FOWC With Fandango — Disclaimer

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Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “disclaimer.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

WDP — Felt Loved

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Daily writing prompt
Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?
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Okay, maybe I’m being a little persnickety, but the question asked about where you’ve felt loved. Seems to me the more appropriate question is when you’ve felt loved. After all, where refers to a place, a location, whereas when refers to a time.

But, being the literal person that I am, I’m going to respond to the question as it was actually asked versus the way I think it should have been asked.

A positive example of where I’ve felt loved is when I go to my son’s and daughter-in-law’s house and visit my grandkids. They are so happy and excited to see me and come running over to me and give me hugs and kisses. That is where — and when — I feel loved.

Weekend Writing Prompt — A Different Drum

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I walk through the city as if its rhythm is slightly misaligned with my own.

While others hurry in practiced cadence, I move at a pace shaped by a different drum. People stare, puzzled, but I feel strangely free. My steps, though out of sync, carry me through a life only I can hear.

Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where the challenge is “drum” in exactly 54 words. Image conjured using Copilot.

FOWC With Fandango — Gathered

Fandango12 Comments

Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “gathered.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

Friday Fictioneers — The Restoration

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Miguel had spent decades restoring the ancient monastery, painstakingly preserving every stone, every arch. The stained glass windows alone, depicting saints and martyrs, had cost him his entire inheritance to repair.

On dedication day, tourists filled the space, cameras clicking. “Magnificent,” they whispered, necks craning toward the vaulted dome.

An art historian approached Miguel afterward. “These capitals,” she said, pointing to the carved faces on the columns. “Do you know what they represent?”

“Holy figures, surely,” Miguel replied.

She smiled gently. “Actually, they’re gargoyles, demons placed here by medieval builders to ward off the very faith you’ve been celebrating.”

(99 words)

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers prompt. Photo credit: Jennifer Pendergast.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday — January 16th

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This was originally posted on January 16, 2018.

#JusJoJan — Deep Thoughts

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The word for today’s Just Jot It January prompt from Linda G. Hill was suggested by Cheryl at The Bag Lady. Her word is “contemplation.”

So what is contemplation? It is, in its essence, deep reflective thought. And when I think about deep thought, I think about “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.”

Perhaps some of you are, like me, old enough to remember “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.”

Between 1991 and 1998, Saturday Night Live included “Deep Thoughts” on the show as a brief video segment between sketches. Each “Deep Thoughts” segment was introduced by SNL regular cast member Phil Hartman and the “thoughts” were recited live by Handey. Neither Hartman nor Handey appeared on screen for “Deep Thoughts.”

Hartman would introduce the brief video by saying in a calm voice, “And now, Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey.” Peaceful, relaxing music would play while the screen showed soothing pastoral scenes. Handey would read the “Deep Thought” as the text to it scrolled across the screen. It became a popular feature of SNL, which often had multiple “Deep Thoughts” in each show.

If you’d like more information about Jack Handey, you can go to his website, Google “Jack Handey,” or Google “Deep Thoughts.”

Just be careful to not accidentally Google “Deep Throat.”

FOWC With Fandango — Scandalous

Fandango22 Comments

Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “scandalous.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.

Thursday Inspiration — Route 66

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For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has given us the word “miles” and the image below.

When I was in high school way back when, one of my favorite television shows was “Route 66.” It was an American adventure/drama series that aired on CBS from 1960 to 1964. It followed two young men roaming the U.S. in a Chevy Corvette and stumbling into other people’s troubles along the way. It became a kind of early‑1960s road novel on film, mixing location shooting, social issues, and a moody, jazz‑inflected tone that made it stand out from more studio‑bound TV of the time.

The show, filmed in black and white, starred Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and George Maharis as Buz Murdock. After Maharis left midway through the third season, Glenn Corbett joined as Tod’s traveling partner, Lincoln “Linc.”

Tod (Milner) was a college‑educated rich kid whose father dies leaving only the Corvette. Buz (Maharis) was a streetwise orphan from Hell’s Kitchen who worked for Tod’s father on the docks. Together — and later with Linc (Corbett) — they represented restless youth searching for meaning, repeatedly confronting issues like poverty, racism, mental illness, crime, and disillusionment with the conventional American Dream.

Tod and Buz traveled across the country in a Corvette convertible, taking temporary jobs and getting entangled in the problems of the people they meet. Think back to a time when there were no cell phones, no GPS, no Google Maps, no social media, and not even the internet. Just the spontaneity of the open road. How fun would that be! Unless your car broke down. Then you might have a long walk to find a house where you could call for a tow.

Each episode was self‑contained drama. Tod and Buz would arrive in a town, take a local job (shrimp boats, oil rigs, factories), become involved in a crisis, and move on once things are resolved.

“Route 66” was famous for being shot almost entirely on location across North America, with episodes filmed in dozens of states from Maine to California, rather than on studio backlots. Despite the show’s title, relatively few stories actually took place on the literal U.S. Highway 66. The name functioned more as a symbol of the American road and wandering freedom.

“Route 66” has retained a cult following for its combination of road‑movie atmosphere, location photography, and its earnest exploration of early‑’60s American social tensions. It also helped cement the Corvette’s image. Corvette sales roughly doubled in the series’ first season, aided by constant on‑screen exposure.

Here is the theme, written and recorded by Nelson Riddle, for “Route 66.”

Writer’s Workshop — A Voyage Through the Id

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For his Writer’s Workshop this week, John Holton gives us six writing prompts and we are tasked with choosing one of the prompts (or as many as we want) and writing a post that addresses that prompt (or those prompts). I am responding to three prompts this week:

  1. Write a post inspired by the word theory.
  2. Write a post in exactly 16 (sixteen) sentences.
  3. Write a story where a unique vessel takes you somewhere you’ve never before been.

What came to mind for item 3 was for me to craft a mind-blowing tale focusing on the id, which is one of Sigmund Freud’s theory of three personality structures, along with the ego and superego. The id is the primitive, unconscious part of the mind that contains instinctual drives and seeks immediate pleasure without regard for reality. Here is what unfolded in my voyage through the id.

The vessel — in theory a ship, but then again, it wasn’t — arrived at dusk, not on wheels or waves, but folded like a thought that had learned how to travel.

Its hull was stitched from maps that changed when I blinked, coastlines breathing in and out.

A gangway opened up and I stepped aboard through a door that felt warm and welcoming, as if it recognized my name.

Instead of an engine, a low hum came from jars of captured weather, each labeled with a detailed handwritten explanation.

When we lifted, the city below did not shrink but softened, turning into a rumor.

The vessel sailed along a current of forgotten ideas, buoyed by all the questions I never asked.

Stars drifted past at arm’s length, smelling faintly of metal and rain.

I expected fear, yet the deck steadied my pulse like a practiced hand.

The captain was a mirror that showed me older and younger at once, nodding without speaking.

We crossed a border where time learned to stutter, repeating the good parts and skipping the rest.

Outside the windows, language fell away, replaced by colors that argued gently among themselves.

At last, we descended into a valley made of echoes, where footsteps arrived before their owners.

The vessel opened itself like a book, releasing me onto ground that remembered every visitor.

Behind me, the vessel refolded, content to become a thought again.

I realized then that I had never been here because this place only exists after the journey.

I walked forward, certain that wherever I was, it had been waiting for me to get there.


Badge by Patty, http://anothercookieplease.com

Image conjured using ChatGPT.

FOWC With Fandango — Remit

Fandango9 Comments

Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).

Today’s word is “remit.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.