#Bloganuary Challenge – Triple Challenge

The #Bloganuary prompt challenges come in daily. I chose a few more to respond to below:

The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the prompt – What is your favorite photo you’ve ever taken? – My wedding picture.

I am my own worst critic when it comes to looking at myself in photos – old habits die hard. But my wedding pictures are with my husband, and we were both crazy about each other. Love never dies.

Gies Wedding

Next – If you could, what year would you time travel to and why?

Back to the 80s when life was carefree. When the only worries were where we we’re going to have fun, no digital apparatus, just real connections, relationships, breakups, parties – living, enjoying, and experiencing.

Also, What is your favorite quote and why?

‘What goes ’round comes back.’ – I have been saying this phrase for as long as I can remember. I relate it to Karma – what you give you get back, bad or good, so may as well make it good.

From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Definition of what goes around comes around

informal—used to say that if someone treats other people badly he or she will eventually be treated badly by someone elseYou should not mistreat them. What goes around comes around.

Remember these two things:

  1. Add the bloganuary tag to your post.
  2. Promote your blog post on social media, using the hashtag #bloganuary.

If you have any questions or want to discuss ideas, join the Bloganuary community site.

©DGKaye2022

#Writing Challenge – Tell us a Story About Your TBR Pile at Myths of the Mirror

Author, Diana Peach has a fun writing challenge going on – Write a story about your TBR pile. Great topic as so many of us writers and readers make jokes about how fat our Kindles are. I’ve written a poem about my BFK – My big fat Kindle.

If you’d like to play, here’s how it works:

  • Deadline is January 23rd
  • Post the story or poem on your blog
  • Link back to this post or leave your link in the comments below
  • Keep it family friendly
  • I will reblog as many of the entries as I can through the end of the January
  • Please reply to comments when I reblog your story or poem
  • I’ll post a summary with links in early February
  • You may use the (attribution free) pixabay image above if you want to
  • And most of all, Have Fun!

MY BFK (My Big Fat Kindle)

Stories and more stories
We cannot get enough.
Amazing how many books, 
Makes choosing one to read real tough.

No more books we chant
While adding just one more.
Adding different genres,
Excuse to add some more.
 
Promotional or free,
An author friend's new release,
My enthusiasm heightens,
A brand new read for me.

That's how fast it happens,
Before realizing the count.
What's one more book,
As the rising number mounts?

We are fooled by our Kindles,
At the lack of hefty weight.
Do we even know how many,
No matter because books are great.

So my Kindle and bookshelves,
Spill over with stories and words.
Yet another book is added,
My no more books plan is for the birds.

Though I know my Kindle
Is bursting at the seams,
I'll continue to hit the buy button,
To read more, fulfilling author's dreams.

©DGKaye2022

If you’d like to hop on this challenge, please visit Diana’s page below:

Original Source: Writing Challenge – The TBR Pile | Myths of the Mirror

Carrot Ranch Flash Fiction Challenge – What’s in your Hutch?

Charli Mills invites us to join in her weekly Flash Fiction Challenge at the CarrotRanch. The rules – 99 words only – no more – no less. We must choose our words carefully. As with each challenge, Charli gives us a word we incorporate into the story. This week is to write about something you find in a ‘hutch’.

 

January 2, 2019, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about something found in a hutch. It can be any kind of hutch — a box for critters or a chest for dishes. Go where the prompt leads!

 

 

Regal

 

They stood tall and proud. None wished to be snatched away, or worse, – broken!

For decades these worthy icons remained admired and sought after, not only for beauty, but, their ever-increasing monetary value. The older, the more valuable. A grand mix of ethnic backgrounds co-existing in silence.

Such greats as: Lalique, Capodimonte, Royal Doulton, and Russian nesting eggs sat perched on a shelf protected behind the beautifully scallop-edged fine glass doors housing the regal cabinet where they all lived in harmony in all their diversity.

Time’s treasures of hidden wealth and ancient lore communing in one dining room hutch.

©DGKaye2020

 

Original Source: https://carrotranch.com/2020/01/03/january-2-flash-fiction-challenge/

#Blue Sky Tag Challenge – #Blogchallenge – Tag, You’re it!

#Blue Sky Tag – Time for a little fun and distraction…#TGIF

Blue Sky Tag

 

I’ve been invited to hop on to the Blue Sky Tag Challenge by Sally Cronin. The rules of the challenge are:

 

 

11 tags, 11 answers, 11 questions

 

Use the Blue Sky banner  (that Rachael Ritchey designed).

