Tag Archives: prompts

Blogger’s Lament

Blogger’s Lament



I do not want to bait a hook,
do the dishes, write a book.
Don’t wake at 6 or make my bed.
Most of my time’s spent in my head.
In two weeks, I’ll be seventy-one,
so when all is said and done,
I’ve earned the right to just obsess
on what I wish to. I confess
I’m up at eight or nine or ten,

with laptop or with notes and pen,

fulfilling all my blogging jobs,
and I must say that there are gobs
of prompt sites since

(and here I wince)
WordPress quit, thereby unleashing
scads of prompt sites without teaching
Mr. Linky or other ways
to try to ease our blogging days.

Now hours are spent just trying to

link up to that frog that’s blue

or finding where the prompt is hidden
even after we’ve been bidden
to come post on someone’s site.
So what was once our day’s delight

now seems more like one of those things

that paid employment always brings.
What once called out for “More time, more!”
now seems to me to be a chore.

It’s 2 p.m. and still I’m writing,


complaining, whining, jotting, citing

all the woes that blogging brings,
so why don’t I do other things?
Pot some plants or solve that pile
that’s filled the table for awhile

of bills, old poems––a dish of butter?
What’s that doing in the clutter?


Needless to say, I have a life
apart from blogging’s stressful strife.

Yet at 1:30, still at the keys,

lunch by my side, cat on my knees,
not quite through with all my griping,
but still typing, typing, typing.

Because in spite of present ills,

there is a space that blogging fills.


It’s friends for whom you need not dress

to turn to in your worst duress
to brag, to rage or to confess,

and they could never ever guess

what you look like, what you’re wearing
or that you’re slightly over-bearing.


Blogs are one great soapbox where
you don’t have to comb your hair
before you mount the stage to say
what you want to say, the way

you want to say it, every day.


And so, though I won’t eat tomatoes,
polish windows, peel potatoes,

walk the dog or trim the trees,
I will do just as I please.

Don’t do pilates. Don’t do jogging.


All I gladly do is blogging!

Dear Newepicauthor. Since I wrote this poet for all bloggers trying to fulfill all the prompts, I think it is appropriate to all. So I’m trying out your list to see if it will work for me.  Hope you don’t mind!

Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Sunday Writing Prompt – Teachers, for thehouseofbailey Destination Dreams Scotts Daily Prompt Gift, for Sheryl’s A New Daily Post Word Prompt: Languorous, for Daily Addictions by rogershipp prompt Disaster, for FOWC with Fandango – Literally, for Martha Kennedy Ragtag Community Antediluvian, for Teresa’s Haunted Wordsmith Three Things Challenge, where the three prompt words are “grandmother, daisy and wolf” and for Tales From the Mind of Kristian Word Prompt Moiety and for Swimmers the New Community Pool prompt – Clouds.

Topically Distracted

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Topically Distracted

When WordPress put us out to dry,
turning a deaf ear to our cry
not to suspend the Daily Post,
I think it disillusioned most.
Yet, so many rose to hear our plight
that now I labor day and night
to fulfill the prompts they host.
I fear offending if I don’t post.
So though outside the air’s a balm,
the flowers lush, the scene all calm,
I feel my obligation’s rush.
I feel each lined-up prompting’s crush.

Each jostles to be first in line
like a regular at opening time.
So though outside it’s tropical,
and therefore very topical,
I cannot feel the scene before me.
Sun, trees, water only bore me.
Even the palm trees do not sway.
No wind  rustles them today.
And though the prompt is “tropical,”
my mind is stuck on “topical.”
I must admit that I’m distracted.
With prompts, I fear, I’m over-facted!


Here are seven prompt sites that have grown up in answer to WordPress’s abandonment, plus two I’ve been posting on for some time:

https://fivedotoh.com/  Fandango’s prompt today is tropical. This is a well-set-up daily prompt site that is easy to post on. It needs followers.  Give it a try. I’d like to see it succeed. It is posted daily, just past midnight Pacific time, so if you like an early start, this is a good prompt site for you.

https://weeklyprompts.com/  This site publishes a weekly prompt.

https://flakback.wordpress.com/ Alan Grace has set up a site recycling WP prompts from two years ago. This should work out well for beginning bloggers who haven’t already done these prompts.

https://onewomansquest.org/2018/06/04/v-j-s-weekly-challenge-1-shift/  This is a once a week prompt that I used for the first time yesterday.  It was an intriguing prompt that was very unusual and fun to write to and I look forward to getting into the habit of posting there once a week. 

