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Writing 101~Day Seven~Rustic and Flash

10/6/2014

Give and Take ~Write a post based on the contrast between two things — whether people, objects, emotions, places, or something else.

Today’s twist: write your post in the form of a dialogue. You can create a strong opposition between the two speakers — a lovers’ quarrel or a fierce political debate, for example. Or you could aim to highlight the difference in tone and style between the two different speakers — your call!

RUSTIC AND FLASH
By John Yeo

Hallo Rustic, my friend the ploughman. Pleased to meet you!

Likewise Flash, Moi pleasure you well-suited city-slicker!

Look Rustic, we city dwellers have all the fun and thrills of metropolitan life.

Arrh roight Flash, but we folk in the countryside have the benefits of the peace of Nature.

In the city we have the choice and convenience of many different shops and stores.

Here in our rural paradise we grow fresh food and enjoy the pleasure of real natural taste.

Listen Rustic, city life is fast and furious and we can get to the office easily and network.

Arrh but Flash, here on the farm we get up early, work hard, and commute by tractor.

You country bumpkins rarely get the chance to appreciate real art or the theatre.

Yes but city slickers choke on exhaust fumes all day and get real nature, second-hand.

We have the pleasure here in the city, my rustic friend of mixing with many different cultures and sharing the lifestyles of people from all over the world.

Flash moi over cultured, stressed-out nine-to-fiver, the rural life is very peaceful with low crime rates and the luxury of a slow pace of life.

Rustic you stuck-in-the-farmyard-mud fool! I would not swap my network friends and excitement to live in the countryside.

Flash, you are a close-minded, idiotic, unenlightened twit! I would hate to be you, living among thousands of city people and still manage to feel very lonely in your concrete apartment.

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Writing 101 Challenge~Day Six~Modern World Gypsies

9/6/2014

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Who’s the most interesting person/people you’ve met this year

Today’s twist, turn this post into a character study

Around the World in Words

By John Yeo

We were aboard a medium sized cruise ship visiting ports along the Adriatic coast of the Mediterranean sea. A wonderful itinerary with some interesting ports to visit along the way.

Between destinations, when our ship was at sea, we attended presentations in the form of lectures on a wide variety of subjects.

This is were we came into contact with one inspiring presenter, David who travelled with his wife Janet. An interesting lecturer who gave some sparkling lectures on wildlife and photography, David had a way of presenting his subject, in a very loud enthusiastic voice, backed up by some brilliant examples of his photography, he brought the subject of his lectures to life. He held his audience by virtue of that very loud voice, which he used to good effect to accentuate the flow of his lecture.

We had the pleasure of having dinner with David and Janet allowing us a very good opportunity to meet and converse with the man behind the lectures with his very supportive wife. The conversation flowed, punctuated with much repartee between husband and wife, one of David’s favourite expressions is, “I’m a Cockney, London born and proud of it!”. Between them, both David and Janet had a fund of stories about their previous cruises together, with David remarking “ What other wife enjoys sailing the world with their husband as he lectures on the work he enjoys doing very much?” Janet smiled benevolently obviously enjoying her role as the supportive wife behind the man, although it was obvious to us that she played a very important part in cementing his self-esteem. They have travelled together to many parts of the world, one of their habits was to collect a pebble or a small stone from every port they have visited and take it back to place in their garden in England.

When they were not travelling the world, David had many other ventures on the go, lecturing and teaching photography. He would produce highly-valued large photographic books of country houses for their owners, very individual works of highly illustrated photography with a historic description of the property. Another venture was organising wild life safaris to Africa, where he would extend his photographic library and portfolio.

Yes, this man who travels the world visiting many countries with his supportive lady wife is probably the most memorable character who has crossed our path so far this year.

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WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY Five~ Be Brief

6/6/2014

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JUNE 6, 2014 Writing101, Day Five: Be Brief

You stumble upon a random letter on the path. You read it. It affects you deeply, and you wish it could be returned to the person to which it’s addressed. Write a story about this encounter.

