Sick kids = Fried Brain

And that’s about where we’re at this week.  I apologize in advance for any oddly manic and/or inappropriately depressive things I may be about to write.

I have three kids, and they did that thing that kids do where one gets sick just as the other is getting better and then the other other one gets sick just as that one gets better. Yeah, it’s been an awesome week nine days, and we’re still going strong.  So we’re not talking any more about the past few days of creativity-killing, hope-stifling, mind-numbing, back spasm-inducing blahdom.  (I know, I should have been a nurse, right?)

We’re going to talk about the awesome stuff that’s coming up, instead!  I’m slowly working on redesigning things a little around here, trying to tighten things down and hopefully add a bit of the visual.  I’m totally design challenged, so don’t expect any miracles, but I will be trying to get that done this week, BECAUSE….

I’ve decided to set a challenge for myself for the month of September.  A challenge to write something new every single day for thirty days.  It’s my birthday present to myself.  One of the reasons I started this blog was to push myself to write more regularly, and since I just had a long vacation, this seems like a good time to step it up.  I already have the list of writing prompts all ready to go, and I’ll post them next Tuesday right before we get started. I feel like I should have some kind of snappy name for this September project, but I’m terrible at titling things.  So far all I could come up with is All Storytelling September, but I’m afraid the acronym doesn’t fit in with our family-friendly atmosphere.  I’ll take any suggestions you might have.

For this week, though, I want to offer up my first challenge to you.  I’m not even sure how many of you are out there, so this is my test run to see if anyone feels like getting creative with me.  I’d like to maybe do this a few times during my yet-to-be-named September storytelling extravaganza, but I thought I should do a warm up, just in case I find out I’m the only one who is crazy enough to spend all my free time writing silly stories and posting them on the internet for no one to read.  I’d rather make that sort of discovery now than while I’m in the midst of Write Hard All Month (WHAM, baby!  No?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.)  I don’t want it to break my stride.  Because I’m totally doing this even if no one is listening.

Okay, so here’s the challenge:  Write a story, 800 words or less, that has the line below in it somewhere.  It can start with the prompt, end with the prompt, or just use it wherever it fits in.  The 800 words is to keep it from taking TOO much of that valuable free time to write.   Write it sometime this week.   Then come back on Friday and link up.  That’s when I’m going to post my story.  This will be fun, right?  You know you want to do it!  Here’s the prompt:

It was hard to believe that such radiant flowers could be growing out of that sticky, oozy goo.

And that’s it!  I’ll hopefully see all three four of you (Thanks, Mom!) back here on Friday.