Writing is like being able to put life into a snow globe. It takes the things that are too big and scary and reduces them into a form that I can put away when I want and look at from a distance. It also takes all that’s good in life and captures it into something I can take out when I want and look at close up and keep forever. It makes the bad things into something I can hold…and the good things into something I can hold onto. Both help so much that I need that little souvenir of life.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Succinctly Yours Week 232: Unveiling the Veiled

Many thanks to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to come up with a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. This week’s bonus word was “radar.” I tried.


When he traveled through the neighborhood in the fog wearing a hood, he thought he was off the radar. Really he drew attention and was nicknamed “Fog Creature.”  133

When someone photographed him on their phone, Fog Creature went viral. Suddenly he was on everyone’s radar.  120

London Fog approached him to be their new, hip spokesperson. Fog Creature hoods sold out in the first week. It was the hood on the non-hood from the hood.   129


Humanity does not ask us to be happy.  It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.  ~Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

19 comments:

  1. Hari OM
    A tough one - and as ever you rose to the challenge! (I have been 'slack' due to travel away from home... back next week I hope!) YAM xx

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  2. Well I hope so too, because I've missed your offerings! It's too much pressure to be the only participant, especially when you're struggling. Lol.

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  3. Tammy--This seemed like a difficult one. I looked at the picture on your post and wondered what I would have done with it. (Probably nothing.)

    I LOVE the last one. The three "hoods" are hilarious. And a quote by Orson Scott Card? I love "Ender's Game" and saw him as a guest speaker at a conference. He called "The Book of Mormon" chloroform on paper (and he's even a Mormon himself). He also talked about the grammatical gymnastics we go through to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition, to the point that we sound so out-of-whack. He told us, "Just end with a preposition."

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    1. Thanks, Sioux. How exciting to have seen Orson Scott Card! He sounds as interesting as I would have expected. And so glad I have permission to end sentences with prepositions. I too have done those gymnastics. Have also done them while trying to avoid split infinitives. How about those? May our gymnastics involve the split(s)?

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  4. The third one is my favorite, too.

    Maybe that's not fog. Maybe this guy was in a new relationship, and he'd been holding in his gaseous emissions so long that he had to get away from his paramour and let 'em rip.

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    1. I think you nailed it again. He also appears to have been lighting matches, probably to keep himself from being overcome. I cringe when I think of what's in store for that poor, poor paramour once he feels more comfortable in that relationship.

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  5. Me thinks Val knows of what she speaks. Perhaps this is how Hick wooed her... by refusing to gas her until she was good and hooked...

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    1. Um. No. He treated me to a Dutch oven when we were barely acquainted, on a trip to Silver Dollar City with mutual friends from our apartment complex. Like Little Miss Puffytail in the Quilted Northern commercial, those friends cannot forget their experience.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDkwFzmJTk0

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  6. Lol - what a gentleman. Class with gas.

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  7. Three good ones, Tammy. Great quote from "Ender's Game." And I agree with Sioux's comments about it being okay to end sentences with prepositions once in awhile.

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    1. Thanks, Donna. I agree as well. I believe there are many in our gang of grammar-rule-breakers. Wonder what our gang's colors are? Black and white and read all over, I guess.

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  8. Love all three of them -- again! But what I enjoyed most this time was how you built a little connective story, so that each is a standalone, but also a stepping stone to the next. How do you come up with these, my friend? You have the most creative, imaginative mind I think I've ever met! Such a great job, and I love the Card quote. Oh, and I can just picture those grammatical gymnastics of which Sioux speaks. We all do jump through hoops sometimes, don't we? I think it's most important to just relax with our writing and let our own true voice come out. For every grammatical rule there is, there's one just waiting to be broken... within reasonable limits, of course ;) Thanks so much for the food for thought.

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    1. Thanks so much, Theresa! Hee hee on the hoop-jumping. Join the gang!

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  9. I don't know how you do it, Tammy. #2 and #3 are my favs.

    Pat
    Critter Alley

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  10. Love how they all tie together, and you did a great job getting "radar" in there! That took some deft wordsmithing.

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    1. Thanks so much, Lisa. Except when I first read your comment, I read "daft." Which might be a little closer to the truth. :-o

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  11. Both this and Alien Construction are awesome. I don't know how you do it, but you do it so well.

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  12. Thanks so much, Lynn! That makes me feel better. I worried this one was a little too weird.

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