In anticipation of the night

1 Sharaf 164 B.E. - Monday, December 31, 2007 about 12:37 PM PST

Daily Writing Practice Prompt for December 31, 2007 - In anticipation of the night

I would be nice if I could do something in anticipation of the night. I'd like to plan to go outside and look at the stars, however the light pollution is so bad here in Las Vegas that you can't see any stars.

If you're going to plan something in anticipation of the night, December 31 is a good day to do it. Tonight the whole country will commemorate the end of 2007 and celebrate the beginning of 2008. I'm looking forward to 2008 both as a writer and a woman. 2007 was not a good year for me so 2008 has to be better. I'm not making any resolutions right now though. I don't make my New Year's Resolutions until Naw-Ruz (March 21) because that's when I celebrate a New Year.

In anticipation of the night all the casinos in town are planning New Year's parties. So this should be a good night to stay home. I enjoy crowds as long as I'm having fun, but I don't consider the way New Year's is celebrated as fun. I prefer to stay home and watch the celebration on T.V. or get online and write. So this afternoon, I'm going to go out and get some things I need for dinner tomorrow. I also need to get a filter for the central air.

I think I'll start 2008 off by either going to sleep early or doing reviews on writing.com. I do know I don't want to get out tomorrow. Nothing is open on January 1 except some malls, grocery stores and the casinos here. I'm going to stay home and enjoy my house, work online or write.

Writing out the Month

19 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Sunday, December 30, 2007 about 2:51 PM PST

This is the last day of Masa'il tomorrow begins the month of Sharaf. Tonight at 7:30 is the Feast of Sharaf. The end of a is similar to the end of a year or the end of a day. It brings reviews looking at what you can improve next tomorrow, next month, or next year. Looking at the things, which need discarding in your life; looking at the habits that make for a prosperous and happy life.

Prosperity more then just material riches; prosperity has to do with spirituality and developing your talents. A writer must look at the type of writing and how his or her spiritual or religious life influences what he or she writes. Life is a continuous movement towards a goal. The goal is either set by the individual or by outside influences. Everyone, but especially writers have to look at who influences and what forces influence any stories, poems or essays written.

My Name is Prosperous Snow

My online handle at writing.com is Prosperous Snow. I chose this handle because it is the meaning of my middle and first name. Snow is the local meaning of Neva, it refers to the high snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

I use Prosperous Snow at local poetry reading. True I haven't been to a poetry reading in a while, but that is going to change in 2008. I need to feed my muse with more then just online reviews and reading other people's poetry on writing.com.

In the past eleven weeks, I've written several new poems. I entered two December challenges. One challenge called the Twelve Days of Christmas used the gifts given in the song as prompts. Several of the entries were poems. The other challenge called Stretch Your Style and I have to write poems in specific forms. It has two more weeks left in the Stretch Your Style Challenge.

When I do start going back to open mic readings I'm gong to have a lot of new poems to read. I'm looking forward to the first reading I attend. There are several different reading in Las Vegas. Despite opinions to the contrary this town isn't devoid of culture, you just have to search for it.

2007 is Closing Out

18 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Friday, December 28, 2007 about 9:56 PM PST

2007 is coming to an end.
The old year will soon pass and a new year will begin.
It is time to continue a time honored custom,
which begin in ancient Babylon.

Get out your pencils
and take out your pens
it is time write New Year's resolutions,
to break old habits,
by replacing them with new.

A New Year Approaches

17 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Thursday, December 27, 2007 about 9:03 PM PST

The New Year of 2008 is only four days away. Everyone looks forward to a New Year with such hope and joy. There is always so much potential for happiness that few every think what goes in to making happiness. Happiness is not a material attribute, but a spiritual attribute. True there are a few material things that make a person happy, but not for very long. True happiness is an attribute of the soul.

What makes me happy? Writing makes me happy. I enjoy writing poetry and flash fiction. I have written a lot of flash fiction lately. I have some novels I'm working on, but lately most of my writing consist of blog entries, poetry and flash fiction. I'm not sure of the link between flash fiction and the soul. I'm sure of the link between poetry and the soul because for me poetry feels spiritual.