 

It is sort of polite to mention the person who tagged you (even if you are busy and have not time for fun)

 

You need to answer the 11 questions set by your tagger (even though you wonder where they dredged them up from)

 

You will need to make up 11 original and interesting or funny questions for those you tag.

 

You need to tag 11 people

 

You can read Sally’s post and the answers to her questions HERE

 

blog challenge

 

 

And now for the questions Sally has put out for those of us she has tagged:

 

What was the name of your first pet and what did you love most about them? (if you have not had a pet, substitute, boyfriend, girlfriend, or film star!)

I didn’t have any pets – save for a few goldfish. But my first boyfriend was Brian. He lived on my street and we spent lots of time talking and plotting that we should elope and get married. I was 13, he was 12. Well, he went off to summer camp and quickly forgot about me when he met somebody else. I saw him a few years later and he apologized for his indiscretions and told me he ruined a good thing. Ya, well . . . he did, lol.

 

If you could meet anyone from history, who would you meet and why?

I don’t think I’d want to go too far back into history. I would have loved to have met with Norah Ephron. I think her and I could have been great friends. I love her writing, her honesty and after reading bios, almost all of her books, and watching documentaries about her I just feel that I can relate to her.

 

What is the most common misconception people have about you?

I think because of my chosen style and my big personality., at first appearance I come off as bold and sometimes intimidating to those who haven’t yet met me. Just proves one shouldn’t choose a book solely for its cover.

 

If you could buy any car in the world what would it be and why?

Lol, I’m not really a car freak, but I do like a bigger car with good pick-up. I’ve also become filled with high anxiety when driving on our crowded streets. I should think if I could afford to buy any car, I’d buy a limousine and hire a driver to do the driving for me.

 

Do you have a hobby your friends don’t know about?

Well, I really miss playing poker. I’m not sure if everyone knows that I enjoy the game and I used to be quite good at it. But I’ve given up that passion when I became a full time writer. Poker is a game that requires lots of time, patience and studying your opponents. Some say, an hour to learn and a lifetime to master.

 

What was the last movie you saw at the cinema?

I’m embarrassed to say, but I haven’t been to the movies in years. I just prefer to watch at home on my big screen TV, where I can pause it when necessary, and be comfortable on my couch.

 

Describe your perfect day?

Sun shining, no worries, and a glitch-free computer day.

 

Summer or winter?

Summer in winter – when I go away to the sunshine, leaving the cold winter behind.

 

Looks or Personality?

Absolutely personality!!!!!!!!

 

City or countryside?

Born and bred a city girl; I love the country for great escapes, but I require the hustle and bustle of city life.

 

Action or comedy?

I love to laugh so I’m always game for a good comedy, but also a great critic of comedies that aren’t funny. Give me a great chick-flick any day!

 

Tag! You’re it:

 

Stevie Turner, Adele Marie Park, Hugh Roberts, Marcia Meara, Marjorie Mallon, Balroop Singh, Norah Colvin, Jane Sturgeon, John Maberry, Christy Birmingham,

 

Here are your questions:

 

If you don’t choose to join in, you are forgiven. and being that there are only 11 to be tagged, I welcome any and all of you to join in!

 

  1.  What would you be doing if you weren’t a writer?

      2. Share one thing you’d like to do on your bucket list.

      3. Your favorite holiday destination.

      4. Name the best movie you’ve seen in a long time.

      5. If you could have one do-over, what would it be?

      6. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

      7. Your favorite all time book?

      8. Tell us one quirky thing about you.

      9. Write a one sentence quote for world peace.

     10. Share one great thing blogging has done for you.

     11. Name your favorite color and tell us why and what it represents to you.

 

I’m looking forward to your responses. If you choose to participate (and I hope you do, come on, I did!), please come back and add your link here in comments so I can gather them and share in a new post featuring links to all your contributions. ❤ 

 

Source: #Blue Sky Tag – Time for a little fun and distraction…#TGIF | Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life

Colleen Chesebro’s #Tanka Tuesday Challenge

blog challenge

 

Well, I’m dipping in the waters here in previously uncharted territory. I’m contributing to my Sister of the Fey, Colleen Chesebro’s weekly Tuesday Tanka (on Thursday) Challenge. Below my contribution, you will find the rules for this challenge and how you too can join in the fun using any one of the offered forms of poetry.

 

Today I’ve chosen to write a Tanka. This type of poetry is written in 5 lines, each with a designated number of syllables. For Tanka the form is 5, 7, 5, 7, 7. The words given for this challenge are ‘Morose’ and ‘Happy’. We are not to use those words, but use synonyms.

