Here is Trish’s contribution to Simply 6: https://theversesmith.blogspot.com/2021/01/dont-feed-squirrels.html
Simply 6 Minutes—Welcome To The Challenge: 01/05/2021 — Reblogged from Stine Writing
Brandon’s squirrel story! Thank you for the contribution and for participating!
Happy New Year!! Welcome to the 6 minute challenge! Today’s prompt is: *****For any participants that do NOT like restrictions, please feel free to participate in any way you would like. It is great to read the contributions!**** Set up a timer or sit near a clock so you can keep track of the six[…]
Simply 6 Minutes—Welcome To The Challenge: 01/05/2021 — Stine Writing
It seemed innocent enough. The squirrel was friendly, wasn’t it? She was holding the berry in a way that would allow the furry creature to pluck it out of her mouth so he would only get the small fruit. But she was wrong. The squirrel wasn’t quite as “friendly” as he seemed, and was overly-aggressive when it came to getting at the berry. Little did she know that the reasoning was that he was sick; it wasn’t his fault. The dizziness he experienced affected his…
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Simply 6 Minutes – the Rascal
Super funny story from Trish! Thank you for your contribution to Simply 6!
I thought it was love.
He thought I was dinner.
I’d been nurturing a friendship with the little beastie for several weeks. Leaving food out, little tidbits of apple, pear and sometimes banana. Chestnuts if they were available, sometimes walnuts or brazils.
Gradually we began to move closer together until the day that I sat in the forest and he took from my hand. We kept this up for two weeks.
I would generally bring my lunch down and my sketchbook. I’d eat and draw, and he’d sneak closer and grab whatever I’d left down. This would happen several times over a couple of hours.
The day came when he climbed into my lap and then the day that after eating out of my hand, in my lap he stayed for a nap. We were buddies. We were pals.
Then I thought this was going so well, I’d try offering…
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Monty the Squirrel
A great contribution to Simply 6! Thanks Jim
His mother made her nest in a zombie tree, which is a tree that thinks it’s alive, but it actually isn’t alive because it is rampant with internal decay, so it was dead on the inside. Heavy snow took its toll, the icy cold temperatures, and wind toppled this tree just after Monty was born. I went out to investigate and I was saddened to see the dead squirrel laying in the snow with the new born blind kitten shivering in my yard, as they have to depend on their mothers for everything until they are at least two or three months old. I took the poor thing back inside of my house and nursed him back to health and then I figured that he needed a name.
I was watching Monty Pythons The Holy Grail where King Arthur is talking to the French Guard and tells him that he has been…
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Simply 6 Minutes—Welcome To The Challenge: 01/05/2021
Happy New Year!! Welcome to the 6 minute challenge!
Today’s prompt is:
*****For any participants that do NOT like restrictions, please feel free to participate in any way you would like. It is great to read the contributions!****
- Set up a timer or sit near a clock so you can keep track of the six minutes you will be writing.
- You can either use one of the prompts (photo or written) or you can free-write.
- Get ready and write for 6 minutes, that is it! Can you write a complete story? Can you think of a new Sonnet? Can you write 400 words? 400? 500? There are no restrictions on what kind of writing you do, but you should try to be actively writing for six minutes.
- After you are done writing, include your word count and then post back to this page #Simply6Minutes or include your link in the comments section. Pingbacks are enabled.
- *Feel free to leave your work completely unedited. I believe it is good to see, especially for new writers, that even very seasoned writers don’t write a perfect first draft.*
- Have fun, challenge yourself if you’d like, read and respond to others’ posts.
Thank you for participating!
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A shit year?
This is a great post with good things that actually happened in 2020! I love it. Thank you Ben
What a fantastic year it has been for every species on earth, with one notable exception, and oh boy have they been letting us know about it! Apart from them everyone else got a bit of a holiday from the human race and its rapacious consumption
(consumption can be a serious problem if you are the one being consumed)
Yes, the fires and the floods and the cyclones continued apace, but the freight train hurtling towards the abyss at breakneck speed has slowed just a tad. Covid forced us to stay home and do less stuff! World emissions plummeted more than any time in modern history. Without a billion slaves to turn the great wheels, the juggernaut slowed just enough for some of us to hop off and wander into the countryside and lie down under a tree and feel the flow as the world breathed an enormous sigh of…
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From my desk: 01/03/2021
Happy New Year!