Sacred Things

Daily Writing Practice Prompt for December 26, 2007 - Write about something Sacred.

Many things in this world that are sacred. There are religious symbols, holy books and the dawn of day. Dawn is sacred to me because you can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit when you pray. For me dawn includes the hour before and the hour after the sun rises over Sunrise Mountain.

There are two mountains on the east side of Las Vegas that are referred to as Sunrise Mountain. The name of one mountain is Sunrise Mountain and the other one is Frenchman's Mountain. I'm not sure which is which because from my house I can see both of them. I think the one that is easiest to see is Frenchman's Mountain, but I can't be sure.

The reason dawn is sacred is because of the silence and tranquility that surrounds it. Even in Las Vegas, there is a hush before and after the sunrises. In some sections of town the hush is more obvious then in others because it is a hush that is felt rather than heard.

I think dawn is probably the best time to say prayers because it feels sacred. Dawn is tranquil and the hush is felt. I enjoy dawn, I enjoy watching the sun rise and the sky turn slowly blue. At dawn the day is uncluttered by worries and fears, it is a new day with a great deal of potential; a day that one can make better then the day before.

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Trash pick-up day in my neighborhood

15 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Wednesday, December 26, 2007 about 7:00 AM PST

It's the Wednesday, December 26, the day after Christmas, the first day of Kwanzaa, either the first or the second day of Christmas (depending on the tradition followed), boxing day in Canada, and trash pick-up day in my neighborhood. I took my trashcan out last night, so this morning I don't have to worry about it. The trash is suppose to be put at the curb by 7:00 AM and if I don't take it out the night before I can't take it out until Friday night or Saturday morning.

I always think I'm going to get it out before 7 o'clock, but often don't. As I sit typing this, I can hear the garbage truck on the next block. You can't miss the sound of their motors as the lift the trash up to dump it in the trucks; it's a comforting sound. I think I'm going to have to get new trashcans in 2008 because the cans I have are about ready for the garbage pick-up to take them.

The hum of motors
echo through the neighborhood
announcing trash pick-up day.

I suppose I should look out the window, to see if any dogs turned the can over last night. It was heavy when I dragged and carried it to the curb last night, so I don't think any of the dogs that run free are big and strong enough to turn it over. I did put a lamp I haven intended to throw away for several weeks on top. Also I still have trash in the garage I have to take out. I can usually manage to get one or two cans to the curb, but no more.

There are a couple of good story ideas in this entry (1) ode to a garbage truck and (2) dogs or some animal turning over trashcans. I'll have to think about those for a little while. The one about an animal turning over trashcans has potential especially if the animal is one that isn't prone to that type of behavior.

Sending Christmas Cards from Heaven

14 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Tuesday, December 25, 2007 about 12:06 PM PST

I just read an interesting article on the yahoo news page. I went to log into my account and noticed the headline Cards from heaven have dead man talking. An 88 year old man who died this year sent Christmas cards to his friends and family. It gave everyone a jolt, as it should. I know I'd get shivers if I got a card from one of my friends on the other side.



The man was 88 years old and had a good sense of humor. I like examples of humor in anyone over the age of 60 (I'm 61), but I'm especially fond of it on octogenarians. Anyone who has survived this life for more then 80 years must have a good sense of humor. I hope my sense of humor is as good as this guys when I turn 88. He worked the project out with his 57-year-old barber, obviously a woman with a good sense of humor herself.



This is the best Christmas card story I've heard or read in years. It is worthy of a poem and. at least, a flash fiction story. Of course, as a writer I'm always looking for examples of good senses of humor. You have to write story with humor in it once in a while or you get depressed. Even if humor isn't a writer's main genre attempting to write one oils the cogs of the muse and keeps a writer young.

December 24, 2007

13 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Monday, December 24, 2007 about 11:00 AM PST

Christmas Eve and NORAD is tracking Santa in his twenty-four hour trip around the world. I wonder what the old gentleman thinks about as he follows night from country to country and across time zones. I, also, wonder how long it takes him and his reindeer to recover from such a hectic and stressful flight. Do they spend a week or so in bed? Do they have a special diet to help them in their work?

