Many of you will be aware that WordPress used to run a word-of-the-day post to inspire writers but a couple of years ago they decided to stop. A few intrepid bloggers decided to collaborate on our own word posts and a number of them have flourished.
There are a few out there and I like to take part in as many as possible.
I also take part in a collaboration with Melanie B Cee of sparks from a combustible mind and Cyranny of Cyranny’s cove to post a Word of the Day.
I missed out on reblogging on the posts for Thursday and Friday so below are the links to those posts. Why not have a go at writing something that includes both of these words in your next post. Please link to the original Word of the Day posts in order to share them with other participants.
Dressmaking was a family tradition and her grandmother had taught her all she knew, but rarely had she got the time to make something for herself.
She’d made her daughter’s wedding dress and then lots of things for her own granddaughters but it had been twenty years since she’d made something for herself.
She carefully took her measurements across the bust, waist, and hips then stared down at the numbers perplexed. How could she have changed so much!
Once she began, the familiar process happened quickly and before she knew it, the green silk gown had formed on the mannikin. It was quite plain, she didn’t want to outshine her own granddaughter at her wedding, after all. Then she added just one ribbon around the neckline to zhuzh it up a bit.
On the day, as she watched her granddaughter, she was so proud of the family she had made. Â
[150 words]
This story was written in response to the following word prompts:
In the early morning sun, she walked along the beach alone. The only people around were anchored off the coast in their fancy yachts that she gazed at with covetous eyes. The waves lapped gently on the creamy white sand and the smell of the salty air combined with the sound washed away all her troublesome thoughts. Then she saw something bobbing about at the water’s edge. It was a bottle, tightly sealed, with a rolled-up scroll of paper within. The note read “Help us, please. Pirates have seized our yacht, The Maria Nova. We are being held captive. Call the police”. As she pulled out her phone and called the police, grateful that she had a good signal, despite the loneliness of the beach, she realised that whilst she had envied those yacht owners, wealth sometimes brought other problems and the covetousness of Pirates put hers into stark contrast.
[150 words]
This story was written in response to the following word prompts:
It’s been some time since I took part in the Song Lyric Sunday Challenge, in fact, it was even longer ago than I realised! I’ve not taken part since the 13th of February. Time flies by, it’s about time I took part again. It’s a fantastic challenge, hosted by Jim Adams.
The Last time I took part, the theme was songs that feature lyrics with the contractions of Can’t, Don’t, Shouldn’t, Won’t.
So, in my usual way, I turn to a golden oldie rather than something that’s been in the charts recently. This one is probably a very obvious one considering the prompt and I probably won’t be the only one to choose this song but I had to choose it. It dates from 1971.
The sone, The Candyman, was written for the film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Anthony Newley had been a child actor in the UK and had also written songs and released singles and had been in the Rex Harrison version of Dr. Doolittle. He had also been married to the actress of Dynasty fame, Joan Collins. He co-wrote this song but was not happy with the version sung in the film and he released his own version shortly afterwards.
Then the following year, Sammy Davis Junior released his version of this song and it became a huge hit for him.
I tried to find these three versions for you so you can compare and contrast them.
I hope you enjoyed these contrasting versions. Oh, and if you are interested my favourite candy bar is called a Crunchy. I don’t know if that is available in the US, but it’s fantastic.
She came across it quite by accident, a memento of a different time, a time of youth. When you are young time seems to float by gently but as you get older, as events take over, time rushes past so fast reality becomes a dream until you wake up and everything you ever cherished has gone.
The faded photograph was a picture of that time when she’d lived in grandeur and had servants to wait upon her. There she stood on her family’s front porch, dressed in white lace for her wedding day, her husband beside her looking young and vital with that roguish grin. How she had loved him, but he’d been a gambler and now she was reduced to her current state. When once she had eaten steak and caviar, now she had nothing but cabbages to look forward to. Cabbages and memories were all that were left.
[150 words]
I hope you enjoyed this story, my first in a long while 🙂
His body lay in the gutter. He could feel the hard cobblestones, but the discomfort they caused was nothing next to the pain of the wound in his side. Stabbed by a Knife. It was Ironic he should end this way, bleeding to death in the street. The rain washed the blood away and with it, his life ebbed.
He took one last look at the London street, lit by the gaslamps that produced a flickering uneven light.
I was lucky to be out with my Mum having lunch in a local restaurant and we were told that the planes that were going to be flying to London to do a formation flypast for the Queen’s Jubilee were actually going to fly over our heads.
Life is full of unexpected surprises, sometimes good and sometimes bad. This time is was so lovely to see the planes fly over in formation and later to watch the news and see the same planes being enjoyed by Her Majesty the Queen on the balcony at Buckingham palace.
So the Word of the Day is Rotation and this strangely correlates to a recent incident at work where we all came together to discuss the fair distribution of a task that no one seems to want to do. The idea was to reassure reluctant people that others were taking their fair share and you’d let the team down if you didn’t do the same…
I observed that Rota’s are not required when the team pulls together and just gets on with it but become essential when there’s one or two that just don’t want to get involved.
I decided to write an Acrostic poem to put this into words:
Rotating word duties more fairly,
On reflection can cause a psychosis.
To be honest, I’d rather drink my tea,
Avoiding all work in the process.
The trouble with rhymes it that it depends a lot of how you pronounce the words where you are. Where I am, Psychosis and Process, while not technically a rhyme sound similar, but where you are that may not be the case…