Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
Peter Dazeley / Getty Images
This week’s image contains a Burmese python, resplendent in shades of yellow, black and brown. Its head is perched atop a single chicken egg and its body is coiled around the egg and off to the right of the image. The subject is set against a black background
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
As I sit down to write Sunday Digest late on this Sunday night it occurs to me that it has been a busy week. The blog itself started the week okay but as the activities and time required with my son ramped up my work here fell off. School is out and that means my days are filled with bike rides, Lion Safari’s and stopping at every park I see.
On Friday we took Nate to African Lion Safari, an animal rescue and reserve where you get to ride through the animal enclosures in your car. The lions and tigers are usually sedate. Mostly because they have been so well fed they cannot move. The Orangutans are Nates favorite. Especially the one who decided to jump up on our car and pee down the windshield. I know little boys and the things that excite them!
He also loves the waterpark they have for the kids to play in. It is a great spot on a hot day and he spent almost three hours in the water. Running on the play structures and riding the slide. He is a little Casanova too. The kid will talk to just about anyone but gravitates to the prettiest moms and starts up full conversations with them. Even at the mall or in a restaurant before we finish he has the clerks or waitresses gathered around while he holds court!
Also this weekend I have been busy canning strawberry jam and relishes. I also set a a crick with 4 lbs. of cucumbers. Hopefully in about a week I will have fermented dill pickles. In the meantime, I made a couple of jars of refrigerator pickles to hold us over. It was Nate who noticed the happy face in the jar of pickles.
I dug deep into my Madchester sounds record collection this week to find this classic. James were a Manchester band who are best known on this side of the pond for the title track of their 1993 album “Laid”. The track initially found success on U.S. college radio before peaking at No. 3 on U.S. Alternative Radio.
The week in review…
Choices A tales of choices written by Paula at Light Motifs II.
Milestones | Just some stuff about my blog stats and some new records in 2023.
T-Shirt Wisdom | The most recent installment of this bi-weekly feature.
Next week…
Five Word Weekly has already dropped about 3 hours ago and Four Line Fiction is on tap for Tuesday. Don’t forget to get your entry in for July’s Creative Writing Monthly, July 31st is almost here. Have a great week everyone,
Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Five random words will drop on Sunday evenings at 5:00pm (17:00h) Eastern Standard Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the prompt words. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece using some or all of the words, a series of stand-alone projects incorporating at least one of the words in each, or an epic serial linking the words over several entries. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
Note the release time adjustment from Monday morning to Sunday evening. This move is designed to provide the writer with a headstart and to facilitate future developments at Greg’s Blog. Everything else about the challenge will remain the same, including the weekly wrap-up that will continue to appear in the following week’s Sunday Digest.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading what each of you conjures up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.
As many of my followers know despite having opened an account at Worpress way back in 2012 I’m fairly new here. I didn’t really start posting regularly until late 2020 and only kicked it into high gear last year. As such my stats are not exactly the type advertisers back the Brinks truck up for. Not that advertisers were ever the measure of success. I’ve stated it before, this site is meant to be a fun creative outlet for me
Still, I happened to look at my stats today and halfway through 2023, I am about to blow past my previous high for views. Last year the blog had 6156 views and as of this moment, 2023 has had 6155 views. Perhaps if you were one of the first to check out this post you might be part of Greg’s Blog history. The tying or record-setting visitor. Stop laughing all you giants of the industry. I know those are sad numbers but they are my numbers and in two more views 2023 will be the most viewed year on record. Beep Beep.
Greg Glazebrook @ GMGCreative
Thanks to everyone who stopped by, one-timers and regulars alike. I appreciate you taking a moment. Keep coming back and please tell everyone to come take a peek!
Welcome to another edition of T-Shirt Wisdom Wednesday for July 5th, 2023. This hump day feature is exactly what it sounds like. Every other Wednesday (bi-weekly) I will post a graphic that is funny, poignant, witty, honest, crude, toothsome, with bite, or just plain old ridiculous. Some I’ll have plagiarized directly from a chest near you. Others may not have been spotted in the wild but they probably should be out there.
A sure way to fish for a hug from your better half guys…
A message from the agent for the designer/author’s wife: I’m Gina and I wholeheartedly approve this message!
Suggestions are always welcome. If you come across something you think is worthy of being pasted across someone’s chest and paraded around publicly jot it down and send me a message. If it makes the cut I will whip up a graphic design template and use it in a future post. Any suggestions used will include a shout-out and link to your blog on the week it posts.
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Tuesday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
This week’s monochromatic image features a black bikini set against a sandy beach background. Although the top portion is slightly askew the bikini is configured as if it was being worn.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
For years the S.O.B. told me I had no sense of direction, the worst navigator he’d ever seen. How was it my fault he’d go left when I said right?
“Where is my breakfast, what did you get lost?” The prick used to tell me he was amazed I could find the kitchen in the mornings.
Being berated for my navigation skills was the easy stuff. He’d get absolutely incensed and take every opportunity to make me feel like I was six inches tall, worthless. I can assure you I had no trouble finding the rat poison he kept in the cellar. Extra Warfarin in his scramble to go with his prescription.