It's amazing the questions that occur to an adult about Santa. When I was a child I always wonder how he got down and back up the chimneys. The house we lived in didn't have a fireplace and a chimney, so I wanted to know how he got into the house. My mother always locked the door at night, even on Christmas Eve and I was curious as to his mode of entry. In addition, I wondered how reindeer's flew.

Now that I'm an adult and a writer, I wonder about other things. I don't wonder how reindeer's fly any more. The answer to that is simple, they believe they can fly and therefore they fly. If we believe, we can do anything; even if the winds of tests and difficulties try to keep us grounded. I think that's the basic concept of Santa and Christmas, faith; faith in God and ourselves.

True I don't remember God or one of God's names and Santa being mentioned in the same T.V. special. Still Santa is the representation of the Christmas Spirit, the spirit of giving and of love. That was the reason Christ and every other reflection of God were born on Earth to show we humans the Creator's love.

That's what Christmas is really about, God's love to humanity. It doesn't matter which one of God's names we pray to, it only matters that we pray and give thanks. While giving thanks we also need to remember the rest of the human race. Give something to someone else, even if the only thing we have to give is forgiveness.

2007 Holiday Flash Fiction Challenge

13 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Sunday, December 23, 2007 about 7:22 PM PST

I entered the 2007 Holiday Flash Fiction Challenge on writing.com. The Holiday Challenge is a bit different from the ordinary Daily Flash Fiction Challenge. In the Holiday Challenge the flash fiction story must be related, in some way, to the other story before it.

The book I'm putting the holiday entries in is Flashes of Holiday Lightning, but I'm thinking of changing the name. I want a name that is appropriate to the theme of the stories. I haven't thought of one yet. I expect to come up with an idea soon.

I'm not entering the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge right now because the prompt for the Daily Challenge is the same one used for the Holiday Challenge. I'm just not up to writing two different stories addressing the same prompt. One story is difficult enough sometimes.

Go to my writing.com port and check out both Flashes of Lightning and Flashes of Holiday Lightning. Prosperous Snow's Port The theme of Flashes of Holiday Lighting is the crash of an alien ship on earth.

When The 12 Days of Christmas Occur

11 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Saturday, December 22, 2007 about 9:35 AM PST

According to the web page The Twelve Days of Christmas these are the days between Christmas (December 25) and the start of Epiphany (January 6). Depending on the tradition these twelve days are either December 25 to January 5 or December 26 to January 6. In some traditions the solar day is apparently used to indicate the beginning of the twelve days of Christmas, which means the first day starts the evening of December 25 making December 26 the first day of Christmas.

Each of the gifts given on the twelve days may or may not have a religious significance in Christian tradition. There is uncertainty about the historical accuracy concerning the meaning of the song and the gift given. On a spiritual and religious level "true love" in the song refers to the soul's beloved. In the case of Christians the true love is Christ who reflects the attributes of God to humanity.

I should note here that the twelve days of Christmas and Christmas itself is celebrated on different days in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The twelve days I am referring to in this article are from the tradition of the western church.

I find the information about the twelve days of Christmas intriguing. Growing up I heard the song and at one time could sing it by heart. However, I never knew there was a religious significance about the gifts or to the twelve days. I always thought it was about some guy giving gifts to his girl on Christmas.

12 Days of Christmas Calling Birds

9 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Thursday, December 20, 2007 about 7:00 AM PST

Yesterday I did some research on the calling birds in the Twelve days of Christmas. According to an article on the information on the Ohio University Extension page Bringing Knowledge to life. The calling birds were originally "colly" or "collie" birds. The words, which are derived from the word coal and means black. See Smart Stuff with Twig Walkingstick, article dated 11/20/05. In the case of the birds in the 12 Days of Christmas they could be European blackbirds.

I was working on a short conversation between four birds for the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge on writing.com, I didn't use the European blackbirds in the pieces, but I did use some of the information. The prompt for the conversation called for it to be funny or amusing. I'm not sure how funny it was to others, because I haven't checked to see what reviews I have on it. The title of the conversation is "Four Calling Birds: A Short Conversation" it is in my port under "Contest Submission".

