C. Lee McKenzie

Young Adult and Middle Grade Author

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Another Wordy Wednesday

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This month I wanted to do something a little different, so I offered to come up with Words For Wednesday, and I’ve enjoyed the new visitors and their creative stories. I hope my regulars will find this a fun departure. Some have already jumped in and written some short, shorts using the prompts. They’ve all been fun to read. So here we go again.

Words for Wednesday

Here’s what Elephant’s Child writes to explain the meme: “Essentially the aim is to encourage us to write. Each week we are given a choice of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music, or an image. What we do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, or a poem… We can use some or all of the prompts, and mixing and matching is encouraged.” Ready. Set. Go!

SweetheartMarried
SuccotashLately
Semi-stableDiet
SolaceDenied
SingularlySquash
SolutionUrban
Shattered by C. Lee McKenzie
AMAZON . B&N . SMASHWORDS . EVERNIGHT TEEN

I’ve been watching the Olympics, and as usual, am in awe of what athletes from around the world have achieved. When I came up with the idea for Shattered, it was during a winter Olympic season, and I started with a question. What if you’d trained most of your life for a chance to compete for the Gold, and then something happened that denied you your one opportunity?

There are so many ways this story could have played out, but I chose to write about a girl who must not only deal with a plan-altering event but also with a life-altering one. Fortunately for my heroine, she turned out to be one tough and resilient woman.

EXCERPT: Libby’s mom delivers the tragic news.

Mom swiped at both cheeks, then between tight lips, whispered, “Libby, you can’t ski in the games.”

I knew hearts didn’t stop beating until you died, yet I was certain mine had just stuttered to a halt. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs refused to expand. My throat went dry. I’d planned most of my life for this one year. I’d worked out, built my strength, gone to ski camps, kept at it until I’d made it through the selection process—until I’d almost made the US Olympic slalom team. I had my passport. I’d packed my bags weeks ago. Now, my mother was telling me I couldn’t do what I’d lived for all these years?

EXCERPT: Libby’s first lesson on an adaptive ski.

Mack stood behind me and pushed me across to where instructors were giving new skiers lessons on Franklin Hill.

The upside was that I wasn’t staring down a steep slope. The downside was that I wasn’t staring down a steep slope. I’d stopped skiing on Franklin Hill when I was eight.

“We start here, Libby, but I have a feeling we’re going to be moving on real quick all the way to Stover’s Mountain. You’ve got the skills, so I know you’re going to be one fast learner on this new equipment.”
I wished I felt as confident as he did.

Mack held onto the back of the ski and shoved off, skiing behind me. Panic fluttered inside my chest when I started down the gentle white hill. I’d done this before, but on two skis when I’d been a kid. My dad used to stand me between his knees and zig-zag all the way to the bottom. Now here I was back starting at stage one with someone showing me how to ski. I had to learn a whole new way of doing this. I was a beginner again.

Quote of the Week: “A writer gets to live yet another life every time he or she creates a new story.”
― Pawan Mishra

Comments

  2. I’ve used all the words in my To Lima Beans or Not that is the Question.

    Lately I’ve been taking solace in my kitchen more than usual, not that my hubby isn’t a sweetheart, he’s just a bit cranky having to plow snow when he’d rather be fishing. But mostly, he dislikes our family’s recent lima bean debate. So, taking solace and baking being my perfect escape, you can say it’s my solution to keep from breaking dishes that I may want to use again when the environment around here returns to semi-stable instead of all-out war. Lima beans are a big deal between my hubby an urban chef and my own southern background as both of us are married to our own traditions. Singularly I’ve failed to squash our debate over deleting lima beans from my Southern Succotash recipe. It seems a few of his family members are stuck on their preferred diets and vegetable choices and each has denied ever taking part in requesting lima beans be deleted from my Southern Style Succotash dish. So, here’s my offer to them all, it’s lima beans or jellybeans you decide.

  3. A short piece that I hope others find humorous:

    A succotash and squash diet, my Sweetheart ordered. Steak and ice cream was my solution to my semi-stable stomach, a solution she denied. Lately, she wanted to become married, but I headed off to lose myself and find solace in the urban life.

    I’ve watched some of the olympics, mainly skiing, which I also enjoy. But it almost wrong with the politics behind it all.

    • I had commented on most of your wonderful works, but I am not going back and doing it again. I’ll just say that I am impressed, awestruck over how much different writing can arise from 12 words.
      I think it is an episode in the blogger vs. WordPress cold war.

  7. I have no idea what to do with half these words, but I’m sure I can come up with something, as soon as I find out what succotash is.

  8. Lately, Julia was regretting that she married Merle. But she had waited patiently but Merle had denied her chance of happiness.

    Her mother, Clara had spent an unhappy life, finding solace in her garden, raising mainly succotash and squash. Julia sobbed in Mom’s kitchen, as she chopped the vegetables. “Well, girl. You could use this to settle him down.” She handed over the squash, returning to the succotash.

