Mini-Writing Contest — July 2 – July 5
Hey everyone! Every Wednesday during the months of July and August, there will be a weekly mini-writing contest happening right here. This will be your chance to explore different kinds of creative writing techniques and share your creativity for a chance to win a weekly prize. So, let's give it a go, shall we? Here's Mini-Writing Contest Number One. 🙂
Using the 20 words listed below, write an original short story of between 250 to 300 words.
smuggle
goblet
periwinkle
spiral
hibernate
kettle
zipper
crackle
knot-hole
wizard
cicada
crackle
pendulum
dapple
passage
dollop
snippet
scroll
hubcap
lickety-split
Let's see what kinds of stories you can create. Have fun!
Winners will be announced on July 5.
Personal information on this form is collected under the authority of the Public Libraries Act, s.20 (a) and (d) and will be used to administer the Library's Word Out contest. Questions about the collection or management of personal information should be directed to Thomas Krzyzanowski Service Specialist – Web, 789 Yonge Street, 416-393-7519.
19 thoughts on “Mini-Writing Contest — July 2 – July 5”
hi
where do we post the essay?
@Valentina – right in this comment thread!
Elisa unraveled the scroll and went down the list. Once she was satisfied that everything she needs were inside her basket, she covered it with a hubcap, an artifact from the Normal World. Then she rolled up the scroll and gazed at the long spiral at one end, recounting her collection process on the dappled grounds. The periwinkle was easy enough to find in the gardens of the School, which contained every type of flower there is and was. Of course, she had to smuggle the bloom out under her robe, since picking the flowers was prohibited. The bar-and-pendulum wasn’t hard to acquire either—she simply crafted a set from a piece of scrap wood with a knot-hole. For the zipper, Elisa had to slip into the Normal World, where she found one on a castaway coat.The real trouble came with the hibernating cicada. Just what can’the Students need this for? And it had to be a hibernating one. It was the middle of summer, and cicada song seemed to taunt her everywhere she goes. In the end, she caught a surface one and put it under a coma spell. If the Wizard Students were going to toy with her, she would be right back at them. Elisa picked up her basket and entered the Hall. She looked sadly at the polished kettle and goblet placed close to the crackling fire. Then at the dollops and snippets of delicacies that rested on plates everywhere. Never enough for her, however. She wanted to just grab something and take off lickety-split, but experience told her that she would be caught. She veered towards the Office with her basket and the scroll, looking very vulnerable in the dim torchlight of the servants’corridor.
I, Marianne Scandele am a thief. Not your typical run of the mill pickpocket. Oh no, I am the best of the best, and only the rich can afford me. Why would the rich need someone to steal something for them if they have the money? Well, they have a reputation to hold up. They don’t want their fetishes known to the world so they resort to thieves like me.
My current assignment is from the rich and pompous Ernie McMillian; I am to steal the periwinkle dabbled goblet, which is hidden in the Museum of Lost and Extraordinary Artifacts. According to McMillian, it belonged to a wizard who had extraordinary powers. He was able to turn a cicada into a kettle with a simple “CRACKLE” from his spiral shaped wand. However, his powers were physically draining; he would have to hibernate for months. The last time he did, he never woke up.
No matter to me, I just have to steal the goblet and get back home lickety-split.
After writing the directions to the museum on my scroll (yes I use a scroll, I am a professional am I not?), I went into my secret passage. It can only be accessed by climbing inside a knot-hole and using a hubcap to roll myself to the bottom. Immediately, I could hear snippets of conversation and I halted. With my heart beating like a pendulum I listened attentively and once the words were clear I rolled my eyes; just some tourists. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I noticed there were great dollops of mud. I cringed. I definitely needed to raise my fee.
Well, here I go.
A family of periwinkles spiralled haplessly in a concoction. Green oozed from the lips of the goblet as a pinch of salt and a dice of sugar fell in. Within moments, the surface was engulfed in crackling blue flames. The wizard grinned triumphantly, creasing his face deeply like drawing apart dusty curtains.
“It is done!” he howled with his aged and coarse voice. “The Crackling Lock is complete!”
Just then, something scuffled from within the dark passage.
