Writing Challenges 2021

Not Alive? You Think?

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Fandango’s One-Word Challenge: NOT

What is alive- and what is not alive and who calls the shots? Me? You? That guy on Facebook who flames and burns his way through everyone’s walls before lunchtime?

Good question and that question lead me to:

Robophobia is an anxiety disorder in which the sufferer has an irrational fear of robots, drones, robot-like mechanics or artificial intelligence. It frequently results in a panic attack and can be triggered by certain stimuli or situations, such as viewing a robot, being near a robot, or even just talking about robots.

I don’t  have a fear of Robots, but from what I understand it’s not an uncommon phobia.

For example, if somebody with Robophobia  were to see the robot in the video above they would probably go into a full blown panic attack.

It’s a little frightening to think how those same people would react if they were in a room with one of these Humanoid Robots and they could talk too.

But I am not made from stone and I’m not sure it’s a phobia but:

Let me tell you what weirds me from the techy universe that  falls into that Alive/Not Alive slots:

I like to play ambience videos when I’m working and writing but the ones I will not watch or post are the ones with cats and dogs in them.

No kidding. I ge the creeps when I see them. I mean. Who creates a pretty scene with wonderful music and sound effects and then traps an image of a cat or dog in it…where it will live forever.

I get it. The images aren’t real. Or are they?

I’ve watched enough episodes of Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone to know that the weirdest things happen in everyday life.

My Vault

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RDP Monday: HEDGE

I have a vault on my blog.

In my vault I have stories, poems and pictures that I post when I hit dry spells or when I go on vacation and can’t write everyday.

The only rule I set up for myself was that I can only take one thing out of the vault a day.

So for the last few weeks, when I sort of went sideways (  well got depressed ) because I always do right after Thanksgiving I went to my vault and noodled around and do you know what?

I just didn’t feel like those posts weren’t going to speak to what I saw or felt on those given days so-

I wrote new stuff and left the stuff in my vault on their shelves for next time I really needed them.

The funny thing is, I started my vault to store things in and that has really helped me in a pinch. I didn’t think it would serve as inspiration for the days when I thought I couldn’t write. It turned out that when I opened my vault door last month I looked into it and saw I could write after all.

Vaults are great, if I had to give advice to a blogger who wants to post daily I recommend installing one of your own.

The Time Killer

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RDP Sunday: NEEDED

Winter Night Jerry Walker

Do you know what I needed tonight?

I needed for it to snow, I needed to cook something

rich, warm and maybe a little salty for dinner

I needed to listen to John Williams on guitar

Instead I didn’t cook something delicious, I walked in the rain

and I didn’t listen to music at all.

If you added up those wasted minutes you would discover

as I sadly did

That I spent more time doing the things I didn’t want to do

on purpose.

Jemma and Georgie

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SFC Chocolate Box Prompt: Late Late Last Night

When my sons were around 5 and 6 years old the tv adaptation of ” IT ” was released and of course they weren’t allowed to watch it- not after the incident where they snuck my VHS copy of the “Exorcist”  into their room and watched part of it and truly scared the Hell out of themselves.

I decided to be more careful because when your kids start sleeping with their nerf swords and wearing their bike helmets to bed you have to assume they’re easily traumatized by horror movies and you need to be more strict about what they watch on tv.

Oh but my boys were clever and had stronger nerves then I realized because I had no idea they were sneaking into the living room when I was watching ” IT ” and hiding behind the couch and watching it from there.  I mean looking back on it that was creepy in itself because I had no idea they were in the room with me.

Anyway I was clueless until one night at dinner they had this conversation.

My youngest son Julio apropos of nothing  said ” Does Georgie’s arm float with the boat” and that point they both started to laugh so hard they were spitting food all over the place and it took me a minute to realize because I was distracted by the rain of chewed up food flying all over the place-

” Hey! How do you guys know about Georgie’s arm?”

After a few side eyes to each other they fessed up and when the last episode of the series was aired I let them watch it because at that point why not?

Now let’s fast forward 30 odd years and I’m on the phone with my youngest son Julio and he’s telling me this funny story about how Jemma ( his three year old daughter ) will point to storm drains and red balloons and says something like ” There’s Georgie!”

So yeah. I didn’t ask how Jemma knows about Georgie, storm drains and red balloons. I just figured a couch was involved.

Photo A.M, Moscoso