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Writing Sprints Inspiration: Jenifer

If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.
Once again, our 15 minute word sprint produced some great works. This week, the prompt was: “The most beautiful place on earth”.

“So, Miss Albright … tell me, do you think of our little home?”

Sarah chose not to address Mr. Sutton’s obvious facetious use of the word ‘little.’ “It’s one of the most beautiful homes I’ve ever seen.”

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Writing Sprints Inspiration: Jamie

If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.
Jamie put her heart into today’s prompt, which is to use the following five words in your story: resolution, explosion, compete, lifestyle, fever.  Enjoy, and make sure you reach out to her to let her know you want her to finish this story!

“I’ve got to test negative before they’ll let me return to work.” Gladys stood at the sink, stirring cream into a half dozen eggs, wondering if the bread had gone bad or if she was going to be able to serve toast to her guests.

“Are you going to tell them?” Clyde jerked his head to the right to indicate the guests asleep in the two spare bedrooms down the hallway.

“I told Sally. I figured, their her friends. If she wants to tell the rest of them, she can.”

“Quite a decision you’ve made,” Clyde sniffed.

“You tell them, then,” Gladys said, shrugging as she poured her eggs into the buttered pan. She began stirring them gently with the metal whisk, irritated that her plastic one had been dirtied the morning before and was not at hand for use, and that she had to whisk extra carefully to preserve the finish of her nonstick pan. The fact that it would only have taken her fifteen seconds to wash the plastic one was squashed in favor of holding a grudge against Sally’s friend, Barb, who’d been the one to dirty it while making the french toast the morning before. 

“Some soggy toast it was, too,” Gladys thought bitterly, remembering how the entirety of the household had raved about it.

“I think you ought to tell them,” Clyde said. “All of them. They deserve to know they’ve been exposed.”

“I’m asymptomatic,” Gladys said, whisking more furiously in spite of herself. She hated when her husband tried to tell her what to do. Still, she had to admit the idea of keeping such information from the guests in her house being a bad idea had merit. 

“I haven’t even spiked a fever.”

“You should tell them.”

“I’ll test again. I’ll keep testing until I get a negative.”

“That’s not a real solution, and you know it.”

The room fell into silence, save for the subtle hiss of the gas burner and the slight crackle of butter as the eggs neared completion. Grabbing a spatula from out of the drawer, Gladys gave a final scrape to the pan and plopped the eggs on a serving platter. They steamed. Gladys watched the vapors rise and thought about hopes and dreams and plans and how her life was but a vapor, and wished she had married someone who could understand those sorts of thoughts and could engage her on them. 

She reached for a plate and set it on top of the eggs to keep them hot as she checked the bread. Still good. She felt the stick of butter on the counter. 

Rock solid.

She cursed and popped the stick into the microwave.

“Bad idea,” Clyde offered, and Gladys bit her lip to keep from responding. She wanted to say she knew what she was doing, and that she microwaved butter all the time to butter his blasted breakfast every workday for the past twenty five years.

But she didn’t.

It was one for the “keeping my resolutions” column.

She flipped the stick after five seconds and gave it another five then smiled satisfactorily at the perfectly softened results. 

She popped four slices of bread into the toaster.

“Mind the settings,” Clyde offered from his seat.

Resolutions went out the window in an explosion of words.

“Why don’t you cook the breakfast?” She shrieked.

“Calm down,” Clyde said, rolling his eyes.

“Stop telling me what to do and I will,” Gladys snipped.

“Look, I just want you to do the right thing.”

“I’m not telling our guests my personal information just because you want me to!”

“What’s going on, guys?” A disheveled, slippered and peep-eyed Barb had scuffed silently into the room.

“Nothing,” Gladys said. 

“If you say so,” Clyde responded.

“Well, good morning,” Barb chirpped.

“And good morning to you, early bird!”

Gladys wanted to spit watching the two of them chatter about current events and tv shows. When the room fell silent, she considered filling it with what she really thought of Sally and her friends and Barbs french toast. Instead, she said,

“I’ve made some eggs.”

TIME IS UP! SEE YOU ON THE PODCAST!!!

Thank you for tuning in to watch me write live! Catch the Christian Indie Writers’ Podcast at 10am Eastern to see/hear me read this piece LIVE! See you there!!!

Jamie Hershberger enjoys writing shorts (short fiction) under the pen name, J. R. Nichols. She is the creator and curator of www.writingshorts.net and the editor of The Writing Shorts Newsletter.  Her flash fiction has won several contests and has been featured in two anthologies.

Writing Sprints Inspiration: Tina

If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.
As always, the ladies of the podcast created some great pieces of writing from this sprint prompt. Today’s Prompt is “I can’t believe I failed”.  We really enjoyed Tina’s take on the prompt, and we think you will as well! Enjoy, and make sure you reach out to her to let her know you want her to finish this story!

A conversation with myself

“I have no ideas. I’m fresh out. My head is pounding, my sinuses are so dried out I got a nosebleed this morning, and no matter how many socks I put on I can’t get warm.” 

“It’s not even that cold out.”

‘I know, and yet here I sit with a wool sweater on, wool socks, an electric blanket and a space heater, and I still can’t get warm. It could be a sign of the second coming. 