“Who’s there?” the wizard cried. From the shadows, a stout and clumpy figure emerged. The wizard saw his harsh grey skin was dappled with dollops of warts and rocks, but his eyes shone like heavy emerald pendulums.
“Fear not Hubcap, it is only I, your meager peer.”
“You are neither meager nor my peer, Lickety-Split.” Lickety laughed a boar from his goblin gizzards.
“I see you have not changed Hubcap. Not a snippet of humor from your gut or fingered flippers. And frowning like that will not cure you of your aching knot-hole. Or as your kind understands it – your damaged pride?” Hubcap rashly turned back to his goblet, head burning like an impatient kettle. Beside the Lock, he saw that a cicada had fallen dead.
“And what brings such a beastly haggard out from his hibernation?” the wizard hissed.
“The Scroll of Alcarta,” the goblin smugly replied. Hubcap quickly glared over his shoulder to see a sharky grin, teeth zippered across the countenance of an underworld creature. And in his thick paws was a piece of rolled parchment. “Freshly smuggled from the Silver Cellar.” The wizard gazed nervously.
“What do you want?”
“The Lock,” he uttered gruffly. Lickety’s emeralds billowed coal black in their sockets. “Give me reaper’s drink, and I will give you the spells of the gods.”
Hi,
You ‘crackle’ twice. Do I use it two times, or is that a typo? Thanks in advance!
Sorry, I mean you wrote ‘crackle’ twice.
😛
🙂
Somewhere along the east coast, there was a town called Cicada Passage. It was home to a mayor named Mr Lickety-Split and a wizard known as Dapple Periwinkle. These two men were rivals, and they have been fighting over who controls the town. The wizard wants to use fire to make the town hall pop and crackle to the ground. The mayor wants to get a huge dollop of water and flood the town so the wizard can be eradicated from the town once and for all.
Then one day something unimaginable happened. Both the mayor and the wizard had disappeared. The townsfolk were stuck in a knot hole with questions? Why did they disappear? Where did they hibernate to? Those questions were remained unanswered for many months…
On a cold, winter day in early january, a wandering traveller bought a kettle for himself. This guy found in the kettle a scroll with a message.
“Please help us. We were trapped by the spiral dragon at his cave on top of pendulum peak.”
This was a cry for help from the mayor and the wizard. The traveller then zipped his zipper up on his coat and he drove his car to the mountain, but one of the hubcaps fell off his car. The traveller didn’t care, and he drove right to Pendulum without incident. When he reached the mountain, he climbed up, and as he climbed up, he had some creepy visions. Snippets of what happened to the mayor and the wizard. Then it was clear. His visions had told him that the mayor was smuggled away by the wizard and that he wanted him to drink a goblet of corrupted milk, so he could turn evil. He made it to the summit, but it was too late… TBC
Would it be alright if prefixes and other forms of the words were used? ex. hibernate becomes hibernates or hibernating.
Once, twice the pendulum swings. Tick-tock goes the grandfather clock. You peek into the kitchen passage and you see her fussing about.
“I’ll be out in a lickety-split!” she yells.
As you proceed back to your seat, the wooden planks crackle beneath your feet. It’s an old house. She doesn’t have much visitors-in fact she never had any. She never comes out either. It is like she’s in permanent hibernation. You’ve heard some snippets of rumors about her. Some say she’s a wizard of some sort. You’ve come here to prove them wrong.
However, the dappled green frog that’s ribbiting away in the corner does not seem to help your cause. You walk over to her wooden bookcase with a large knot hole in the front. But when you open the door much to your surprise, there are no books! The shelves are filled with jars! Jars filled with scrolls, jars filled with powder. Then you realize one of the jars is filled with dead cicada! You slam the door shut and rush back to your seat. You glance back; maybe it’s not too late to make an escape. But just as you finish that thought, she floats into the room carrying a sliver tray. On top of the tray is a kettle, a small sac, a goblet and vase filled with purple periwinkles. As she approaches you with your drink, you notice it is not being served on a sliver tray, but rather a sliver hubcap! “Reuse, recycle and reduce!” She chirps in as she sees you eyeing her hubcap. You politely accept the goblet of coffee.
