Happy Friday. How was your week?
Mine was quite productive, despite losing a day and a half to a business trip.
Today was “Cleanup Day” at work – a day set aside for folks to get rid of unnecessary files – both of the paper and the electronic variety.
I don’t generally accumulate much at at work, but even I was able to reduce my paper files by half and to free up gigabytes worth of server space. My efforts were dwarfed, however, by those of some of my coworkers of the gold-medal level packrat variety.
No matter how much or how little cleanup was done, we were all rewarded with pizza for lunch. Tomorrow people will be back to printing things out and filing them away, but for now we are all reasonably tidy and well-fed.
Now that the great cleanup is a thing of the past, it’s time for me to do some writing. Since one of the things I unearthed during my cleaning efforts was an embarrassing abundance of blank notebooks, I’m thinking the least I can do is use one as I give today’s story prompt and random words a try.
Care to join me?
For those of you working away on a story (whether a first draft or a polished version on its way to publication), if you’re not feeling random, we’d love to hear a bit – whether it’s a scene, a paragraph, or even a phrase that you are especially pleased with and would like to share.
If you don’t have a story in progress, or just want to work on something new, I hope today’s story prompt and/or random words will catch your creative fancy.
Ready?
What if: “Your character lost something important?”
Feel free to interpret the “What if” any way you choose and include any (or all) of the following random words:
proud plaid thief viper
whisper drawer crazy disguised
deceit fictional ideal sibling
insecure nerve garden squirrel
I look forward to seeing your stories in the comments. If you’re not feeling in the writing mood today, or don’t have time, feel free to post suggestions you might have for future “what-if” prompts. Ideas are always welcome.
Happy writing to all!
Eight Ladies Writing 
Congratulations on Cleanup Day! It’s always good to be able to move stuff along. This morning, I moved a blouse into the bag for the Goodwill. It’s always nice to free up another hanger.
I used all the words today, but I got interrupted about halfway through and couldn’t visualize when I got back to it where I’d wanted the ending to be. Ah, well. It’s a sprint. 🙂
The Scarf
“Where’s my plaid scarf?” Coralin asked her sister. Her sibling was a well-known clothes thief and proud of it, swiping whatever she wanted out of Coralin’s dresser drawers and squirreling her spoils away in places unknown. “I need it. Give it back.”
Rayelle didn’t break focus from the window seat, where she was applying the second coat of “Garden Whisper” to her fingernails.
“You’re crazy,” she said, blowing on her left hand. “I never took your scarf.”
Coralin didn’t buy it. Rayelle was well versed in deceit.
“You’ve got some nerve,” Coralin said. “Seriously, Rayelle, give it back. You know Hopper Vanderweele invited me to the Viper Motorcycle Club masquerade. We’re supposed to go disguised as fictional characters. I need it.”
“I’m using it,” Rayelle said. “It’s holding up the bookshelf. It’s ideal for the purpose.” She pointed to the space over her head, where the plaid scarf was wrapped around the single shelf where the support bracket had once been. The scarf ends had been secured by the closed window sash.
The bookshelf had been insecure for ages, but that didn’t calm Coralin’s fury. She jumped on her bed and forced open the window. The scarf fell free, the shelf fell down, and all the books landed on Rayelle’s head, tipping over her open bottle of polish.
“Now look what you’ve done!” Rayelle shrieked, furiously trying to corral the spilled polish back into its bottle. Coralin hopped off the bed, holding her scarf.
“Yes,” Coralin said. “Nice work, if I say so myself.”
Ah- sisters at their best! Good job, Kay. And good job on freeing up a hanger. What’s that saying about a journey beginning with a single step?
p.s. I love the character names you come up with. They are unique but never fail to conjure a vivid image in my mind.
Very nice work indeed, Kay! Thanks for a very fun start to my day 🙂
I was too busy to play along on Friday, but I really liked the prompt words so I started noodling around with them today. I had fun, spent far more time than I intended, and ended up with a short story instead of a sprint. I’ve put it up as my post for Sunday. Thanks, Elizabeth!
That’s great, Jilly. I can’t wait to read what you came up with.
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