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Prompt Three

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Prompt Three

By Nandy Ekle

I am going to attempt something new each week here. I have a list of story prompts that I want to use for my blogs each week. These are not my original ideas, they are from several lists I have found.

So, here is Number Two. Not sure what to call it, but here goes.

SLEEPLESS (accompanied by a picture of a woman lying on her side on a bed in the dark with her eyes wide open).

One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four sheep, five sheep, six sheep, seven sheep, eight sheep, nine sheep, ten sheep . . .

Nope. Still wide awake. Oh, now my feet itch, but I can’t reach them. I’ll have to sit up and bring my knees to my chest. This is not fun since my knees don’t like to bend that far. But the itch is one of those sharp, SCRATCH ME NOW types of itch. So, I toss the cover off, raise my upper body up while pulling my knees up, and my hand curls into a claw as it zips to the spot. Oh! deep itch, deep scratching, hurts so good.

Okay. I’m now going to try sleeping again. I turn to my right side because that’s where my best sleep is. My left arm is down my side so that my left shoulder is supported. Ah. I am finally comfortable, just warm enough, and my eyes think about closing.

Suddenly, my right shoulder feels like a rusty nail has been pounded directly through the joint. The pain is unbearable and I have to turn to my other side. I push the covers off my arms, rotate my hips and shoulders, and lay back down. I pull the covers back up to my ear when I realize my pillow has shifted. Now I have to grab it and reposition it to support my head and neck so my left shoulder is not smashed as much as my right shoulder was, and the shell of my left ear is in the low part of the pillow. It tends to ache in the middle of the night if I don’t.

Now I’m feeling slightly drowsy when heat nearly explodes out of my chest, down my arms to the tips of my fingers. Sweat breaks out on my upper lip, under my arms, and my legs down to my toes. I throw the covers off and flip over to my back. The air around me in the room is icy, but feels like heaven while I ride the heat wave out.

After a few minutes I feel the flame inside me start to wind down. The coldness of the room seeps into my skin and I reach for the cover. Now I must go through the routine of finding the comfort spot on my left side again.

My eyes close and I wait for the bliss of unconsciousness. One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four sheep, five sheep, six sheep, seven sheep, eight sheep, nine sheep,             ten sheep . . .

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Prompt Two

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Prompt Two
By Nandy Ekle

I am going to attempt something new each week here. I have a list of story prompts that I want to use for my blogs each week. These are not my original ideas, they are from several lists I have found.

So, here is Number Two. Not sure what to call it, but here goes.

AN UNEXPECTED EVENT.

Every day is the same routine. Get up in the early morning, go to bed late at night. Work at my desk job during the daylight hours, work at my home job during the nighttime hours. Gather documents from eight to twelve, eat lunch hour from twelve to one, write letters from one to five. Go home, eat dinner, surf the net, bed, start over.

But then something completely unexpected happened. When I got to my desk I noticed one of my shelf decorations had an altered look. When I saw this, I knew my life would never be the same.

I work in a small cubicle, a U-shaped desk, two filing cabinets, two shelves. One of the shelves, the one closest to my arm length, is covered with books and information I use to research my letters. The other shelf is covered with my personal decorations. I love skulls, sugar skulls, skeletons, all manner of Halloween type stuff. I have several pieces arranged in a tableau to looks like a dark corpse wedding. The centerpiece of my tableau is a bronze skull on a platform looking at a black bronze rose, as if in contemplation. I call him Horatio.

I greet Horatio every morning and he stares back at me with his hollow bronze eyes as if to say, “Good morning, Nandy. Today we will be writing a story about a bullfight.” “Good morning, Nandy. Today we are researching tarot cards.” “Good morning, Nancy. Today we are going to read a book to get ideas about how to handle your main character’s current situation.” But one morning when I came in, Horatio didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.