Write about Masks

7 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Tuesday, December 18, 2007 about 1:45 PM PST

Daily Writing Practice Prompt for December 18, 2007 - Write about Masks.

The mask of night hides
the beauty revealed by dawn's first light,
while the mask of day
conceals the rainbow hues of distant stars.

The masks of civilization
hides the primitive individual
that dwells within the human being.

We all wear mask to conceal
our true selves,
we wear masks because we fear;
we wear masks to hide our differences
or the conceal our sameness;
we wear masks and fear the masks removal.

NOTE: This is as far as I've gotten on this poem and I'm still not sure of a working title.

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I Dyed my hair red once

6 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Monday, December 17, 2007 about 4:20 PM PST

Daily Writing Practice Prompt for December 17, 2007 - Write about a red headed woman.

I was a red headed woman once. I dyed my dark brown hair red, actually I had someone else dye it. I went to a beauty parlor and said I wanted red hair. The beautician explained that for my hair look good red, he would have to bleach it then dye it. I said "Go ahead."

That was one of those things I did on the spur of the moment without thinking about the consequences. Only when my hair started growing out did I realize the difficulty and the expense. In order to keep my red hair I'd have to go in every four to six weeks have the roots bleach and then dyed red. At that point I realized that while I might like red hair, I didn't like the idea of having the roots bleach and then the hair dyed.

I let the hair grow out, but I wrote a poem about it. I've decided that if I want to be a red head again, I'll buy a wig. At sixty, going on sixty-one, I'm waiting for my hair to go completely gray. That way I can be a blond or a red head without doing more then going in and having it dyed without having it bleached first. That's one of the advantages of having gray hair, you can have it dyed any color you want without a lot of difficulty.

Writing in the Cold

5 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Sunday, December 16, 2007 about 4:12 PM PST

I'm writing in the cold. Perhaps it's not as cold here in Las Vegas as in Oklahoma or Colorado, but it seems cold to me. I like to get up before dawn and start my day at 4:00 AM. Lately I'm getting up at 7:00 or 8:00 AM because of the cold.

That's going to stop because if I don't get up at 4 AM I don't get anything done either writing or housework. I don't get as much done as I would like and then I stay up till "all hours of the night" (those were my grandmother's words) attempting to get everything completed.

Writing in the cold is difficult, I don't have any mittens to wear while I work at the computer. Maybe mittens isn't a good idea though because they don't let me type as fast. That sounds like a good exercise typing at the keyboard in mittens.

Tomorrow I have to be somewhere at about 8:00 AM which means getting up at 4 AM when the alarm goes off. I keep the central air unit at about 69 degrees, which is recommended by the power company. It seems cold but any higher and the bill would be worse then it is.

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Reviewing on writing.com

5 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Saturday, December 15, 2007 about 6:02 PM PST

I've did a lot of reviewing on writing.com the last couple of days. My upgraded membership is up today and I needed the giftpoints to upgrade for another month. I'm getting there, but not as fast as I'd like. I'm going back in a few minutes to do more reviews. I actually don't have that many points to acquire, but I just had to stop for a little while and do something else. So instead of writing reviews, I'm writing a blog entry. I suppose that's one way to do it.

I could go take a walk, but it's cold outside. So I think I'll hold the walk until it gets a bit warmer or maybe tomorrow. I'm going to make Mom and myself some soup in a few minutes and then hot chocolate later on. In the mean time keep writing.

Writing on a Dismal Day in Las Vegas

2 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Thursday, December 13, 2007 about 10:56 AM PST

It's a dismal day in Las Vegas. It's cloudy and chilly, there is a slight breeze and I think I hear distant thunder. All of that should work together to help me find a topic to write about.

This morning I had difficulty access one web site. At first I thought it might be the weather interfering with my Internet connection, but I just attempted to access the site again. The message I received concerned server maintenance. Therefore, the problem with that web site isn't the weather. Server maintenance is another good subject for a short story or a flash fiction piece.

Did you ever notice that in sci-fi stories when there are interplanetary ships and other equipment that use computers to run them; that server maintenance is never mentioned. All the maintenance they need is always completed when the ships are in port. The computes in those stories never seem to have down time when the ships are out of port.

