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Quilldancing Assignment #1


I thought I’d start the year off by launching a new feature! I’ve been missing 3WT but not all the work involved. I thought I would try for something a bit more manageable that didn’t require hours of research.

Your Writing Assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write a complete story in 500 words or less using the scenario below to kick-start your thinking. Publish your story on your blog January 15th, then come back here and link it to my January 15th story.

I have twelve writing assignments ready, one for the first day of every month. Every month! The stories are due on the 15th, even in April! (For anyone feeling skeptical, my January story is already written, and I won’t post a prompt I don’t already have a story for.)

You received a set of clunky, old-fashioned roller skates from the oldest, most eccentric member of your family. The skates appear to be too small, so you try to return them. S/he insists you try them on. You decide to humor him/her. To your amazement the skates fit. Suddenly you are overcome with the urge to skate and … (tell us what happens next in 500 words or less).

See you on the 15th!

25 Comments

  1. Happy New Year, quilly!! it sounds very appealing to me, maybe because writing is truly a challenge for me!! ! I should give it a try.
    8)

    1. Mar — we’d love you to join us! We know English isn’t your first language so we will all be kind! (Ah, heck, we’re kind people and we’d help you rather than make fun of you even if English was your first language!)

    1. Okay — I had a really neat idea come to me in the shower. So I wrote it down as soon as I got dressed — and ended up with over 800 words. And I thought it was ice skates rather than roller skates. So I have some reworking to do! But I am excited!

      1. Barbara — When I first conceived this idea, I was hoping you’d hop on board! I made the word restriction only because some people won’t read longer pieces. I am not passing out grades so you write a story you love and chances are we’ll love it, too, even if it has a few extra words. Also, in retrospect I don’t know think I should have restricted people to a kind of skate. If your story works best with ice skates, go ahead and ice skate!

        In your revising and editing, here are a few tips:

        — look for adverbs and see if you can’t remove them by finding a better verb (Bernie drug his feet to the store could become Bernie trudged to the store.)

        — look at the word THAT. Read the sentence with and without it. If THAT isn’t there will the sentence still make sense? If so, remove it.

        1. Thanks for the leeway. 🙂 I actually like the word restriction — I tend to be too wordy and this helps me try to be more succinct. Thanks for the tips — trying to cut out excess prepositional phrases is another help.

  3. Hi Quilly!

    Happy New Year. Thanks for stopping by my blog the other day and thanks for your question about our Christian Fiction Book Club. It’s open to everyone. We’re always looking for more participants. Just pick up the book and join in the discussion. Our January pick is Crossing Oceans by Gina Holmes and the details can be found at this sight:

    http://overweight-bookshelf.blogspot.com/2010/12/januarys-christian-fiction-book-club.html

  5. “Oh, cool! Of course we’re in! Right, dude?”

    “I dunno, dude. This sounds like a job for health insurance. When’d you get any?”

    “What are you, chicken?”

    “No, dude. Just broke. An’ tryin’ to keep you from gettin’ that way.”

  6. I’m in! Especially since now I have the song “I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates” running through my head. It is so inspirational!

    I’m putting it on my calendar. 15th Publish. Link. check…

    I hope Thom joins in. I miss his silly stories.

    1. Kelley — yay! I hope Thom is in, too, but he’s not blogging until after the holiday so he probably hasn’t even see27t even seen this post.

  7. Nope… I have found that I get bored very quickly with writing assignments! But I can’t WAIT to hear what THOM has to say on THIS one!!! LOL!

    1. Melli — I think we’re all waiting for Thom! If one of the prompts ever strikes your fancy and you decide to play along, fine. If not, that’s fine, too!

  8. Hmmmm, Blanche on Old Fashioned Roller Skates. Since Thom retired P of W I have no place to write about Blanche. I am thinking already, just one question is there some site that records the number of words one writes, similar to Susan’s link for the 140 characters typed on her Microfiction Mondays? Yeah I know I could Google it, but I thought you might know right off.

    Happy New Year to you and The Amoeba.

    Yep, I’m waiting to see what Thom has to say as well.

    1. Bill — I use Word. If you type your story there and then check “word count” under the tools tab you’ll be fine.

      1. Thanks Quilly, I use word to count my words. I missed not continuing Blanches Adventures. All the best for you and The Amoeba for 2011

        1. Bill — it has been so long since we’ve heard from Blanche that I don’t know if I can still follow her story. We might need a timeline refresher. And Happy New Year to you!

          1. Blanche is ready to go and with this one you don’t need a timeline refresher. If you want though, you can click on the Portrait of Words Button on the Left Column at the blog and see every entire post. This is a good way to catch up.

            Anyway my story is ready to go for 15 January. I think you will enjoy.

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