The Sights of Paris

Hello! I’m back again with another story snack, which is to say a 100-word tale.

This is for Friday Fictioneers for 7 January 2022. and you’re most welcome to write your own entry and post it on your blog (as long as you read and comment on at least some of the others!).

The Photo Prompt

PHOTO PROMPT © Brenda Cox

The Inspiration

This is based on a real trip to Paris I took when I was 12.

The Story: “The Sights of Paris”

Mom and I visited Montmartre during our day in Paris. Several artists vied for the attention—and money—of the more attractive tourists.

A curly-haired man, pencil behind his ear sauntered up, brandishing a lit cigarette. A breeze blew his long locks across his face, dislodging the pencil. I imagined “Let’s get it on” accentuating the moment.

He babbled sweet-talk to Mom in French, then ventured, “I show you all the best sights of Paris.” He struck a pose and revealed his drawing.

Mom shook her head and took us away.

“He’s not a tour guide,” I quipped.

Graphic of reading birds

Thanks for reading!

Want more stories?

This blog is full of story snacks for you to “munch” upon, and you can find my books on Amazon or wherever you get your reads.

cover of the paranormal best-seller They All Died Smiling

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon..com/author/rondadelboccio.

f you’d like to write your own story for this writing prompt, please feel encouraged!

Rubbing Dead Men

Hi! It’s been a hella life lately, so this is my first story in a while. At least my first here on the blog.

Hi! It’s been a hella life lately with loads of intensity, and I haven’t blogged stories in way too long. So here goes. This one’s for Friday Fictioneers for the week of 17 December 2021. If you’d like to write your own 100-word story, feel free! Just click the date above, then the frog to add your blog posted story.

Here’s the photo prompt.

Image by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

The image is of a wine cellar. My brain went back to doing brass rubbings in London when I was 12. Mom and I saved for over a year to have a grand adventure. So, here it is.

Rubbing Dead Nobles

“We’re going to make brass rubbings of dead people?” I asked Mom.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” I’d rather people-watch outside, but sure. Let’s spend the day in a dank crypt sounds better.

This would be interesting for about an hour to any 12-year-old.

“It’ll be fun.”

Says every mom when it most certainly will NOT be anything like a good time.

While scraping brass crayons into dark paper over raised images on stone coffins, ghosts of dead who hadn’t moved on nattered at me. I had to talk to them only in my head.

I sent a hundred onward, but several stayed.

***

Thanks for reading!

Want more stories?

This blog is full of story snacks for you to “munch” upon, and you can find my books on Amazon or wherever you get your reads.

cover of the paranormal best-seller They All Died Smiling

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon..com/author/rondadelboccio.

f you’d like to write your own story for this writing prompt, please feel encouraged!

Dark Blue with Red and White Stripes – Flash Fiction

Thanks for coming for a story snack! This one’s based on a photo prompt for Friday Fictioneers for 20 august 2021.You can follow that link and click the frog to read all the stories, and if you want, you can write your own!

The photo prompt:

PHOTO PROMPT© Lisa Fox

The Inspiration

I borrowed Kassidy Spence from They All Died Smiling, my paranormal cozy novel. But this is when she was eight, long before the action of the book. Her aunt and uncle took her in at age seven, and this is something good that happened to her.

You can get your copy from your local library or wherever you love to buy books!

Covers of They All Died Smiling, available in audio, print and ebook.

The Story: Dark Blue with Red and White Striped

A knock at the door interrupted supper.

“Who could that be?” Walt asked, his eyes sparkling. “Let’s go see, Kassidy.”

They opened the door to Mrs. Spence and her son.

Randy held onto the prettiest bike Kass had ever seen, dark blue with red and white stripes and a yellow flag flying above. It sparkled in the sunshine.

Randy nudged it at her. “Angie grew up too much for it, and we thought you might like it, since you’re the only girl here.”

“For me? Thank you!”

Randy shuffled. “Sure. Wanna ride?”

Beck wiped her eye. “Finish your supper first.”

1 bird reads to 2 others as they sit on a branch

Thanks for reading!

Want more stories?

This blog is full of story snacks for you to “munch” upon, and you can find my books on Amazon or wherever you get your reads.

cover of the paranormal best-seller They All Died Smiling

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon..com/author/rondadelboccio.

f you’d like to write your own story for this writing prompt, please feel encouraged!

Flash Fiction: Let the Torture Begin!

Thanks for stopping by! I’ve been crazy busy lately, with a lot of things chowing my time and energy,, including a sick dog with a mystery bowel illness. So, I apologize for taking a few weeks off. Life’s just as nuts, but I needed a writing/reading break.

This story is for Friday Fictioneers for 30 July 2021. If you’d like to try writing your own story, please feel free! All you have to do is write a 100-word tale, publish it, connect to the frog, and READ/comment on the work of others.

Photo Writing Prompt

PHOTO PROMPT© Roger Bultot

Photo Description for the blind/visually impaired amongst you: I have no idea what this is, but the pic reminds me of going to the eye doctor. There’s a framish thingy up top, a rectangular thingy in the foreground, and I think some furniture off to the right background.

