You stumble upon a random letter on the path. You read it. It affects you deeply, and you wish it could be returned to the person to which it’s addressed. Write a story about this encounter.
Today’s twist: Approach this post in as few words as possible.
RETURN TO SANTA
The wind blew a letter that landed on the path.
It was from my six year old child.
Dear Santa,
PLEASE KEEP MUMMY AND DADDY HAPPY
I cried bitter salty tears.
Write about a loss something (or someone) that was part of your life and isn’t any more. Today’s twist: Make today’s post the first in a three-post series.
THE TRAGIC LOSS UNFOLDS~Part One
By John Yeo
The forest stretched for miles, a sea of pine trees with thick undergrowth. There was a large variety of wildlife in the forest and my wife and I would ramble for hours, just enjoying the sensation of the natural world. The birds fluttering and calling in the tree tops with squirrels scrambling up tree trunks in their haste to get away from the intrusive humans. Many times we have been caught in a shower or a storm and exactly against the universal advice we took shelter under a tree. The woodland flowers were colourful, blooming in profusion during their season, and we would enjoy wandering through stretches of ferns into the forest. One day we spotted a faun, shyly strolling along a woodland path through the trees, we quickly followed this beautiful little animal for a long way into the depths of the forest.
Suddenly we realised we were lost, hopelessly, totally lost. We pressed on hoping to come to an inhabited property where we could get our bearings and some directions back to where we had started our ramble. We came upon a clearing with a pretty little cottage and knocked hard to alert the inhabitants of our arrival. There was no response to our urgent knocking and we entered the little house to explore. Inside we found a large amount of blood, all over the place, some dried up and to our dismay what looked like a puddle of fresh blood. We assumed that an animal had been slaughtered and put the whole thing out of our minds for a minute. We then went through into the back yard, where there was freshly disturbed earth with mounds of earth piled every where, My wife, Margaret nervously remarked that they looked like a series of graves.
Then there was a noise as a large animal or a man was heard crashing and running through the forest~~~~
Copyright (c) Written by John Yeo
Today, celebrate three songs that are significant to you. For your twist, write for fifteen minutes without stopping — and build a writing habit.
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Three songs that have made a huge impact on me during my life? Obviously the songs that come to mind are the important songs that have made an impression on my life. All music that I have enjoyed,has come in phases, during the popular phase I remember, “Que Sera Sera, Whatever will be will be” sung by Doris Day. I was a young man during the time this song arrived on the scene, and her voice and the words made a big impact on my mind. It was also a firm favourite of my late wife, Sophie.
The next song I can distinctly remember was linked to a girl friend who lived in the USA, I live in the UK and we last met when she was on a holiday here. This song is, “A bridge Over Troubled Water” sung by Simon and Garfunkel, I love the words and the tune to this.
The final song would be an Operatic Aria, “One Fine Day” from the opera Madame Butterfly, This turned my tastes firmly in the direction of the music and production of Grand Opera. My wife, Margaret and I both love this type of music and we have enjoyed several Operas together.
I find this selection of my favourite songs, very mysterious as they are all songs that have had a significance in my life and they can all be linked by circumstances.
“Que Sera Sera” is a philosophical song, that is a direction to follow in the future.
“Bridge Over Troubled Water”, is also a reminder that I met my wife Margaret on the water during a cruise, at a very troubled period in my life.
“One Fine Day” is the finale of this troubled period when Margaret and I decided to get married. We have enjoyed a second chapter of our lives for the last ten very happy years.
I will now download and put these three songs together on my computer as I never realised they had such a significant impact on my past and present life.
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Written by John Yeo (c) All rights reserved
If you could lay your past lifetime out in a long timeline, then select any spot using your memory, or sticking a pin into any random part of the life-line, you would come to a period in your life and a certain place where you were living or visiting. This could be worked out mathematically and precisely to enable a return visit to the most beautiful place you have ever been to in your life. A place where you reached the highest level of happy peaceful contentment where a return visit would recapture the feelings of exquisite intellectual pleasure regained.
JUNE 3, 2014
Writing 101, Day Two: A Room with a View (Or Just a View)
We’re all drawn to certain places. If you had the power to get somewhere — anywhere — where would you go right now? For your twist, focus on building a setting description.
A VIEW OF LIFE
The house in Bridgeman downs in Brisbane was situated on the side of a steep hill, indeed walking up the drive was a struggle for my wife, Margaret.
