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Sunday, March 30, 2014

No new prompt this week.

This week we will be continuing  doing the prompt from last week since both of us didn't do it because it's just been really busy week for both of us. Jessica your story will be due Wednesday and my story will be due Saturday. That is all.
P.S if you forgot what the prompt is here it is again The story takes place in mid-spring. During the story, there is a letter delivered. (I wonder if people actually read this besides us. if they do we're extremely sorry to have not posted anything the last week)

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Prompt #3

Woohoo we got through another week of story writing! Congrats! Ok so this week since we have benchmarks I was gonna do something like oh make up a random story but I wanted to lift the mood a little and in honor of spring starting   here is the prompt. The story takes place in mid-spring. During the story, there is a letter delivered. It may seem a little tough but just try to make it anything you want. Like it can be romantic, uplifting, funny, or even mysterious. The possibilities are endless! Try to make it your own! Good Luck :-) 
P.S if you think you might need a little extra time like instead of Mon-Wed you need an extra day, tell me. 

sào zhǒu

I come from a long line of wealthy snobs that think they know it all. I'd like to think of myself as a descent man of twenty-two... my parents think otherwise. I used to live in a small comfortable house, just me and my golden retriever, Golden Max. That all changed when my parents forced me into a huge empty mansion, these snobs never cared about my "Well-being," they only cared about their stupid money and reputation. I remember the first day I entered my new home, all twelve maids bowed down in my presence. I remember my mother, the old hag saying, "They are expected to keep this mansion absolutely spotless, you should thank us Thomas dear, they do all the filthy work so you wont have to, love you money...err honey." That was the first thing I heard from my mother when I first moved in the old mansion. I despised those maids, I never bothered to learn their names, I hardly even looked at them. I felt ashamed and angry, these maids are expected to work hard for God knows how many hours and at the same time I figured they were also my mothers eyes, watching my every move. I felt powerless against my parents, their wealth gave them so much power they could practically kill me and make it look like an accident. I often left the mansion, I would work long hours at my parents company or I would walk Golden Max, just so I wouldn't go back to that dreaded old mansion. After a few weeks I figured out the maids' schedule. They would literally wake up at 4:30 in the morning every single day, I knew this because I would hear the washing machine downstairs, or the swishing in the windows. These sounds never bothered me, in fact they were quite relaxing. The maids would clean nearly non stop till about 9:30 in the night. I wasn't surprised, there was always something that needed cleaning at the old mansion, from the twenty-five dusty rooms to the 10 dirty bathrooms. Some nights I remember hearing strange sweeping sounds at around 12:00 at night, I didn't pay much attention since I figured they were mice, or the tree branches hitting the windows. One night as I was falling into a dream, I awoke to a distant howling, I sat up in bed and waited for another sound....it was a dogs cry. I rushed downstairs and discovered a naked dog on the kitchen floor, covered in hundreds of needles, I panicked when I realized it was my dog...I immediately called the police. After a long night of investigating they concluded that a stranger broke in and for my safety, they set up cameras outside the mansion. The maids were not suspects since they left at 9:30, every maid was accounted for. According to the police all "eleven maids," were accounted for. I corrected the police "No, no, no I have twelve maids." The police did not believe me and they left because there was no proof that I had twelve maids, they figured I made a mistake. My dog died the next morning... there was nothing I could do. I fell asleep from exhaustion, and when I awoke the maids were scattered in different places, cleaning different things. I told the maids to stay in one place so I could count them but they did not understand me, they spoke different languages. I fired all the maids that same day, they seemed to understand that I never wanted them to return. I remember going upstairs to take a nap when I awoke it was 12:00 in the night. I heard sweeping and I ran downstairs as fast as I could. Two hours later, I found the source of the sound, it was behind a closed room. When I opened the door I saw a Chinese maid sweeping the floor...she looked as if she hadn't slept in days. "What are you doing here, you were supposed to leave at 9:30," I said. she looked up at me and said "No-no I working, Sweeping." I asked her if she knew anything about my dog...and what she said next will forever haunt me, she said..."I kill dirty dog, dirty, had to die." What happened after was a blur, according to the police I had fainted in the middle of the room and the Chinese maid died from exhaustion, they said she never stopped sweeping with her broom since day one. Her name was Sào zhǒu which I later discovered meant "broom". No one knew where she came from or why she came, but what I do know is that every night at 12:00 I hear Sào zhǒu sweeping with her broom and sometimes she even appears in my room and begins to sweep the whole night with that tired-looking face of hers... she sweeps all night with her broom...and never stops.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Chill