Up until around four months ago a woman sat in the cubicle behind me. She had always been a woman woman who was know for being harsh. She had a strong personality, and usually came off as a hard nose. Her speech could be abrupt, and she used that to her advantage. It was a while before I felt comfortable with her, and she did not like my skulls and skeletons. So when I saw Horatio on this particular morning, my co-worker suddenly gained a huge amount of respect and love for her.

Horatio staid in his spot on the shelf. He didn’t say a single word, but he didn’t need to. a giant rainbow colored Afro wig was perched on his head, I laughed at him, and he laughed back. And i hear the voice of my co-worker behind me break out in a giant giggle. I looked over the cubicle wall and watched as my co-worker wiped the tears off her face.

“Is that your wig?” I asked her.
“Well, if it’s not, it should be.”

She didn’t answer, but together she and I took some awesome pictures. And Horatio has been more than just a pretty skull.

What I said on that day is, “So, we’re having some dark humor today?” Horatio just looked at his rose while grinning his bronze grin. Kay became a very good friend of mine and when she retired a few months later, I could almost swear the skull named Horotio blow me kisses when no one else is working.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Prompt One

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Prompt One

By Nandy Ekle

 

I am going to attempt something new each week here. I have a list of story prompts that I want to use for my blogs each week. These are not my original ideas, they are from several lists I have found.

So, here is Number One. Not sure what to call it, but here goes.

THE FURTHEST AWAY FROM HOME YOU HAVE EVER BEEN.

I’m a person who loves to travel. Going different places to see new things is very thrilling to me. When I was a kid our family took the traditional vacations-two weeks on the road to to a destination for fun and relaxation. We stayed in hotels with swimming pools, we ate picnic lunches at roadside parks, we saw mountains and lakes, deserts and forests, beaches and cities. I have a lot of great memories; however, I am told that we actually went places and saw things and had experiences that I don’t remember at all because I was too young.

My husband and I have also been on several trips: Washington state, Oregon state, West Virginia, Missouri, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Kansas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Not to mention all over our home state of Texas. We’ve even been on a couple of cruises, going actually leaving the U S of A and spending a day in Jamaica and a couple of days in different cities of Mexico.

I think one of my favorite places to visit is the Redwood Forest in Northern California. I love the mountains and I love the trees. These beautiful giants grow close and thick, the branches and leaves blocking the sun. Standing in a clearing surrounded by the ancient forest is a truly surreal experience. The fog comes in from the Pacific ocean, which is just through the woods that direction. You can smell the salt in the air and feel a cool breeze. When you look up to the sky, you only see so far up because the tree tops have trapped the mist. And as the branches shiver their leaves in the breeze, you could almost swear the mighty redwoods were whispering to heavens.

My second favorite place is the Rocky Mountains. Once we spent a weekend in Estes Park, Colorado. I have to say, the experience was just very nearly as wonderful as the time we spent in the Redwoods of California. We went to Colorado on a Friday in October, and on Saturday there was a light snow. The whole weekend was perfect.

My third favorite place to see is New Orleans. We went to New Orleans to do some research for a story I wanted to write. We weren’t able to stay long because of some problems, but while we were there we saw incredible things, learned some very interesting history, and ate fantastic food.

I could get very philosophical here and talk about my journey through life, but I’m not a philosopher. So I’ll just leave like this.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

Happy New Year

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Happy New Year

By Nandy Ekle

A new year, but the same goals: lose more weight, exercise my body, organize the house, cook more meals/eat out less, and write more words.

Yes. Write more words. I want to write more words. However, the year started off with lots of activities, lots of overtime at my day job, but not much energy to get it all in. And on top of that, I still have one more Christmas present to finish, several more to wrap, and a quick trip to deliver these gifts to those we haven’t celebrated with yet.

So write more words. I wonder if Stephen King says that every New Year? Write more words. How many words are enough? At this point, if I could just write SOME words that have nothing to do with my day job, I would be ver happy with even that small goal.

So, please accept this as confirmation the annual resolution of WRITE ORE WORDS has been set for this new year.

