Fiction: Criminal

The choices for today are: (1) constant, (2) cups, (3) criminal. The choose word is criminal.

Fiction: Criminal
From behind the counter, the clerk eyes the girl as she darts around the store. Two long blond braids down her back and a pink baseball cap with rabbit ears on her head. Up and down the aisle, her laceless sneakers squeak on the plastic tiled floor. For a long while, the girl keeps wandering. Sometimes, all the clerk sees are the tips of those pink rabbit ears.
    A fight breaks out in aisle five so he runs there to check it out but it only lasts a few moments. When he looks for the girl, she is gone. Saddened, he returns to stand behind the counter and watches the guy attends customers with such clumsy laziness that he gets bore and thinks about his death.
    All it took to kill him was a box of jujubes. Back then, he was just a boy trying to earn some college money. Why did he bother trying to catch a thief just for a box of candy that cost two dollars? Such a petty crime. Such a high price to pay.
    Then there was the girl with the rabbit ears cap. It was her the man stole the candy for. The clerk saw her after he had crawled near the glass door. Under the brilliant sunshine, she was in the blue convertible with the top down and reading a magazine as if she was some princess. The thief got into her car and they drove off.
    For years, he thought finding the girl would answer why he was killed for a box of candy. Thirty-three years he has chased her but he had always missed - just a hair breath of time off. But it's only time. He has plenty of it - more than most ghosts, he suspects. Death has a way of prolonging time.
    But he has not found her. She must be dead. His memory of her face had faded into nondescript. But he keeps looking for her wherever he goes. It passes the time.

For tomorrow, the letter D, the choices are (1) dayum, (2) delete, (3) diva. Choose which word I might ramble about or tell a story.

Click above or go here to find out more about the Blogging From A-Z Challenge.

Brevity

The choices for today are: (1) brevity, (2) bedevil, (3) blabbermouth. The chosen word is brevity.

Twitter (I'll never use the new name) used to be 140 characters which I had always liked and had attempted them but I failed to like the brevity of it and quit. But I liked that people are forced to use shorter means of expression. I think it's hard to pare down what you want to say to 140 characters (which equals to about 28 or more words). I do envy people who can say a lot with a few words.

Do you have any thoughts on brevity?

For tomorrow, the letter C, the choices are (1) constant, (2) cups, (3) criminal. Choose which word I might ramble about or tell a story.

Click above or go here to find out more about the Blogging From A-Z Challenge.

IWSG Apr 2025: Are cliches bad?

You hear it all the time in book reviews - the writing is cliche or something similar. Cliche or cliché, according to dictionary.com, refers to something trite, hackneyed, overly familiar, or commonplace phrase, theme, or expression.
        I try to avoid using cliches in my writing but I think I fail sometimes because I don't think anyone can avoid them if they are readers and in most cases, writers. I am all too familiar with words I read often and some sticks to my mind so even when I don't try to use cliches, they just pop in my head without me realizing.
    Generally, I don't think cliches are bad unless they are used excessively though I can't say I know all the cliches but just enough to recognize them. There are cliches that are just right and says exactly what can be easily understood so using them isn't a bad idea. Maybe not everyone can recognize cliches because when you're reading, you don't go looking for them but they certainly populate books even if you don't know them.

As a reader or as a writer, do you think cliches are bad?
  
[More about the group over at the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog here]

Awkwardly Awesome April

For this year's Blogging From A-Z Challenge, I've chosen three words for each letter and then will allow readers to pick the word for me to mostly ramble about or maybe write a fictitious short story.
    For this first post, the choices are: (1) awkward, (2) awesome, (3) April. Since this is the beginning of the challenge, I thought I choose all three. So here's some thoughts from looking at those words.
    
Awkward
Being awkward is an occupational disease or so said someone in a tv drama. For me, it's probably true. I'm always awkward around people but especially animals. Once, I was at a friend's place and she handed me her kitten and that was a bit uncomfortable. Certainly, throwing the kitten off my arms would be rude and begging them to please remove the cat is probably rude too as the kitten was docile. So I just sat there and hope it would end soon. Maybe I should have said something but it wasn't a big deal.

Awesome
I cannot take a compliment well. I mean, yes, I'll say thank you but it's just awkward to do so. It is nice to have people say kindly, complimentary things to you but it just seem superficial sometimes. Someone did compliment me with the word awesome once in one of my previous blog and it gave me a good feeling and I'll remember it always.

April
This year's Blogging From A-Z Challenge is my 10th time doing the challenge. I'm not sure I'll do it next year (which I seem to say every year now) but at least, I have rounded it out to the 10th time. I like to complete things in a full circle kind of way. This is why I don't like quitting in the middle of anything. But these days, I don't mind quitting in the middle anymore. I quit reading books when I don't like them. I quit working on artworks that I didn't think are quite working in the right direction. I quit some things to stop myself from worrying to pieces. But I definitely never quit an A-Z challenge in the 9 years I had done it so this April, I hope to complete the challenge without too much fuss.

Any awkward, awesome thoughts this April? Do share them in the comments.

For tomorrow, the letter B, the choices are (1) brevity, (2) bedevil, (3) blabbermouth. Choose which word I might ramble about or tell a story.

Click above or go here to find out more about the Blogging From A-Z Challenge.