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. The rain started to fall quickly. Oh God I thought now I have to walk home in the rain by myself. This day had gone from bad to worse. There had been an earthquake that woke me up at 3am which almost scared me to death so I couldnt fall back to sleep and when I did I almost missed my alarm. This then caused to get to school a little late because I couldnt catch the bus on time so i had to take the next one. This was my 6th time coming to class late, so my homeroom teacher was very upset with me.
“Carlos, would you please explain why you came to class late? Is it because you just don’t care about your education? Or is it because you just don’t care about anybody else?”
“Oh yeah because I totally planned to miss my bus this morning so I could come late to class. I mumbled  softly "you need to chill."
“That’s it! I’m tired of your ‘I don’t care’ attitude! You have after school detention.”
I know, I know. My teacher’s a psycho. So yeah then I had to stay about an hour or two after school for detention. It felt like I was never going to get out of there. After I got out it had begun to rain and I had missed the bus again so now I had to walk home. I could have waited for the next one but I just wanted to get home already. I put my hood on and started to walk.
The only good thing about walking home was that it gave me some time to think to myself. I usually just observed everything but now since it was raining the only thing that was on my mind was the rain. I wanted to run but I knew that it was raining too hard so I might have slip if I ran. The rain is such a beautiful yet dangerous thing. There’s just something beautiful about the melancholy of the rain

Then all of a sudden, I felt like someone was watching me. I quickly turned around and to my surprise there was no one there. “Eh” I thought “must be nothing.” I kept on walking then I heard a noise that sounded like someone was stepping on a leave. I turned around again and there was nothing. The rest of the walk home I kept on feeling like there was someone watching me. I then heard a cackle too but I decided to ignore it and walk faster.

Finally when I came home I found my mom on the couch. “Hey mom.” “Uhh hi.” Groaned my mom almost too drunk to notice that I was two hours late.”  I hated seeing her like this.  I've told her before about how alcohol will eventually kill her but she still remains in its grip. I didn't want to continue seeing her like this so I just went to my room and locked myself up. I threw my backpack somewhere in my room and went over to my computer. I put my earphones in and started writing. Writing was my only escape from the world around me. It helped me escape and create other new worlds.  I liked to write a bit of everything; sometimes I wrote poems and sometimes I wrote stories. Right now I was writing a story about a guy who goes on adventures with people from the future. I liked the idea of escaping normal life and going to other time periods or even planets. This was something that soothed me. 
As I was typing, I felt gust of cold air on my neck almost as if someone or something was breathing. Maybe it's just the wind I thought to myself. I was scared of the supernatural so I would always try to come up for an explanation for anything strange. Any strange sensations, wind. Any strange creaking, old wood. Something falling, gravity. I prayed to God hoping there wasn't a supernatural entity in my presence.
 A few minutes later the volume from my earphones was muted and when I tried to put the volume up there was still no sound. Okay I was beginning to get creeped out but I hesitantly continued to write. Then as I was writing I heard a knock on the door. I yelled “Who is it?” No one answered so I opened the door and no one was there. I walked to the living room but my mom was snoring on the couch. “Okay that was weird.” I mumbled to myself.  I ignored it. Stuff like that happened all the time.  I’m not really a big believer in the supernatural, but I found that if I ignored it and didn’t get freaked out it would stop. So I went back to my room and continued to type. Then as I was typing words began to appear by themselves, they said
“Do you believe in spirits?”
I backspaced the message and once again
“Do you believe in spirits?”
Okay now I was freaked out. I didn’t know what to type so I typed.
Uhh I don’t know?
Don’t lie to me I know when you’re lying.
I tried to close notepad but the computer got frozen.
                Whats Wrong Carlos? Are you afraid of me? I thought we were friends… it’s a shame we’re not…
That was the point in which I lost my cool and turned off my computer. As I started to run towards the living room my computer was thrown at me luckily it missed but then I tripped over a broom that was on the ground. “Oh Crap!” I yelled. That woke my mom up “Heyy! Shut up can’t you see I’m… trying to –“I had ran out by the time I finished hearing what she had to say.  I forgot it was still raining so when I ran it was slippery and then I fell into the mud. I begun to panic so much that I had lost sense of all reason that when I fell I got back up and ran straight towards the forest. I then tripped over a vine. I tried getting back up but the vine then grasped onto my leg and wouldn’t let go. I tried to get up but the vine wouldn’t let me go. “Let go of me!” It still wouldn’t let go of me. A broom then appeared in front of me. “Ehehehehe.” “Who are you?” “I don’t know Carlos, why do you care?” said a dark female voice. “What did I ever do to you?” I screamed.
I didn’t get a response back I just felt my foot getting colder and colder I couldn’t move. I quickly turned around and caught a glance. My foot was getting frozen, then my leg. My whole body was getting frozen at a very fast rate.
“STOP IT!” I begged “PLEASE!”
Then just as my neck began to get frozen. I saw a familiar figure appear on the broom.  It was Mrs. Fuentes on the broom. “Who’s the one who needs to chill now--“ 


