This post should have come out yesterday but my head refused to deliver. I had not one creative thought to be found. Indeed I had no thought at all. Where could I get my inspiration from. I half heartedly looked at subjects that might interest me on the web – but none created that little spark that set my fingers flying across the keyboard. I read some poetry and some daily thoughts but again – nothing. Wednesday’s post would have to wait.
Today I again sat and stared at my blank sheet feeling no more inspired than I did yesterday. I determined that I would just post my Flower of the Day for Cee’s FOTD challenge. A Bougainvillea. My favourites are the red and normally the purples do little for me but this one has a vibrancy about it that I enjoy.
Suddenly, from nowhere, came a germ of an idea as a response to Carrot Ranch’s 99 word prompt. So tiny it needed nurturing. A murder story no less written in the vernacular of the 1949 Californian Gold Rush days. Agatha Christie was going to eat her heart out.
I wish (but that was the last challenge). Perhaps I was being too ambitious. No. That creative block was back in full swing until I again thought Agatha Christie and how she may have overcome it (and really I doubt that she ever had writers block so this is pure literary fabrication.)
Striking Gold
Agatha C clutched the keys to 1849 Lode Street in one hand and some documents in the other. “Finally it’s mine. Time for pay dirt,” she muttered, throwing the keys and contract onto the bench. She smiled as she unfolded the other document carefully. The removalists would bring the necessary tools.
Later she paced exactly eighteen steps from the back gate and forty nine steps from the easterly fence and started digging, hitting metal within minutes. “I’ve struck gold” she thought. Opening the metal box she pored through the manuscripts she’d written twenty years before. This time they’d sell.
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 
Love the bougainvillia and the tale
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Thanks Andrew.
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Very clever, Irene! Your little gray cells were NOT on a holiday!
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LOL Thank you Noelle.
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I have always adored Bougainvillea. They are always so happy looking to me. A wall of flowers. 😀 😀
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They make me think summer and tropical fun so I agree Cee. Sorry I forgot yesterday.
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Happens to the best of us. I’ll send out a reminder a day before the call this week. 😀
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Thanks Cee.
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Good to see you unblocked. Sometimes it is best to ignore the block, walk away and eventually there’s a way over it. Or under it. Or around it.
You may or may not get back to the 1849 California Gold Rush murder mystery, but what you have is gold. Glad she saved those manuscripts until the time was right. Clever word play too!
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Thanks D. I think I am needing increasingly more time to let my head do its thing with coming up with creative responses or thoughts full stop. A sign of age and possibly preoccupation. Thanks for your kind comments – they showed me I was successful at what I attempted to do.
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And this is why we push through our writer’s blocks — there’s gold in them words, Irene! Not only did you find an original use for “49” but you also brought Agatha Christie to life through your vividly imagined response to her own perseverence. Lovely photo!
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Thanks Charli. I made one glaring error which I corrected both nineteens have now become 18. I guess 1949 is now starting to seem a long time ago.
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It does seem like a long time ago!
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Very creative use of the prompt, Irene, especially bringing in the writer’s (frustrating) life. PS – I think she might have been ‘poring’ through her manuscripts, not raining on them. 😉
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Thanks Doug. You are of course right and thank you for picking me up on what becomes a glaring inexcusable spelling error. Now changed. I appreciate it.
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Love it, Irene. Sometimes we have to give those prompts a litttle time.
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Thanks Anne. Getting back into creativity I’m finding harder than I expected. A matter of use it or lose it and perhaps i have lost it or at the very least need more time than I used to.
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Well, this story shows you haven’t lost it. I’m sure the full capacity will return.
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LOL. Thank you Anne. Time will tell and keeping the fingers crossed.
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Great story, Irene. I’m pleased you shifted that block and dug the gold.
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Haha. thanks Norah. Nice to see you.
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