#writersplaceprompt

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Writers Place prompt

This week’s Writers Place prompt:

“To one who is accustomed to thinking a lot, every new thought that he hears or reads about immediately appears as a link in a chain.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

Tag your responses with #writersplaceprompt.

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Writers Place prompt: Making it Count

Today's prompt, from the dry-erase board at the Writers Place, is:

Today, we’re thinking about the use of numbers, what they add as well as what they subtract. We’re trying to capture both the numeration and the value. 

Head on by, enjoy the music, and share what comes up by tagging it #writersplaceprompt

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Writers Place prompt: City Livin'

Today's Writers Place Prompt (from here), is:

Today, we’re thinking about being caught in a cycle of approach and avoidance, how calm and busy both have an allure, familiar and adventure, joining and withdrawing, retreat and attack.

Share what you might about these things, tag 'em with #writersplaceprompt so we can share them.

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100% Success!

It would be foolish to think that everyone who participates in this week's Writers Place prompt will get featured, but everyone so far (portersnotebook) has. What can we do but follow our dreams?

This week's prompt (from here) is:

Today we’re thinking about what the birds have to say to us, and where they learned their songs. We’re wondering how long the song has been the same, and if it could be resolved into an original song, what would it sound like, and what would it inspire?

If this inspires you, put your thoughts together and tag it #writersplaceprompt, or come back again next week for another one (yes, likely just as ponderous.).

[portersnotebook]

When Pigeon Was a Thief of Songs

"Pigeon, you thieving prick!" Peacock screamed. Well. He wanted to scream, but all that came out was a sprinkle of whispers and some coughing. Somebody had stolen Peacock's song. Pigeon had a habit of this sorta shit. He made off with Crow and Magpie's songs, a neat trick considering how clever those two are, but Pigeon is so soft and stupid-looking that folks forget to take him serious. He returned Crow and Magpie's songs, but on his way he dropped them in the dirt and stepped on them a few times. Could have been spite, could have been clumsiness. They used to be sweet and now they're… Well, you know. Normally, something like this happens to somebody like Peacock and nobody gives a shit. He can't even fly, right? But Peacock is the bimbo diva of the bird world. Being pretty and arrogant's what got him permanently grounded in the first place. He made such a fucking nuisance of himself that Eagle noticed and got involved. Then the other raptors got in on the action, all of them sitting around sharpening their talons. Pretty soon Pigeon was on everybody's menu. Eagle put out the word: Pigeon, give back Peacock's voice so he stops wheezing around all over the place and we'll let you live. Pigeon's not suicidal so he comes out with Peacock's song, but some last-minute reluctance turns it into a tugging match. When Peacock gets the song back it's stretched out and warped. And Peacock goes birdshit. His song is now the most annoying thing ever heard, and Eagle's cowering, actually cowering, with his wings covering his head. The Crow, Magpie and Raven are laughing and wincing. Eagle shouts for everybody to shut the fuck up, but Peacock won't be silenced, Peacock wants retribution. Eagle grabs Pigeon and blunts his throat, screams out his ears. Now Pigeon's partially deaf and his coo is just a little thing. While Pigeon is staggering around trying to get his shit together, Eagle banishes him to the city. That's why, to this day, pigeons always roost in such tight groups. Their song's have about as much power as a strong fart and they're stone deaf. It was a tainted victory for Peacock. Pretty as he is, nobody can stand to talk to him for long, not with a song like that.

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Writers Place prompt

Starting today, I'll be curating a weekly prompt out of the Writers Place. Come on by and set a while. I'll reblog any response tagged writersplaceprompt. See you there.

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Sunday at the Writers Place -- Feathered Friends

[Today’s prompt below in bold. Join in as you are led, and tag it #writersplaceprompt. I’m looking forward to what you have to share.]

The waking comes at its own pace today, the world gradually taking form in your consciousness. The first thing that dawns on you is a composition of twitters and trills, long sustains, brief high notes; all shaping the silence. The one close song directs your ear to the one behind it, and the many behind that. The fullness of the call of song guides you to blink in the first foggy flashes of light. Too soon. You shift and roll and stretch, settle in to find a more comfortable position. Eyes closed but still awake you let your mind fill with the songs, trying but not quite able to take it all in as one song. Unmeasured time passes. You roll again and find the clock. It’s earlier than you thought. It seemed like you’d been listening a long time, that you might even have drifted back out and in to sleep with it. You wonder how long this song has gone on, today and before. It’s too early to head out yet. You get yourself a glass of water and sit by the window with your notebook. You open to one unfinished piece and then another, and finally to a blank page. You fumble with the pen in your hand waiting for the thoughts to align. You take a drink, and as you do a bird lands on the railing outside the window. You tell yourself that it’s not you it’s looking at and speaking to, but only its own reflection. All the same you hold still and pay attention, waiting for your turn to speak. You finish your water and decide there’s no reason to wait, you might as well head over to the Place. The bird is back on the railing (still there? another one?) as you step out. “See you later,” you say, and it chirps and flies off. There are birds sitting together on the wire across the street, and birds flitting down from the trees to poke at the ground, flying back up as you approach. One jumps up into the air just ahead of you, glides a few strides further on and waits to jump again. The song is gone, you think to yourself for a moment, but then, when you listen for it, it is there. Perhaps it is always there. You settle in to a booth at the Place and take out your notebook. The conversations and incidental sounds are apparent to you this morning. You hear your waitress laugh like a series of bright clear notes. You hear Chef whistling along to the music. You wonder how long this song has gone on.