Let's be realistic about computer maintenance and Murphy's Law. Let's face it equipment and technology gives us problems. Even the most well maintained items have unexpected problems. Somewhere Murphy's Law always kicks in and causes difficulties. That's why the Law was stated so precisely: "If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong and at the worst possible moment."

Maybe the weather that brings these things to mind. The last two days were dismal, that's a good description of the cloudy sky. The good thing about dismal weather is that it makes you appreciate the sunshine when it returns.

Time to Write a Christmas Poem

1 Masa'il 164 B.E. - Wednesday, December 12, 2007 about 2:43 PM PST

It's that time of year again, time to write a Christmas poem. I don't celebrate Christmas, so I don't know why I write Christmas poems. There are aspects of the season that I like and that bring back pleasant memories of my childhood. There are also things about the season that bring back unpleasant childhood memories.

I think this year I'm going to write a poem on Christmas yard art. I enjoy seeing the beautifully decorated yards at Christmas. When I was young, my grandfather always drove us around Blackwell to see the yard decorations. The decorations today are much more sophisticated then those I saw as a child, but they are no less beautiful.

I think this year I'll focus on a neighbors yard and write a poem about it. Every year he decorates the yard for his grandchildren and the decorations get more beautiful each year. I think I'll bundle up and walk down the street after dark to look at the lights. They are so beautiful and in so many different shapes.

My Grandpa Newland would love to drive around Las Vegas and look at the yards decorated for Christmas. Every time I see a yard with a Christmas theme I think of Grandpa. He enjoyed Christmas and I enjoyed Christmas when I was with Grandpa and Grandma Newland.

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Good Morning Writing World

19 Qawl 164 B.E. - Tuesday, December 11, 2007 about 8:25 AM PST

It's a beautiful, but chilly morning in Las Vegas. I've had two cups of coffee and the pain in my knee is gone. I don't think the pain leaving has anything to do with the two cups of coffee. Once I get up and moving the pain goes away for a little while. The knee bothered me yesterday, but the reason for that was climbing stairs.

I climbed two sets of stairs when I went to pay a bill. There were no elevators convenient to the stair locations. In addition, I parked by building A when I actually wanted building B, which will teach me to read the letters on the buildings. I'll know better next month.

Despite driving all over town yesterday, I did get some writing accomplished. I wrote a response to the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge on writing.com and a poem. I wrote a Haiku about changing leaves.

It's finally fall in Las Vegas. While I drove around on business yesterday (that's the only type of driving I do any more) I saw the yellow and orange leaves. It's early December and the leave are just changing here in Vegas.

Creating a Character

17 Qawl 164 B.E. - Sunday, December 9, 2007 about 1020 AM PST

When it comes to creating characters, I have few problems with the character description or personality. It's naming the character that sometimes slows me up, especially in writing flash fiction. I like to use different name or variations of the names I've used before. If I use the same name sometimes the reader confuses that character with an earlier character.

On writing.com I put my responses to the Daily Flash Fiction prompt in a collection of stories called Flashes of Lightning. None of the stories are related in any way, in fact the only thing they have is common is Flash Fiction. Naming the characters in these stories is sometimes, a problem because I want to use different names for characters in different stories.

Today I found a web site that has names and the meaning behind the names. It's called Behind the Name and it gives "the etymology and history behind first names". This is a great site for a flash fiction writer or a writer of any type. I can use the first names for main characters in flash fiction and for all my characters in short stories and novels. This is definitely a site I'm going to bookmark. I have one of the members in the yahoo journal-writing group to thank for this web site.

I Miss the Winter Constellations

16 Qawl 164 B.E. - Saturday, December 8, 2007 about 11:34 AM PST

Daily Writing Practice Prompt - Write about Winter Constellations.

I miss the winter constellations of my childhood. Growing up in Oklahoma I could go out in my grandparents front yard on a December night and see the stars. I never did learn the names of the constellations, when I went to collage I took an astronomy course. I could never associate the constellations in the sky with the way the charts revealed them.

