My Second Entry in the #OctoberWritingPrompt Challenge

October 17, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 22 Comments

Here’s another effort from me. I managed to use black, candles, orange, a cry in the night, racing heartbeats, and the smell of cinnamon. I think I hit ‘em all! 😀 Enjoy!

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Never trust a vampire. Or a werewolf. Or a dragon, a faery, or zombie. But most of all, never…EVER…trust a demon. The uber-evil minions of Satan usually made the devil himself look like a slacker.

So what was I doing in this club on Halloween night, sitting here in my slinkiest black dress, sipping a vodka and tonic, and waiting for Azrael, one of the scuzziest of all Satan’s henchmen, to show up? Good question. I wish I had an equally good answer.

Unfortunately, the man I work for doesn’t care whether things like this make sense. He has his own agenda, and as head of The Bureau (capital T, capital B), he answers to…well… to pretty much nobody. Certainly not to me.

A candle guttered in a round, orange pumpkin on my table. In another minute or two, it would go out. I’d been sitting here since before the busboy came by to light it, hours ago. Drumming my fingers on the table, I was getting antsier by the minute.

I wondered whether the meeting had been Azrael’s idea, or my boss’s. If my boss had requested it, the demon would be perfectly happy making me wait indefinitely. I could still be sitting here at dawn, getting hungrier by the minute. One can only consume so many beer nuts, after all, before starvation begins to look good.

Another hour passed, and I’d had it. I was calling it a night, and chalking this one up to the general sucking quality of demonic humor. I rose, reached for my purse, and then the blonde at the hostess stand let loose a shrill scream somewhere around the decibel range of a patrol car siren. My now-hammering heart slammed into overdrive.

Even before her ear-drum rupturing shriek stopped ricocheting around the room, two things happened. Every candle in the freaking place went out, leaving us all groping in total darkness. And the double glass doors at the front of the club blasted open, flooding it with the familiar reek of higher echelon minions, world-wide: copper, sulphur, and scorched cinnamon.

Subtle, demons were not. And something told me this meeting was about to go straight to Hell. Literally.

REMINDER: October Writing Prompt Challenge is Half Over

October 17, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 4 Comments

“Yoohoo? Anyone playing today?”

Okay, more than half over, but who’s counting? (Me, obviously). This is a reminder to join the fun and come up with something using this month’s prompts. Can be a poem, short paragraph, character description, essay, or a jumping off point for a longer work.

The prompts for the month are:

Candles or candlelight
The colors orange and/or black
The smell of cinnamon
A racing heart
A cry in the night.

And even though the prompts are seasonal thoughts/images, your creation doesn’t have to be. Heading out the door now, but I hope when I come back, at least one of you might have something to submit. If not, you’re gonna be reading a lot more of MY work! You’ve been warned! 😀

Writing Challenge for October

September 30, 2015October 12, 2015 / Marcia Meara / 8 Comments

Starting tomorrow, I think it would be a lot of fun to have a monthly writer’s challenge on TWS. We can always use a chance to excercise our creativity, right? Or should I say “write?”

I plan to make this simple, and hope that a lot of you will enjoy taking part. At the beginning of each month, I’m going to post a list of writing prompts. You may use these in any way you like. Create a poem, a short paragraph or two, or an excerpt from a larger work. Long or short, serious or funny, it doesn’t matter. This doesn’t have to go anywhere…or it could be a starting point for more, if you like. But for our purposes here, it’s just meant to be a fun feature to stretch our minds, and see how many ways the same words or ideas can be used.

This month’s prompts are:

Candles or candlelight
The colors orange and black
The smell of cinnamon
A racing heart
A cry in the night

Yes, they sound seasonal, which is what inspired my choices, of course. But you don’t have to use them in any seasonal way at all. For instance, the black could be a slinky little date dress, and the orange could be someone’s pet tabby. You can use one or all of the prompts, but the more the better.

As always, you can promote your books at the end of your post, and include an author bio, or cover photos. If you are a regular contributor, feel free to post directly. If not, send me your offering, and I’ll put it up for you. And we will, of course, ALL share your submissions via Twitter, Facebook, or our own blogs. And, ANYONE can take part, whether you’ve posted here before or not. The more, the better!

Whaddya say? Let’s have some writing fun. And you have the entire month to play with this. I can’t wait to see what your creative minds can do! (Oh, and extra points to anyone who can make up a story featuring a big, green snake, and a chocolate frog! 😀 )