My New Obsession

Y'all, 15-minute sprints may be my new obsession. 

I found a word generator and made my own list for today and got down to it. I'm having so much fun that I thought I'd make it a monthly challenge. 

For the whole month of January I'll be posting 5 words a day for 15 minute sprints, so be sure to follow me on FB @ https://www.facebook.com/imahayes  

Today's words are- 

west, early, cosmically, frog, auxiliary. 

Good luck! I can't wait to hear how it's going for you. 

(Below is my rough and unedited work.)

1-3-20 Writing Sprint

The Prince looked down at himself. Nothing was the same. His long legs were now short and disjointed, his toes which were once individual digits were now webbed, and his skin, which was once a healthy glowing tan, was now absurdly green.

                “A frog!” He screamed, only to emit a garbled croak. “How dare she turn me into a frog!”

                This had to be a mistake of cosmically huge proportions. There was no way his princess, the one the old mages had decreed was to be his queen, would ever turn him into a frog.

                Catching sight of a fly, his tongue shot out before he even realized what was happening, snatching it out of thin air and swallowing it before he knew what had happened.

                Yep. That did it. The witch had turned him into a frog. It was like his life was now a poorly written fairy tale. He certainly couldn’t show up at the castle, let alone an auxiliary meeting in his present condition, now could he? Matter of fact, he couldn’t show up anywhere besides the bog.

                That settled it.  He was going to have to go after his future queen and get her to set him to rights. Setting off to the west, the prince hoped to find his wayward witch waiting for him at the carriage they had traveled in. But knowing her and what he’d now come to see as a devious mind, he imagined she had absconded with his carriage the moment she set her wicked spell into motion and left him high and dry. It’s what he would have done.

                The thought gave him pause- would he really do that to her? Another fly crosses his path and was in his gullet before he knew it.

                “Yuck!” And in that moment, the Prince was very certain the instant he regained his human form, his soon to be wife would find hers becoming a rather enchanting shade of reptilian.

                Surprise stopped the Prince in his tracks when he came upon the carriage still in the placed he’d last left it, and oh, that witch of a woman, beautiful in her treachery, calmly eating an apple.

                “You’re early. Five more minutes and I would have left you.” Tossing the apple core into the woods, she opened the carriage door. “Come on, get in. We have a lot to discuss.”

- copyright, Angela Hayes

Happy 2020

Happy 2020 y'all. 

I know I've made new year resolutions before and been terrible about keeping them, but I intend this year to be different. 

In 2019 I enrolled in college for the first time and started my journey towards achieving my teaching certificate. Specifically, teaching history to middle and high schoolers. This means that I have really had to buckle down and get with the program. No more procrastination for me. And I really have been procrastinating where my writing is concerned. It took enrolling in college courses to realize that not only do I have to intentionally make time to write but that I can actually do it. A book is different from a paper, but I'm hoping the same logic applies. 

To start this new resolution to write more, I am rereading

 Julia Cameron's, The Artist Way: A Spritiual Path to Higher Creativity 

and committing myself to her morning pages. Easy to do while I'm on Christmas break. We'll see how it goes when I'm back at work and all the kids after school activities are back in full swing. 

I'm also trying out writing sprints to help get back in touch with my creative side. I recently started dabbling in podcasts and found Christian Indie Writers Podcast. The first episode I listened to was about Plotting and Pantsing and in it, they discussed writing sprints where they had to incorporate 5 randomly chosen words into their writing. Their stories were great.

 So I hopped on over to their FB page to check them out. (You should too!)

Their post from Dec. 6 challenged writers to dedicate 15 minutes to writing and to use the words 

sun

clue 

crop

indulge

nature

I accepted the challenge and was able to write 360 words in 15 minutes (I write with pen and paper and then type it up) and came up with the beginnings of a pretty cute story that I will definitely pursue as it is falling right in line with a new series I've been toying with. 

So give it a read and tell me what you think. Just keep in mind it isn't perfect.

1-2-20 Writing Sprint

                The sun’s hot rays beat down on the farmer’s back as he inspected his crop of corn, brown and withered on stalks that had tasseled out far too soon. No rain. Being held at the mercy of the whims of nature wasn’t for the faint of heart.

                Taking a moment to indulge in a cool glass of sweet tea, the farm knew his work was cut out for him. He just didn’t have a clue how he was going to pay his bills this month. Oh, he knew God would provide, he just wasn’t sure his crop would.

                Taking off his cap, he wiped his sweat from his brow. The sun was just as merciless in its scorching heat as the heavens were in withholding the badly needed rain. Not even nine AM and he already needed to change his shirt. Climbing back into the cab of his tractor, he turned the key, said a prayer, and got back to work.

                From the window in the kitchen, Bea watched the cloud of dust billowing up from the fields. Scattered on the table behind her was the first delinquency notice on the mortgage on the house. She’d found it by accident when she was looking for a tape measurer. The notice of late payments for her car and a credit card bill she’d found on purpose when she went looking. Her dad liked to keep his problems close to his vest. He thought he was protecting her and her sister. He wasn’t. Lies, even by omission, never kept anyone safe.

                Beside the bills sat a copy of yesterday’s paper. The ad had barely caught her attention when she first read through. She naively thought everything was fine in her little world. Now the ad held all of her attention as she picked it up to read over it again.

                Help Wanted: Fair pay, flexible hours. Inquire at Wolf Stone Manor, Saturday from 9 AM-Noon.

                Dropping the paper she looked at the time on the oven clock. 10:30. Only an hour and a half left. Should she go? Everyone in town knew the legend of Wolf Stone Manor, and it wasn’t pretty.

- copyright, Angela Hayes