    Julia saw a solution, a singularly strange one. It would involve Merle, squash, and a semi—table saw. After a quick trip to the Home Depot near Merle’s urban house. Julia knocked at the door. After he opened the door, the carnage began.
    She stood over Merle’s body, clutching the squash. “Here you go, sweetheart. Mom sent this for dinner.” She dropped the squash into his live hand. “She says to saute’ in garlic butter.” She dropped it and left.

    Why Mom grew these S-vegetables was always confusing. Someday she would reveal that to Julia.

  9. I loved Shattered, Lee, and I hope it spreads far and wide because it is the kind of story that needs to be read widely.

    I’m a bit slammed and won’t do the prompts this time, but it looks like fun! I enjoyed reading the entries here 🙂

  11. Some good word choices. I’m going to have to give this some thought.
    You did an amazing job on SHATTERED. Kudos.

  15. - Does anyone know what Robin Hood, d’Artagnan and Zorro have in common? Yes, Sean?
    - All three are called Squashbucklers, Sir.
    - Well, almost. Who am I to discriminate between swash and squash, these days.
    - Sir?
    - I might be called a racist.
    - Sir?
    - And lose my job.
    - Sir?
    - One day you will understand. Hopefully.
    * * *
    - Mr Jeating lately seems a bit semi-stable, to put it politely.
    - Perhaps he is on diet.
    - Or he seeks solace in becoming an urban legend.
    - As a squashbuckler, hahah.
    * * *
    Munching his succotash, Mr Jeating imagined a covenant marriage of squash and swash. Divorce denied. Blessed be bigotry.
    Laughing about stupidity can be such a solace. Solution for almost everything.

  16. Shattered is on my to-read list. Will definitely get around to it.
    Those athletes are amazing! But so sorry to hear that the 15-year-old skater was using steroids. That really tarnishes her accomplishments.

    • It did cast a shadow. Well, she didn’t get a medal, and I’m wondering if that was because of the steriods. If she had medaled, it might have created even more of a stir.

  17. I loved Shattered - and have been thinking of it as I watch snippets from the Olympics.
    My take on your prompts is this:
    Sweet suffering succotash! Ever since we married (all those years ago) you have been on one diet or another.
    Some of them have been singularly (and collectively) weird. The diet that said that you couldn’t eat after 2pm was a doozy. As was the one that said you could only eat squash (raw, steamed or boiled).
    Lately you have been on a diet that says that you can only eat what is grown/produced in your local area. Sweetheart we live in an urban area. Your choices are very restricted (though eating the commercial packaging we see cast off in the street) is certainly calorie free.
    It is no wonder that after you have tortured yourself (and me) and denied yourself anything you like you turn to chocolate for solace. Sweet solace.
    Now that your weight is semi-stable, can I implore you to eat more sensibly? One possible solution is to exercise sensibly, to eat only fresh food and to avoid the packaged muck. You are over fifty after all, and no-one (except you) expects you to still have the six pack you flaunted in your twenties.

  18. OMG! I am an avid reader, however I haven’t tried my hand at writing since I was at school and had a short story entered into a newspaper competition, which to my amazement, I won. I am a little rusty, but I’ll give this my best shot!!

    MY COVID BLUES!

    Living the URBAN dream, with my SWEETHEART of a husband, to whom I have been MARRIED for more years than I care to remember, the lockdown restrictions imposed on us LATELY, during the recent Covid Pandemic, have really taken their toll on me.

    I have, and often still do, feel SINGULARLY out of sorts, with both myself and the world in general, which has left me feeling only SEMI-STABLE of mind for much of the time.

    Having DENIED evidence to the contrary, I know I have been seeking SOLACE in my comfort foods and ignoring the healthy choice veggie options, including SUCCOTASH and SQUASH, when I have ordered my weekly food shop.

    I am now at the stage where the only SOLUTION to my woes, before things get too far out of hand, is a strict DIET, before the spring and summer of our new freedom from Covid restrictions, is upon me!

    My chances of success???? 🙂

  20. Challenging prompts this month. Thanks.

    BELIEVE THE MIRROR by Granny Annie

    The man was only SEMI-STABLE but I MARRIED him anyway. I believed he was a real SWEETHEART. Very little time passed before he began to ridicule my weight gain. I tried a fad DIET of SUCCOTASH and/or SQUASH. The mirror began to tell me I was looking good but he DENIED it. He did not believe I had found a SOLUTION.

    SINGULARLY I ran off to a secret URBAN area to find SOLACE . I have learned LATELY that living alone is actually very nice.

  22. Hi Lee - I so enjoyed ‘Shattered’ - really well written … with so much that could be learnt from the story … shattered ideas to think about, yet positives there.

    Here’s my Wordy Wednesday Words …

    “Sweetheart cabbage would go well as a buttery accompaninent to Succotash.

    Her solution to his sudden return to disturb her singularly eccentric life – would be the meal tonight.

    She wondered if he’d cope with being back, or if he’d revert to being semi-stable then having to return to urban living.

    She sincerely sought solace – always had … she thought let’s hope … he’s really wasn’t cut-up for living in near seclusion.”

    Cheers to you Lee - I’ll be back to read and comment, not so much going on this week - all the best - Hilary