Greg and his father stood on the porch, the elder’s forearms and the child’s chin sharing space next to each other on the wooden railing. Greg had to stand on his tip toes and stretch his neck to get his chin over the beam. His little fingers clamped on to balance him in place.
Their eyes spanned the distance from front yard to the hazy horizon and back again. The damp grass, the cold concrete, and the packed soil perfumed the air unpolluted by the normal scents of day. Dawn danced on their exposed flesh, a waltz of shivers and chills as the temperature dropped in preparation for the sun. Greg licked his lips. He could taste the day that was about to begin.
But, there was something off about the whole process. He looked up to his father, his brows furrowed in thoughtful concern, “It’s the wrong tone.”
Greg’s dad looked down at him with a smile and a small chuckle, “Don’t worry, it will come around.”
Unconvinced, the child returned his attention to experiencing the sunrise. Everything felt right, as it all had moments before, except the sound was still off. Something was missing. He frowned in his father’s direction and opened his mouth to restate his worries, but, then, a bird from one of the nearby oaks lent her voice to the air.
It quivered and hung, trilled and dropped, rose triumphantly and then seemed to be faltering when another bird joined in. And then another. And then another.
Greg, listening, smiled. The taste was perfect. The smell was perfect. The touch was perfect. The sight was perfect. And, now, the sound was perfect too. The world was ready for the sun to rise again.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
I had to use the characters from last week’s Inspiration Monday writing challenge again for this week’s. The prompt that jumped out at me required that I return to them. Don’t you agree?
The Rules
There are none. Read the prompts, get inspired, write something. No word count minimum or maximum. You don’t have to include the exact prompt in your piece, and you can interpret the prompt(s) any way you like.
OR
No really; I need rules!
Okay; write 200-500 words on the prompt of your choice. You may either use the prompt as the title of your piece or work it into the body of your piece. You must complete it before 6 pm CST on the Monday following this post.
The Prompts:
A DAY LATE
OASIS
BARKER AND BITER
INVISIBLE NATION
THE WRONG TONE
The Matticus Kingdom 
I’d like to see Greg and his dad become regular characters for these prompts — I like them and you perfected the childlike viewpoint. 🙂 That’s just my two cents.
Thank you, thank you.
I’ll see what I can do…
The last time I had some regular characters show up for a weekly prompt (the now defunct trifecta) on an ongoing basis I actually used the characters for the NaNoWriMo for that year (to only some success – got the 50K easy, but failed to finish the novel – stalled out around 75K…)
That’s still more progress than most can say they’ve made! And hey, maybe there’s some more book fodder in here somewhere. 🙂
I really wish I had the ability to sit down and write a novel. I tend to either get sidetracked or discouraged after about 1,500 words.
Sidetracked, yes. That’s what happened to last year’s NaNo project. 60K words in I realized that the voice of my main character had changed… and not in a consistent with development manner. Whoops. I carried on for another 15K hoping a solution would present itself… it didn’t, and now I’m stalling on either rewriting the beginning or backing up enough to write out the different voice. Neither sounds appealing.
Ooh, I’ve heard that’s the worst kind of setback… I haven’t ever made it that far to experience it myself, ha. I’m considering just compiling my poems (which seem to be the only things I’m consistent with) into a book and throwing in the towel on the whole novel thing.
Not to throw in the towel on writing a novel, but I have also considered publishing a book of poems – get my name out there a bit and see what happens. Maybe if those royalty checks start rolling in that will inspire me to get back into writing my unfinished stories.
Haha, money certainly is motivating. But the pros and cons of self-publishing vs finding a publisher give me a headache, and that’s pretty much the only reason I haven’t made any forward motion with it. Why haven’t you published a book of poems yet?
Lazy? The Little Prince ate my brain? I’d want to either take down all the poems from my site that I was going to use or write all new poems and I haven’t figured out which is the better way to go? All of the above?
I had a conversation with Rara and Grayson one day about traditainal vs. self-publishing. Basically, right now, unless you are already established, you aren’t going to get anything extra by going the traditional route – they won’t spend the money on advertising unless they know you are a sure thing, so the onus is still on you, as the author, to promote your book and drive up sales. They pretty much convinced me to do a bunch of self-published books first, get my name out there, create a following, and then either ride that success on its own or reach out to a more traditional publisher…
And, that’s my plan… and see above for why I haven’t done anything about it yet.
… I can relate too well to all of those excuses. The Little Prince is a sneaky little zombie, I guess. He’s so charming!
I didn’t get the chance to get into the nitty-gritty with them about publishing… Hmm.
In doing the research themselves, and learning everything that goes into publishing a book, they released that they had learned everything they would need and would be better suited to starting their own publishing company – and, so, they did. (I think they scrapped it a bit later, but the knowledge about the industry remains the same.)
I know Grayson has a lot going on, but if you give him some time to provide answers, he’d probably respond to any questions around publishing you may have. Or, you could always send them in a letter to Rara too…
Even with all they are going through, they continue to be givers. They get a joy from helping others that is unmatched by anyone else. They are an ideal for us to reach towards.
There are some mornings I could do without the sound of birds.
Sure. I agree completely. But, can you at least remember when it was magical every morning?
No, not really 😦
Dang! Well, I’m sorry to hear that.
Oh, how about your imagination though? Can you imagine being a kid again and enjoying the mystery of a sunrise or sunset?
You gave me the urge to drag the critters out of bed at the crack of dawn to watch the sunrise with me.
I hope they forgive me.
Probably. I’ll bride ’em with candy.
Candy and a sunrise! Lucky critters. That sounds like the start to a wonderful day.
I’ll tell you what everyone told me and I ignored them…don’t stop writing EVER.
Can’t stop… the words won’t let me!!
You do that child so well. I’m still trying to get my imagination working. Well done story. Lucy
Thank you!
Your imagination working? Mine never turns off!! Which isn’t as awesome as it sounds.
Well that totally pulled me in.
Hooray!
Hooray indeedicus that was good!!
Thank you, icus.
“…and the packed soil perfumed the air unpolluted by the normal scents of day. Dawn danced on their exposed flesh, a waltz of shivers and chills as the temperature dropped in preparation for the sun. ”
great description.
Thank you!
Gorgeous, gorgeous. Love the image of the forearms and the chin side-by-side. That really puts you right there. And great use of scents! Verging on Bradbury-esque with this one.
Thank you for the high praise. And, as always, thank you for the wonderful prompts.
It’s good to be able to continue the story as well. I like what you’ve done. 😀
Thank you.
I really liked this! I ‘heard’ those birds, really heard them. How’d you do that? How did you put that in my head so clearly?!
Well done.
Well, it helps that the birds agreed to go around and chirp for me anytime someone was reading this post. Why they agreed to that, I have no idea. 😉