Category Archives: 100 Word Challenge

100 Word Challenge

Hello! My name is Ruby.

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Our brief at ‘100 word challenge’ this week, explained here, where you can also find links to all the submissions, is to write 100 words using, in some way, the word or theme ‘Ruby.’
Here is my response. I’ve allowed the word ‘Ruby’ once in addition, so there are 101 words.  

Alumina and chromium; pressure, time and heat
Earth’s secret recipe no artisan can beat;
A gemstone fit for kings and queens – and who might you be?
My name is Ruby.

Grapes grown along the Douro, that river running wide;
Pressed and fermented, and with brandy fortified –
A wine that’s fit for gentlemen – and who might you be?
My name is Ruby.

A special anniversary, a time for celebration:
Forty years have now rolled by – a mighty declaration
Of love, or memories… in a world of variation –
Where in this scene might YOU be?
My name, as I told you, is Ruby.

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100 Word Challenge

I’m Exhausted

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Our ‘100 Word Challenge’ here, where you will find links to all the other responses, is simply to write 100 words, plus the seven words in the prompt, as one piece. I have put the ‘prompt’ words at the end. 

Come in! Oh, it’s you. No, not OK, really. Oh, all kinds of reasons. Just been having a ‘stop the world – I want to get off’ kind of week. What’s that? Got a lot done? I wish! That’s the frustrating part. I can’t think what I have done, as far as achievement goes. Remember the Red Queen? “It takes all the running you can do round here, just to stay in the same place.” She had her head screwed on right I reckon. Problems? Just anything with four wheels and an engine… What? Already? Cup of tea, no? ‘Bye, then… I’m exhausted. Shut the door behind you…

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100 Word Challenge

Oh, for an English Sonnet…

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Our brief upon the weekly challenge here
Is that we must a sonnet now devise;
The rules are there, so definite and clear –
A click or two, and they’re before your eyes.
To keep the beat in keeping with the theme
Each emphasis must keep iambic rule;
The  second syllable must always seem
To carry weight, just like some burdened mule.
The famous bard, who lived in Tudor times
Is known for setting out this genre great;
A style that in endearment ever climbs,
Yet can be difficult to emulate.
Oh, Mr. S! You’ll be the death of me!
You have a lot to answer for, I see!

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100 Word Challenge

In Alice’s Honour…

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The ‘100 Word Challenge’ prompt this time is explained here.  My entry last time was No. 32, so first of all, read entry No. 33 last time here. Now read on. (The last ten words of Ryan’s entry last time are in bold. I’ve used two more, but counted them as part of my additional hundred.)

“Don’t get up,” Vera was insistent, “Everything’s fine.”

Alice wasn’t so sure.

Sandra, her boss at the hotel, had told her that she was to be a diner for the evening, thanks to a mystery host who wished to be known as ‘the rabbit’ who would meet her there. She was to choose the meal. Curious, she’d accepted – and now the food was almost ready, and ‘the rabbit’ hadn’t showed up…

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Please welcome tonight Julian Robertson, chairman of Cuddlitoys Limited. Well done to Alice Whitebridge, who works here, and who has won their poetry competition. Alice receives a holiday voucher and a special cuddly rabbit. Thank you!”

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100 Word Challenge

I Wonder What…

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Our ‘100 Word Challenge’ this week, explained here, where you can also find links to the other responses, is to write 100 words in addition to the eight words which form the opening sentence in my attempt below. Now, I don’t presume to be able to write according to the calibre of the famous mathematician known all over the world as ‘Lewis Carroll,’ but if my piece of text were to be added to ‘Alice in Wonderland’ it would have to be placed after the third paragraph in chapter one.

“What was the rabbit late for?” wondered Alice. “Perhaps there’s a rabbit wedding somewhere,” she thought. Alice knew that rabbits had large families, and thought a rabbit  wedding would be rather jolly. What would a rabbit church be like? Would all the guests be rabbits, or would there be other animals there? Or maybe the rabbit had a lecture to get to, perhaps was even the lecturer, like her friend, Mr. Dodgson. Or the rabbit could be something to do with politics. (Alice didn’t know quite what ‘politics’ meant, but she knew it was something her father and his friends had meetings about.) She headed towards the hole.

