The Iron Writer Challenge #79 Dellani Oakes

And here we are again. Another week, and another TIW challenge. This time, it’s C79, christened the Dellani Oakes Challenge, since it was she who supplied the four elements for this challenge rather than Brian, who supplies the elements usually.

(Oh yes, the Mathew Weaver Challenge is coming soon, too. Stay tuned!)

The back story for this one… I wanted in on the Autumn Open, the second quarterly tournament for the year. Since Jordan scraped ahead of me in C77, I had to win in some other challenge before the tournament (which happens to be on the 25^th of September, in case you wanted to know).

My dilemma: all challenges till then were filled, and the only empty slots available were the ones after the Autumn Tournament. Just as I was about to give up hope, I asked DL Zwissler if she would switch with me for one of her challenges, since she had already been in a few others

Thankfully, she graciously let me step in for her for C79, and so here I am. The elements, as we were given them:

                                    Genetically Enhanced Garden Gnomes

                                                          Camelot

                                                 Halitosis (bad breath)

                                             Stratego (the board game)

On Digging Pits and Falling Into Them

I’ve written about my elder sister more than a couple of times here. When she found out about my blog last week, she asked me to call her Serena, rather than SH, whenever I mention her. Mathew and Serena? (Shrug) Personally, I preferred SH. You know, it’s kind of like I’m shushing her when I talk about her, and that was kind of nice. But well, with progress must come change... sigh.

That done, I guess it’s about time I introduce the brat… ahem, I mean, the other sister. The kid.

For the sake of easy reading, I’m going to call her Zoola. It’s a variation of the nickname Serena came up with way back in the day, and it’s one that would drive her (Zoola) up the wall when she finally gets around to reading this (if ever).

She’s 14, and though she isn’t showing all that much interest in writing, unlike Serena and I, she does have other artistic talents that I don’t. Maybe it’s just that she hasn’t found her voice yet.

Zoola can be sweet when she wants something from you, and a mule when she doesn’t. Your basic kid sister. She’s the youngest, but our parents never let her get spoiled. Close one, that. Growing up with a younger sister isn’t easy. At least with a brother, you can do this... 

... every now and again when authority needs to be established. Not so with sisters. It is so much more complicated with sisters.

The reason for this post, though, is ( obviously) what happened a few weeks ago.

When Thoughts Go Wild and All Comes Out

 Disclaimer: The following blog post contains words and ideas not planned too far ahead before being written down and hastily edited. As such, undiluted rambling and distinctive lack of a fixed topic may be experienced.

Reader discretion is advised.

So you decided to brave it anyway. Thanks, I guess. Your belief in me is my inspiration and all that. Here we go.

Believe it or not, it isn’t always that I start writing with a fixed point in mind when it comes to my blog posts.

Sure, the last few ones found me lucky enough to actually have some sort of a point to stick to. Dragons, the latest form of head banging, roaches… there was a point, and I (more or less, admittedly) stuck to it.

Here, though, not so much. Nope, not a single idea on what I want to write about, and I sit with my hands moving and my fingers dancing and I see these words type themselves onto this page, the keys being pressed repeatedly at a good enough rate to ensure steady rhythm and a smooth flow of words.

The strangest thing about that smooth flow is that I have no idea what I’m about to write next. These words pouring out of me, they are instantaneous and as such have no more than a few fifteen seconds worth of planning before them. With little and no knowledge of what’s in store for both you and me at this point, here’s to buckling up and adjusting scuba masks before delving into the depths of my gibberish.

Here we go.

Research: Ravenous Roaches

It was a research post that I planned on doing today, and it was research post that I am going to do. It’s so nice when you have a set goal and objective in mind, isn’t it?

Well, that cozy feeling didn’t last so long for me. Simple reason, I couldn’t decide on the darn topic for this research post of mine. I did one on dragons last time, and one on crossbows months before that. What could I possibly do this time?

Swords? Not in the mood for sorting through medieval stuff. Spiders? Yeah… maybe later. Definitely later. The Flying Dutchman? That’s coming pretty soon, not just now, though. Stay tuned.

But for this one, I had not a clue what I wanted to do it on.. Then, my muse tossed in its bed pulled the cover up to its chin. Before it drifted off again, it murmured:

"Darned *mumble mumble* roaches... *mumble*"

The light bulb finally lit.

Mu-hue hue hue...

And so, the roach it is.

The Iron Writer Challenge #77 (Grudge #9)

The best part about being an Iron Writer is that most of us in the group who communicate regularly on the Facebook page have this sort of bond of kinship. I know, it does sound strange like that, but hear me out.

Most of us have never met the others in person (me not any, obviously), and we’re from the far flung corners of the earth. Brian Rogers, founder of the group, explicitly made it a rule that there was to be no self-promoting on the page. So, probably or want of something to do, the early Irons started bantering among themselves.

Friendships bloomed, alliances were formed, and rivalries were discovered… and out of those rivalries, the Grudge Match was born.

Basically, it’s a glorified weekly challenge where one Iron trash talked another till the gauntlet gets thrown. And this week, I am in one.

The Day The Anvil Struck the Hammer

It’s been over two years since I started the accounting course that I am in the final stage of right now. Eighteen months into it, I had to start taking classes in the Big City, which is, as you’d know if you’d seen a few of my earlier posts, a few hours away from home sweet home. As I said, I’m in my last stage here, and if all goes well, I’ll be done by the end of this year.

That’s not what this post is about, no. This one has much to do with the busses I take on my weekly commutes. And there have been plenty of those, let me tell you.

You see, whether or not it’s the same route you take every week, every ride has its differences. Sometimes it could be a good trip, and other times, it could be downright awful. But knowing me, you would probably be realizing now that the third option, i.e. ‘most’ times, are, to me, just funny.

 Every bus ride I take to the City has its special moment, and I don’t mean just the ones like these:

...which are hilarious enough in real life, especially when they happen to you (speaking from painful experience, yes). My moments of note include weirder things that have happened, like the time we were attacked by a cloud of grasshoppers, and oh yes, the never to be forgotten Day The Shoe Held Us Hostage.

Of Efforts and Betrayals

There comes the time in the life of a man where he stands before that bathroom mirror and looks at himself.

He examines the face in front of him. He studies what he sees, peers into the reflection, into the image that peers back out at him.

Then he reaches for the shaving cream, grabs the razor, and it begins.

Mythological Research: Devastating Dragons

It’s been a while since my last research post; I wanted to make those kind of posts a regular thing. But stuff happened, and long story short, I wasn’t able to. Well, this is me trying to amend for that, and I’m doing it explosively.

You read the title, and yup, that's right. This one is all about the big, the bad, and the awesome… dragons.

BOO

Smaug is all the rage these days, and you can’t argue his popularity. He’s big, he’s bad, he single claw-dedly (fang-dedly?) drove out every dwarf from their home in the mountain Erebor, and made their pile of gold his personal couch. What’s not to like?

The Hobbit was written almost 80 years ago, and Smaug certainly wasn’t by the last dragon to be written about since then… but neither was it the first. Dragon lore has existed since pretty much ancient times, and out of curiosity and boredom, I went off and researched what I could find online.