Let me know your goals for this year in the comments below.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

The Dog And the Leash

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The Dog And the Leash

By Nandy Ekle

I took part in a survey recently—one question, intended to make you think introspectively: name one thing you wish you could bring back from your childhood. This question definitely did get my brain cells working.

I started thinking about what kind of child I was. And then a story bubbled which gave me my answer.

Once upon a time, a girl had a dog. This dog was very energetic and very powerful, and the girl had to learn to control it. She clipped a leash to its collar and they went for a walk. The dog wanted to run and play, and he wanted the girl to run and play with him. But he was big and strong and the girl usually ended up huddled in a corner with a skinned elbow or a tear in her jeans.

But she couldn’t get rid of the dog because he was her constant companion. He went everywhere she went. He slept next to her at night, got up and went to school with her in the morning, came home and ate dinner with her, took baths with her, and then went to bed with her every single night.

And every day she took him for a walk on the leash. She learned to tell him no, that she didn’t want to run. She pulled on the leash to slow him down when he went too fast. And she yanked the leash if he tried to run after a bird or a rabbit.

But she also gave him treats. She bought tasty things for him to chew on. She gave him his favorite snacks. She scratched him behind the ears and made sure he had plenty of healthy food and water.

One day she took her dog out for a walk. She took hold of his collar with one hand and held the leash in the other. She rubbed the metal clip of the leash on the metal loop of his collar, but she didn’t really attach them. Instead she hung the leash around her neck, held her arm out as if she actually was holding the leash, and they began their walk. And an incredible thing happened. Her dog walked as if he really was attached to the leash. He didn’t run away from her, or drag her, or jump around. He walked calmly by her side and obeyed her when she talked to him.

After a while she remembered how much fun it was when he was running and jumping, and she wanted him to do that again. So she pretended to take the leash off his collar, but he still stayed calmly by her side. It wasn’t until she began to run that the dog started running as well.

So, I’ve gone through all this to say, I’m the girl and my imagination is the dog. I’ve spent so much time and energy learning to control it, and now when I want it to run wild, it looks at me as if I still have it leashed. If I could bring one thing back from my childhood, it would be my wild and free imagination.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Fill In the Blank

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Fill In the Blank

By Nandy Ekle

 

Her first name is __________. Her hair is the color of __________ and her eyes look like __________. Her favorite hobby is __________. Her passion is __________, but more than anything in the world she wants __________, and she would be willing to give up __________ to get it.

His first name is __________. His hair is the color of __________ and his eyes look like __________. His favorite hobby is __________. His passion is __________, but more than anything in the world he wants __________, and he would be willing to give up __________ to get it.

One day they meet at __________ and they both know __________. They decide they should __________, each one thinking about that one thing they want so desperately. But when they begin to _________ they realize _________ all along. In the end they have __________ their goals to __________.

The End.

Congratulations. You have jus received a post card from the muse.

An Embolism

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An Embolism

By Nandy Ekle

 

In Leviticus 17:10-11, of the Old Testament of the bible, we are told:

10 And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.

11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

This tells us that we live because we have blood in our veins. And we know that blood is made up of tiny little cells that float in plasma. If we get a cut in our skin, the blood can escape, which can lead to blood loss, and too much blood loss causes death. And death happens because life is in the blood.

So one of the defenses God built into the living blood in our bodies is the ability to clot when there is a break in the vessel. The clotting factors gather around the opening and this causes the blood cells to stick together and dry out, which builds a makeshift dam over the opening, which keeps the blood from escaping out of the body, which keeps the body alive.

And as fabulous as this natural defense is, it can go wrong. For some reason the blood can spontaneously clot for no good reason. When that happens, the clot can cause tremendous problems to the living body because it keeps oxygen from getting where it needs to be to keep the body living. These harmful clots are called embolisms. And this is my metaphor.

I’ve often referred to the writing part of my brain as a long hallway with many doors, or a laboratory/hospital full of beds with partial patients, or even a pot of stew on a campfire. But a new picture has come to my mind.