The Inspiration

Going to the eye doctor is sheer torture for me. This is just the beginning…

The Story: Let the Torture Begin!

Drops in my eyes pain me and blur my vision.

The dreaded doctor rolls up in front of me with his pointer. Moments later, the sun shines directly into my eyeball. He gets mad when my misbehaving orb rolls up into my head in protest.

It’s not as if I’m activating my bell reflex on purpose.

I struggle to keep my poor, abused eyes open at all. They water.

And the party has only begun. The next machine moving toward me looks like Mickey Mouse ears but is much less fun. I white-knuckle grip the base, bracing myself for pain.

1bespectacled bird on a branch reading to 2 others

Thanks for reading!

Want more stories?

This blog is full of story snacks for you to “munch” upon, and you can find my books on Amazon or wherever you get your reads.

cover of the paranormal best-seller They All Died Smiling

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon..com/author/rondadelboccio.

f you’d like to write your own story for this writing prompt, please feel encouraged!

Urgent Care – Flash Fiction Story Snack

Thanks for stopping by for another “story snack.” Enjoy precisely 100 words of story based on a photo writing prompt for Friday Fictioneers for 4 June 2021

If you’d like to play, just follow the instructions on the host’s original post

The Photo Writing Prompt

.

PHOTO PROMPT © Liz Young

Description for my blind/visually impaired readers: A car has crashed through a stone embankment.

The Inspiration

This one’s not fiction, folks. It’s the first place my mind went when I saw the prompt, and being highly relevant and personal, I disregarded my usual guidance and wrote that story rather than brainstorming a couple of other options first.

The Story: Urgent Care

He took Mom to urgent care at 9 PM. I cleaned blood out of the carpet, did the red-stained laundry, then walked home to wait.

Hours rolled by.

No call or even a text.

At midnight I texted him: Update?

Nothing.

Every half-hour I went back. Porch light still on. Nobody home.

Had he in his anger driven over an embankment or wrapped the car around a tree?

2:30, I had to sleep. They could call or text

I went back at seven. He, at least, was home. Too early to knock.

At ten, I entered. I hugged Mom tightly.

1 bird reading to 2 others. All perch on a branch.

Thanks for reading!

Want more stories?

This blog is full of story snacks for you to “munch” upon, and you can find my books on Amazon or wherever you get your reads.

cover of the paranormal best-seller They All Died Smiling

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon.com/author/rondadelboccio.

If you’d like to write your own story for this writing prompt, please feel encouraged!

Herd the Trees – Flash Fiction for Friday Fictioneers

Thanks for stopping by! Here’s a story snack for you. It’s based on a photo writing prompt for Friday Fictioneers 26 May 2021. If you’d like to write your own story, please come join in the fun. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting and to Bob Rost for the photo.

The Photo

PHOTO PROMPT © Miles Rost

Description, for my blind/visually impaired readers:  Well, all I can tell you is there’s greenery on the right, cement on the left, and something that reminds me a bit of a unicorn horn in some sort of track in the middle. I gather from reading others’ stories that there’s a but and a barbed-wire fence. I guess that’s the thing that looks a bit swirly in the middle.

The Inspiration

I couldn’t figure out anything but the greenery in the photo, and this brought to mind a conversation my bestie and I have all the time when she visits me.

The Story: Herd the Trees.

“The trees are too close to the road,” Seana whined. “Someone needs to herd them back.” She navigated around an Ozarks hilly curve.

I laughed. “You’re such a desert rat. You hate all the green, but I love it.”

“I love it over there, in the distance, not hovering over MY road.”

Though we had been besties for decades, we enjoyed wildly different climates. I lived in near-desert areas for twenty years. I got tired of the prickly plants and missed my coniferous trees with their lushness.

“Too bad we don’t like living in each other’s preferred environments,” I mused.

Reading Birds graphic

Thanks for reading!

Want more stories?

This blog is full of story snacks for you to “munch” upon, and you can find my books on Amazon or wherever you get your reads.

cover of the paranormal best-seller They All Died Smiling

If you want to write your own story, please click the Friday Fictioneers link above.

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon..com/author/rondadelboccio.

Riding on Sound Waves

Welcome back for another story snack!Today, you get 100 words based on a photo prompt for Friday Fictioneers for 21 May 2021

The Photo Writing Prompt

PHOTO PROMPT © Na’ama Yehuda

The Inspiration

That water made me think of meditation and my Tibetan Singing Bowl.

The Story: Riding on Sound Waves

Breathing deeply, I tap the singing bowl and trace its edge. I brush aside the cobwebs that infiltrate my mind.

What path should I take? I flourish the question on my mental papyrus, setting it free.

The answer will come. I need only wait.

Tears well, quiver on the brink of my lashes, and spill. I let them flow,

The cleansing tones crescendo as I circle the edge.

My wail rises. I lean into the anguish as I tap three times. On the third beat, I release my cry into the universe and ride the wave as the sounds subside.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon..com/author/rondadelboccio.