Today’s twist: Approach this post in as few words as possible.

RETURN TO SANTA

The wind blew a letter that landed on the path.

It was from my six year old child.

Dear Santa,

PLEASE KEEP MUMMY AND DADDY HAPPY

I cried bitter salty tears.

Written by John Yeo © Copyright~
All rights reserved

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WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY Four~(Part One)

5/6/2014

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JUNE 5, 2014 Writing 101, Day Four: Write about a loss, The twist: make this the first post in a three-post series.
Write about a loss something (or someone) that was part of your life and isn’t any more. Today’s twist: Make today’s post the first in a three-post series.

THE TRAGIC LOSS UNFOLDS~Part One
By John Yeo

The forest stretched for miles, a sea of pine trees with thick undergrowth. There was a large variety of wildlife in the forest and my wife and I would ramble for hours, just enjoying the sensation of the natural world. The birds fluttering and calling in the tree tops with squirrels scrambling up tree trunks in their haste to get away from the intrusive humans. Many times we have been caught in a shower or a storm and exactly against the universal advice we took shelter under a tree. The woodland flowers were colourful, blooming in profusion during their season, and we would enjoy wandering through stretches of ferns into the forest. One day we spotted a faun, shyly strolling along a woodland path through the trees, we quickly followed this beautiful little animal for a long way into the depths of the forest.
Suddenly we realised we were lost, hopelessly, totally lost. We pressed on hoping to come to an inhabited property where we could get our bearings and some directions back to where we had started our ramble. We came upon a clearing with a pretty little cottage and knocked hard to alert the inhabitants of our arrival. There was no response to our urgent knocking and we entered the little house to explore. Inside we found a large amount of blood, all over the place, some dried up and to our dismay what looked like a puddle of fresh blood. We assumed that an animal had been slaughtered and put the whole thing out of our minds for a minute. We then went through into the back yard, where there was freshly disturbed earth with mounds of earth piled every where, My wife, Margaret nervously remarked that they looked like a series of graves.

Then there was a noise as a large animal or a man was heard crashing and running through the forest~~~~

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WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY three~Songs

4/6/2014

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JUNE 4, 2014 Writing 101, Day Three: Commit to a Writing Practice

Today, celebrate three songs that are significant to you. For your twist, write for fifteen minutes without stopping — and build a writing habit.

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Three songs that have made a huge impact on me during my life? Obviously the songs that come to mind are the important songs that have made an impression on my life. All music that I have enjoyed,has come in phases, during the popular phase I remember, “Que Sera Sera, Whatever will be will be” sung by Doris Day. I was a young man during the time this song arrived on the scene, and her voice and the words made a big impact on my mind. It was also a firm favourite of my late wife, Sophie.

The next song I can distinctly remember was linked to a girl friend who lived in the USA, I live in the UK and we last met when she was on a holiday here. This song is, “A bridge Over Troubled Water” sung by Simon and Garfunkel, I love the words and the tune to this.

The final song would be an Operatic Aria, “One Fine Day” from the opera Madame Butterfly, This turned my tastes firmly in the direction of the music and production of Grand Opera. My wife, Margaret and I both love this type of music and we have enjoyed several Operas together.

I find this selection of my favourite songs, very mysterious as they are all songs that have had a significance in my life and they can all be linked by circumstances.

“Que Sera Sera” is a philosophical song, that is a direction to follow in the future.

“Bridge Over Troubled Water”, is also a reminder that I met my wife Margaret on the water during a cruise, at a very troubled period in my life.

“One Fine Day” is the finale of this troubled period when Margaret and I decided to get married. We have enjoyed a second chapter of our lives for the last ten very happy years.

I will now download and put these three songs together on my computer as I never realised they had such a significant impact on my past and present life.

Written by John Yeo © Copyright~
All rights reserved

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WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY Two~View

3/6/2014

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JUNE 3, 2014 Writing 101, Day Two: A Room with a View (Or Just a View)We’re all drawn to certain places. If you had the power to get somewhere — anywhere — where would you go right now? For your twist, focus on building a setting description.

