Writing Challenges 2026

The Witch’s Wood

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Experience Writing Halloween Flash Fiction Challenge ( based on the photo)

I’ve been asked by travelers and explorers who stop by my house which is the last stop before reaching the entrance to the Witch’s Wood. ” Why is it called the Witch’s Wood? Does a Witch really live there? Did a Witch ever live there? “

I tell people that  the entranceway to the Witch’s Wood sits on four acres—it is not vast, nor is it full of leaf-covered paths or anything you could call a trail.

Nothing calls the Witch’s Wood home. No birds nest in the trees, no bears feast on the berries that grow there, and no deer drink from the single stream that runs along the edge of the wood.

Sunlight filtering through the trees in the Witch’s Wood is green, sometimes golden. When night falls, it is so dark you would swear you were in a cave where nothing has taken a breath of its cool, thin air for thousands of years.

The Witch’s Wood is as silent as a tomb.

” So why is it called the Witch’s Wood ? “

” It’s a silly story the locals came up with I guess. Or maybe it was just their way of saying this patch of Wood scares them and that it’s best left on it’s own. Besides, for awhile it was just  tree farm and one family harvested wood from it for their business. “

The travelers will wait for me to continue.

” They were  carpenters and they built caskets and coffins and scaffolding for gallows. “

How wide their eyes get.  ” No kidding. “

” No kidding” I will say. ” All the lumber that came out of the Witch’s Wood was destined to be used in death. Maybe that’s why nothing can live there- for long. Anyhoo. Have a nice drive. “

Most of the time the travelers and explorers turn around and drive back the way they came in.

And there have been times when  the ones who drive in never drive back out again.

It’s Like This

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What’s a personal mantra or philosophy you live by?

“There is no such thing as a bad idea, just awesome ideas with terrible execution.”

 

Time

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I am going to continue to write long hand in cursive.

I will continue to take typing tests so that I can check on my speed and accuracy.

I don’t have digital clocks in my house. The clocks I  do have, have  an hour hand, a minuted hand and a second hand on their faces. When the power goes out, they don’t fail me.

I could start writing on my phone and rely on my thumbs to do the work instead of using a word processor, I could get fancy digital clocks that glow in the dark, I could start to print in block letters and add emoji’s instead of using punctuation.

But as I get older I am finding I hate to be rushed, I like taking my time. In fact, I will go out on a limb and say I love to take my time because so much of it was taken from me and lost to me and at my age, I’m not going to let that happen again.

RDP Friday: HOBBY HORSE

One Wish

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WP asks: The genie grants you a wish. What is it?

If I could have one wish granted, my wish would be that Halloween could be a place you could visit instead of it just being a state of mind or a holiday that shows up at the end of the year and is gone like a puff of smoke in one night.

My wish would be that Halloween would be a town where the world is painted in shades of orange and red and yellow.

Every night frost would decorate the trees and plants and flower and window panes.

The air would always be cool, it would smell like freshly baked gingerbread and apples and when the sun came up, it would shine gently and when it set the Moonlight and starlight would burst across the sky like fire taking to old dry wood.

Black cats and black dogs could sit on porch steps next to rocking chairs and next to tombstones and crypts and shut their eyes with blissful expressions on their faces, even when a stranger walks by.

If Halloween were a place, a place where you could have a house and go to work and school and have little herb garden growing in your backyard, you could wear whatever costume you wanted and nobody would ever  think or dare to  say to anybody, ” maybe people would like you more if you were just like everybody else. ”