February 22 2019

Just (Five Minute Friday)

This week the prompt word is just. I know it is just Friday, but I can do this. I don’t have to put it off and think about it and wait for a better idea to pop into my head, I can just do it now. Just this once I won’t wait until the last minute to write my Five Minute Friday post. I really enjoy the challenge of not knowing what the word will be and seeing what my writer-brain pulls out of me when I sit down and put fingers to keys.

To be honest, I didn’t intend to write this tonight. I really sat down to grab some photos out of my Google archive and copy them into a blank sheet so I could print the recipe I found this week while flipping through a magazine just killing time in the waiting room before my appointment. It wasn’t a magazine I would usually grab, it was just the least objectionable of the stack on the table next to me and I didn’t really have much time to read anything anyway, so I grabbed a magazine and began flipping the pages. Hold on. Those look like brownies. Just turn the page, oh look! There are more goodies pictured on the next page. Oh, it is a feature on sweet treats in bar form. Oh, here is a recipe for Spiced Pecan Pie Bars, Hubby would love those and I wouldn’t be tempted by them in the least. Should I ask the ladies behind the desk if they can make me a copy? No, I don’t want to bother them. I could just tear the pages out there is nobody here to notice if I did it really quiet, but that wouldn’t be right either. I could just take the magazine back with me then ask when I check out. No, too much fuss. Hey, I know! I will just take a quick picture of the recipe with my phone and text it to Hubby. So that’s what I did. Then tonight he wanted me to print the recipe for him, so I told him I would dig it out of the archive and print it for him.

I know, get to the point already. Well anyway, I was looking through all the photos and saw the one pictured below and it kept tugging at me. I just couldn’t pass it up, something about it made me want to use it in a post then I remembered I needed to write this post and I could just use it for that.

This is just a sample of a couple of the crazy pics you’d find if you scrolled through the gallery on my phone. It was taken at an MCL restaurant near me and it struck my fancy so I had to stop and capture it to use later. The thing is, I remember that the tiles that look like quilt blocks didn’t use to be there. I think it was like a raised wooden threshold where the two sections of tile going different directions meet. I imagine maybe they had people tripping over it or something and needed a way to fix it. Now I can also imagine them saying anything we do it going to stand out like a sore thumb, so just put anything down, doesn’t matter what it looks like because it will never match. So they sent a lady to find something and she decided to make it pretty. She saw this at the hardware store and it reminded her of her sweet little granny who used to make the prettiest quilts out of the still good parts of old cast-off clothing that “wasn’t fit to wear to a dog fight”. Now, can’t you just imagine it? So that is my made-up story about how that odd looking tile ended up in that MCL on the floor near the cash register. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

What do you think the story behind the mismatched tile is? Let me known in the comments below.

This is what it looks like up close.

This is what it looks like a little further away, so whatcha think? I like it! It made me smile and now it is forever remembered here.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Just
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

October 7 2017

Story (Five Minute Friday)

Who doesn’t love a good story? I know I do. I love to hear them and read them and I try really hard to write them. That is the reason I am spending the month of October writing prompts for 5 minutes each day. (To get in the habit of writing more regularly) I am also spending some time each day trying to absorb all I can about the craft of writing and the structure of stories.

I have a little over three weeks to get my story planning act together and come up with a really good outline so this year I can and will not only win NaNoWriMo but finish the book. You see while I have won the challenge for the last 4 Novembers in a row, I have never finished any of those stories, YET. I am still learning and practicing the craft of fiction writing and each year I feel like I get a little closer to being able to write a novel worthy of publishing.

I have made a tough decision this year to set aside the Crafty Ladies series of books that I have worked on for the past 3 years and see what I can do with a shiny new idea for a stand-alone novel. All new characters, new setting, new plot…I don’t have the details worked out yet, but I am working on it and I will get there. It is kind of a relief to just have to plan and write one novel this time.

So, if any of you have a great system for plotting a novel or a great book on the craft of fiction novel writing, I would love it if you’d share it in the comments below (or you can email me if you prefer to keep your advice private from the rest of the world who might someday stumble upon my little corner of the blogging world and read it).

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Story
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.