A VIEW OF LIFE
By John Yeo

The house in Bridgeman downs in Brisbane was situated on the side of a steep hill, indeed walking up the drive was a struggle for my wife, Margaret.

There was a balcony that stretched around the house overlooking a valley with wonderful houses screened by the typical Australian tropical vegetation.

High Palm trees mingled with Eucalyptus trees in the woodland in the middle distance and this was backed up by a range of mountains on the distant horizon, often shrouded in cloud and mist.

 The view from the balcony and the dining area was stunning at any time of the day. In the very early hours of the morning at daybreak there was a cacophony of sound as the local bird-life awoke,

with the shrieking of Cockatoos mingled with the distinctive sound of Kookaburras, with many more birds contributing to the wonderful dawn chorus.

The very colourful plumage of many of these birds is stunning and it was a joy to sit and watch the huge variety of birds flying around the treetops in the distance.

There were some very colourful Rainbow Lorikeets feeding on the nectar from the flowers on a Golden Penda tree at the bottom of the hill at the end of the drive, during the flowering season.

Many a morning when we visited, it was just so relaxing to look out over this ever-changing prospect, just to sit and ponder as the morning broke.

The evening view was the crowning glory of the day as the sun went down and the beautiful all too brief sunsets would descend.

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Writing 101 Challenge~Day one~Random

2/6/2014

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JUNE 2, 2014 Writing 101, Day One: Unlock the Mind
To get started, let’s loosen up. Let’s unlock the mind. Today, take twenty minutes to free write. And don’t think about what you’ll write. Just write.Keep typing (or scribbling, if you prefer to handwrite for this exercise) until your twenty minutes are up. It doesn’t matter if what you write is incomplete, or nonsense, or not worthy of the “Publish” button. And for your first twist? Publish this stream-of-consciousness post on your blog.

Random Thought
By John Yeo

The basic feeling I get when I am confronted by a writing challenge, is how to put the words to match, into some semblance of order that will make sense and have some relevance to the prompt. I sometimes find this quite difficult, I have an overall picture of what I want to write but I have to try really hard to unlock my mind to get a semblance of what I want to say. There are many subjects I can play with in my experience as I am pretty well-read and I can usually conjure something to match the prompt out of the inner recesses of my mind.

I am actually looking forward to this Word Press, daily post challenge and I hope to find time in the next 20 days to keep up with the prompts and publish something on a daily basis. This is the first time I have participated in this sort of writing challenge and I hope to improve my blogging skills, by comparison and meeting other writers on-line.

There many areas of thought that I would like to explore as I write poetry and I am quite literate. I love reading many forms of literature and I am sure I will be able to incorporate many themes of thought into this wonderful challenge. I am entranced with the beauty of Nature and all things natural and I am sure some of this will come out in my posts. This will go a long way to improving my blogging skills and this will help me with my gardening blog that I already sporadically keep up to date. I am positive this will add to my creative skills and unlock the hidden depths of my mind.

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Forward>>

Writing 101~Day Seven~Rustic and Flash

Writing 101 Challenge~Day Six~Modern World Gypsies

WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY Five~ Be Brief

WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY Four~(Part One)

WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY three~Songs

WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY Two~View

A VIEW OF LIFE
By John Yeo

Writing 101 Challenge~Day one~Random

Random Thought
By John Yeo

Author

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Writing 101~Day Seven~Rustic and Flash

Writing 101 Challenge~Day Six~Modern World Gypsies

WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY Five~ Be Brief

WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY Four~(Part One)

WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY three~Songs

WRITING 101 CHALLENGE~DAY Two~View

﻿A VIEW OF LIFE﻿By John Yeo

Writing 101 Challenge~Day one~Random

﻿Random Thought﻿By John Yeo

Author

Archives

Categories

A VIEW OF LIFE
By John Yeo

Random Thought
By John Yeo