Dear Friends,
Given the recent downturn in this community's activity, which is perfectly natural with time, I thought I might propose a change in structure. Gramarye has been nobly posting weekly drabble challenges for quite some time now, a job that I imagine to be a rather thankless one given the number of responses. Why don't we open up things at both the challenge and posting end of things? Anyone could post a challenge whenever they feel like it, rather than attempting to conform to a weekly schedule, and if someone felt like posting a drabble that did not respond to a current challenge, that would be fine too. If volume increased at some time in the future, guidelines could be adjusted again.
Please reply with your thoughts, if you have them.

All the best for 2009,
Sam

Starting Over

100 words
_____________

Will gazed into the face across from him, its pallor softened by the candlelight. He hadn’t spoken to Bran, hadn’t dared to, in ten years, yet here they were at this party, hitting it off just like the first time.

No, not just like. Bran’s whole demeanor revealed that he was interested in Will in a way neither of them had ever considered as boys, and Will’s pulse thrummed in response.

“Have we met before?”

The question closes around Will’s heart like a cold hand, and he fights to keep his expression smooth as he looks into Bran’s eyes.

“No.”

It takes a lot of courage -- or, perhaps, cowardice -- to be able to look someone in the eyes and lie to them, knowingly and deliberately. This week's challenge should involve precisely this kind of falsehood.

'Yes...but is it art?'

This week's challenge can cover anything from an Old Master painting to a child's first fingerpainting -- as well as sculpture, pottery, or most anything else in the visual arts.

There are times when you simply have to make a night of it, and depending on who you're with and what constitutes your idea of a 'good time', things can get out of hand before you know it. This week's challenge calls for 100 words on a wild night out -- and possibly a bit of its aftermath, too.

Odd little topic for this week's drabble challenge: bicycles.

One of the side-effects of the cold that's hijacked my brain seems to be an inability to keep much of anything in my short-term memory (unless I really work at it). As a result, this week's drabble challenge is going to be about forgetfulness -- accidental or deliberate, as the case may be. (With the Sequence, it's sometimes difficult to tell.)

Drabbles for the challenges First Kiss, Merriman in Ohio, Full Moon, and Unfamiliar Streets.
( One summer in Whales )

Challenge 181: First Kiss
Challenge 182: Merriman in Ohio
Challenge 183: Full Moon
Challenge 184: To the Ends of the Earth
Challenge 185: Thunder and Lightning
Challenge 186: Unfamiliar Streets
Challenge 187: Continuing Education
Challenge 188: Something Fragile
Challenge 189: A Room of One's Own
Challenge 190: Cooking Disaster

Coming up on 200 challenges....

w/c : 100
Made with Love


Will read aloud. “Put in two eggs and beat mixture until smooth.”
“Right-ho.”
James rummaged in a kitchen cupboard, re-emerging triumphantly with an electric beater.
He plonked it in the bowl and turned it on.

Mixture flew everywhere. Will yelped and took cover under the table.
They greased a tin and put the mixture remaining in the oven.

It was burnt, the middle sagging. Runny icing pooled in the cake’s center and around the plate’s edges. The candles tilted crazily. They sung sweetly.
“Happy Birthday Mum.”
Mrs Stanton beamed and thanked them all. It was the best present of all.

The wine's corked, the bread refused to rise, the meat is somehow simultaneously undercooked and overdone, the boiled Brussels sprouts are the consistency of wallpaper paste, the jacket potatoes exploded in the oven, and the pudding quite possibly is in violation of a half-dozen EU environmental regulations. Cooking disasters happen to all of us -- though if we're lucky they don't happen all in the same meal -- and they happen to be the focus of this week's challenge. ^_^

Taking a bit of a cue from Virginia Woolf's well-known essay, this week's drabble challenge calls for 100 words on what it means to have a room of one's own, a place to be alone with one's thoughts or to pursue some independent project or endeavour...in essence, whatever 'a room of one's own' can be interpreted to mean.

Drabble Amnesty coming up in another few weeks -- we're well within reach of the 200th challenge!

Title: Fragility
Author: parisiennepen
Rating: G
Word Count: 100

~

Rain poured, thunder boomed, lightning flashed, and the Rider smiled. The human body’s such a fragile thing, he thought. People should really look – he waved a hand casually as a loud peal of thunder rent the air – where they place their feet.

Inside the Stanton house there was a sudden crash and a cry of pain.

Moments later someone exclaimed “MUM! Max, come quick, she’s fallen down the stairs!”

Some minutes later a boy, clad warmly against the elements, left the house and walked briskly towards the manor. The Rider – unobserved – turned and walked away, leaving no footprints behind him.

Title: Snow
Characters: Will
Rating: G
Words: 100

Winter had finally come. Will stood silently in the cold morning air; his breath came out in clouds in front of his face. It had rained last night, no snow yet, but the frost had covered the puddles in a fragile sheet of ice. Will gently placed the toe of his boot on one, watching the cracks spread. He was going to be eleven soon, his Dad said it was an important birthday, but Will wasn’t feeling any different, but he could sense that something was about to change. It was cold; maybe he could have snow for his birthday.

Apologies for missing last week, all. *sheepish*

This week's challenge calls for drabbles on something fragile -- as ever, this parameter is open to as literal or figurative an interpretation as you like.

Title: Two Almost Doctors
Characters: Will, Simon
Rating: G
Words: 102

Will and Simon go to the same graduate school. They’re eating lunch at a little café after exams, waiting for Jane and Barney to show up. Will asks, “Why did you choose forensic anthropology, Simon?” Simon knows the answer, but pretends to consider it anyway. “It always bothered me that no one found what happened to Gummery.” Will smiles in that way that he has. Simon says, “But I think you’ll probably be the one to find him at some abandoned archeology dig.” Will looks like he’d like to say something, instead he pushes his hair out of his face and laughs.

Hard Lessons

________

Mithothin sighed. It was really too humiliating! It was bad enough that his ‘work’ had decided to send him on a professionals’ ‘Team Spirit’ camp (and during a Rising to boot!) but to have been assigned him as a partner?! Fate was laughing.

Ironically the thoughts of his ‘partner’ were running in the same direction.

Turning he snarled "What are you doing here Merlion?"
"The same thing as you, Rider." Merriman Lyon answered.

"Now everyone," said the co-ordinator "Shake hands!"

The two glared at each other. The handshake was a defiance. The 'learning' had began.

=====

A/N: Because at the last minute I had pity for paper cranes and the Rider's Origami skill.. :p

This week's drabble challenge covers the entire range of continuing education, from a twice-a-week evening class in French conversation or creative writing to a long-term plan to return to school and obtain (or finish) a degree. Lifelong learning is the theme -- regardless of what's being learned.

There's something unsettling about walking down unfamiliar streets, whether you're in a place you've never visited before or in a place you've known all your life. This week's challenge is about those unfamiliar streets, and whatever might be found there.

Title: Sensorium
Author: joanwilder (RaeWhit)
Words: 100
Challenge: # 185 Thunder and Lightning.

It'd been growing, this new ability to sense things before he saw them. He'd started to notice it after the Christmas hols, after everything had finally settled, after he'd had a chance to catch his breath and come to terms with how old he was at eleven.

Eyes closed, Will tilted his head back. The air tasted of tin and smelt of water from the river. The pores of his skin drew together as the hair on his arms stood on edge. At the low rumble, he opened his eyes, holding his breath 'til the streak lit up the sky.