“Wait! You must take sugar with that.” She picks up the little sac and opens it by the zipper.
“This is the best sugar you’ll find around here. I had to smuggle it to get it.” She drops a great dollop of sugar into the cup and beings to artistically create a spiral.
She seemed too sweet to be a wizard. You decide to give her a chance.
“Please, Detective Landy, have a seat. Out with it! Just who is the mastermind who managed to smuggle the precious periwinkle goblet and kettle through the spiral passage under the Queen’s palace?” enquired Inspector Henry as he slung his jacket on his chair.
“Well, Inspector,” explained the detective as he helped himself to a dollop of pudding, “it’s really quite simple. Last Sunday, at 11:45 a.m., Her Royal Highness reportedly heard a noise which she described as a ‘crackle.’”
“That’s right! I was at the library completing a case report on an old scroll around noon when I received your call an hour later,” said Inspector Henry.
“This crackle sound seemed to be coming from the cicada around the knot-hole in the tree outside her palace. I took off lickety-split across the yard toward the source of the noise. The perpetrator had unintentionally left evidence there. A hubcap and a zipper were found near the entrance to the underground passage.” Landy continued.
“That’s wizard! I’ll inform the Queen that she no longer needs to hibernate in the comfort of her guards!” exclaimed the Inspector as he hastily stood up.
“Not so fast! As I gather, the Queen’s pendulum clock was in fact not working,” said Detective Landy, glancing at the clock, whose hands were still affixed at 11:45. “For at that time, you were not where you claimed to be. As it so happens, your car was the only one missing a hubcap upon search. Your jacket has had an identical zipper snagged from its left pocket. And both the zipper and your jacket have been stained with a dapple of an identical substance – chocolate pudding.”
“Yet, the main snippet of evidence implicating you as the culprit was the fact that… THE LIBRARY ISN’T OPEN ON SUNDAYS! Arrest him!”
No matter how much I try, I can never escape him. Not even when he’s hibernating—er, sleeping. Oh, sure, he’ll give me a head start, and I’ll manage to find a new passage way in this castle, and I’ll throw open the final door (once it was a knot-hole), hoping to hear a cicada again, or see a dappled animal. But the last door always leads my back to my cell, and he’s always there; fire will crackle in the hearth, the kettle will be singing, and he’ll have set a table for two. Just for us. He’ll applaud my efforts to solve his puzzle. I used to scream and fight when he patronized me. Later on I realized how foolish I appeared, so I began making passive aggressive comments. Mature, I know. I wish I could toss him into the fire, and watch him crackle with the logs. Most days he brings a gift to reward my fruitless attempts. I’ve gathered many trinkets: a plastic goblet, a pendulum, a hubcap, a zipper, or even a dollop of ice-cream. I know he’s hoping to me spiral into insanity; each present is a reminder of my home on earth. He’ll joke about how I’m supposed to return home lickety-split, and Ill spill my periwinkle coloured tea on him ‘accidentally’. That’s always when he disappears. What, did you think a human managed to capture me? I’d be out of here in no time if some mortal wanted to put me up to his mind tricks. This man is a wizard, finest in the land. Little does he know that I have a few of my own magic tricks: a snippet of my future on an ancient scroll, and he’s not going to like how I will be smuggled out soon.
“The Moon is a Lonely Partner”
The fire below the kettle crackles like a pendulum, metered and sure. The wizard pours the liquid into a goblet, moves it in a spiral motion, and adds a dollop of powder, beautiful but deadly. He sets the goblet down and gazes at the moon, thinking of if he would care. Of if she would care. How it would feel. One minute after he drinks it, he feels a headache. Three minutes after, his heart is collapsing. Five minutes after, he is dead. He raises the goblet and toasts the moon. He is ready.