That was then, but as I attempt to jump a train to freedom I’m left wondering if I will ever be able to decipher this bloody map.
“Come on, come on!” It’s only a matter of time before they find the body. As panic grips me and everything comes flooding back, I begin to wonder, “Was he right?”
This week marked the 156 anniversary of Canadian Confederation. The British North American Act took effect on July 1st, 1867 and Canada passed from being a British colony to a member country of the British Commonwealth.
I for one refuse to forget that past. There has been a huge push against colonialism in recent years. The British now looked upon in an unpleasant light. Once again the statue of Queen Victoria in Kitchener’s Victoria Park was vandalized, doused in red paint in an act that has played out four times in the last two years. What I find most intriguing is that these former colonies, the places where we now try to erase people like Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister and deny our history, are the very places where people want to immigrate. As much as we want to abhor the blue-eyed devils we flock the places they built.
All I can say to Canadians, members of the British Commonwealth and those countries who were founded on British and European ideals, do not be ashamed of your history, embrace it. Many of the places our people have built are a beacon of peace and civility for the rest of the world.
As Google and Meta get set to turn off links to Canadian news sites I ponder an interesting question. The Canadian government passed legislation that would force content giants like Google, Microsoft and Meta to pay for content they display or link to on their platforms. Up until this point they have presented content from independent sources free of charge. In the process, making billions of dollars in advertising revenue that those providers will never see. The Canadian government has become the first to protect homegrown content providers by forcing these giant tech companies to properly compensate creators.
We could argue whether that is fair or even feasible but that is not the crux of my question. You see, for years these entities have claimed they are not responsible for the content they present and as such can’t or shouldn’t be held liable for it. They don’t believe they have an obligation to monitor or regulate the content to which they provide access. They claim it is too large a financial burden to expect them to build the apparatus to police content. Interesting that moment they have to pay for the content they present all of the apparatus to block it, the apparatus they claimed was too expensive to build, suddenly isn’t that costly and even more alarming already exists. All they need to do to ensure they don’t have to pay for content is flip the switch to have it blocked.
As we celebrate this Canada Day I have been listening to Canada’s greatest songwriter who passed away earlier this year. It was once said that the offices of SOCAN have one storage room (this was before computers) for all the songs written by Canadian artists and a second room for all the works of Gordon Lightfoot. I have previously featured The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Here are some other faves, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Sundown and Carefree Highway.
The week in review…
Who Knew Proof from Fandango at This, That and the Other that Seniors love heavy metal too.
Five Word Weekly and Four Line Fiction and another installment of T-Shirt Wisdom. Don’t forget to get your entry in for July’s Creative Writing Monthly, July 31st is almost here. Have a great week everyone,
Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Five random words will drop on Sunday evenings at 5:00pm (17:00h) Eastern Standard Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the prompt words. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece using some or all of the words, a series of stand-alone projects incorporating at least one of the words in each, or an epic serial linking the words over several entries. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
Note the release time adjustment from Monday morning to Sunday evening. This move is designed to provide the writer with a headstart and to facilitate future developments at Greg’s Blog. Everything else about the challenge will remain the same, including the weekly wrap-up that will continue to appear in the following week’s Sunday Digest.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading what each of you conjures up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.
Clicks and likes were not my main objective when I created Greg’s Blog. In its current incarnation, it was meant to be a creative outlet. I didn’t expect awards or accolades; quite frankly, I’m no Hemingway, Dickens or Shakespeare. Hell, I’m not sure I’d have qualified to write the Sears Catalogue back in the day. That said there is always a tiny rush when someone likes what you’ve published and I love reading the posts everyone publishes in response to my prompts and challenges.
So why the rant? Well, I find myself standing on the brink and contemplating throwing myself into the abyss when I browse other WordPress blogs. Yes, I have a group of people I follow and their content is excellent. It is when I explore beyond those I follow and find content that is unreadable. Then I look and see hundreds of likes or volumes of comments attached to these posts and I have to wonder – How shite is my site?
I think I have a decent handle on the English language. It is my mother tongue, and I always excelled spelling and had a good grasp of structure and punctuation throughout my school years. Even in my working life, managers and colleagues ask me to proofread their work. I have an uncanny ability to remove noise and focus on the key points of a paper or presentation without making the message threatening or unprofessional.
So what is the problem then?
many of the sights in question seem too bee completely devoid ov structure format or punctuation as they ramble on un-relent-ingly incoherent id be kind calling the writing a raw ruff stream of consciousness brain storming pile of dung sometimes i think that if i were to read a single rambling paragraph or sentence as it was written id asphyxiate myself long before reaching the last word because commas periods question marks and quotations are not only optional they dont exist except for the ellipses… they litter everything… in fairness… i may be guilty of that last one two (three? four?)… but at least I’m cognizant of it…
So, How Shite Is My Site? When I compare my WordPress stats to some other sites I think the answer is clear.
Greg's Blog 