Tag Archives: #creativewriting

Murder In the First

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Unknown

Murder In the First

The prosecutor began his summation with vigorous enthusiasm, “In a display of utter cowardice, Mr. Kutinitov plunged the blade he carried with him right down to the marrow. Splaying the victim, his estranged wife wide open.”

“Ask yourself why?” he continued. “Sure, she had set fire to everything, exposing his philandering ways and singeing his reputation almost beyond repair. Certainly a motive in and of itself but his reason was even more basic, greed. You see, he wanted the engagement ring back, her ring, the one he’d given her along with his promise 13 years earlier. He’d spent a small fortune to buy it and he knew it had only appreciated in value. You heard his jeweller confirm that he had been to the shop to inquire about it and shortly thereafter broke into the marital home.”

He paused for effect before driving home his final point, “When he came for the ring, she refused and swallowed it to keep him from taking it. She could not have known that she had become an unwitting accessory to compromising her own survival. Her death was not a crime of passion as portrayed by the defence, it may not have been premeditated but his reasons for being there were cold, calculated and planned. As such you must find the defendant guilty. You know what’s right, return a verdict of murder in the first degree.”

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Five Word Weekly Challenge (2330)

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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.

Here are your prompt words for the coming week:

singe | marrow | vigorous | cowardice | splay

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.

Click here for full rules and guidelines

Five Word Weekly Challenge (2329)

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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.

Here are your prompt words for the coming week:

laborious | trundle | ballyhoo | jungle | triumph

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.

Click here for full rules and guidelines

Four Line Fiction (2328)

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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.

Click here for full rules and guidelines

Five Word Weekly Challenge (2328)

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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.

Here are your prompt words for the coming week:

quantum | zygote | signpost | universe | clock

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.

Click here for full rules and guidelines

Four Line Fiction (2327)

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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.

HP Koch via Unsplash

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.

Click here for full rules and guidelines

Lost

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Polina Kuzovkova via Unsplash

Lost

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?”

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Five Word Weekly Challenge (2327)

5 Replies

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.

Here are your prompt words for the coming week:

grandiose | simper | indelible | afterthought | favorite

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.

Click here for full rules and guidelines

2307 Creative Writing Monthly Challenge – Official Launch

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Welcome to the inaugural Creative Writing Monthly. Think of the challenge as an opportunity to write something a little longer than the short flash fiction prompts we all love to participate in daily. Each month Greg’s Blog will prompt the writer with a concept, topic, and/or genre to help jumpstart the creative process. All you have to do is write. The length of your work should end up somewhere between 750 and 1500 words. That falls right on the boundary between a longer work of flash fiction and a short short story. Thus, giving you the opportunity to develop characters and build more elaborate plotlines. Something that is difficult to attain when responding to word prompts, sentence limits and 100-word maximum stories.

I understand longer stories take longer to write, edit, consternate over, rework, stew about, and/or rewrite… As such the inaugural edition of CWM will run for two months, until July 31st and will include a glimpse of August’s prompt. Subsequent challenge posts will consist of the current challenge plus a glimpse of upcoming prompts for the next two challenges. In essence, three full months for those who prefer a headstart. For the rest of us who like to procrastinate, just follow my lead and keep telling yourself you work better under pressure!

The plan is to drop each monthly challenge on the last Thursday of the preceding month. So if you want to try something with more meat on the bones, check back for a new challenge monthly.

I know I published the preview post at the beginning of June but today is the official launch of Creative Writing Monthly. For all of those who posted to the preview, I will ensure your stories are included in the inaugural wrap-up on the first Greg’s Blog Sunday Digest of August. Feel free to repost your link here if you want but know it is not necessary. Thank you for participating.

July 2023 Challenge Prompt:

Write a story about a new beginning, fresh start or new challenge.

Does the protagonist face the new situation head-on, crumble under pressure, or revert to old habits? How does the journey change them and affect those around them? Let the prompt be your guide.

I look forward to reading what you conjure up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.

Upcoming Challenges

MonthTopic
AugustWrite a story about summer camp, a wilderness vacation or a day in the great outdoors.
September Write a fictional story based on a real life moment, event or memory from your days in grade school memory.
Click here for full rules and guidelines

Maybe…

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Image: Unknown

Maybe…

When Ida discovered that she could hear the voices of the dead speaking to her when she tuned into a certain radio station, she decided to change the station.

Well maybe not right away but as she sat in the courtroom listening to the Crown Attorney describe the trail of death and destruction she’d left in her wake it became evident.

“Forty-one injured and 17 dead in all Your Honour. Several were shot where they stood, and others were stabbed waiting for the bus or standing in line at the gas bar convenience. Three more were taken when the accused set that same gas bar alight. All blown to bits in the ensuing explosion including one poor soul whose legs were found sheared off just below the knees, still standing in front of the toilet where he’d been peacefully relieving himself.”

Was this ever going to end she thought but the anger in his voice kept rising as he continued, “Still more, run down in the street by the rust-coloured pickup truck she’d stolen from her ex, a.k.a. victim one. Mostly unaware of their fate as they went about their daily business and she’d have us all believe it was voices…” he paused momentarily before speaking again with greater emphasis. “VOICES OF THE DEAD – that made her do it.”

“Do you have anything to say to this court Ida?” the Judge asked.

Her own barrister counselled her to remain silent but how could she not say something. The families needed an explanation, closure.

“Well, your honour, maybe –” a quiver present in her voice. “Maybe I should have changed the station sooner.”

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