Today I’m flexing my mental muscles using writing prompts. The first is the 100 Word Challenge from Verbal Verbosity’s site. The second is a prompt from Writing Basics Magazine.

The 100 Word Challenge focuses on one word, which is resistance. This is my first attempt at the 100 Word Challenge and normally I just write about what I’m thinking or feeling at that moment. Forming 100 words around one word is more difficult than you’d imagine. So with that said I offer you my first attempt at the 100 Word Challenge. (cover your eyes things are about to get ugly)

Resistance

“You know,” he said, “Only the Borg believe that resistance is futile. Don’t you?” I was taken with his geeky charm and his courage of conviction. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to take him home and feed him soup or follow him on this week’s crusade.

He pushed his glasses back up his nose and smiled at me. Part Clark Kent, part Victor Laszlo, part Sam Seaborn he continued on explaining that I in no way needed to accompany him on this latest quest to save the world from or perhaps for the baby seals. I was too distracted by the tape on his glasses to answer.

109 words (I’m wordy I can’t help myself)

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The writing prompt from Writing Basics asks you to spend 30 minutes writing on a certain topic. This week’s topic is: You’re late for work because you overslept, but your boss hates oversleeps. He does love entertaining stories so create an outlandish reason as to why you were late. The rules also say not to waste time revising or haggling over word use so please expect this first attempt to be a rough, rough, very rough draft. I normally don’t write fiction so this is a big stretch for me.

Why I’m Late For Work

*short girl rushes through office door looking disheveled with dripping hair* *She rambles excitedly at her rather stern looking boss.*

Oh my God Bill, you’ll never guess what happened to me. A transformer blew up at the end of my block last night. Yes. You heard me correctly. A transformer, yes an electric transformer blew up. Well I suppose technically it blew up after being drove into by a tractor trailer which skidded on the icy road and hit the pole, which fell on Mr. Digiovanni’s car, which then brought the pole and transformer crashing into the church yard across the street. You should have heard it. It sounded like an explosion. What? Oh yeah I guess it was an explosion. But it sounded like such a bigger explosion.

We’ve been sitting in the dark since at least midnight. I haven’t had a clock to look at since the power went out so I’m not quite sure what time exactly everything happened. Of course there was no sleep to be had with all the noise and lights from the squad of emergency vehicles dispatched to the scene, not to mention the generators and power tools the guys from the power company were using to you know turn the lights back on.

I don’t know what that truck driver was thinking driving out on those icy roads last night. What would possess someone to be out on the road driving a 48 footer in the dark during an ice storm?

It’s a good thing we were already prepared for the overnight ice storm. I already had candles and matches out on the kitchen counter in case the ice brought power lines down. I’m so glad I stopped at the store on my way home last night to buy batteries for my flashlights. Who knew? Go figure.

I was dozing off on the couch with Boris snoozing on the floor next to me. *laughs* No. Boris is not my husband. Boris is my 100 pound Samoyed. I think I started dozing while watching the re-air of Keith Olbermann’s new show on the Current TV. The house was nice and cozy and the streets outside were quite. Only the sounds of the ice hitting the windows could be heard. It was glorious. I’d already had my evening shower and my nightly cup of tea and I was all cozy in my footed jammies.

Imagine my surprise when I woke to the sounds of a transformer exploding and a house in darkness. I wasn’t sure what had happened so I shook of my sleepiness and went to the front door. The ice storm had frozen my screen door shut so it took some pushing and shoving to force it open. When I finally got the door open Mrs. O’Malley was on her way back from the corner and she filled me in on all the news. It seems the police believe the truck was going too fast when it tried to turn off the highway and onto the city streets. It skidded on the ice as the driver hit the brakes. The truck didn’t stop at the pole it continued across the street and into the 24-hour Dunkin’ Donuts. Luckily no one was sitting in Dunkin’ Donuts and the workers ran for their lives when they saw the headlights heading their way. The truck came to a stop at the counter. I hope one of the news-guys got a picture of that. It looked like the truck was patiently waiting for its donut. I threw some clothes on and went to see the destruction with my own two eyes. Boris enjoyed an unexpected trip outside in the cold air but I was shivering so I didn’t stay long.

I think I finally fell asleep at around 4am. The electricity was still off and my cell phone was dead so there was no way to set an alarm. I’m a light sleeper so I thought I’ll just doze. I must have been more tired than I thought I was because the next time I opened my eyes the sun was up. I jumped in the shower hoping there would be at least some hot water left from before the power went out. There wasn’t. I was doubly disappointed to find that with no electricity comes no hair dryers so I stood drip-drying in my freezing cold bedroom with no TV and no radio to tell me the time. What? Oh, no we haven’t owned a battery-operated radio since boom boxes went out of style. Yeah, I suppose it would be a good idea to have a radio just in case. I suppose we could use a wall phone too. Yeah. I’ll work on that for next time.

I was even more disappointed to find that with no electricity comes no toast. I painted quite the pathetic picture as I stood anxiously awaiting my morning toast when it dawned on me that of course the toaster wasn’t working either. I finally just fed Boris and got in the car to come here. The police had the other end of the street blocked off so the power company guys could keep working so I had to back out of the street. Did I mention my husband slept through everything? Unbelievable.

So that’s why I’m late for work.

written in 29 mins., 54 secs.

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So there you have it, my first attempts at using writing prompts to keep my mind active and working while I recover from my radiation treatments.