There is a stunning cicada glistening on the hubcap. She notices it immediately. In her downward spiral of a life, even a criminal has a sense of beauty. She’s been hibernating for days after the smuggle. Before, she felt as strong as she was fast, and she was fast. She won all the fair-races when she was little, and now, she feels as dawdling and insignificant as the insect beside her. The moon glistens, dappling the bug with velvety light. The contrast of the periwinkle shell and the oxidised metal reminds her constantly of her cowardice. ‘You’ve waited a lifetime to do this,’ she thinks. ‘And now, you’ve gone soft. Because of him.’ She reaches in the knot-hole and fingers the parchment. Apparen’tly, it’s just a passage from book. But she knows the truth. It’s a snippet of her old life, with him. She runs lickety-split out of the woods, her jacket zipper flying. She approaches the cabin and knocks. She is ready.
Someone knocks on the wizard’s door. He opens it and she is there. Her voice is quiet when she speaks. ‘Father.’ She throws the scroll in the hearth and it burns like the fire inside her. She is ready to run again.
He comes into consciousness by the loud shrill of the cicada. It was still dark outside; but having lost all inclination of falling asleep again, he undid the zipper of his tent and stepped out into the cool predawn air. Glancing about, it seemed very quiet and still, but he did not need the pendulum of the clock to inform him that the promise of dawn would be soon fulfilled and all wildlife will resume pace from its nightly hibernation. He soon busies himself with the task of relighting his camp fire and replacing the water in his kettle. The new snippet of fire began to spread its flames as it greedily fed on the dried wood the camper had collected from the base of knot-holed trees surrounding the campsite. Soon, the familiar crackle of the campfire was heard and new tendrils of smoke began to delicately spiral upwards.
Having been satisfied with the quality of his new fire, he turns to retrieve his partially cracked coffee mug from a pile of his equipment supplies. As he turned, however, his periphery caught site of a small creature smuggling something in a lickety-split fashion before disappearing behind the hubcap of his trusted jeep. Unaware of his observer, the creature once again dared out into the open and hurried down a small passage sprinkled with periwinkle flowers. Unconcerned with the creature’s suspicious behaviour, and having finished dolloping sugar into his now ready coffee, the camper began his study of the lightening sky, which was now dappled with varying colours that marked the shy yet beautiful approach of the sun.
In his world, scientists believed that their studies and observations were merely based on the wonders within nature. However, he was convinced that nature held more than just wonders—it held magic. He sometimes liked to fancy the idea of wizards within other dimensions, with goblets in hand and scrolls lying about, studying and observing the magic that is yet unknown to the human race.
Tic, tock, tic, tock, the pendulum of my grandfather clock swings back and forth… Think… think.. I only have about an hour to think of a passage to write, let alone submit it.. Have you ever had that moment of writer’s block just when you need creativity the most? Who do people take me for? A writing wizard that can get inspiration at the glance of a magical scroll? I need inspiration. I should probably put the kettle on, and make myself some nice strong black tea, it usually inspires me. You know, the weirdest things can give me inspiration, for example, black tea can’t inspire me unless I drink it in my favorite periwinkle goblet. I also remember how I was trying to write a book about a green flamingo, but I had no idea how the plot should go, but then one day, I saw how a man was replacing the hubcap of his car, and then it hit me. (Not the hubcap) . Look at me procrastinating at a time like this! I guess I should go outside for some inspiration. As I put my white sweater on with the broken zipper on it, I hear a cicada chirping outside my window. As I walk around the yard, I see a spiral wind spinner slowly spin in the air. It’s getting darker, and I start hearing campfires crackling. As I walk further I see a squirrel hiding food in a nearby knot-hole. All this is very beautiful, but none of this inspires me now. Maybe I should try reading snippets of some other people’s stories and possibly smuggling a few ideas here and there. As I dollop some sugar into my tea, I start realizing that my time to write is scarce, and that if I wanted to submit something, I have to start writing lickety-split! It’s getting more and more late, and I’m getting more and more tired. As I fight myself to not fall asleep, My wrist suddenly collapses and makes me spill my tea all over my sweater, causing it to be all dappled. The room in becomes silent except for the crackling sound of crumpling paper. I really jus want to fall asleep and hibernate, but I need to finish writing this story.
Where are the winners announced…?
Sorry for not posting before now, but here are the details you’ve been waiting for…
The winners for last week’s Mini-Writing Contest are M. and Lukia.
Congratulations and thanks to everyone for some excellent submissions. 🙂