I’m pretty sure “Alaskan girls will be cold after 53 years being hot all the time” isn’t in the scripture

Well it should be. 

You need to get it together. Focus. Get something done instead of huddling under this blanket. Maybe if you move around it’ll warm you up. 

I tried that. It didn’t help. 

Well do something else, get your mind off it. Do one of your courses. 

I can’t focus. I can’t concentrate when I’m freezing. I signed up for that one course I was so excited about. I got so far behind, the thing ended and I was only half way through it. 

I can’t believe I failed. 

It’s another sign.

Again, not in the scriptures. 

Whatever, go away. 

And how exactly does that work?

Oh, fine, just shut up then. 

I’ll shut up as soon as you stop thinking so much. 

All right, let’s just watch tiktok videos, then I can stop thinking and you can shut up. 

Good plan! 

I know right, I always have the best ideas!

Christina Cattane is a Christian Indie Writer who writes stories set in Alaska and other exotic locales. She is the author of a novel called ‘Lost in the Land of the Midnight Sun’ which falls in the Christian Dystopian Fiction genre, but she also writes in many other genres. Tina grew up in Alaska, has lived in Saudi Arabia, and currently resides in Michigan with her husband and youngest 2 of 4 kids. Her travels around the world often influence her writing. Visit her website at http://christinacattane.com where you can see the progress she is making on her novel. Or catch up with her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cmcattane

Writing Sprints Inspiration: Jenifer

If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.
Once again, our 15 minute word sprint produced some great works. This week, the prompt was: “That’s it…I quit!”.

Marnie stormed through the door of Mr. Boss’s office and slammed the door shut behind her. It felt good, this physical and audible manifestation of the storm that was brewing beneath the surface of what she could only imagine was a hot, red face. But that satisfaction was short lived when the action did not elicit the response she had expected.

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Writing Sprints Inspiration: Jamie

If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.
Jamie put her heart into today’s prompt, which is: That’s it…I Quit!.  Enjoy, and make sure you reach out to her to let her know you want her to finish this story!

“That’s it…I quit”

“No, Sheree! You can’t! We’re in the middle of ribfest and there’s no way we can handle this volume with only two servers on the floor. Please, have mercy!”

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Writing Sprints Inspiration: Tina

If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.
As always, the ladies of the podcast created some great pieces of writing from this sprint prompt. Today’s Prompt is five words: burn, giant, profile, sphere, research.  We really enjoyed Tina’s take on the prompt, and we think you will as well! Enjoy, and make sure you reach out to her to let her know you want her to finish this story!

“Am I supposed to burn this now?” asked Jack, holding up the piece of paper Roger had given him, calling it “research on the client”. 

Roger’s brow wrinkled, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. Jack half expected him to pull a bottle out of a drawer and take a big gulp. Jack would bet money that’s exactly what he would do the minute Jack left. 

“This guy is a ghost. He has no history, he’s not in any system anywhere. No driver’s license, no titles to anything. No social security number.”

Jack looked back at the page, ignoring the giant white space on the lower half and concentrating on what there was in the profile. He was an expert marksman, he executed with military precision, and he was ruthless. 

“He may be a ghost in the states, but we live on a big sphere. Have you checked with interpol?”

“I have a call in. Seems, they’ve all gone home for the day. The French aren’t the workaholics we apparently are.” 

“What about the emergency number?” Jack asked.

“I hadn’t gotten to it, and now I’m handing it over to you. It’s your headache now.”

“Thanks,” said Jack, wondering if Roger was even capable of recognizing sarcasm. 

“Your Welcome,” said Roger. 

Well, that answers that question, thought Jack, as he rose from the chair. 

“Shall I keep you updated,” Jack asked before Roger could say the usual. 

“Yes, yes, keep me updated.” Roger waved at Jack without looking up, his mind already focused on the next problem. 

Roger wasn’t cut out to be a spy, that much was clear. Which is why they had Jack, who fit every stereotype ever typed onto a page, including the fact that he always got his man. 

Christina Cattane is a Christian Indie Writer who writes stories set in Alaska and other exotic locales. She is the author of a novel called ‘Lost in the Land of the Midnight Sun’ which falls in the Christian Dystopian Fiction genre, but she also writes in many other genres. Tina grew up in Alaska, has lived in Saudi Arabia, and currently resides in Michigan with her husband and youngest 2 of 4 kids. Her travels around the world often influence her writing. Visit her website at http://christinacattane.com where you can see the progress she is making on her novel. Or catch up with her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cmcattane

Writing Sprints Inspiration: Rhonda

If you missed last week’s episode, you missed a great one. You can watch the replay here.
As always, the ladies of the podcast created some great pieces of writing from this sprint prompt. This week, the prompt was: Autumn Traditions. We really enjoyed Rhonda’s take on the prompt, and we think you will as well! Enjoy, and make sure you reach out to her to let her know you want her to finish this story!

Marcy crept up behind Cheryl, stepping gingerly to avoid giving herself away by the crunching of leaves. She slipped into a spot next to Cheryl and placed the warm mug on the rail in front of her. The fragrant steam formed a cloud around Cheryl’s head. She coughed sharply, then continued coughing obnoxiously. 

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