Saturday, March 15, 2014

New prompt!

Okay so you are going to write a story, The story must involve a broom at the end. Think Creepy, Funny, Adventurous (It can be all three if you like) The option to Think outside the box is also available. :D  (Aida it is due Monday-Wednesday) It may seem simple but there are many great stories that can be made just with a simple item! (In this case it's a broom) Do your best!

I Love Moo

There it was, the most beautiful thing George had ever seen in his life. She was tall, plump, and had big brown eyes.  George felt it was love at first sight ever since he laid his eyes on her big, chocolate shiny eyes. He felt as if he needed to have her.  With her smooth glistening fur he felt as if he had an actual connection with her. Almost as if they were soul mates had met each other before. He was about to go up to her until Mary screamed his name.  “George stop staring at that cow and help me husk corn!” George then snapped out of the cow’s hypnotic gaze and went to help Mary. He hated husking corn. He was the slowest corn husker of his family. When he finished husking one corn, his sister Mary would have finished husking three corns. George thought it was useless to help his sister Mary, but he helped anyways as he found this corn husking allowed him to get closer to his sister. He followed his sister into the barn and then started husking. “How was your day?” asked George. “Oh it was okay I just did the usual ya know? Checked the hens’ nest for eggs and then went into town and sold the eggs. I didn’t get much but I got enough to buy supper. It’s been tough lately not many people are buying our eggs since that fancy supermarket opened up across town.” George wanted to help out but he knew he wasn’t good for anything. Although George had been the oldest of the two, he was clumsy, and not “the sharpest tool in the shed” to put into the words of his parents. “Don’t worry Sis, things will get better! I know they will!” George chirped optimistically. “I know but sometimes I wonder… what if they don’t” Mary said inaudibly. George felt bad and didn’t like when Mary got sad so he changed the topic.
“Hey have you seen how that cow’s been standing in front of the barn lately.”
“Yea what about it?” Mary said with a puzzled look.
“Don’t you think it’s kinda weird how it always comes every day and just stands there doing nothing?”
“Not really I mean I don’t mind it; the cow’s poop keeps the grass fertilized so it’s all fine with me.”
“I mean don’t you ever think what if it has some sort of purpose in standing in front of our barn . What if it’s trying to tell us something?”
Mary then started to laugh “Ahahahahaha. Really George? ‘It’s trying to tell us something?’ That’s the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard of.” Mary snorted. ”Ah George you sure do have quite some imagination. I think you could even become a children’s author.” George gave Mary an annoyed look. “Ha Ha. I’m being serious. Think about it.” George said.
“George don’t worry nothing bad is gonna happen to us just because of a cow.”  Mary reassured him. George then vehemently asserted “But I’m not saying anything bad is gonna happen I’m saying something good will happen!”  “Sure George I’ll believe that when pigs I mean cows fly.” Mary playfully said “Now get back to husking that corn, George.”
That night George couldn’t fall asleep, he stayed up thinking about the cow he saw earlier that day. George felt like maybe the cow and he met before. George thought it was silly to think about it, he felt like maybe they were soul mates. “No, no, no, that’s ridiculous humans and animals can’t be soul mates, it’s against nature” Thought George. Still George had ambivalent feelings towards that cow. “What if that cow used to be a human?” “What if that cow can shape shift?” “What if the cow is cursed?” All these questions and a million more filled George’s head. He kept tossing and turning until he couldn’t take it anymore and ran outside to see the cow. George then came back disappointed and tried to go to sleep. 

