Here's the prompt for #Spooktober 16:

You step on an unfamiliar mushroom, and it releases a cloud of spores. What happens next?

https://wandering.shop/@asakiyume/117375288312250280

In the ToS:

"The MySolarEdge app may also include an artificial intelligence-based virtual assistant...
SolarEdge does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, reliability, timeliness, or suitability of any AI Output"

In other words, "We use an unreliable assistant; you've been warned."

#WordWeavers Oct 14: If your MC could ask their future self one question, what would they ask?

None of my MCs to date think like this, I guess because I myself don't believe in an immutable timeline.

If my characters are granted insight into future events, their understanding is that they're seeing possibilities, not hard-and-fast outcomes.

I would leave the fairy folk fresh bread and fresh milk...

#Spooktober 14

And here's the prompt for #Spooktober 14:

You're setting out food for the fairy folk. What do you leave them?

https://wandering.shop/@asakiyume/117375288312250280

Belatedly for #Spooktober 12: my thoughts on doppelgängers...

I find impersonation terribly upsetting: the thought of someone (or something) damaging your relationship with people by acting very differently from you while appearing just like you. But I'm intrigued by the idea of literal doubles, identical twins or clones who are exactly like you physiologically but different in life experience.

Here's the prompt for #Spooktober 12:

What are your thoughts on doppelgängers? (oops, no umlaut in the prompt list...)

https://wandering.shop/@asakiyume/117375288312250280

The grim hunter, Death, his eyes pale as the moon, his cloak as bleached and tattered as the flag of an abandoned fortress, astride a ghostly horse, moves at a measured pace equally over empty moors and down the crowded high streets of cities, his #fell blade unsheathed, striking at will, and those cut down fall like grass, the butterfly beat of their hearts stilled.

#wss366 #microfiction

Here's the prompt for #Spooktober 10:

10. Going door-to-door and asking for treats/sweets: in your country/culture, when do people do that?

https://wandering.shop/@asakiyume/117375288312250280

We had just finished reading "Bartleby the Scrivener," and we were trying to pick essay topics.

"Bartleby used to work in the Dead #Letter Office," mused Payton. "A Dead Letter Office presumes a Living Letter Office--"

"I think ordinary letters are living letters, right? Because they--"

But Payton wasn't having any of my mundane, practical comments.

"--and more importantly, an Undead Letter Office," he continued. "That's what I'm going to write my essay about."

#wss366 #microfiction

Here's the prompt for #Spooktober 8--which I'm happy to see some people have already responded to, hurray!

8. What are your thoughts on zombies?

https://wandering.shop/@asakiyume/117375288312250280

Ants were moving along the bridge, a tiny stream of insects, three or four abreast, #rank upon rank of tiny marchers, an ant #parade. Eko and Una crouched by them, watching.

"They're carrying crumbs somewhere," Una said.

Eko frowned. He bent down until his left ear was practically on top of the ant procession. Then he lifted his head.

"I heard music. Those aren't crumbs they're carrying; they're little musical instruments. It's an ant marching band."

#wss366 #microfiction

#SilentSunday

I was inspired to create a list of spooky questions for the rest of the month. If you feel like joining in, tag your answers with #Spooktober so others can read them. I apologize for making the image so small! Full of admiration for how the people running the writing hashtags do it... I'll put the questions in the alt text. (Color gradient by MagicPattern on Unsplash)

#WritersCoffeeClub #WordWeavers

There's a poster now for the reading I'm going to be participating in! It's this Sunday, 4 October, on CSE Cooney's twitch tv channel, from 3–4:30 pm Eastern Time.

Want to join the bizarre bazaar? You don't need a twitch account to watch (but you do to comment)

#WritersCoffeeClub 2 Oct: Do you have plans for your next work yet?

I have ideas of things I might write next...

A #wss366 3-parter....

https://wandering.shop/@stevendbrewer/117362899394047330

After years of running a low-follower-count YouTube channel, Chalice had one of her shorts go viral—just some nonsense video of her dancing with her cat: 500 K views. For a couple more videos she was buoyed along, views still in the 50-100 K range, but they #tanked when she decided to make videos where she read her favorite books from childhood aloud.

“I’m relieved really,”she told her friend Tanager, and she seemed like she meant it. “I’m not cut out for the limelight.”

#wss366 #microfiction

"No, the saying's 'A stitch in time saves nine,' not 'a #pinch in time.' The idea is that if you mend a tear when it's tiny, you sew only one stitch, but if you wait, you might need nine stitches."

Nan shook her head. "No, it's 'a pinch in time,' from the tale of the Nine Peacemakers. In the crowds gathered for the peace negotiations was an assassin, worming his way closer. A woman, angry at being jostled, pinched him hard, & he dropped his weapon. The nine were saved!"

#wss366 #microfiction

The tour came to a room in the castle cellar with a #cistern sunk in the floor in the far corner.

"In the olden days the lord would punish people by sticking them in the cistern for days," the guide said. "Some would fall sick and die. They say their bones line the bottom of the cistern."

Mickle lingered after the tour moved on, transfixed by the cistern. The hairs on his neck rose as a voice in his ear said, "Personally, I found the cistern relaxing. Private. Quiet."

#wss366 #microfiction