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100 Word Challenge

The Red Box

This post was written in response to the ‘100 Word Challenge’ here, where there are links to many more responses. Although entirely fictional, there were, no doubt, many young widows for whom real life was similar to this.

From the bedroom window, Jean smiled at the sight of her grandson playing badminton with his father. Then the sadness hit home as she reflected that he had never had the chance to do this himself. Quietly, she moved to the bureau and took out the red box – her mother’s jewellery box. From the lower tray, she took out the photograph of a young man in R.A.F. uniform, several medals, and a watch. The face had been scratched by the breaking of the glass. The hands were flattened at nine minutes to four. Just nineteen minutes before his son was born that morning.

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100 Word Challenge

…But I Turned it Off…

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This post is in response to the ‘100 Word Challenge’ here, where you’ll find links to the many other responses. The challenge is simply to compose a piece of writing of 100 words in length, plus the five ‘prompt’ words, shown here as my title. Now, sometimes these weekly prompts just somehow ‘click’ and then again, some weeks, I struggle. This time, I struggled – ideas wouldn’t come… until today, the last day for submissions, when my very surroundings gave me the answer!

This morning, I awoke early to a surprise: a startlingly clear, blue sky – and frost!  the house needed all that the central heating could do. But I turned it off well before noon, despite working from home today. The thermometer outside climbed rapidly, as white gardens turned green again in the morning sun. After several days of mild but cloudy weather, this change was striking. Such, typically, is equinoctial weather. But why do we Britons talk about the weather so much? Probably, I think, because we are subject to such an array of different weather patterns and sequences. And, with this, so many changing skies.

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100 Word Challenge

Not Just Driftwood

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If you haven’t already done so, first of all please look at the photo of the horse here, which is the prompt for this post. There’s also a list of links to many more responses.

Here, should you need it, is proof that the whole can be more than the sum of the parts. The very term ‘driftwood’ suggests something accidental or haphazard; but there is nothing like that about this lovely piece of three-dimensional art. Parts, once random, now co-ordinate; pieces, once parts of living organisms, are now dead, yet together they form a representation of a living thing of quite another kind, and each have their place in a work which enriches the experience of those who view it. And in real life, drifters can become contributors, and enrich the lives of others.

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100 Word Challenge

Take a Leap of Faith

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This post was prompted by the ‘100 word challenge’ here, where links to
many more responses can also be found.

When I think of faith, I’m reminded of Abraham – first called ‘Abram’ – in the Bible. He lived in ‘Ur of the Chaldeans’ – evidently part of what we would call Mesopotamia, and surely, Abram was prosperous there, although different; most people then believed in lots of gods that you could see, but he believed in one God who was invisible. Then, when he had the deep sense that the God in whom he believed was calling to him to leave the place where he had lived and farmed, he obeyed without question. As promised, ‘a great nation’ was ‘made of him.’

This brief summary is based on the accounts in the Book of Genesis (chapter 11 and onward)
in The Holy Bible.

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100 Word Challenge, Musings

The Flip Side…

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This post was written in answer to the prompt at ‘100 Word Challenge’ here,
where there is also a list of links to other responses. Here we go…

Side one:

[sung] “I’m walking backwards for Christmas…”
[spoken] “…Wait a minute… That’s the other side, isn’t it? Yeah…

Next comes a performance by ‘The Beetle.’

Side two:

First, unsurprisingly, is the complete performance of ‘I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas.’  Then the singer speaking:

“Well? How did you like that, then?”

A reply follows in the inimitable high-pitched lisping tones of the beetle:

“I didn’t like it much at all – I thought that my thide wath better.”

Ah, compact discs. The marvels of digital audio. But to everything there is the ‘flip side’ and here, it is… that there is no flip side.

By the way, does anyone remember this record? I only heard it once!

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