Category: 100-word stories

100-word stories

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100-word stories

100 Word Challenge – Week #161

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I haven’t done this challenge for ages, due to a lack of time, but couldn’t resist this one: the good parts of 2014. Actually, on rereading the instructions, I see this wasn’t exactly what Julia meant. Sorry. I couldn’t leave anything out.

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2014 in 100 Words

On 1st January, I had my hair cut short, hoping this would herald an even better year. It did. Three wonderful holidays, short stories published online and podcasted, two speeches accomplished at Toastmasters, lots of folk dancing, a successful book reading, finding myself in the safest part of the country when things went pear-shaped, the forest fire stopping just short of our house, lots of sunshine and much-needed rain, family healthy and doing well. But the best thing of all: my romance, Neither Here Nor There, published by Crooked Cat Publishing on 17th June. All in all, a fantastic year.

PS My book, like many other Crooked Cat books, is currently on sale on Amazon for a short time only. Here.

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100-word stories Books Bullying

100 Word Challenge – Week #136

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The task this week is to write 105 words including:

…. it was 50 years ago…

For the first time, I think, I’ve decided to write non-fiction for this challenge.

The Last Day

The last day of primary school. I remember it vividly, even though it was 50 years ago. Teachers and children actually wrote nice things in my autograph book. I strolled round the playground with one of the girls. She said, “I’m sorry we were so nasty to you.” I said, “It’s easy to say that now,” to which she replied, “But I mean it.”

If only she’d said that earlier, and followed her words with a change in her attitude, and encouraged her friends to do the same. I believe I would have been a very different person today, even though 50 years have passed.

***

Only 15 days to the launch of my book.

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100-word stories Books

100 Word Challenge – Week #135

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What a beautiful picture for this week’s prompt:

Following Instructions

“Which way now?”

“It says to cross by the bridge.”

“Erm, that might be a bit hard.”

“I see what you mean. We’ll just have to take our shoes off and wade over.”

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“Here we are, on the bridge. Pity you fell in.”

“I’m cold and wet through. My sandwiches must be soaking. And now we’re here, I see this bridge doesn’t lead anywhere.”

“That’s true. We’ll have to wade to the other side.”

“Look! Over there. Do you see what I see?”

“That long, sturdy metal bridge? Must be the one we should have taken.”

“Great. Just great.”

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Just 22 days to my book launch…

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100-word stories Books

100 Word Challenge – Week #134

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This is what Julia said:

I am very lucky to have a garden and even luckier that a variety of birds visit each day. At the moment we have 2/3 blackbirds who are really ruling the roost so to speak. They are beautiful song birds I know, but they are having a conversation. You can tell with the intonation of the sounds and the responses from another birds.

So, your prompt this week is to write that conversation!

Cherry Ripe

“Phew! My wings are aching. All that flapping. Whose garden have you brought me to now, then?”

“It’s Julia’s place – she of the hundred word challenge.”

“What good are words to me? I need food.”

“Coming from one who doesn’t stop talking…”

“I have a lot to complain about. We were just settling into our nest and now I have to build a new one.”

“But we finished the cherries in the old place. Remember? And look at those delicious cherries over there.”

“The ones that are protected with a net?”

“Didn’t you see what I brought?”

“Scissors! Oh darling!”

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100-word stories Books

100 Word Challenge – Week #122

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The challenge: 105 words including:

… the blackness just enveloped me…

A New Reality

I woke to total darkness. The blackness just enveloped me. I checked that my eyes were really open. They were. Only one explanation then. I must have gone blind overnight. I would have to get used to a new reality without sight.

I thought of all the things I would never see again except in my mind’s eye. The view from the window. The sunset over the sea. My children’s changing faces as they grew up. Then I heard something. At least my hearing was all right.

First whispering, then giggling. I reached up and pulled something down.

“Who put this blackout sheet over me?”

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100-word stories Books

100 Word Challenge – Week #119

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I haven’t done this for almost a year.

The prompt is:

… whenever I hear it, I think of you ….

I’m not sure I like my attempt.

Solomon and John

John Smith: Solomon! So glad I found you after all this time. Thirty years, is it?

Solomon Grundy: Forty more like. Isn’t Facebook wonderful? I’ve thought of you over the years.

John Smith: Me, too. There’s this rhyme. Whenever I hear it I think of you.

Solomon Grundy: What rhyme is that?

John Smith: It goes like this. Solomon Grundy, born on Monday, christened on Tuesday, married on Wednesday, took ill on Thursday, grew worse on Friday, died on

Solomon Grundy has gone offline.

“Oh, what a shame. Must be the end of Solomon Grundy. And we’d only just met up again. Back to the Saturday review then.”

Categories
100-word stories

100 Word Challenge – Week #79

A picture prompt this time:

Here’s my attempt:

Looking for a key

“What’s the name of this long-lost-third-cousin-twice-removed you want me to look for?”

“John Smith.”

“How am I going to find a John Smith?”

“I don’t know. That’s your job. I thought you could look up all the John Smiths in the country and ask them if their mother was called Susan.”

“Do you know how many John Smiths there are in this country? It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“Because it’s important for you?”

“No, because I’m not allowed to write clichés.”

“OK. It’s like looking for a key in a grass field.”

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100-word stories

100 Word Challenge – Week #76

100 Word Challenge
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The challenge: 103 words including:

…beneath the surface…

The Party

I watch her face as I endeavour to keep up the conversation, trying to salvage the right thoughts and words from the depths of my mind. From her facial movements and body language, I know what she’s thinking. She thinks I’m stupid and boring. The more she thinks it, the more I’m drawn to play into her view of me. She nods at my remark, but her mind is elsewhere, developing an escape strategy.

“Well, lovely meeting you,” she says. “Must move on.”

I hope my smile and raised shoulders portray the inevitableness of her action.

“Good riddance,” I say, beneath the surface.

Categories
100-word stories Israel

100 Word Challenge – Week #74

100 Word Challenge
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The challenge: 104 words including:

…the extreme weather meant…

I’m throwing fiction to the elements this week. We had our extreme weather about a week before most of you.

So near and yet so different

In Tel-Aviv, the extreme weather meant flooding, road closures and terrible traffic jams.

In Modi’in, a shopping centre was flooded, giving rise to the picture of a restaurant, the diners with their feet in water, that appeared on Facebook. Another interesting picture compared the shopping mall to Venice. They did look rather similar.

In Jerusalem, the extreme weather meant a traffic shutdown, a welcome holiday, snowmen, snowballs and beautiful, silent whiteness. What a difference a few kilometres and a few hundred metres make!

A week later, we sat lazing on the grass in warm sunshine, not a trace of extreme weather in sight.

Frozen pond
Frozen pond
Categories
100-word stories

100 Word Challenge – Week #73

The challenge: 105 words including:

…the notes from the piano….

I sat perfectly still, my eyes closed, my breathing steady, at once calm and excited by the notes from the piano. Amazing how just a few notes could warm my heart as they did. I smiled and opened my eyes to watch the performance, following the player’s fingers as they pressed and released the keys. I could see the concentration written on her face.

When she finished playing the piece, I clapped heartily. Then I went and hugged her.

“Well done! That was lovely,” I said. “I really enjoyed it.”

The first piece of music my daughter had learnt to play on the piano.