 

Peace be with you

 

Searching for world peace

Joyous dreams of yesteryear

When life was simpler

Sullen thoughts will disappear

When all is right with the world

 

 

 

Colleen’s Weekly #Tanka Tuesday #Poetry Challenge No. 95, “Happy & Morose,” #SynonymsOnly

 

synonym bun

WELCOME TO TANKA TUESDAY!

Hi! I’m glad to see you here. Are you ready to write some poetry?

HERE’S THE CATCH: You can’t use the prompt words! SYNONYMS ONLY!

 

For Colleen’s Weekly Poetry Challenge, you can write your poem in one of the forms defined below. Click on the links to learn about each form:

HAIKU IN ENGLISH 5/7/5 syllable structure. A Haiku is written about seasonal changes, nature, and change in general.

TANKA IN ENGLISH 5/7/5/7/7 syllable structure. Your Tanka will consist of five lines written in the first-person point of view. This is important because the poem should be written from the perspective of the poet.

HAIBUN IN ENGLISH Every Haibun must begin with a title. Haibun prose is composed of short, descriptive paragraphs, written in the first-person singular.

The text unfolds in the present moment, as though the experience is occurring now rather than yesterday or some time ago. In keeping with the simplicity of the accompanying haiku or tanka poem, all unnecessary words should be pared down or removed. Nothing must ever be overstated.

The poetry never tries to repeat, quote, or explain the prose. Instead, the poetry reflects some aspect of the prose by introducing a different step in the narrative through a microburst of detail. Thus, the poetry is a sort of juxtaposition – different yet somehow connected.

Cinquain ALSO: Check out the Cinquain variations listed here: Cinquain-WikipediaThese are acceptable methods to use. Please list the form you use so we can learn from you. 

Senryu in English 5/7/5 syllable structure. A Senryu is written about love, a personal event, and have IRONY present. Click the link to learn the meaning of irony.

 

Colleen’s poetry challenge is opened for one week, so visit her HERE to join in and add your poem.

Trainstorming for Writer’s Block – #BlogChallenge

blog challenge

 

I’m sure we’ve all read many great ideas by other writers who occasionally become stumped by writer’s block. We can take a break, work on another project, go for walk or do a myriad of other things to stimulate our creative juices, but my favorite thing to do is to use writing prompts to get the creative juices flowing.

 

I’ve written a few posts over the years about overcoming writer’s block and shared one of the books I use for writing prompt exercises, Natalie Goldberg’s – Old Friend From Far Away, where I used her prompts to create my ‘I am‘ series. But recently, I was reading a blog post over at Lana Broussard’s blog and I got this idea from her post there called the ‘Chatty Blitz’ to open up the creative channels.

 

I’m renaming my word prompt idea ‘Trainstorming’. The word is comprised of a brainstorming of words and thoughts followed like a train by the next sentence. What to do:

  • Start by choosing the first random sentence that comes to mind
  • Continue the next sentence (thought) beginning with the last word from the previous sentence
  • Keep on writing more sentences in same manner until you feel you’re done
  • Don’t think too hard what you’re going to write, just write the first thing that pops in your head
  • Now take a look at what you’ve written and you may just find a story to write about

 

After you’ve created your own trainstorm, you’ve exercised your mind and given yourself more words and/or ideas to prompt your writing and created a process that has the potential for a new story idea.

 

Here’s my example, done in 30 seconds: (On the airplane where I wrote this)

 

I will miss you beautiful Arizona.

Arizona desert heat and cacti flourish.

Flourish all of you beautiful flowers of spring.

Spring forward, don’t stay stagnant.

Stagnant thoughts don’t allow growth.

Growth is measured by . . . 

 

I challenge  any of you to continue on by using my last sentence above to begin your trainstorm and please feel free to share what you come up with below in comments or by leaving a link to your post.

 

Thank you to John Maberry for using this exercise for the intro to his short story – Derek’s Dominos

 

My New Blog Scares Me #MyFirstPostRevisited | Lemon Shark

Bad blog post

Leave it to Sarah Brentyn of Lemon Shark, to think of a humiliating blog challenge, lol. Sarah has chosen me among her 5 picks to reblog my very first post on WordPress.

 

Now we all now how we cringe when we look back at some of our earlier works, especially when we first begin blogging and have no real concept of what on earth we want to blog about. But Sarah has chosen me as one of the blogger’s  to visit the depth’s of my archives and I’m not going to chicken out.

Ironically, although this was the first post showing up, February 2013, WordPress has recently congratulated me on 5 years of blogging. I’m not sure where they got that first year from, possibly when I began blogging at ‘Myspace’ and moved over to WordPress and had copied over some of those posts, and maybe I had deleted them when I moved over to self-hosted WordPress, but whatever the case, I SWEAR SARAH BRENTYN, this is the first one I found. LOL. As Sarah had made it blatantly clear, we are not to substitute for the first post we’ve made.