This is the first memo from my desk for the new year and I am so happy it is finally 2021. 2020 wasn’t very good but I feel fortunate to still have a roof over my head and all my things. Yes, COVID sucks but I am ready to stop thinking about it and put COVID and Trump down a black hole of forget-tion. I don’t think that’s a word but that was the first word that popped into my head. Lol.
I am so happy to start the year blogging again. I enjoy the friends I have made with blogging and look forward to seeing their updates and celebrations, writings, and other contributions. Some day when COVID is done and people are out travelling I would love for people from other countries to come here for a visit. Yes, you can stay if I have the room! I also look forward to a little travelling. David and I are hoping to get away on a little romantic vacation in April. We will see.
Vacation won’t be until April because as of tomorrow I have a new job. I am going to be a tutor for a home-bound student from one of the local school districts. My old boss is now the Special Ed director in a town not too far from here and he heard from a mutual friend that I would be willing to do some part-time teaching. I am really looking forward to it but I am very nervous. The tutoring will be via Zoom so I don’t really know what I will be doing. Luckily, it is only about ten hours a week so I will still have time for blogging, making miniatures, and reading. I also want to do more writing.
Goodreads has a challenge where you set how many books you want to read this year. There is an old schoolmate of mine on there that pledges to read 60! You go girl! I put down 26. I don’t spend a lot of time reading and would like to increase that. There are so many good books out there. Another blogger actually has offered to let me read his books for free! I will read them and then post my reviews. I am super excited for that! His name is Martin and you can check out his blog here: https://martinjoneswriter.com/2020/12/18/the-rainbow-by-d-h-lawrence-early-twentieth-century-pride/
I presume I will be giving updates every now and again as usual. Keep me posted with all your updates and I do hope to spend time on as many blogs as possible.
Peace to you all in the new year!
Saturday Mix – Fan Favourites, 2 January 2021
Join in the fun here: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2021/01/02/saturday-mix-fan-favourites-28-december-2019/
I have included all of the options, not sure which I want to do. I may do more than one…they are all good…
Fan Favourite Challenge #1 – SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT
Your ‘Same Same But Different’ task is to take the five challenge words and NOT use them in your writing. That’s right, you need to dig out your thesaurus and find a synonym for each word instead. Your words for the fan favourite challenge are:
- year
- health
- happy
- safe
- beginning
Every 365 days I am tickled pink knowing I feel good, have a roof over my head, and can start fresh with my goals.
Fan Favourite Challenge #2 – DOUBLE TAKE
The ‘Double Take’ challenge focuses on the use of homophones to build your writing piece. You have two sets of homophones and you are challenged to use all of them in your response – which can be poetry or prose.
Your homophone sets this week are:
hole and whole
AND
broach and brooch
When I’m heading out to garden
and looking for a spot
I check the whole location
for a hole to plant my pot.
I tried to broach the subject
with my roommate ‘fore I did
just in case she wanted input
like the brooch she gave that kid.
He put it in a shoebox
and said he’d keep it safe
She found it in the garbage can
that shitty little waif!
©2021 CBialczak Poetry
Fan Favourite Challenge #3 – OPPOSING FORCES
This challenge is all about “opposing forces” and the use of antithesis in our writing. You will need to use the two opposing words in your response – which can be poetry or prose.
Your words this week are:
– front and back
– high and low
If you walk to the front of my classroom
you’ll see the chalkboard is black
You can’t really see any writing
It’s so smudgy that you have to step back.
You know that I can’t stand the feeling
of chalk on my hands, as you know,
but where can I put all my lessons
when the highest spot is much too low?
They said that they’d come move the smart board
or maybe just the TV
But you waited all school year the last time
So you know that it’s all fantasy.
©2021 CBialczak Poetry
Fan Favourite Challenge #4 – UNIQUE PERSONALITY
This challenge is all about the use of personification in writing. You will need to use the statement provided in your response – which can be poetry or prose.
Your statement using, personification is: The flowers we fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
When I look out my window each morning
I see mother nature has come
to make all her masterpieces perfect
easier said than is done.
The big purple flowers were fluttering
And dancing away in the breeze
you almost forgot that the beauty
is all meant to be simple and please,
©2021 CBialczak Poetry
Fan Favourite Challenge #5 – MAD ABOUT METAPHOR
This challenge is all about the use of metaphor in writing. You will need to use the metaphor provided in your response – which can be poetry or prose.
Your metaphor this week is: Hope is on the horizon.
