S.M. McCoy
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08:00:02 am on August 9, 2011 |
Today is a Momentous Day…
It is the Birth of Tuesday Tales!
Challenge #1Spread the word and join the fun
Tuesday Tales is a 100 word flash fiction challenge that is based on a photo I take and post as well as one secret word to be included which is chosen by the current week’s judge! They say pictures are worth a thousand words, well now it’s time to condence down to the most important 100 of them all.
To Enter, just post a comment with your 100 word Tale and add your word count then your twitter name.
The winner will be bestowed with theAWESOME BLOG BADGE! To be displayed with pride and honor on their blog, twitter pics or what not. Where ever the winner feels their awesome sauce should get the most praise, worship and of course minions. (In recognition of this week’s judge, I have added blood to the badge representing gloom and of course… vampire goodness)
By entering, every contestant agrees to shamelessly promote and praise the winner on twitter.
For all discussions about this challenge use hash tag #TuesdayTales
This Weeks Tuesday Tales Judge is:
Steve Montano @Daezarkian
Author of the BLOOD SKIES novels. Post-Apocalyptic Military Dark Fantasy. With Vampires. http://bloodskies.comOur judge has decide to make the first week of #tuesdaytales difficult or as he calls it obnoxious with the word:
lugubrious
Definition: mournful, dismal, or gloomy
But he also said the words …”obdurate”. Or “nadir” would also do. So says the judge and it will be so.
So choose a word… but choose wisely. The best use of his chosen word “Lugubrious” will be given an honorable mention… but feel free to use one of his substitute words instead but then you may not get honorable mention by the judgemaster.
Today’s Picture is of lovely dead roses… sitting quiet alone on a black table… dried, sagging, browning, and stray leaves fallen. Use this as inspiration: You do not necessarily have to take it literal but metaphorical, the flower can be used to describe something or literal where the flower is involved in your story… It doesn’t have to be in a vase in your story… Just a dead and dying flower.
Now on with the Tales!
Ready…. GO! [guns blaze and flags wave] Contest closes at 9pm EST or 6PM PST today Aug 9th 2011
(edit closed, come back next tuesday for more!)
~GlitterLady
GLITTERWORD 
glitterlady 2:24 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
I told myself I’d be better than this, but I was so hungry. The scent of her skin was like cinnamon sugar and my tongue craved to run along her neck. It seemed only a dream to me but holding her in my arms reminds me of how real it felt. Her maple-on-a-sunset-evening eyes were now so hollow, so lugubrious, and so not the way I remember. When my teeth sunk into her flesh I could feel her life crumble beneath me like a wilting rose. Browning leaves, crisp like ash. Just a touch and she would fade into the wind.
101 words (its alright to be over a few words or slightly under)
@theglitterlady
(not eligible to win)
Jeffrey Hollar 3:50 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
Shells began falling before dawn…had stopped only an hour before. Katya returned to little more than smoldering rubble. Flame had ravaged all. Father’s library now merely ashes. She slumped to the floor sobbing. Her teary eyes focused on Mama’s old crystal. The delicate blooms within it were reduced to dry, lifeless husks…as beyond restoration as her keepsakes. She remembered Father’s lectures on clarity…”Words have power! Always you must use the right words!!” Katya felt…felt…lugubrious. Yes Papa, THAT is a right word, she smiled. She rose and began sweeping up shards of her life.
100 Words @Klingorengi
Shana Hammaker (@Literarygrrrl) 3:59 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
Oh fuck: Sara put dead roses on my car.
This is exactly why there’s no eHarmony for ghosts. That’s the reason right there—dead roses. What would make Sara think I want her dead fucking roses? In my online profile I described myself as a funnier, drunker Casper.
Casper wouldn’t want dead fucking roses.
I should never have done this. Sara must be one of those living girls who sleep in coffins and carry their dog-eared copy of The Lugubrious Guide to Home Décor in their oversized purse.
Dead fucking roses. Now I look like I’m driving to my own funeral. Again.
102 words (and four of them are derived from fuck!)
@LiteraryGrrrl
Emilia_Quill 4:24 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
Cold gnawed her hand, yet she picked up the brittle flower from the snow. It was dead, as she should be. Envy surged through her; she crushed the wilted flower inside her fist. Her life had been an average one: she’d married, had children, then died calmly.
It was what came after the death that had frightened her; the realization that she was leaving her loved ones behind and stepping into a new plane of existence. Her feelings had been lugubrious, a clump of sorrow and fear lodged in her heart.
