And The Challenge Begins

My best friend Marie and I enjoy writing about anything that strikes our fancy.  We will often inspire each other.  A while back, a funny picture that I sent her sparked a short story where she wrote the first half (http://eclecticthe.blogspot.com/2016/08/until-cows-come-home.html) and I wrote the second half (http://thehookandthepen.blogspot.com/2016/08/until-cows-come-home.html).

One day, many years ago, I was at an art museum and found a really cute book in the gift shop.  It was shaped like a cube and titled The Writer's Block by Jason Rekulak.  This particular book is full of different writing prompts for the stuck writer and it has 786 different prompts in it.  This particular book is what has sparked our current challenge.

So, here's the deal.  Each week that has a date in September, which there are five of them, Marie and I will randomly select a page from The Writer's Block for the other to write.  We will get a prompt every Sunday and the piece has to be posted to our blog by Saturday night.  Each of us is only allowed one veto of a prompt during this entire time.

Hopefully, this challenge will help open up some new creative paths.  At the very least, it will create five interesting short stories.  Let the challenge begin!!

The beginnings of all 5 pieces lay hidden within this book

Dude, Listen To Me

There are very few words in the English language that have such versatility in sentence structure.  No, I am not referring to common Anglo Saxon word that starts with the letter F, although that one has a lot of versatility too.  I am referring to a word that people  associate mostly with surfers.  The word that I am referring to is dude.  Now, before you try to tell me that it isn't a versatile word, allow me to educate you.

I am a child of the West Coast and I grew up using this word a lot so it is a part of my internal lexicon.  As a noun, dude can refer to a person of either sex, any animal, or object.  And while it doesn't really work as a verb or an adjective, it does work to express feelings.  When said with a lot of excitement, dude becomes a word to show how happy you are about something.  When said sadly, it can show disappointment.  With a touch of wounded pride, it can show being offended.

One other note to mention about the word dude is that it is considered one of the gender neutral words.  And before you try to tell me that dude is for guys and dudette is for girls, about 95% of all the generations that use the word dude, use it for everyone.  They also do not use the word dudette.

Dude!



















(Photo from https://i.pinimg.com/736x/74/4c/78/744c785bf0cbd75e42a210352cbde282---kids.jpg)