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/  Daily Addictions is another reliable and easy-to-use site that makes use of Mr. Linky.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/  This is a very good daily prompt site run by seven bloggers who were part of the WordPress Daily Prompt community and who wanted to see the daily prompts continue.  You’ll recognize many of the names who post there, now.  

https://gratefulsinglemoms.com/category/daily-writing-prompts/  embeecee recommends this prompt site, saying that it isn’t always a daily prompt.  I haven’t used it yet.
 
 

https://dversepoets.com/ This is another poetry prompt site I love that predated WordPress’s retirement.They post two prompts a week and make use of a Mr. Linky site to link your poems to.   

https://ceenphotography.com/  Cee posts a number of prompts, many of them photo prompts, but some that include prompts to be written as well.  Hers are the prompts I’ve followed the longest.  They are thought-provoking and she has a large following and an easy-to-use linkup page.

If you know of other prompt sites I’ve forgotten or have not yet come across, please list links to them in the comments below. 

Judy’s “Prompt Answers” Challenge #1: Dastardly Words.

Dastardly Words

Because it is a rainy rainy day and too wet, even, to make my way down to my studio, I’m going to recruit your efforts in trying to keep me busy and out of trouble. With this in mind, I’m posting a challenge for you to tell me the word you hate most in the English language. (This challenge was prompted by Helen Miekle’s absolute refusal to answer this question.  To console myself, I’m calling upon friendly bloggers to show me theirs if I show them mine.)  Not really fair, as if you’ve followed me for awhile, you already know that the word I hate most in the world is . . .. Nope, can’t say it.  Instead, I’ll reblog this poem I wrote about it a few years ago:

img_2272This is!!!!


Empty Praise

There was a time when awesome really meant ”inspiring awe”—
events like the moon landing that made one drop one’s jaw,
sights of numbing beauty or achievements of great skill,
art pieces by the masters or achievements of great will.

Yosemite is awesome and so is Everest.
Those climbing it are awesome.You know they are the best.
But today the word has fallen into widespread use—
ubiquitous right to the point where it’s become abuse.

Rap music is most awesome, as is that way-cool blouse.
You drive an awesome car and live inside an awesome house.
My friend’s boyfriend is awesome. So are her dog and cat.
Her garden blooms are awesome, like her new purse and her hat.

You might have guessed by now that awesome’s not my favorite word.
I think the overuse of it is frankly quite absurd.
This pizza is not awesome, though you may find me petty
for saying it is merely good, and so is the spaghetti.

Your child is lovely, so’s your dress, your silverware and smile.
But none of them are awesome—that word brings up my bile.
Please use some other word for it—some adjectival jaw full.
Because in my opinion, using awesome’s simply awful!!

 

img_6979This isn’t!!!!

So now that I’ve told you mine, please participate in this challenge in one of two ways. Either post your answer in your own blog with a link to this post and a link to your blog in my comments section, or simply answer in the comments section of this blog posting. It won’t take long, so please participate and if I receive enough words, I promise to make a poem out of them.

Update: I’ve written the poem! You can see it HERE.

One Word? Absurd!

One Word? Absurd!

In truth, if I may be so bold,
these one-word prompts just leave me cold.
They do not give a hint to me
of what the topic’s meant to be.
If I want a prompt so curt,
so brief, so blunt, so short and pert,
I could go to a dictionary;
but one word simply doesn’t carry
enough thought to jog my mind.
I do not like prompts of this kind.
So WordPress please just heed my plea
and send a sentence prompt to me.
Then I’ll shut up and cease my rant.
But answer one word prompts? I can’t!!!!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/divide/

Necessary Untruths

The Prompt:What have you done that no one knows about, or what are you afraid of exposing about yourself?

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Necessary Untruths

A game of hide-and-seek
not behind chairs or under tables
within thickets or crouched in deep culverts
but obscured between sharp truths.
That white lie
you tell yourself
just to keep going.