Writing is also like a circulatory system. We have the brain which pumps the words through the body. We have the arteries/veins which conduct the words from the brain to the page. And, yes, we also have the rogue clots which plug up the system and cause major problems to the manuscript. This is Writer’s Block, and I do believe it is a real thing.

So, what can cause a writing clot? Well, I believe there are as many causes as there are people who experience this. There’s laziness, depression, not enough time, too many distractions, no inspiration, illness, stress . . . The list goes on and on and on and on and…

In researching how to beat these word clots, I’ve heard many different ways to beat it, but of everything I’ve read, they all seem to agree with one exercise. And that is WRITE. You don’t have to have a specific plan, or theme, or outline, just put words on paper. You can write about your day. You can write about your decision to write. You can write about having nothing to write about. You can write a detailed description of the room where you are sitting. You can write a synopsis of a story you would like to write. You can write a book review.

Whatever words you write down, just write them. Just get them written and they will clean the clots out of your word veins, which will allow all your words to fly out of your pen.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

Writing Quotes

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Quotes

By Nandy Ekle

 

 

  1. “From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.” —Winston Churchill
  1. “I get a lot of letters from people. They say: ‘I want to be a writer. What should I do?’ I tell them to stop writing to me and get on with it.” —Ruth Rendell
  1. “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” —Mary Heaton Vorse
  1. “Revising a story down to the bear essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.” —Stephen King
  1. “If writers were good businessmen, they’d have too much sense to be writers” —Irvin S. Cobb
  1. “If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.” —Doug Larson
  1. “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” —Douglas Adams
  1. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” —Ernest Hemingway
  1. “Amateurs sit and wait or inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” —Stephen King
  1. “A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.” —Franz Kafka
  1. “When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: ‘House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.” —Neil Gaiman
  1. “Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke. —Joss Whedon
  1. “The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.” —Ernst Hemingway
  1. “Nothing’s a better cure for writer’s block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton.” —Don Roff
  1. “Good fiction create its own reality” —Nora Roberts

 

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

Dear Muse

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Dear Muse

By Nandy Ekle

Dear Muse,

 I am 54 years old. You have been with me since I was a little girl. I’ve never not known you.There have been times when you’ve had millions words for me. And there have been times when I I couldn’t get so much as a beep from you.

 I remember when I finally learned to control you. I was just coming into my teens. You brought me a novel length story, which I wrote. Looking back, we were both immature, and the story was very naive. But together we did complete a novel.

You stayed with me for all my remaining years of school. We wrote numerous short stories, and we had a blast doing it. Our friends, Ginger and her muse, wrote with us and all four of us gained tons of experience.

After I married my husband and the children came along, you went on a vacation. I couldn’t blame you for it. Raising children took so much of time that I really didn’t have much left to give you. And I just have to tell you that I wouldn’t have changed any of that. My children needed me and I needed them.

Then they suddenly were grown and flying away to start their own lives. I called for you again, and there you were, whispering to me as if you had been beside me all along. You dictated stories for me to write. And write them, I did. I won honors with them, and a few were published. But the best part of writing your stories was . . . writing them.

Occasionally I notice you’ve gone on vacation again. I realize this when I have my hands on my keyboard looking for a word to type, and no word comes. I call for you and only hear silence. This seems to have happened more and more often. In fact, the stretches of your vacations are getting longer and longer.

But then yesterday, you were back. It was as if you had never gone away. I was sitting at my desk doing my day job. Suddenly, idea after idea came flooding back into the halls of my brain. As I researched for my letter writing, a new idea would pop up. I grabbed a pencil and paper and started writing a list of these ideas for my next projects.

So, welcome back, dear muse. It’s good to see you back here where you belong.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

How To Write a Story

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How To Write a Story

By Nandy Ekle

First

First you

First you write

First you write a

First you write a word.

First you write a word. Then

First you write a word. Then you

First you write a word. Then you write

First you write a word. Then you write the

First you write a word. Then you write the next

First you write a word. Then you write the next word.

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the whole

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the whole thing

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the whole thing on

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the whole thing on paper.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.