chance to achieve a better life. One of the things I really like about United Way is that they do so much more than just give people food or money. They actually work with the person to improve their situation, to help get them back on their feet, in to a new home, and get a new job. This allows people to have a life, instead of just survive. The last charity I give to is The Cat House. It is a local no kill cat shelter in my community and I believe that there should be more places like this. Sometimes people have to give up their cats, and have a place where they can go where an owner knows they won't be put down after a few weeks of not finding a new home is a great thing. There should be more places like this. Word Count: 506 |
30 - Day Blogging Challenge (June/Unofficial Month) Prompt by Charlie ~ ' Is it ever better to take the low road over the high road? Why or why not? I think that a question like this is all about perspective. What the high road is depends entirely on the situation, the people involved, and the filters those people have. Here's an example where I think the high road is the wrong one to take, but it is based off of my filters vs. theirs. A boy comes home to his very religious family and proclaims that he is gay. The father promptly disowns the boy and demands he leave their home now and never return. To the father, that was a hard decision to make but he believes he is taking the moral high road. In his mind, his son has committed a sin against God that cannot be forgiven, and that if the child refuses to repent, he will be condoning the sin. In a situation like this, many people would say the man was taking the low road, or we would think that our choice would be the low road. Or we would see the situation as reversed and our way would be the high road. The danger of the high road is that it can blind you. It's like they say 'the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.' I think that there are times when we take the high road, thinking it is the better way to go, only for everything to blow up in our face. An example would be if your child was heavy into drugs, and you decide the best thing to do is cut them off from all support so that they can hit rock bottom. Then, if the child ends up dying, you will forever think about what else you could have done to save them. I'm not quite as sure about the low road as apposed to the high. Perhaps this is the mentality of the ends justify the means. Like the high road, this path can also lead to ruin, but there are times when such thinking is needed. It's sort of like that question of would you kill one to save many. A lot of people would say no, I wouldn't kill one. But, what if you start upping the number of the many? Would you kill one person to save, five others? Would you kill one to save a hundred, a million, a billion? At what point does the life saved outweigh the lives lost? The danger with the low road is the same that the superhero's face. When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back and when you fight monsters you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the monster. We need to find those paths between. If you fly too high, the sun will melt your wings plunging you to your death. If you tread too far into the shadows they will suck you under and shape you into something even worse than what you once fought. So take care, and find the paths that are dappled in light and shadow. Word Count: 532 |
30 - Day Blogging Challenge (June/Unofficial Month) Prompt from sunnystarr ' Shadows Within. 'We stopped checking for monsters under our bed when we realized they were living in our head." The Joker I felt that this quote was particularly apt for the prompt given today. As children, we are afraid of the dark, the monsters under the bed, or in the closet. As children we believed wholly in the dark magic of things that go bump in the night. But, as children we also believed in the power of white magic. There might be monsters with daggerlike claws, and slime dripping fangs, but they couldn't pierce the protection of the blanket. A nightlight could banish the most ferocious of beasts, and some ingenious parents even came up with 'monster spray'. In Stephen King's Cujo, Tad's father came up with something he'd called the Monster Words. Reading the Monster Words together helped banish the monsters from Tad's room and let him sleep with ease. For the most part, this white magic falls away just as the monsters under the bed do. Still, we might carry a special charm that we believe, if only in our secret hearts, brings us luck. Just as we still feel a slight chill slither up our spine when we have to go into the basement at night and the lights go out. I don't think we can ever fully banish those shadows within. We've even come up with an entire industry designed to titillate that inner darkness. After all, that's the whole point of scary movies and books. That little lick of fear, the safe fear. It is enough to make our adrenaline spike a bit, without being truly dangerous. For some people, that isn't enough. They have to go out and engage in dangerous activities to feed that inner shadow that thrills at the risk of life and limb. With that, there are endless levels from the safe but fun, to the high risk of fatality. Base jumping is a great example of the latter. That is one of the most fatality riddled sports in the world because there is no room for error. The moment you jump off the building or cliff, you have one chance to pull your shoot. If you are off by even the slightest margins, you can die in any number of ways. It might not open, it might open too late, or the wind can shift and drive you back into the building. I think that we all have that inner need to feed the darkness in some way or another. Perhaps it is left over from when we were still part of the rest of the living community and at any moment something might jump out and try to eat us. That lower brain remembers the excitement, and craves that feeling of death just escaped. We don't want to die, but we want to feel alive as only a near death can make us feel. We need to take care that we don't misstep into death's hand in error. Word count: 510 |