 

To participate or see other writing on this theme, go to: https://promptlings.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/sandbox-writing-challenge-21-shhhh-its-a-secret/

Dining Out

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Perhaps considering my next order?

Dining Out

I do not remember the first time I ate out at a restaurant, but I have heard a story over and over about the first time I ordered for myself.   I couldn’t have been over two years old when my folks took me out to a movie and then to Mac’s cafe for a drink and a visit with town folks afterwards.  We lived in a town of seven hundred people in the middle of the South Dakota prairie.  Our sole entertainment, other than church and school ballgames, was the Saturday or Sunday night picture show in the small theater on Main Street.  It was the social event of the week, and visiting with friends afterwards at Mac’s Cafe across the street from the theater was as much a part of the evening as the movie.

Later, in college, one of my best friends was the granddaughter of the man who owned the theater and she revealed to me that it never had made a profit.  He just kept it running to give the folks in the town where his wife had taught school as a young woman something to do.

Probably 200 of the 700 citizens of our town were members of a pentecostal church who didn’t believe in dancing, movies,  or even TV, so at twenty-five cents per ticket, I’m sure if everyone in town had gone to a show one time a week, it still would not have paid the overhead, so we should have figured that out long ago, but we hadn’t thought of it––at least no one in my family ever did.

I had two older sisters, so if I was two when this story happened, one must have been about six and the other would have been thirteen.  They ordered Cokes.  My folks ordered coffee, and when it came to me, I responded in the only way I knew to respond in a restaurant.  “Amgooboo an tabey dabey!” I ordered.

The waitress looked puzzled.  “She said hamburger and potatoes and gravy,” said my father, deadpan.  The waitress looked at my mother.  If that was what I wanted at ten o’clock at night, my mother was all for it.  The waitress left and my family struggled to keep straight faces but it just didn’t work.  They all exploded in laughter, which was fine with me.  I’d been entertaining them for as long as I could remember–and I think perhaps I still am to this day!


The Prompt: Tell about the first time you ever ate out in a restaurant.

Judy’s Writing Prompt Invitation: Absence of Malice

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Absence of Malice

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
                                                                         ––Robert Hanlon

My friend Marilyn Armstrong sent me this quote, which at the time applied perfectly to a stupid act I had just unknowingly committed.  I’ve decided as penance for my action that I should write a poem to this theme and invite anyone who wishes to join me to do the same–poetry or prose.

The first person who answers this prompt will be my further prompt.  I will take the first word of each of your sentences for the first word in each of my lines of the poem. Please note that your entry need not be a poem, but if it is a very long essay or story, I will just take the first words from the first twenty or thirty lines or sentences, lest my poem run on for too long. Use the quote above for your theme and send a link to your piece in the comments below.

Will whomever it was who asked me to post another quotation prompt please identify herself so I can give her credit?  I’m crazy busy right now and tried to find your comment, but couldn’t!!!  Thanks in advance for the suggestion!!!  Judy

P.S. The picture above is not intended as a prompt.  It is just an illustration of my stupidity coupled with Morrie’s absence of malice in creating this mess and severely limiting the supply of toilet paper in my house.  We all know he went on to much more destructive acts–all with absence of malice.  He’s tamed down some and his present hi-jinks have been limited to a construction worker’s back pack and four sponges used to smooth the stucco. And any errant plastic cup that gets in his way.

Marilyn Armstrong was the first to answer this prompt.  Go HERE to read my poem based on her essay. I’m still accepting entries for another week, so please give me a link to your blog in my comments section of this post and on November 12th, when the entry period is over, I’ll list the entries of merit and links to all your blogs.

You’ve Been Waiting for It! New Prompt from Judy!!!! “Why Do They Call Him Hugo?”

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                                                                         “Hugo” and Diego

                                                  Why Do They Call Him Hugo?

I was recently asked to post another prompt for readers and something just happened that has brought a topic to mind.  I’ve had workers here for almost a month working on my doggie domain. (If you don’t know the backstory, just search on my blog, using the words “doggie domain.”)  As you know if you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, I have three dogs named Frida, Diego and Morrie (in descending order of size and mischievousness). Just now I heard Francisco ask Mateo, “Where is Hugo? Diego is here.”  Since I don’t have a dog named Hugo, it suddenly has occurred to me that both men call Morrie “Hugo.”  I’ve heard them do it before, in spite of the fact that they’ve asked his name several times and I’ve always told them his name is “Morrie.”  Please write an essay, short story or poem exposing your answer to the question, “Why do my Spanish-speaking brilliant construction engineers call my dog Hugo?”

