Writing Prompt – 3 Word Disaster

Hello again!  It’s a new week and a new prompt.  This time with three words that must be foundations of the story.  They cannot simply be included, but must be essential to the tale.  And these words are:

1. Arcanum
2. Changling
3. Naif

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The Maidens and the Bloodstone

((Here is an excerpt of a story I’ve been working on for a while, which [I feel] finally has a decent opening.  It still needs work, though.  I’ve entered this piece into a contest, earlier, and thought I’d share it here too.))

 

The woods beyond were somehow darker and colder than the enveloping night, and twice as still. Dorathy shuddered. She shouldered her raven, Tota, then joined the rest of her squad by the fire. No one had their backs to the treeline, including Dorathy as she sought a place beside Eirig.
Eirig sat hunched with his hands clasped and resting against his chest. His left forefinger tapped against the knuckle of his right and he didn’t look up as Dorathy dropped down next to him. Still trying to make the pieces of their mission fit, most likely. Anomalies bothered him.
Cameron sat on Eirig’s left. His eyes reflected the fire’s and a pinched grin fought to spread into his cheeks. At any second his vanity would bubble over, spill its musings, and heartlessly stain the silence.
The last of them was their Commander, Arnald, who sat just off from Cameron. Twice as old as his mid-teen charges, he was nearing retirement; but it was doubtful he’d follow through. Too much pride.
Their newest target, Big Bahad Wulf, was no ordinary Lycan. Skilled and strong, it was rumored he was also delving into the dark arts. His last victims, a trio of brothers, had their homes collapsed in with hurricane-like winds before they each died in a fire at the eldest’s stone home. The fire bespoke of an accomplice, possibly the witch Rydenhood, and that only complicated things further.

Short Review of the Jota+ App

Jota+ (the “Jota” is pronounced “Iota”) is a free writing app for your phone. It does code or something too, but I only use it for writing, so that is what I’ll focus on. It has other features that you can download for it that automatically integrate into the app; such as spellcheck and voice write.

The spellcheck worked once or twice for me and now gives an error message (it might work only with the paid update now). When it did work, it spellchecked well enough but you couldn’t make changes while it was working. The voice write works beautifully, though.

Jota+ has a bit of a learning curve because some of its features seem hidden or live along routes that don’t make sense. It saves as .txt files which is convenient for transferring to your computer and opening later in Word or Roughdraft. I haven’t tried that yet, but I’ve done it with other programs, so it should work the same.  Your saved files can be a bit tricky to find, however, when using the “Open” menu. It basically shows you your phone’s files. All of them.

I’m going to buy the full version and test that one soon. I love this program as is, so I think it’s worth the little it cost for extra features—such as Dropbox integration.

Writing Prompt – The Soda

Hey everybody.  Welcome back again to another writing prompt.  Today it involves soda:

 

Someone finds a twenty-year-old bottle of soda while helping to clean out a storage closet.  They decide to drink it, but what they don’t realize is that it’s not actual soda in the bottle.  It’s a potion that’s pretty far gone past it’s expiration date.  So, what happens next?

 

And that’s the prompt for today.  Please it enjoy, and, also, please have a nice Labor Day weekend!

Writing Prompt- Body Language Exercise

I have recently been reading “How to Diagnose Your Character: Using Psychology to create an In-Depth Character” by Joshua Hoyt.  I am learning so much from this book.  An exercise that is given in the book has been so inspiring, I made it our prompt for today!  Our prompt is to write a short story that involves NO dialogue.  Instead, our tale is to be told through our character(s) body language.

Sounds fun, right?  Until next week!