Today we’re thinking about what the birds have to say to us, and where they learned their songs. We’re wondering how long the song has been the same, and if it could be resolved into an original song, what would it sound like, and what would it inspire? We’ve got the jukebox filled with songs by and of birds. If your favorite is missing, just make a request.

Blackbird: Song; Mockingbird/Ryan Adams and The Cardinals; Blackbird/Sarah McLachlin; I’ll Be Yr Bird/M. Ward; Birds Of Belfast/Kris Delmhorst; Songbird/Fleetwood Mac; Fly Like An Eagle/Steve Miller Band; A Bird Flies Out/Deb Talan; Talking Bird/Death Cab For Cutie; Meadowlarks/Fleet Foxes; Little Wing/Jimi Hendrix; Some Birds/Redbird; Birds of a Feather/The Civil Wars; Flightless Bird, American Mouth/Iron And Wine; Winter Birds/Ray LaMontagne; Little Bird/Annie Lennox; ol Blackbird/The Moondoggies; Wings Of A Dove/Madness; The Lark In The Clear Air/The Chieftans; Little Bird/Jonatha Brooke; Blue Bird/Lindi Ortega; Beautiful Bird/Travis; Blackbirds/Erin McKeown; Birds Of Paradise/Pretenders; 3 Birds/The Dead Weather; Ladybird/XTC; Birds and the Bees/the bird and the bee; Two Doves/Dirty Projectors; Yellow Bird/Chris Isaak; Strange Meadow Lark/The Dave Brubeck Quartet; Bird/Indians; Birds/Chef’special; Free Bird/Lynyrd Skynyrd; Skylark: Single Skylark; Birdhouse In Your Soul/They Might Be Giants; The Bird/The Time; When Doves Cry/Prince; Three Little Birds/Bob Marley & The Wailers; Birds Of The High Arctic/David Gray; Little Bird/Ed Sheeran; I’m Like A Bird/Nelly Furtado; Strange Birds/Birdy; Up With the Birds/Coldplay; Put Your Records On/Corinne Bailey Rae; Song Of The Caged Bird/Lindsey Stirling; Hummingbird/Kris Delmhorst; Hummingbird/Wilco; Of Moons, Birds & Monsters/MGMT; Spirit Bird/Xavier Rudd; Fragile Bird/City and Colour; Yellow Bird/Pretty Lights; Boats & Birds/Gregory and the Hawk; Two Birds/Regina Spektor; Birdsong/Cattle & Cane; Little Bird/The White Stripes; Bird Song/Florence + The Machine; Little Bird, Little Bird/Elizabeth Mitchell; Rare Bird Alert/Steve Martin, Steep Canyon Rangers; Pretty Bird/Jenny Lewis; Songbird/Rosie Thomas; Bird On Broken Wing/The Felice Brothers; Birds/Kopecky Family Band; Surfin’ Bird/The Trashmen; Fly Like A Bird/Mariah Carey; Humming Bird/Alex Claire; Crazy Bird/Wild Child; Redbird/Redbird; Some Birds/Anne Murray; Some Birds/Leo Kottke; Jockey Full Of Bourbon/Tom Waits; Robin: Song in Spring; I Was An Eagle/Laura Marling; Birds Flew Backwards/Doves; Hummingbird/The Weepies; The Littlest Birds/The Be Good Tanyas; Lazy Bird/John Coltrane; Brid On The Wire/Madeleine Peyroux; Bird Song/Grateful Dead; Blue Bird Blues/John Lee Hooker; Blackbird/Fat Freddy’s Drop; Blackbird Chain/Beck; Where Eagles Dare/Misfits; Rockin’ Robin/Michael Jackson; Black-Dove (January)/Tori Amos; Songbird/Oasis; Lark/Josh Ritter; Free As A Bird/Re Beatles; Blackbird/Paul McCartney, Wings; Hummingbird/Seals and Crofts; Noah’s Dove/10,000 Maniacs; Birds/Elton John; Chant De L’alouette/Historical Music Coalition; Song Bird/Eva Cassidy; Bluejays And Cardinals/The Mountain Goats; Bluejays And Sunnydays/Steve Smith; Close To You/Carpenters; Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies/Redbird; Nightingale: Song