With the start of 2021 we have new vaccines coming to help stop COVID, the US has a new president coming to help heal our country, and I still love blogging. Hope is on the horizon for a year better than 2020!
Fan Favourite Challenge #6 – SOUND BITE
This challenge explores the use of ONOMATOPOEIA. You will need to use the THREE onomatopoeic words in your response – which can be poetry or prose.
Your three words, using onomatopoeia are: bang, pop, splish
I could hear noises coming from my daughters bedroom. First a shriek and a bang. Next a grunt and popping sound. Finally, a sigh and a splish, splash of the toilet bowl washing the creature away!.
Fan Favourite Challenge #7 – LUCKY DIP
The Lucky Dip challenge explores different poetry forms. Your poetry form this week is a Cinquain. See here for a format guide.
Line 1: Noun
Line 2: Description of Noun
Line 3: Action
Line 4: Feeling or Effect
Line 5: Synonym of the initial noun.
Suet
Fat for the birds
Eating it all quickly
Happily chirping and pecking
Birdseed
©2021 CBialczak Poetry
Fan Favourite Challenge #8 – RHYME TIME
The Rhyme Time challenge explores the use of rhyme in writing. Your rhyming words this week are:
– help
– yelp
– whelp
– kelp
It doesn’t help if you yelp when your whelp eats the shrimp and the kelp.
…in the corner…
JusJoJan 2021 and Stream of Consciousness Saturday are using the prompt “in the corner”. Check out Linda’s site for all of the rules and to read other entries. https://lindaghill.com/category/stream-of-consciousness-saturday/
My rambling contribution:
There is a place in everyone’s basement that is “the corner” where everything goes but no one wants to venture to recover anything. No one really knows what is back there. From the top of the stairs you can see boxes and you recognize the old Rubbermaid bin that you put there last summer. What was in that bin anyhow? Yeah, it’ll come to you at some point. There is probably some moisture now trapped between the layers of boxes and other crap stacked back there. If you move it you know what you will see…
You will find at least one, nasty-ass, giant spider who is just pissed that you have ruined a perfectly good bug-catching spot. You will find at least one dry, shriveled up salamander that came in through the sump pump looking for who-knows-what. You will find at least one piece of paper jammed between the wall and a box that feels damp, probably has some mold even if it is not visible to the naked eye. You will find a pen cap from the pen you used to label the boxes and from that same pen you had to throw away because you lost the cap. You will find a photograph from when you were a kid which will then get you looking for more.
You will start looking through bins, moving boxes, trying to find the box that had all those old photo albums in them. The young people don’t really understand anymore why photo albums were so important and you start to wonder yourself, since you can’t even remember where they are, which means you haven’t looked at any of the photos in a very long time. You will open a box that has that cookbook that you swear you lost, the one with the best meatloaf recipe, the only meatloaf recipe that doesn’t leave you feeling like you just ate a block of wood. You’ll put that aside and look in the next box only to find your old box of treasures. You open it and wonder why you thought this crap was a treasure. A marble, which are made by the thousands and all look somewhat alike. A bottle cap from your first beer. That one fortune from the fortune cookie you had on your first date with that hot guy/girl in your English class. A long necklace with a glass pendant that looks like the earth but is really too small to see any details. That thingy from your high-school graduation cap. Look, it even has the little pendant reminding you of how long ago it was that you were in high school. A letter from you best friend telling you that you are the only one that will ever know the secrets behind the person you thought you knew. Then you start thinking of that best friend…
What ever happened? Was it being away in college that separated you both? Did you have some sort of blowout you can’t remember? What if you were to find your best friend again? Would it be like it was and feel like you never left each others’ sides? Will you feel disappointed to know that your best friend has been keeping in touch with her other friend all these years but hasn’t made an attempt to talk to you? Wait, have you attempted to contact your old best friend? Can you be mad? But why weren’t you ever involved in their talks or get-togethers? Were they better friends than you thought? DId they stay friends through college? Oh, who cares anyhow…you have other friends in your life that actually care about you enough to keep tabs on you.
What is that?……
Holy Shit! That’s a big, friggin’ spider! What the hell!?!?!?! To hell with memories this thing is disgusting. You knew you would come across it at some point. Is it following you as you run up the basement stairs? Is it laughing at you, knowing it will be years before you go back to that spot? When will you go back? Probably either when you die or move….when you have to move those boxes and bins because there is no other choice.
2021 will be great!