Snap, Snap, Toss, Drop – Flash Fiction

Thank you for stopping by for another story snack. I hope you enjoy this slice of childhood inspired by a photo writing prompt for the 1 May 2021 Friday Fictioneers Blog Challenge hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields..

On an amusing note, I wrote this story in its entirety while on hold with my trash company.

The Photo

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

Description for my blind and visually impaired readers: We’re outside on a cloudy day by a lake. We see a couple of plastic chairs with a table between and a couple of items on the table.

The Inspiration

I remembered my summer when I was about eight years old. We had a profusion of green beans, and I had the task of taking off the ends and string to prepare them for eating and canning.

The Story: Snap, Snap, Toss, Drop

Grand set me up on the front porch with a bucket of beans, a big bowl to put themin once I had the ends off, and a container for the ends.

“Bring me the bowl when it’s full and I’ll cook that bunch for supper.”

I’m so sick of beans.

My grandfather had planted climbing beans all the way down the fence, and we’d been eating beans every day for a month. Grand, who refused to be grandma or grandmother, had set up dozens of cans, so we’d be in beans forever.

Snap, snap, toss, drop. Snap, snap, toss, drop.

3 brightly-colored birds sit on a branch. 1 is reading to the others.

Thanks for reading!

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon..com/author/rondadelboccio.

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Big Blue and hte Duck Game

Hello, and welcome back for another story snack. This is a 100-word flash fiction story for Friday Fictioneers 23 April 2021. Rochelle Wisoff-Fields hosts this weekly blog challenge. If you’d like to try it, just click the link above and follow the instructions. Everyone’s welcome to play. No prizes. Just a great way to exercise your writing muscles.

The Photo Prompt

PHOTO PROMPT © David Stewart

Description: I have no idea what this is, really, or where it was taken, but in front we see glowing eggs, and in the background, what I think is a Ferris Wheel. It is night.

The Inspiration

The glowing eggs in the foreground and Ferris wheel (I think) in the background made me think of a carnival. That brought to my mind two situations: one involving throwing darts at balloons and one involving floating ducks.

The Story: Big Blue and the Duck Game

The plastic ducks floated on the track in the easiest carnival game. Everyone’s a winner, and most prizes are no fun.

At five years old, I had to stand on the stool to see. Before choosing my three ducks, I gazed up at the blue teddy bear as big as me.

“That’s what I want,” I announced to my parents.

“Don’t count on it,” Mom said.

“We have one bear this year and one duck with its number,” said the worker.

“What is it?”

“Thirteen.”

“My favorite!” Where are you, thirteen?

The worker’s jaw dropped. “Congratulations, you won Big Blue!”

Thanks for reading!

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon..com/author/rondadelboccio.

A Misfit, a Hedgehog, and a Fresh Start – Flash Fiction

Hi and thanks for coming back for another story snack, a 100-word flash fiction tale based on a photo prompt. I’ve been absent a few weeks. Life has just been too…lifey. I’ve had a houseguest, family stuff, big projects, and more. It was fun to get back to writing a story and seeing what the other participants of Friday Fictioneers wrote.

Flash Fiction (very short story) graphic

Come Play!

If you’d like to try your hand at a flash fiction story, we’d love to have you. Part of the “deal” is reading what others contribute as well as writing your own story.

This one’s for Friday Fictioneers for 15 April 2021.

The Photo Prompt

PHOTO PROMPT © Anne Higa  

Description for my blind and visually impaired friends: This one’s a complicated photo for me, visually. I had to ask the hostess, Rochelle, what was actually there. It’s a dark scene by a building, perhaps an alley or something, with a bucket and a spout pouring out water in the foreground. There’s some light source in the left background. Something gives off a purple cast. I have no idea what.

The Inspiration

My mind went a few places with this: dark alley deals, a redneck carwash (that’s what the country folk call it when a butter pours out rainwater, and you can drive under it for a free carwash), nefarious activity, spies…I settled on something else.

The Story: A Misfit, a Hedgehog, and a Fresh Start

“Good-bye forever, Jackass.” Carey bore the kind of bruises that don’t show. Signing, she massaged her temples. After one last look, she picked up the one item that could not be packed:  Misfit’s prized toy.

“You’ve belittled me for the last time.” She shut the door to her former life, revved the engine, and gave the tiny trailer the royal raspberry before driving away.

At doggie daycare pickup, Misfit curled up on the passenger seat with her hedgehog, merging her tan and white corginess with its deeper browns.

“Good luck.” Dana hugged her.

“Thanks. Let’s make our new home, Missy.”

Reading Birds graphic

Thanks for reading!

Cheers to your #BLISSfulLife!!

Ronda Del Boccio

Award-winning author, photographer, and artist

About Ronda Del Boccio

Ronda Del Boccio is an award-winning and best-selling author of both fiction and nonfiction. She has been mostly blind since birth, but she never lets that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She tells transformational tales and helps visionary authors turn their dreams and imaginings into published books. See and order Ronda’s books on Amazon at Amazon..com/author/rondadelboccio.