Was it really Christmas Eve and two weeks ago when I set my last writing challenge? The time has really flown and we’re already a week into the New Year. So here’s to a new set of challenges and for something completely different. Each week, I’m going to give you three different options. Here are this week’s:
Option one: Write a limerick featuring the word scrabble in it somewhere
Option two: Write a poem on the theme of winter
Option three: Write a ten-word story using the words vanity, Angus, spiffing and cauliflower
Back to the challenges I set you before Christmas:
Your first option was to choose as many words as you could from the following list and write a twenty-word story:
- New
- Year
- Cocktails
- Jackanapes
- Plastered
- Dave
- Expectations
- Games
- Midnight
- Jollification
- Discommodious
- Resolutions
- Unicorn
- January
- Granny
Helen Gaen always works hard to use all of the words in the list. Be prepared to be amazed, once again:
Plastered Dave sought midnight jollification, games, New Year cocktails… Granny overturned January’s expectations buying a jackanapes and unicorn. Discommodious resolutions!
Jane Basil also managed to use all 15 words with her wonderfully funny story:
Dave, the discommodious midnight unicorn, shattered New Year expectations, resolutions, games, jackanapes and jollification.
Plastered from cocktails, Granny missed January.
Here she uses ten words for a sadder story:
New Year games and jollification
distended by discomodious cocktails,
resolutions diminishing at midnight’s bell,
expectations disappearing in January’s drunken wake.
I’m thrilled to see Sacha Black back and taking up the challenge with a fab story:
Plastered granny was not impressed with idiot Dave’s jollification at midnight nor the discommodious nature of the unicorn related resolution.
Helen Jones has written an super story:
‘Another New Year.’
I grabbed another from the tray of cocktails as Dave lurched past, plastered.
‘Is it midnight yet?’
Here’s Jo Lambert’s entertaining story:
Young Dave, drinking cocktails at midnight with his old granny, makes New Year resolutions and has high expectations for 2016.
Finally, Les Moriarty delights us with his funny tale:
New Year cocktails at midnight left Dave plastered. He apologised to his granny for discommoding her. Jollification was not abound.
The second option was to write a story/poem, centred around any of the following New Year themes :
- Friendship
- New beginnings
- Party
Carole Campbell sent in a lovely poem. Please visit her site to enjoy it:
I’m pleased to say Keith Channing has brought his wonderful humour, in the form of poetry, to the challenge, using all three themes:
Why should it be
That each time we see
The twenty-fifth of December
We find more and more
That Christmas of yore
Becomes harder to remember?
Like that holiday
Down Malaysia way
That near drove me off of my rocker
We flew west to east
In an ancient old beast;
A Friendship from Dutch maker Fokker
We left Kuala Lumpur
With my woollen jumper
(Not true but at leat it’s a rhyme)
Without feeling inferior
We toured the interior
(A lie, coz we didn’t have time).
One year in the East
For the annual feast
We were staying in downtown Hong Kong
When my lad got his gift
He was suitably miffed
It was broken before very long
He took from their box
His plastic binocs
And the look on his face said ‘betrayed’
Though he soon understood
That they’d be no damned good
“You can tell by the place they were made”
In my best pirate voice
I said, “You’ve got no choice,
Make the best of what’s there now, my hearty.
The toy may be broken
But Captain has spoken;
As Bart Simpson said, ‘Let’s have a party’.”
So party we did
Disappointment was hid
And out thoughts went from losing to winning
And that’s how my son
Learnt to forget what’s done
And commit to a brand new beginning.
Les Moriarty also wrote a poem for this week’s challenge. It’s absolutely delightful and will leave you with a warm glow:
Friendship
A true friend is
not just a friend.
A true friend
looks after you,
cares for you,
trusts you,
loves you.
They do not leave
in times of woe
When the rest
get up and run.
A true friend is exactly
like you!
***
Esther Chilton 
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