Now, I can’t remember that far back, but seeing as I like to read and write about inspirational things, I’m guessing I chose to write this post categorized in ‘inspiration’.

 

#MyFirstPostRevisited

Awakenings – My first blog post from the Hall of Shame

 

 

Arizona

ISN’T LIFE JUST FULL OF SURPRISES?  JUST WHEN WE ARE READY TO THROW IN OUR TOWELS AND ACCEPT WHAT IT IS WE THINK IS THE WAY IT HAS TO BE YOU CAN OPEN A WINDOW AND FIND THAT IF YOU LOOK HARD ENOUGH THERE IS A PATH TO THE DOOR. 
STAY NESTLED IN YOUR COZY LITTLE LIFE THE WAY IT IS OR OPEN THE DOOR AND TAKE A CHANCE ON WHAT LURKS BEHIND IT.  YOU MAY JUST FIND THAT THE THRILL OF LIFE NEVER HAS TO END SOMEWHERE AT SOME POINT, 
DO NOT ACCEPT “NOT ENOUGH”, GO FOR THE BIG BRASS RING BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T YOU WILL NEVER KNOW AND THAT IS NOT LIVING LIFE COMPLETE.
DGKaye ©2013
Yup, I copied it over, caps and all!

 

Here are Sarah’s rules for being abducted participating in this challenge

 

Obvious rules:

  • No cheating. (It must be your first post. Not your second post, not one you love…first post only.)
  • Link back to the person who tagged you (thank them if you feel like it or, if not, curse them with a plague of ladybugs).

Other rules:

  • Cut and paste your old post into a new post or reblog your own bad self. (Either way is fine but NO editing.)
  • Put the hashtag #MyFirstPostRevisited in your title.
  • Tag…um…ten two twelve five (5) other bloggers to take up this challenge.
  • Notify your tags in the comment section of their blog (don’t just hope they notice a pingback somewhere in their spam).
  • Feel free to cut and paste the badge to use in your post.
  • Include “the rules” in your post.

Completely silly rules that I’m making up as I type:

  • Drink a glass of wine, bottle of beer, cup of coffee, mug of herbal tea or whatever floats your boat after you hit “publish”. (In other words, toast yourself. Go you!)
  • Read the post out loud in a Mickey Mouse voice.

 

Now go over to Sarah’s original post and read her first blog post, which, quite frankly, I don’t think is terrible at all.

 

“I’m calling out bloggers to publicly share their very first post. I want to see them all. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Whether you’re thrilled to have an excuse to dig out that old post and give it some fresh air or you’re seriously considering deleting it after I tag you, I want to see it. .  .”  CONTINUE READING

Oh, and who are my 5 victims bloggers I’m choosing to join in?

 

Sally Cronin

Tina Frisco

Sherri Mathews

Hugh Roberts

Shehanne Moore

Lol Enjoy! I can’t wait to read them!

 

Note* I wasn’t intending on posting anything new until I reached Arizona, but I couldn’t say no to Sarah and being that this post will be live the day before I travel, please bear with me on the time lag it will take me to reply to your comments, but rest assured, I will be reading and replying while I’m away. And I will be checking up on those of you who’ve I’ve dragged into this too! 🙂

 

Source: My New Blog Scares Me #MyFirstPostRevisited | Lemon Shark

#Book Spine Poetry | Blog Challenge

blog challenge

Now here’s a fun challenge. I first came across  this on Sue Vincent’s page,  then Chris the Story Reading  Ape’s page, who had reblogged from Lisa Shambrook. Lisa had got the idea from The Conclave of Sappho

 

Here’s the fun:  Go to your bookshelves and find a few books with title’s that make a poem when stacked on top one another.

 

When you’re done, share it on Lisa’s page, and feel free to come back and leave the link to yours in the comments here too.

 

Here’s mine:

 

book poetry new-1

MenoWhat? A Memoir

Writing About Your Life,

Fear of Fifty,

I Feel Bad About My Neck,

I Remember Nothing.

Authors of above listed books: D.G. Kaye, William Zinsser, Erica Jong, Norah Ephron, Norah Ephron (I Was thrilled to put myself in such esteemed company 🙂 )

 

book poetry 2-1

All The Light We Cannot See

Glimpsing Heaven,

The Journey.

Authors of the above books: Anthony Doerr, Judy Bachrach, Brandon Bays

 

https://thelastkrystallos.wordpress.com/2016/04/15/book-spine-poetry/