THE PROPOSAL

 

Copyright — Melanie Greenwood

 

Here we are another week, this time gathered at our tables on the virtual veranda of a large hotel. We’ve come here with our gracious and talented hostess, author and artist Rochelle Wisoff-Fields to share our original stories. It’s the gathering for the weekly challenge of the Friday Fictioneers. This challenge is to write a story with no more than 100 words. It’s supposed to include a beginning, middle, end, and follow the picture prompt for the week. The prompt this week was supplied by Melanie Greenwood. Thanks Melanie.

The link for all the other stories is as follows:

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/31-october-2014/

Genre:  Humor Fiction

Word Count:  100 Words

THE PROPOSAL By P.S. Joshi

Elderly Richard was on bended knee on the hotel veranda. The sun glistened off the huge diamond in the ring he held in his shaking hand.

“Brenda, my beautiful darling, be my wife. I dearly love you even though we’ve known each other only two weeks.”

Brenda summoned moisture to her large blue eyes. “Oh, Richard, what a surprise. Of course I’ll marry you, you darling man.”

Richard rose with difficulty. “Brenda, dearest, you’ve made me the happiest man on earth.”

Once home and alone, Brenda took out her jeweler’s magnifying glass and closely examined the diamond for flaws. Perfect.

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…a dedication to all the fallen, and particularly to Cpl Nathan Cirillo in the face of the recent madness…

There’s just one word I’d use for this–beautiful.

Seumas Gallacher

…I don’’t often cut and paste my Facebook posts as blog pieces, but so many people have asked me to do so with the post I made on there yesterday, in the hope that the message may go viral… if yeez wish to share it, please do so… LUV YEEZ!… here’s the post:

…the older I become, the less rational the world appears… I care not for the arguments and posturing that dress themselves as nationalistic, religious, political or downright greed… when a young man standing HONOUR GUARD in memory of those fallen in horrendous global conflicts around the planet is gunned down under some pretence of a deluded fanatic’s ‘righteousness’, my soul screams out, ‘Enough’! ….how present are the words of the song that ask ‘when will they ever learn?’ ..the ‘they’ being all of the creeds, nutters, even well-meaning hawks of all nationalities… last year, I unashamedly…

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THE BENCH

 

Copyright — The Reclining Gentleman

Here we are all gathered in the virtual park, blankets spread on the lawn. We’ve come here with our gracious and talented hostess, author and artist Rochelle Wissoff-Fields, to share our original stories. It’s the weekly gathering of the Friday Fictioneers for the challenge to write a story with no more than 100 words. The story is supposed to include a beginning, middle, end, and follow the picture prompt  for the week. The prompt this week was supplied by The Reclining Gentleman. Thanks R.G.

For any of you who would like to check them out, I have a number of boards on Pinterest. I’ve been collecting , among other things, a number of blogs and information on writing. The link is as follows:

http://www.pinterest.com/paulestasj/

The link to the other Friday Fictioneer stories is as follows:

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/24-october-2014/

My story for the week follows.

Genre:  Speculative Fiction

Word Count:  100 Words

THE BENCH By P.S. Joshi

It was a warm evening in June so I decided to go to the park. There were two benches near the small lake.

One bench was occupied by an elderly man. I came the next night and he was there again. On my way out, at the gate, I asked the park guard who the gentleman was.

“Mr. Donald Hitchcock,” he said. “He never speaks these days. Heard someone in his family died in April.”

Curious, I checked the old newspaper obits. It took a while, but I found the right obit.

“Mr. Donald Hitchcock died today, April 10, 2014.”

Resources for Writers… Come and Take Advantage of Them

Great information.

A Warning on Image Copyright and Wikimedia Commons

This is helpful information.

Writing Makes you Healthy

This is great news, especially to bloggers.

Nicholas C. Rossis

Writing makes you healthy. Grammar, not so much.

We authors may be creative cheats, but is there any good news about our profession? Actually, yes! According to research cited by Arts.Mic, the benefits of writing go far beyond building up your vocabulary.

In fact, the act of writing itself leads to strong physical and mental health benefits, like long-term improvements in mood, stress levels and depressive symptoms. Just 15 to 20 minutes of writing three to five times over the course of the four-month study was enough to make a difference.

By writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events, participants were significantly more likely to have fewer illnesses and be less affected by trauma. Participants ultimately spent less time in the hospital, enjoyed lower blood pressure and had better liver functionality than their counterparts.

Even physical wounds heal faster. In 2013, New Zealand researchers conducted an experiment on…

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THE SHELLS

 

Copyright by Douglas M. Macilroy

 

Here we are once more gathered on the virtual, magical beach, chairs and large, bright umbrellas scattered about. We’re here with our gracious, talented hostess, author and artist Rochelle Wisoff-Fields to share our original stories. It’s the weekly challenge of Friday Fictioneers. This challenge is to write a story with no more than 100 words. It’s supposed to include a beginning, middle, end, and follow the picture prompt for the week. The prompt this week was supplied by Douglas M. Macilroy. Thanks Doug.

The link to Friday Fictioneers is as follows:

http://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/17-october-2014/

Genre:  Supernatural Fiction

Word Count:  100 Words

THE SHELLS By P.S. Joshi

Every evening Francie gathered exquisite shells on her family’s private beach.

By the next morning there would be lovely shell designs glued on boards ready to sell to tourists.

Locals wondered how she found so many remarkable shells on such a small beach.

Her deceased grandmother taught her the shell art. Some had thought the tiny old woman was a witch. Those who treated her family badly suffered odd accidents.

Francie always chanted while gathering, “Grandmother help me with the shells.”

Every morning the remarkable designs appeared. “Thank you Grandmother,” she’d say.

All who bought the boards had good fortune.

 

 

I Just Published my Book. Now What?

This is a really helpful blog with equally helpful links.

Nicholas C. Rossis

First of all, congratulations! You’re now a published author – and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Second, you’d be amazed how often I hear that question in LinkedIn’s author groups. With some 3,000 new books published every day, I have serious doubts that you can just sit back and wait for readers to stumble on your book, or for word of mouth to work its magic. The chances of that happening are probably similar to that of winning the lottery, in which case you don’t even need the long hours and hard work that goes hand-in-hand with a career as an author (if you don’t believe me, you may want to check out this post by Pedro Barrento on Indies Unlimited).

So, what are the next steps after publication? Before I can answer that, I need to ask one question of my own first: is this your first book? You see…

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#Alzheimer’s #Authors #Readers #Healthy #Living…

I’ve reblogged this on my blog, Musings On Life & Experience. My mother had Alzheimer’s. Suzanne J.

Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

This is a follow-up onSpecial Guest Author Michael Ellenbogen’s discussion on Alzheimer’s Diseaseposted 4^th October 2014

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The following was copied fromCapitolwordsregarding a statement in United States House of Representatives, on 19^th September 2014, by Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick recognizing Mr. Michael Ellenbogen and World Alzheimer’s Day.

Mr. Speaker, in recognition of World Alzheimer’s Day, my constituent, Michael Ellenbogen, wrote a touching excerpt detailing his experience with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive, degenerative disorder that attacks the brain’s nerve cells, or neurons, resulting in loss of memory thinking and language skills, and behavioral changes.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most expensive disease in America, and is the only one of the top ten causes of death in America that can’t be prevented, cured, or even slowed.

It is important to work with brave people like Michael to raise awareness and take action…

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The 10 Social Media Commandments for Authors

Really good advice.

Nicholas C. Rossis

Photo found on telegraph.co.uk

Anne R. Allen has published a great list with The 10 Commandments of Social Media Etiquette for Writers on her blog. Here’s a brief summary: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.

Not enough?  Alright then, here are her ten tips for online behavior for people planning a writing career, summarized for your convenience:

1) Thou shalt not spam.

What is spam?  Here’s the short version: if you’d ignore it in your own inbox, FB page, or Twitter stream, it’s probably spam.

2) Thou shalt support other authors.

Your fellow authors are not “rivals”. The number one thing a beginner should be doing on social media is getting to know other authors in your genre and subgenre and making friends.

One of the hottest sales tools in the business right now is the multi-author bargain boxed set with several titles by different authors. These…

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