Write a 55 word story

Treat yourself to a challenge today, and write a complete story using 55 words. Don’t forget to include a character, plot,  and setting. No theme, just write.
What can you do in 55 words? Feel free to share your story in the comments.

Daily Item Short Story Contest

Joanne Arobgast of the Daily Item reminds us that each quarter she ned a short story for Inside Pennsylvania magazineShe writes: It’s a great writing exercise and the more submissions I get, the better. Remember, we’ll be doing this for every issue so there’s a never-ending (assuming the mag keeps going!) opportunity for the writers.

Deadline is July 10! Maybe you have something you can submit If not now, why not shoot for next issue.

Joanne Arbogast, Managing editor/features:The Daily Item
Editor: Inside Pennsylvania magazine

July 11 meeting

Reminder: The next group meeting is July 11 at the Brookpark Station Cafe. More info.

Writing games for teenage camper

Hello everyone,

Taking advantage of this great new on-line tool that Mike has set up for us …

Every summer for the past few years, Polly spends 3 weeks at camp.  I make a point of writing her a “bunk note” each day, and we have gotten in the habit of playing various writing “games” with these bunk notes, basically things to make the bunk notes a little more fun for her.   Actually, the games make things fun for me as well, and I have used some of these for web pages for my classes as well.  I’d be curious if any of you have ideas for other word games to spice up bunk notes.

Here are some of the games that we do:

 1.  Coded sentences or stories, where the first letter of each word or of each sentence spells out a secret message.  E.g.,

When rabbits invite toads, every toad opens garages. Really, a nice daughter makes an amazing new dishwasher go really awfully. Never die peeling apples.

Or …

Long after the evaporating river dried up, Doug didn’t eat the tasty elephants.

Or …

A large monster walked down the street, looking for a Dairy Queen restaurant. “Bananas!” he said, as he passed yet another Wendys. “Couldn’t there be at least ONE Dairy Queen in the entire city?” Dejected, he ate another house. “Excuse me,” he said to the occupants as they fled the premises, screaming. “Fast food restaurants are not in short supply around here, but I MUST find a Dairy Queen!” “Go away!” responded the people, still dressed for bed. “Haven’t you noticed that it is 3:00 in the morning?” “I don’t care what time it is!” yelled the monster. “July is almost over, and the 2-for-1 special on flurries is about to expire.” Kids now came out into the street from other houses to watch the spectacle. Little ones, big ones, kids who climb on rocks, fat ones, skinny ones, even kids with chicken pox. Monsters didn’t scare them, even those with 20 eyes, 15 long tentacles, and a high-pitched voice like a mouse breathing helium. Never before had they seen anything like this one before. One of the kids came up to the monster and said, “I have some freeze-pops in my refrigerator. Perhaps that might satisfy your craving. Queen-sized freeze-pops!” Right at that moment, twenty police cars and ten fire trucks came rushing to the scene. Sirens blared loudly into the night as the Monster picked up the girl with one of his tentacles and quickly slithered down the street to her house. “Try to stop me, coppers!!” he yelled as he bit the top off of her house and looked for the refrigerator. “Ursula!” said the girl’s mother, “how many times have I told you not to bring monsters into the house?” “Vegetables, fruit, yogurt, hot dogs, pickles, salad, milk,” muttered the monster. “WHERE ARE THE QUEEN-SIZED FREEZE POPS?!?!” he screeched loudly into the night. “Xavier ate all of them,” said the girl’s mother. “You know how hungry he gets during the finals of American Idol.” Zebras from all over the city then started dancing the Macarena.

2.  Actually, this post is already too long, so I’ll save the other writing games for other posts.

 Tom

All writers welcome

Susquehanna Valley Independent Writers sprang from a story in The Daily Item when freelance writer Cindy Herman introduced us to John Kador. Cindy is a member of the group and her story is posted with her consent.

Business author forming a writer’s support group
by Cindy O. Herman

John Kador does speech writing and ghost writing and has published about
15 business books. In other words, in the writing world, he’s made it. He’s
a published, successful, self-supporting author.

Got a picture?

The design of our site is based on  a theme, and with our wordpress.com blog, we can select from several different themes to change the look and feel of our page. I really like the layout of the current page, but I’d like to change the image because it’s not original.

If you have a photo that you believe would make a good banner, send it to me.

Welcome

Welcome to the Susquehanna Valley Independent Writers blog. We’re just settling into our new blog, so expect some changes over the next few weeks. All group members will have the privilege to post articles like the one you’re reading now. Anyone will have the ability to post comments on an article, including non-group members.

Depending on how exciting we are, we may generate both a physical group and an online group. It’s too early to tell, but this blog will go wherever we make it go. For those group members who are new to blogging and online social spaces, I’ll give you everything you need to know at our next meeting.

You can get a jump-start by getting a wordpress.com user name, which you need to post articles.

1. Go to wordpress.com.
2. Follow the “sign up” link at the top of the WordPress.com page.
3. Enter the user name you wish to use.
4. Enter your email address.
5. Agree to the “fascinating” terms of service.
6. Select the “Just a user name, please” option.
7. Check your email for your account confirmation and password.
8. Login using the user name you specified and the password that was sent to you in email.
9. Send me and email to let me know what your user name is.

After I get your user name, I’ll send you instructions on how to post to the blog.