She should have been afraid of the offer of immortality instead.
(102 words @Emilia_Quill)
David A Ludwig 4:38 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
Mason parted the lugubrious curtain of air with a quick psychic blast before stepping up into the stifled room. She was on her knees amid the bodies of the family, fallen like petals from the vase of withered flowers in the corner. She’d already been here too long.
“Come, my dear, you mustn’t look so sad.” Mason ran a hand back over his head, “This is just what you do.”
Her fathomless black gaze made even Mason flinch, “No. What I do is mourn.”
84 words (is it okay to be under?)
@DavidALudwig
danielle. 7:04 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
The rain, heavy against the windows, interrupted my sleep. I pulled myself lugubriously out of bed and shuffled toward the kitchen. The gentle hum of the fridge and persistently pelting rain kept me company. Even after a month, I still hadn’t gotten used to the heavy emptiness that clung to the apartment since her death. Staring at dead roses on the counter, remnants of the funeral, I heard her voice.
“Seriously Anika, why don’t you toss those damn flowers? They stink.”
“Because,” I thought, “it’s all I have left of you.”
I carried a rose with me back to bed.
100 words
@MyMercurialMuse
Samantha Jane (@Samantha12Jane) 7:49 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
Time was running out. There was nothing more she could do. Every petal that fell from the dying blooms was another moment of her life that she would lose.
There was no one to help her; she was all alone. That was part of the deal. She had to sacrifice everything that could help her in order to remain. She had to sacrifice all she was, all she could have been, in order to stay on this plane.
There was no rescue.
She gave a lugubrious wail as another petal fell to the floor, one step closer to her mortality.
100 words
@Samantha12Jane
charitygirlblog 8:33 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
The church looked just as she had planned. Banks of candles flickered in the incense-scented air and friends shifted in their seats, silent with anticipation. She drifted down the aisle, touching the tight clusters of ribbon-strangled roses which clung to the pews. He waited for her at the front, head bowed. Smiling, she reached out to touch her bridegroom’s hand. He lifted his head, but his eyes were trained on a long box standing starkly on the altar. A bouquet lay on its lid, its faded petals curling with decay. Her bouquet. Organ-song, lugubrious as death, drowned her silent scream.
100 words
@charitygirlblog
Decayed flowers evoke a lot of ghost stories!
Bonnie L. Nadri 9:12 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
She drooped like wilting leaves as the lugubrious veil of memory draped and drifted, settling. The card, yellowed and rippled with historical tears, sat pinned by the weight of the vase; its curling, browning expanse a silent reminder and mockery of the words inscribed in now-invisible ink, “Always and in all ways, love.”
It was an odd, obdurate obsession; the nadir of loss, passed, still she loathed the thought of forsaking them. In the sunlit corner of the uppermost attic, the crystal sparkles and the scent of roses waft; she tends them gently, eternal blooms comforting her with delusion’s perfume.
100 words
@blnadri
C.S. Kenney (@CrisKenney) 10:19 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
He should have brought flowers, he thinks. That’s right for a funeral, isn’t it? But nothing’s growing in the frozen ground.
He slips away to another grave, where a brittle, brown bouquet lies. Crouches down, snaps off a rose blossom, imagines the lugubrious stares of ghosts on the back of his neck.
A dead flower for a dead boy. That’s… right, isn’t it?
He turns, sees the woman watching from the funeral party. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. She’ll think he means for your loss; she doesn’t– can’t– know the other words, unvoiced, that stab his chest like rose’s thorns:
I killed your son.
103 words
@CrisKenney
nerdygnome 11:53 pm on August 9, 2011 | # |
The dead flowers lay, wilted and crisp atop the lonely grave. No name adorned the stone, the gray monument looming above the fallen leaves characteristic of autumn. Color had drained from the leaves, which lay beside the lugubrious bouquet of roses.
The desolate scene is disturbed by a skeletal hand erupting from beneath the soil. It grasps the brittle stems, crushing them. A simple band adorns the emancipated ring finger, set with a tiny diamond. Here she rests, alone and forgotten. Her existence had been scoured from history.
Her final wish was engraved on the ring in a jeweler’s fine cursive – remember me.
103 words
@TheaIsis
glitterlady 1:19 am on August 10, 2011 | # |
Challenge 1 is now closed. Congrats to everyone who entered and Good luck! The almight judgemaster will determine the winner and I will prepare a post for the morning… I know its aweful that you must stew in wait [pixelated cupcakes for everyone]