The only constellations I ever learned to identify was the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. The rest were just a group of stars shining on a December night. Not being able to identify the winter constellations doesn't make me miss them any the less. The light pollution in and around Las Vegas prevents me from seeing the stars. Sometimes I can see Venus, but seeing the stars is a different story.

Even when I go out in my front yard and look straight up, I never see the Big Dipper or the Little Dipper. I see Venus and sometimes one of the other planets, but never the stars. I'd really love to get far enough outside the city so that I could see the stars, but with gas prices the way they are and my car needing some work it'll be a long time before I can drive that far out of Las Vegas.

Winter Constellations shine
in my childhood's black velvet sky.

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The Arctic Express

16 Qawl 164 B.E. - Friday, December 7, 2007 about 7:28 PM PST

The arctic express went through my neighborhood today. The wind bent some of the trees almost double and kicked the electricity off for an hour or two. The wind is still blowing, but not as bad as earlier in the day.

I'm a bit chilly, but that could be because I'm drinking ice water. I drink ice water winter and summer. I like my water as cold as it can possibly get without freezing. I know there is a title to a poem or story in both of these items, I'm just not sure yet how to go about it.

The Arctic Express sounds like a good title for a short story or piece of flash fiction. I've written a lot of flash fiction lately. There is a Daily Flash Fiction Challenge on writing.com I've managed to enter several day in a row this month. I believe I've missed only one day entering it. Each day a different prompt is posted and you write a story in conjunction with the prompt. The day I missed posting to the challenge, I wrote the story. I just finished it too late to enter it.

Ice Water on a Cold Day would make a good title to a poem. Growing up, my grandmother always gave us water with ice in it winter or summer. I think she did this because all our drinking water came from the kitchen faucet and the ice cubes made it taste better.

Another good title for a poem is Saying Grace, this was how my grandparents referred to the blessing said at meal time. Most of the time my grandfather said grace, but sometimes my grandmother would say the prayer. Grandma usually said grace with grandpa was working and wouldn't be home for lunch.

Morning is great for writing

14 Qawl 164 B.E. - Thursday, December 6, 2007 about 8:45 AM PST

Morning is great for writing because the day is fresh and the ideas come easier. Ideas just pop into my mind in the morning. Some of them are usable immediately, while other need a bit of work to develop. I find ideas come easier to me after prayer, especially after I've recited the Tablet of Ahmad. Other writers' have a different time to write and get ideas. Each writer has to find his or her own method of idea generation and writing time.

True I didn't get up as early this morning as I would have like, but that's all right. I can always attempt to get up earlier tomorrow. It's not that I don't wake up before dawn. The problem is I lay there focusing on the cold, early morning is cold in the desert. Early morning is cold in the house because I turn the central heat down at night.

Since I'm going to continue turning the heat down at night, I have to find another method to get myself up of a morning. The method I'm using now, which is to have the clock radio on a talk station. The host of the show is a man, a male voice in a house full of women normally gets me up, but not any more. I think I'll change the station and try something else for a while.

If I get up before dawn I can write more and easier. There are less distraction getting up before dawn. Early mornings before dawn seem a more spiritual time, more tranquil. If I have to I can write anytime of day, but it's easier to write in the morning.

Wednesday, Midweek Reflections

14 Qawl 164 B.E. - Wednesday, December 5, 2007 about 5:51 PM PST

Wednesday is midweek reflections day on the yahoo journal writing group I'm a member of. The exercise is to sit down and write in your journal about what happened so far this week. I like this exercise because it allows me to look back at the three proceeding days and find lessons learned. I begin each paragraph in the exercise with "So Far this week..."

So far this week I've learned never to question that God answers prayers. Sometimes those answers come in a miraculous way, but most of the time they occur through ordinary happenings. Never question that prayers receive answers because when you do you prevent yourself from seeing the answer.

So far this week I've realized that I can't do everything. When I have to do more then normal the idea is to do what can be done in a day and finish the rest the following day. Everything eventually gets, done and if it don't, what will the effect be in say 10,000 years.

