Tag: Writing

Reblog: 10 Memorable ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Books

~ Sahara ~ Leave a comment

While I read these when I was a child, they really became important to me a few years ago, when a girlfriend and I would read them aloud to each other, adding our own little twists and details to the different adventures.

Since this author has passed, she and I have begun talking about taking over the task of writing books of this sort.  Perhaps not as mystery-y, but still adventure-y.

Did you like these books, reader?  What kind of adventure would you write about?

gfunk101's avatarFunk's House of Geekery

Being published through the 80s and early 90s, anyone growing up in those decades have fond memories of the Choose Your Own Adventure stories. Not only were they a neat concept but they had such a massive range of titles you could find something fresh and exciting to get into, even without the re-readability of the multiple endings. On 9th November this year the original publisher and one of the main authors, R.A. Montgomery, passed away aged 78. With some 250 books available in the original series this is not a definitive list of the best 10, but 10 that I remember fondly.

You Are a Millionaire

cyoa098 Please disregard the strange man in the bushes to the left.

Not considered one of the best in the series, it was unique for it’s more realistic take on the concept. While playing baseball with your friends you stumble across a satchel bag…

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No – The Mo o’ No/Po Wri-o

~ Sahara ~ 4 Comments

What can get your creative juices flowing like a project! And support of other people!

I love NaNoWriMo – the National Novel Writing Month.  If you look at NaNoWriMO on Twitter (or me, ’cause I’m retweeting!), they post photos of write-ins, where people get together with their laptops and typewriters and chalk and tablets and write for hours at a time. Can you imagine the energy that must be flowing through a room like that?  It makes me excited just to see it!

Continue reading “No – The Mo o’ No/Po Wri-o” →

Story of Croasert Coup

~ Sahara ~ Leave a comment

148 words, and I think this may become part of something else.  What do you think of the story?

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who had the chicken pox. This was one lucky boy, though, for his parents won the Doctor Drawing (as it was later called by the Wordsmiths) on the first try! He went to the clinic with his parents, and got medicine to help with the itching. A week later, he went back for a check-up

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Realization

~ Sahara ~ Leave a comment

A bit of flash fiction for flash Friday! What do you think?

167 Words

“An under-sea trigger mechanism is a perfect device,” the Roknokoss leader, Laaked said to his crew. “This is an inferior species, and they are an easy prey.”

“If only the missile falls on planned spot.” Sobrona countered. “The humans have misprogrammed their system; the pod is heading in the wrong direction.”

Laaked cried, “Ah! If there were ever people desperate to be subsumed!”

“Sir, there is a way to correct it,” chimed in Rhuka, “though it will depend on the inferior humans.” “Whatever it takes,” commanded Laaked.

They watched Rhuka transmit a chirping signal to the spaceship system. As hoped, it drew attention to the error, and the humans manually overrode it.

Upon the landing of the satellite pod, the Roknokoss automatically transmitted a signal to their home ship: “Mission Accomplished. Commence bust sequence.” As the global rumble of the alien mobilization began, they were paused suddenly by Sobrona, who turned to Laaked.

“Perhaps they are not all so inferior,” he softly. “Perhaps they can be used.”

The Life and Death of Couchsurfing

~ Sahara ~ Leave a comment

Think about an event you’ve attended and loved. Your hometown’s annual fair. That life-changing music festival. A conference that shifted your worldview. Imagine you’re told it will be cancelled forever or taken over by an evil corporate force.

How does that make you feel?

I can think something that really influenced my life, and then it changed for the worse.  Couchsurfing.

CS was this awesome travel website. It was a way to get to know people in a new place and ask ’em questions, get to know shit that’s not in a travel guide, maybe meet up, and also maybe stay with them.

Continue reading “The Life and Death of Couchsurfing” →

Lolly, lolly, lolly – Don’t get your adverbs here

~ Sahara ~ 2 Comments

A dusty and rain-stained window barricades me from outside clatter. Facing a side street, lighter traffic and a large loading docks create dark, cemented, oil-stained caves. I could see water from an exposed pipe drip down the side of the first cave where two men are alone and talking. Gesturing with their cigarettes, their motions were getting wider with each movement.  The man farthest from me is shifting back and forth on his feet in agitation.

The next dock over houses an unmoving mound covered by a pink thermal blanket.  A tied white grocery bag sits atop it.

The third dock is the brightly lit by an overhead lamp. A circle of men are standing by several women are sitting on the dock. They are all laughing and flirting with each other.

For the briefest of moments, the bone china image in my window is still and pristine.

In the first bank, a man throws a punch, and the image shatters. The men from the third bank tangle together in their effort to reach the fight, and they all bowl over the man who threw the first punch. The women trail behind, and as one of them passed the second dock, she lifts a corner of the pink blanket, and a brown hand extends from beneath it, smacking the intruder.

 

*Writing 101, Day 8

Recuerdos de la Alhambra

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The ancient stone cavern  was oddly fitting for the guitarist playing Recuerdos de la Alhambra. The notes  skipped off strings teased by skilled fingers, bouncing like the shadows of the marble stone in the candlelight from the silk covered table. In the center of the cavern stood a couple elegantly dressed. Her red dress seemed to shimmer of its own accord, and his black hair curled slightly over his crisp white collar.

* * * * *

The paiR. Dinner nakpins hang limp from hands – forgotten surrender flags. “Bastardo!” Snarled words and spittle. A snarled laugh of disgust. “HA!” Storming across the roomhe slams his hand against the knocked-over chair and sends it fly-flying against the wall. Wood rains. She charged closer to him closing-the-10-foot-distance beating her breast in protest. “’Li mortacci tua!” Whirling around, tearing hair. A red patch of silk fell to the ground.

 

*Writing 101 challenge, day 7.  Whachu think?

 

 

Until Next Time

~ Sahara ~ 1 Comment

Time slows

In the dewy-promised morning of a welcome unfolding, my limbs and words reach out to those long unseen.

In a hot afternoon of mid-day revelry, hearing delighted cheers from the joust over the hill, playing tag with the sunlight to not burn my skin,

In the smell of the blacksmith’s fire as it stings the back of my throat and the soft fragrance of honey from the slowly melted wax,

Time slows.

Around the soft wool plaid-covered dining table and softly falling ash from the open fire, eating freshly simmered stew off  oversize wooden spoons, next to elders and the younger, all helping cast off, understand, and slow down the mundane dragging of life,

Reclining in swirling pipe smoke, calling out insults and verbal barbs with kinsmen, wrapping my tongue around thick pronunciation and enjoying their faces as they consider a comeback, reveling in their creativity,

Oh, how time slows.

Watching nature wake up, a rain of inchworms becoming a cloud of butterflies, verdant leaves, flowers, and a wee hidden sheep cushioning the visual space.

Air thickens with humidity until the tantalizing promise of rain finally blows through the glen, where nothing can thwart the pulse of life and joy that moves through.

A final exhausted circle of dusty day-worn bodies teasing, jovial and affectionate. Hands passing flasks and bottles around, each one carefully and considerately conserving a sip to share and make room for the next,

Time slows.

Alas, it does not stop, and so, until next time…

*Inspired by Day 1, Writing 101