Succinctly Yours Week 243: Kung Fu Poultry

Thank you to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to take a shot at a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. This week’s bonus word is “hearsay.” Have a happy Thanksgiving!

They were so excited when they heard there was a holiday held in their honor that they hurried into the clearing to ask if the rumor was merely hearsay.  124

Every year on Thanksgiving Eve, people told the story that some thought was legend, and others, hearsay. Few truly believed the five-headed Turkey Gobblin’ was real.  140

In case the rumor wasn’t hearsay, they got into formation as they’d practiced. Tom acted as wingman while they prepared to put their martial arts training to use.  135

Through self-nurturance we nurture our inner connection to the Great Creator.  Through this connection our creativity will unfold.  Paths will appear for us.  We need to trust the Great Creator and move out in faith. ~Julia Cameron

Succinctly Yours Weeks 241 and 242: I Spy with My Little Eye

Thank you to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours! Participants are invited to step it up and tap out a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. Life has been beyond crazy lately, so I am combining Week 241 (bonus word, “autonomous,”) and Week 242 (bonus word, “parse”). I invite you to parse the preceding sentence. Would you place the period where I did, or inside the last set of quotation marks? Grammar-obsessed minds want to know.

They had won the vote at last. Still, she found it hard to believe women were becoming more autonomous when they were still bound by the feet.  116

Evelyn was known to hide and parse the neighbors’ eating habits in minute detail. She was sure they weren’t washing their food properly.   114

Aim for success, not perfection.  Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. ~Dr. David M. Burns

Succinctly Yours Week 240: Tricked

Thank you to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to carve a story to a mere 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. The word of the week is “border.”

His friends told him if he smiled nicely, the people would let him cross the border of the pumpkin patch to live in a place called “Pumpkin Paradise.” Those punks.   134

His “cute face,” which bordered on adorable, at last got him picked. He found out they weren’t adopting him when the carving knife came out. The horror. The horror.  136


Every year, people crossed the borders of the quiet pumpkin patch and changed their sweet faces into grimaces of death. Those ghouls.  112

Squidward, I used your clarinet to unclog my toilet. ~Spongebob Sqarepants

Succinctly Yours Week 239: Too Pretty to be Silly

Thank you to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to write a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. This week’s bonus word is “evaporate.”

Beneath the amber autumn canopy, the elixir of leaf-spiced dew evaporated all tenseness, all toil…all time.   92

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place. ~Iain Thomas, often mistakenly attributed to Kurt Vonnegut

Succinctly Yours Week 234: Oscars Aplenty

Many thanks to Grandma of Grandma’s Goulash for hosting Succinctly Yours. Participants are invited to kick back and throw together a story of 140 words or 140 characters or fewer based on the photo. This week’s bonus word was “vouch.”

I’ll vouch it belongs to Oscar the Grouch.   35

I’ll vouch it belongs to Oscar Madison.   33

I can vouch for the fact that it was once a de la Renta.   43

No matter what, I’ll vouch that the Oscar couch…is just as “ouch.”   55

The perfectionist fixes one line of a poem over and over—until no lines are right….The perfectionist is never satisfied.  The perfectionist never says, “This is pretty good.  I think I’ll just keep going.”…To the perfectionist, there is always room for improvement.  The perfectionist calls this humility.  In reality, it is egotism.  It is pride that makes us want to write a perfect script, paint a perfect painting, perform a perfect audition monologue….Perfectionism is not a quest for the best.  It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough—that we should try again. ~Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

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