So far this week I've learned to let go and let God. One of those irritating sayings that everyone gives you at sometime. Even if they don't use those words we know the paraphrase for those words and hear the phrase in our minds rather than the words said.

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Today is Tuesday, December 4, 2007

12 Qawl 164 B.E. - Tuesday, December 4, 2007 about 7:23 AM PST

Today is Tuesday, December 4, 2007, but for some odd reason I woke up this morning thinking it was the 5th of December. Yesterday, was Monday, December 3, but I woke up thinking it was the 4th. I suppose it's going to be this way the rest of the week. I'll be a day ahead all week long. I must admit that is a good plot for a short story or flash fiction piece.

In the story the main character would wake up thinking it was the next day, he or she (I haven't decided which would be better for the character or the story) would go to the day's first appointment and then find out it wasn't the next day at all. That's as far as I've gotten on this idea. Once the character arrived at the appointment, then what would happen. That is an interesting question.

I've never been a day early for an appointment. I have been several hours early for an appointment. A couple of months ago Mom had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon and I thought it was in the morning, so we went. The receptionist didn't tell us any different and we waited in the office until the got us in. The doctor told us when we got in the office. I don't know how I got the appointment written down wrong, stress I guess. Now you know what stress can do.

I could use that experience in the story. The character gets to the appointment and no one tells him/her of the mistake until after the appointment is over, but by that time the character has missed another appointment. The more I think about this the better I like it. There a a lot of ways to approach this type of story. I still have to figure out a twist to the ending (among other things). I'm not sure I could take the character through an entire week of something like that, but I could do a single day or a portion of a day.

Writing Related Items I'd like for my birthday

11 Qawl 164 B.E. - Sunday, December 2, 2007 about 6:00 PM PST

My birthday is December 24, there are nineteen writing related items I would like.

1. A Premium membership on writing.com
2. A set of four colored ink pens with blue, purple, black and green ink
3. A new leather bound pen and ink journal
4. My own web site with a .com after the name
5. The complete works of H.P. Lovecraft
6. A notebook computer
7. A digital camera to photo graph stuff for my blog
8. A voice activated tape recorder to record my ideas
9. A printer that has scanner and fax capabilities
10. A $100 gas card so that I can drive out of Las Vegas and look at the stars (this has to do with writing poems)
11. DSL Internet hook-up this makes it easier to use tab browsing without loosing the Internet connection
12. A vacation to a writers' conference
13. An office that isn't in my living room
14. Another telephone line into the house
15. A central air unit that is big enough to keep the entire house warm without raising the electric bill (writing in a warm house would be nice for a change)
16. Roses in my front and back yard instead of oleanders (roses don't make me sneeze and it's easier to write on the patio or in the front yard if I'm not sneezing)
17. Less spam in my in box and junk mail folder (this will give me more time for writing)
18. A house that cleans itself (this has to do with more time for writing)
19. A new office chair for my computer desk (the one I have was used when I got it and it's about had all the use it can take without falling apart)

The proper way to refuse an invitation

10 Qawl 164 B.E. - Saturday, December 1, 2007 about 5:00 PM PST

Daily writing practice prompt for 12/1/07: Write about an invitation refused.

"There are two ways to refuse an invitation," said Lisa studying the wedding invitation in her right hand. "This one is for your Aunt Rita's wedding," she glanced at Gina, who lay in her bassinet giggling at her mothers voice. "We, of course, are not going and we're not sending a gift. At least, not a wrapped expensive gift."

Laying the invitation on the desk, Lisa reach over and stroked her daughter's baldhead. "How do I refuse this invitation, without insulting your aunt and having to send an expensive gift?"

The doorbell ring and picking up the baby, Lisa went to the door. Looking through the peephole, she smiled when she saw the UPS delivery man. Opening the door, she signed for the packaging and had him sit in inside the front door.

"It's for you sweet one, it's from your gramma and granpa."

Going back to the desk, she lay the baby down and pick up a fountain pen. "I think I'll tell your Aunt that we are going to my high school reunion. The reunion is across the country from your Aunts wedding and I don't have to deal with question concerning your father's release."

NOTE: This is a short example of Flash Fiction. I think I need more conflict and a bit more description.