                The next day George woke up to the sound of roosters. George woke up rather hesitantly since he had only got a few hours of sleep. When he woke up he went through his daily routine and then started on his duties. Even though George did not work, he still helped his sister by feeding the hens, cleaning up the pigsty, carrying the hay, and any other manual labor that did not require a lot of thinking. George liked helping it made him feel as if he wasn’t such a burden to his sister.  After he did his duties George went to the field he was yesterday and waited patiently for the cow. George still had hope that maybe he could figure out why that cow would come and just stand in front of their house. George waited patiently. As he waited he observed how green the grass was. “Was the grass always green or did it have to do something with the cow?” thought George. George waited patiently. One hour passed. Two hours passed. Three hours passed. Four hours passed until George saw a figure walking towards him. It was a lady. She was somewhat big, had a white dress with black polka dots, and had black hair with a white streak in it. When she came closer it was then that George noticed she had big brown eyes. “Hey there, not so close neighbor! I just moved in here a day ago and I was wondering where all the people were at until I walked over a hill and found you. I just came here to say hello and introduce myself. My name’s Lucy and I’m from across town and I’d just like to tell you if you ever need some help I’ll be right over that hill.” Lucy pointed over that hill. “Thank you… Lucy. My name’s—“ “George?” Lucy winked at him. George was bewildered and then once he stared deep into Lucy’s eyes, a smile crept across his face “I knew it was you!” George beamed. Lucy then threw herself onto George. “I knew you would recognize me.” Lucy whispered into his ear. George then grabbed her hand and they walked into the sunset.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Wishing Cow

John watched the cow from behind the tree, he took one step forward... and farted. He ran as fast as he could with incredible speed back to his best friend Ryan. "Dude what happened, why is your face red? Don't tell me you've upset the cow!" Yelled Ryan. "No...I, it's much worse! Crap, what do I do Ryan?!" Panicky John begins to clap his hands. "Well that's easy idiot! Tell me what happened before you start clapping your hands like a maniac." John made sure they were a safe distance away from the field. "I... well... dude I farted in front of a magical creature, maybe the cow thinks Im a repulsive human being...AND MAYBE, just maybe the cow wont want to grant my wish!" Ryan began to laugh, "Well at least the cow has honest thoughts." The two boys grabbed their bicycles and headed back to Worthington Elementary School. It was early morning and they waited as the school began to fill up with students. The boys decided to wait for Carolina Mcdonald, who happened to be the the most popular girl in school at the moment. When the boys spotted her near the lunch table they quickly took out a small notebook. "Hey Carolina we were wondering if you would tell us about the wish you made...It's for a homework assignment I'm doing on wishes and stuff." Said Ryan. "Sure it's pretty simple dorks, I wished on a cow in Farmer Jerry's field." Carolina gave a subtle smirk. "Well obviously, before you were Carolina the twig now you've upgraded to just Cow-alina!" John shoved Ryan in the shoulder. "Ignore him, Carolina I think you are the most amazing person in the school, skinny or with...thirty more pounds on you..And I like cows, why Im a vegetarian myself." "Yeah, Yeah Whatever just tell us how you made the wish and how you made it come true let's put the crap aside, heres the dealio, me and John here are wishing to buy an endless supply of them juicy burgers over at Giant Burger, so tell us the..." Carolina coughed "I thought John here was Vegetarian, what a bunch of lying losers." John blushed, "Im going for the endless supply of veggie burgers and fries actually but anyways..." The bell rang and the students began to rush to their classes. Carolina began to walk away. "Wait arent you going to tell us!" The boys cried. "Carolina rolled her eyes, "It's simple... both of you can do it too, I guarantee it, I made a wish to gain weight... then I ate the cow simple isnt it?"

THE END...OR TO BE CONTINUED...(NOT SURE YET).

Friday, March 7, 2014

This Week's Guideline for Writing

So hopefully this upcoming week we can get the blog up and running and if we do this week the story must have a cow in it. The cow can be a main character, a symbol, an obstacle, part of the setting or anything your mind can think of! So the guidelines for this story (or any story) is... there are no guidelines! It can be as long or short as you want to. The only thing is you have a maximum of two days to write. For example this will be the schedule. : Sunday: The weekly prompt gets posted up Monday-Tuesday: Jessica has to write on either one of those day.  Wednesday-Thursday: I have to write on either of those days. Friday-Saturday: This could be either one of us. Sunday- A new prompt will be posted for the week. Got it? If you still have any questions or are having any difficulties email me. :-)  Happywriting