There was a balcony that stretched around the house overlooking a valley with wonderful houses screened by the typical Australian tropical vegetation.
High Palm trees mingled with Eucalyptus trees in the woodland in the middle distance and this was backed up by a range of mountains on the distant horizon, often shrouded in cloud and mist.
The view from the balcony and the dining area was stunning at any time of the day. In the very early hours of the morning at daybreak there was a cacophony of sound as the local bird-life awoke,
with the shrieking of Cockatoos mingled with the distinctive sound of Kookaburras, with many more birds contributing to the wonderful dawn chorus.
The very colourful plumage of many of these birds is stunning and it was a joy to sit and watch the huge variety of birds flying around the treetops in the distance.
There were some very colourful Rainbow Lorikeets feeding on the nectar from the flowers on a Golden Penda tree at the bottom of the hill at the end of the drive, during the flowering season.
Many a morning when we visited, it was just so relaxing to look out over this ever-changing prospect, just to sit and ponder as the morning broke.
The evening view was the crowning glory of the day as the sun went down and the beautiful all too brief sunsets would descend.
Copyright© written by John Yeo ~ All rights reserved
They came to the rescue, blue lights flashing on the emergency vehicles, Fire, Police and Ambulance. It had been a horrendous crash and three people were believed to be dead with another person trapped inside the vehicle. The firemen used cutters to cut through the steel, then the air ambulance arrived~~~
To get started, let’s loosen up. Let’s unlock the mind. Today, take twenty minutes to free write. And don’t think about what you’ll write. Just write.Keep typing (or scribbling, if you prefer to handwrite for this exercise) until your twenty minutes are up. It doesn’t matter if what you write is incomplete, or nonsense, or not worthy of the “Publish” button. And for your first twist? Publish this stream-of-consciousness post on your blog.
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The basic feeling I get when I am confronted by a writing challenge, is how to put the words to match, into some semblance of order that will make sense and have some relevance to the prompt. I sometimes find this quite difficult, I have an overall picture of what I want to write but I have to try really hard to unlock my mind to get a semblance of what I want to say. There are many subjects I can play with in my experience as I am pretty well-read and I can usually conjure something to match the prompt out of the inner recesses of my mind.
I am actually looking forward to this Word Press, daily post challenge and I hope to find time in the next 20 days to keep up with the prompts and publish something on a daily basis. This is the first time I have participated in this sort of writing challenge and I hope to improve my blogging skills, by comparison and meeting other writers on-line.
There many areas of thought that I would like to explore as I write poetry and I am quite literate. I love reading many forms of literature and I am sure I will be able to incorporate many themes of thought into this wonderful challenge. I am entranced with the beauty of Nature and all things natural and I am sure some of this will come out in my posts. This will go a long way to improving my blogging skills and this will help me with my gardening blog that I already sporadically keep up to date. I am positive this will add to my creative skills and unlock the hidden depths of my mind.
Sally was my best friend, we grew up together and shared many things together until last year when Sally left for an unknown destination. My sister Sue asked if I had seen Sally lately, I answered No! Sally has a husband, my husband, they ran away together. Sue was angry, shocked!~~~~~~
This is my response to the latest Picture it and Write prompt on Ermlia’s blog~
http://ermiliablog.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/picture-it-write-yesallwomen/#more-6024
The image is provided thanks to Ermlia
SMASHING JUSTICE
By John Yeo
The courtroom was packed with supporters for this victim of an alleged horrendous assault. There was much to get through, reams of evidence to be presented and debated. Morals were discussed and heartfelt pleas for justice were heard from many learned people. Our highly esteemed judge was very well thought of in the city and indeed he had been the recipient of a splendid gift of a cut-glass gavel in recognition of his contribution to justice and the law. This was a very sensitive case and many people, the judges wife included, thought it should never have been brought to court. Of course the judge would never discuss the case with his wife, but she was very sensitive to his mind after 40 years of marriage. After many days of discussion and listening to much legal debate, with countless witnesses from many disciplines and areas of thought, the learned judge announced his decision. To everyone’s horror the judge pronounced the case unproven and the accused: Not Guilty! There was uproar in the courtroom, the judge raised his gavel: Order! Order in the court! There was a splintering of glass as the cut glass gavel that the learned judge’s wife had deliberately substituted, smashed into a thousand fragments. The police moved in to clear the courtroom. Justice and the system of justice had certainly been symbolically smashed today.
Copyright (c) Written by John Yeo
All rights reserved
Bereavement single parent dad
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