30 - Day Blogging Challenge (June/Unofficial Month) Prompt by Fivesixer  -- It's THE SUNDAY REVIEW!! Tell us about your favorite blog entry of the week three favorite breakfast cereals, and most importantly, why. If you don't like cereal, you can share that feeling with us as well. Here's a link for reference: http://deadspin.com/cereals-ranked-1532733312. Well, my number one all time favorite cereal is Reece's Puffs. These little poofs of delight are amazing in milk or dry and I've loved them since they came out. They probably have about eighteen pounds of sugar per bag, but I don't care. They taste sooooo good. I think my second favorite would have to be Cinnamon Toast Crunch. This cereal is not quite as good dry as the Reece's Puffs, but they do make milk taste amazing. For all the adults out there who drink, if you like the milk of Cinnamon Toast Crunch you might like RumChata. It tastes exactly like a bowl of milk after you've finished eating the Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I'm not much of a drinker myself, but if I do drink, I like the sweet alcohols. Last, even on the list you provided, but not least in my heart is Lucky Charms. This one is the opposite of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for me. While I only eat that with milk, I only eat Lucky Charms dry. Eating Lucky Charms is a rather convoluted process for me. First, I have to get three cups. Then I pour a cup full of cereal into one, and then I begin the sorting process. Marshmallows go into one cup, and the other cereal goes into the third cup. Now that I'm an adult, I do the proper thing and eat the cereals first, and then I eat the marshmallows last. Unless I'm feeling contrary. Then I eat the marshmallows first. I have to say I'm surprised Cheerios made it so high up the list. As a kid, our parent never bought us anything but Cheerios, and now even as adults my brothers and I believe that cereal tastes remarkably similar to cardboard. I had to add about twelve spoonfuls of sugar to make the stuff edible. I know a lot of people like it, but having it forced on you as a child makes all the difference. I don't eat cereal that often any more. For breakfast, I like to do the little frozen pretend egg McMuffins, or real muffins, or oat meal. There are these Kellogg's sandwiches that are made out of flat bread that is really good. Of the oat meals, I like the strawberries and cream instant oatmeal. I think my favorite breakfast was something my grandma used to make when we visited as kids. She'd make pancakes from scratch and add chocolate chips into the batter. Those were the most amazing pancakes ever. Sometimes I'll order pancakes with chocolate chips at restaurants to catch a bit of those long ago memories. My grandparents still live in Nevada, but we haven't had a chance to visit in a long time. Word Count: 510 |
30 - Day Blogging Challenge (June/Unofficial Month) Prompt from Prosperous Snow celebrating  -- Prompt: "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." - Edgar Allan Poe Write a story, a poem, your thoughts, or an essay. It's Saturday so be creative and have fun with this prompt.This is a line that makes you pause and think about the nature of reality. We know only what our senses tell us. How do we know that those messages are real? A great way to explore this concept is looking at optical illusions. With these pictures, our eyes tell us one thing, while our minds know it isn't true. There was a show about perception once, where they set up a booth that had a board blocking off part of the booth. Then, they would have you put your arm on the side you couldn't see. Once that was done, they would put a fake arm on the side you could see. Then they began the process of tricking your brain. They would take a feather and brush it along the back of your hand, but, they would do the same thing with the fake hand. After a few minutes your brain would think that the fake arm was your real arm. The person running the booth would then take a hammer out and smash the fake hand. The reaction was the same as if the real hand had been struck. Anyway, the point is, all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. Our perception is flexible and can be fooled. I saw a post once that put forth an interesting idea. What if not everyone sees the same colors, but because we were all taught that x is red, they think that their red is the same as everyone else's even though their red might actually be our green. In the end, we can never really know. We believe that we are real, but we can never actually know if anyone else is real. Do they think the same way we do? How can we know? One theory of the universe is that we are all just figments of some other beings imagination. We all believe that we exist, though there is no way to know for sure. I've always wondered how deaf people's thoughts flow. I go through my days with a never-ending monolog going on, so for someone who's never heard a word, how do their thoughts work? Do they envision hand signs? Or perhaps a mouth if they can lip read? Maybe their thoughts are all in images? Then take it a step further. What would the thoughts of someone who was born deaf and blind feel like? I can't even imagine because my own thought process is so verbally geared. What about everyone else? Are your thoughts a continuing monologue? Do you think more in images or concepts instead of words? I think most of us don't consider that other people's thoughts might be totally different in structure than their own. Word Count: 512 |
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