Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Writing Prompt 52

Everyone around me panicked and ran and trampled each other to get out, go someplace safe. Fools. What difference would it make?
I noticed a woman at the other end of the bar eyeing me, calm as a meditating monk. I threaded my way to her. “Not running for your life?” I asked.
“Nope,” she replied.
“How come?”
“You know how.”
Could she be…? My surprise must have shown, ’cause she hid a chuckle behind a sip from her drink.
“Still,” I said, “the end of the world and all. This is my fifth end of the world and I’m still enjoying it.”
“Oh, you’re a child. How sweet.” Another sip of her drink. “I got bored after the twentieth. That was millions of years ago. These primates are no longer entertaining. However, this end comes too early. Your doing?”

 

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

The journey goes on

2017 is ancient history! Well, maybe not ancient, but history nonetheless. Who would have thought, huh? It seems so long and far ahead to go from January to December, right?

When a new year starts, we usually groan about how far ahead the next Christmas period is, and we take things slowly when it comes to goals and things to do, because, hey, we’ve got a whole year ahead of us; pff! Plenty of time. But come December, we groan about how fast time went by, and darn it, another wasted year where we didn’t do any of the things we wanted to do. Does that sound familiar?

I never make any new year’s resolutions, mainly because I’ve come to accept that no matter how much I plan things out, life will always find a way to mess things up for me so much, that I might as well have been transported to a parallel universe, where nothing seems to work the way it should. There’s a saying here in Greece, which loosely translates to: when men make plans for the future, gods laugh.

Personally, I much prefer to look back and take note of all the important things that I managed to do. A lot of the times I do that for more than just the previous year. It gives me a better perspective. For me, 2017 was the year that I officially embarked on The Journey, as the title of this blog suggests. It took me four years to prepare things, but I did it in the end.

And now I’m getting ready for the next part of The Journey. There’s a vast ocean ahead of me, with few landmarks ahead to guide me, but something tells me I’ll make it to the next destination. I hope it takes me less time to get there, though I’m certain I will arrive at exactly the right time.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Writing Prompt 51

“It’s not that bad,” Horace said.

“How would you know?” Anuk stabbed her finger on his chest. “You haven’t died a single time yet! Not once! Try dying a hundred thousand times, jumping from body to body, then tell me if it’s bad or not. Not so bad, he says… pfff!”

Horace opened and closed his mouth. His eyes glided over her. “Well, you look great in this body.” He smiled.

Anuk folded her arms and cast Horace a malevolent narrow glance. “You eye-grope me once more, I’ll show you how annoying death is right now.”

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 5 Comments

Crutch words – WENT (part 1)

When drafting a story, a book, or a poem, we tend to use words that will easily allow us to convey what we have in mind. They help us get the words out fast. It makes sense; it’s a draft, meant only for the writer and only until revisions and edits start. Past that stage, it’s best (for our readers’ sake) to change these words in favour of better and more descriptive ones.

WENT is a word writers like to use often, but one that doesn’t paint a nice picture for the reader. Below are some alternative words you can use. Keep in mind, the list of synonyms for WENT is much bigger, and I will come back to it at a later time with more words. As always, please make sure you use the right replacement at the right moment for best results. Each synonym has a meaning of its own.

 

 

Also, I changed the blog’s front page a bit. It took me hours to get the image mapping to work and to figure out how to fix the html code (I’m soooooo incompatible with such things), but I think the result is better than the old one. The question is, do you like it?