You can send your answer as a comment and I will reprint it on my blog with a link to your blog.

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                                                       Frida–She who prefers to be alone!

Fantastic Finish: JNW’s New Prompt Generator and Latitude Schmatitude

                                                         Fantastic FinishDSC08827                                          My Art Studio, nee Novelty Owing Ongoing

Last night I wrote my first prompt making use of Jennifer Nichole Wells’ new Prompt Generator. What the site does is issue you a two-word phrase consisting of an adjective and a noun. This then becomes the subject of your post. (Mine for today was Fantastic Finish). If you don’t like the prompt, just hit the button again as many times as you wish before you come to one that jiggles your creative button.

She has launched her site at a good time—when those of us who are relatively longtime daily bloggers are being met with repeat after repeat on the WordPress prompt site. At first I just tried to alter the prompt a bit or to take a different slant. Then I started making a pingback to the earlier post or posts and choosing a completely different prompt, but the problem is that I’ve done most of their alternate prompts as well.

I’ve been told that WordPress establishes the prompts mainly for beginning bloggers as a way to motivate them, but this is a bit like turning your back on long-established and proven customers in hopes of winning the tourist trade. Good for a season perhaps, but how many go away is evidenced by the number of times I click on a site that is on the WordPress post page and find the blog has been closed or is nonexistent. Either the blogger is not clear about how to pingback or they have already closed down and fled!

Another thing I have noticed is a big increase in the number of people who just say they don’t want to answer the prompt, who spend their entire blog making excuses for not writing to the prompt or who merely publish one or two line pat answers. It is becoming hard to find a blog I really want to read except in my Readers section. This is a shame, because I am always on the lookout for new really excellent blogs to read that are within my realm of interest; and I miss not being able to cull them out of the WordPress site. Well, new thinking called for. I think my fresh modus operandi will be to investigate the blogs that people I am following are following.

As I hit Jennifer’s prompt button time after time—out of curiosity rather than dissatisfaction with the prompts, I was struck by the similarity of the word combinations to the new system based on words that has been proposed to replace the old numbers-based latitude and longitude. The system divides the surface of the planet into 57 trillion three-by-three meter squares and assigns a unique sequence of three random words to label that area. The purpose in changing the system, as stated by Smithsonian Magazine, is to “replace the impossible-to-remember strings of numbers that comprise our geographical coordinate system—“ with an easier-to-remember string of three words.

For the superstitious, it might be a matter of finding the exact correct nine square meters of their property or house that best describes them. My own art studio has been assigned the title “novelty owing ongoing.” Seems appropriate, somehow. My house, on the other hand, is “straddles blocking easel.” Is this a way of pointing out that all too often home repairs and maintenance gobble up precious time better spent on art? Sounds appropriate in Mexico!

For those of you talented in assigning names (I am not) I want to be clear that it is not a matter of naming your own little corner of the world. All of the word assignments have already been made. If you are curious about what three-word-labels have been assigned to your house and property, you can go HERE to find out. Choose your favorite group of three from the list (remember that since the labels are given for 9 square meter areas, that you will have more than one set for your house) and perhaps you’d like to post the three words you’ve chosen in the comments page on my blog along with a pingback to your post telling why those three words do or do not describe you. You might want to use a number of your assigned trios as prompts on different days! It would be fun.

To read more, go here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/plan-replace-geographic-coordinates-earth-unique-strings-three-words-180949946/#eZWdfVSPWLqrE3df.99

And as for the title of my today’s blog, “Fantastic Finish?” As person after person says they are giving up the WordPress prompts, perhaps as you run over the finish line, you can consider it as the starting line for a new prompt system—either Jennifer’s new prompt generator or your own personal three-word-prompts as assigned by those who have labeled your world for you. Whatever you choose, I hope you’ll keep on blogging. We’ve become accustomed to your space!!!!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/break-the-silence/