Happy “National Strawberry Parfait Day” (if you’re reading this on June 25th). It’s also “National Catfish Day,” so if you fry up some catfish and have a strawberry parfait for dessert, you can celebrate two things at once.
If you’re looking to celebrate something non-food related, it’s also “National Take Your Dog to Work Day.”
“A celebration of the companionship between canine and human, National Take Your Dog to Work Day hopes to inspire others to adopt from shelters and humane societies.”
Those dog owners who are currently working from home, especially those who adopted a dog during the pandemic, should be able to celebrate with no trouble.
Personally, I’ll be celebrating “Ignoring the Things I Should Do and Reading Instead Day.” I feel like I’ve earned the right to do that, after suffering through both a phone and a computer upgrade this week at work, and making it through with two fully functionally devices and only a small amount of angst.
The garden may also have some demands on my time–how can those weeds grow so fast? I swear the bamboo-shoot from the neighbors yard grew six-feet this week alone. Rounding things off with some time on the elliptical and a shot at today’s writing prompt and random words sounds like a good plan.
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 either today’s random words or writing prompt will catch your creative fancy.
Ready?
Prompt: I’m Bored!
Feel free to interpret the prompt any way you choose (or ignore it completely) and include any (or all) of the following random words:
gargoyle plastic play freak
cough rabbit stone garden
hutch hottest mystery blossom
twisted vast hopeless drama
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 writing prompts. Ideas are always welcome.
Happy writing to all!
Eight Ladies Writing 
Those weeds, Elizabeth! I hear you. They’re everywhere at my house, too. Also, I was happy to see that “gargoyle” was one of our words today. I wrote a story about a gargoyle once, longer than this one. 🙂
The Life and Times of a Garden Gargoyle
Little Izzy grabbed the plastic garden gargoyle and tried to twist its head off.
“Try not to be a freak, darling,” Izzy’s mom, Blossom, said leisurely from her lounge chair in the yard. “Stop playing with that thing.”
“Here, take the nice rabbit that your Uncle Chester gave you,” her Aunt Rowena said, handing the stuffed toy to the child. “Nice rabbit.”
“Kid’s hopeless,” her Uncle Chester said as an aside to his wife. “It’s a mystery why she’s so damn peculiar. None of us is peculiar.”
“You keep thinking that, dear,” Rowena said. “It’s adorable.”
“Change out that plastic gargoyle for a stone one,” Izzy’s grandfather Buster said. Buster always was a mean man. “That’ll cut the drama.”
“There’s no drama, is there, my precious?” Blossom said.
Izzy’s cousin Edgar coughed. The boy was twelve years of age but timeless. “I think Izzy needs some lemonade,” he said. “I’ll get it, shall I? It’s the heat, I think.”
They all gazed at the sky, a vast blue blanket that seemed to smother the air. It was the hottest day of the year, they recalled.
“Good idea, darling,” Blossom said. “The pitcher’s on the hutch in the kitchen.”
“I know,” Edgar said. “I put it there.”
I did think if you, Kay, when I added gargoyle to the list 🙂
I love the amount of characterization you managed to get in just a few words for each character. That “None of us is peculiar” bit was just great.
I’m using Friday’s for Character and story exploration. The random words make me work harder and come up with some more concrete-feeling scenes.
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“Well, that’s something I don’t see every day.”
She moved over towards the bookshelves, while her brother worked his way around the desk.
“What? The alien in the 50s DA or the fact that someone might own the Earth and is auctioning us all off?”
“I was actually thinking about that plastic gargoyle perched on top of the hutch, staring down at what? And his eyes, I could swear they’re actually following us around the room as we look around?”
The gargoyle would definitely fit in better with that twisted garden out back. A garden where freaky, twisted blossom creatures made of stone played with gemstones in some sort of unusual staged drama. And gargoyles danced with stone rabbits and small winged creatures of some sort. Everywhere her eyes wandered they beheld a vast array of freakish mysteries begging consideration and questioning.
Her brother coughed. She looked back at him. He’d just blown a cloud of dust from some fist-sized gem-looking paperweight on the desk. She caught an image of the hutch gargoyle in a reflection from the window. She could swear its eyes just gleamed at her with a matching razor-toothed smile. If that single smile was equal parts off-putting and foreboding at the same time.
Nice job Penny. I’m glad the writing sprints are helping you hone your work. Now about those gargoyles . . .