Greetings, dearest poets and storytellers. I love the number 13. I was 13 when I figured out that refusing to try to fit in with everyone around me didn’t make me a bad human, just a different kind of human. I was born on a full moon in a year of 13 moons. 13 was the age when my grandmother and the other women who raised me began treating me like a woman, and teaching woman things. 13 is awesome.
So, for our 13th Friday Writings post, it feels right to offer those who wish for a prompt the chance to share poetry or prose which includes at least 3 of the following 13 words: bone, night, tell-tale, rhyme, tongue, storm, dirt, moon, chaos, winter, echo, howl, forest. If the prompt doesn’t speak to your ink, feel free to share a piece of your choosing. Let your contribution be new or old, short or longish (prose pieces should be 369 words or fewer). Share the direct link to your post. One link per participant. After you add your words, remember to visit other writers and delight in their words.
next week, if you want a prompt, Rommy will suggest working with the idea of monsters, either a specific one or monsters in general.
I'm not good with prompts but I do love the #13 and am always happy to test out my latest poems here. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm not great with prompts either. I always seem to have an idea in my head that wants to be written wildly. Or, even if I have a prompt in mind, but something more alluring happens, I enjoy writing about the latter.
DeleteI am usually not keen on word list prompts, but this one was very inspiring!
ReplyDeleteWoooHooo!
DeleteMake no doubt about it Magaly, this piece is honey drippingly romantic — and I make absolutely no apology for the gushiness. I am Type ll diabetic, and my glucose level jumped 100 points just writing it — but what a wonderful guilty pleasure to occasionally let my heart sing! 🥰. This is a significantly reimagined rewrite of a piece I wrote 3 years ago.
ReplyDeleteBTW: I included — forest, moon, night, & echo…
I hope your muse and your glucose levels find a happy balance. :-)
DeleteThese were fun words to write with. I had missed the presence of the mystical number thirteen. It did seem 'odd' not having an even number but I let that roll off.
ReplyDeleteOur youngest granddaughter will soon be a teen, in July. She acts like one now as many of her friends are age 13 already.
Off writing now but I have a thirteen awareness quite often. I am not superstitious but. I avoid walking under ladders and using broken mirrors and so on, NOT superstitious but I honor those with that belief. In giving student exams I would number every test assembly and none NEVER were number 13, in its place would generally be number 231. Students didn't realize what I was doing but I KNEW that might bother a student even slightly superstitious the whole time taking it and being confronted with looking at that number.
I used a test generator computer program given me by one of the textbook publishing companies and it would scramble the question order. So I would have at least three versions, the original order that I had composed and two other versions. I would run off equal numbers of each scrambled versions and then at test time give every row alternating odd or even numbers. Students were aware of this and it cut way way down on copying answers. And also I knew where every test copy was, both in the taking as I used a seating chart and also in making sure that all tests were returned. I watched the class the whole time and never caught any cell phone copying either.
The college tried to regulate class size, thirty-five was generally max and those under twenty seldom were allowed to make. My major subject I taught three sections, the more advanced subject areas were smaller and generally had only one section offered. I taught, and always asked for, an evening section. Upon my return to college after dropping out for eleven years I enjoyed those type who were more mature in life. Five sections were a full load for faculty as we were not expected to write. I did author one study guide which I updated every few years.
Those eleven years I worked as a GI and as an Aerospace Engineer using experience and extensive schooling, almost a year total. As my fourth year on I had come to Houston and was working at NASA as an Engineer but also had started back to college. After my second degree I taught a night class and in my fourth year I was invited to teach full time. I did and left the engineering field entirely and used my degrees to teach Business classes.
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The "extensive schooling" included a 43-week U.S. Army 'NIKE Missile Control Systems Maintenance' course where I learned electronics, radar, and computer operation and maintaining. My civilian job was with Philco Tech Rep Corp that was bought by Ford Motors Aerospace Corporation. I was a Senior Engineer when I left for teaching at the college. I did have one year experience teaching in the Army, my first job was teaching recruits to become Clerk Typists. One of my rules I taught, not really in the Army's lesson plans, was "Proof Reading." Since I compose and write, I have been for over three years at least since my lap top crashed, with my old Galaxy smartphone and don't always do proofing.
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I used to have a math teacher who did the same, exclude the number 13. One day I renumbered the test to add the number #13. He wasn't pleased at first, but after realizing that I would continued doing it, he just gave me my own copy of the test the 13th question numbered as such.
DeleteHa ha ha, my parents claimed not to be superstitious – but I was always told that both 12 and 13 are lucky numbers for people in our family, and have happily treated them so ever since.
Delete@Rosemary, my dad is the same way. He glares at you if you call him superstitious. But every year, on his birthday, he writes his name on a dollar bill and buries it under a field of clover--for luck! 🤣
DeleteYour dads/parents are sooo cute!! On my birthday I SAY that I am going to run away. I generally do leave but Mrs. Jim has always tagged along, sometimes other family as well. I have posted some of these excursions on my other blog, Jim's Little Blog. But you have to search for them, by "birthday is the best way to get started. Also, the old blog doesn't continue on older pages but my cell phone makes it that way for me.
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Happy Friday to all.
ReplyDeleteI do not have a #13 story but here's a #11 story: today i celebrate my 72nd birthday.
much❤love
Happy Birthday, Gillena!!! (If you feel you're getting old, just remember you are a whole 10 years younger than me!)
DeleteHappiest (belated) Birthday, Gillena.
DeleteHappy Birthday Gillena!!! And many more!!
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Good day, people!
ReplyDeleteBack from my Lunar New Year holidays and back with a post. I can't write anything during the past few weeks, so i went biking and replaying an old video game. Hope I can get hold of my Muse soon.
And Gillena, a happy birthday to you! :)
Glad to see you back here. (Maybe your Muse took a holiday too, and hasn't yet got the message it's time to return?)
DeleteI hope the biking felt like poetry, Lee San.
DeleteI always really like to work with word list prompts but they are so very difficult
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry they are difficult. Still, a bit (or a lot) of challenge, every now and again, isn't necessarily a bad thing. At least, I hope it isn't. 😅
DeleteHappy to link my poem! Have written about the present world situation with the Ukraine-Russia crisis.
ReplyDeleteGreat to reconnect. I used to contribute for "Poets United". Now, first time here on this site- that is the advanced avatar :)
Welcome back, Anita! I'm looking forward to reading your poem. The issues affecting the Ukraine and Russia (and our country, by association) are rather worrying. It would be interesting to read about it from your perspective.
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