I've been trying to record overheard dialogue in an effort to improve my own dialogue writing and get ideas for character development. That's hard in Surat, where mostly everyone is speaking Thai in public, and there are only crazy farang teachers to eavesdrop on. But that's what I did, in a room full of people I love, talking non sense. It's a pretty great dialogue, and I did my best to record as much of it as possible, as accurately as I could.. Thanks guys. 

This story came from a "Grab Bag" exercise at our last meeting. My 10 random words were:
belligerent    force    biscuit   carnival    facet     glorious     tantrum     boat     costly     range

My grab bag selection of writing genre was: children's story.  

                                                                            Clover

In a town far, far away, in a land where flowers grow almost as tall as the trees, lived a little boy named Clover. Clover's real name was Tom, but he was a lucky boy, so that's what he preferred to be called. And so, he was. He lived an ordinary life filled with what to him seemed extraordinary occurrences, each day bringing a new kind of magic. Sometimes though the days seemed to test his luck, and this was one of those times.  

Here is another grab bag from last week's meeting. This time, we all used the same words. The category was fiction. The words were: Symbol, cantaloupe, chestnut, fire, ornery, destitute, cowboy, focus, flag.

"Focus, cowboy! You're a fucking symbol in this town, and the whole goddamn place is looking at you."

Writing prompt: pick up the nearest book. Now pick two numbers - these represent the page number and the line of text you will use as a prompt. On July 1, we picked: "Until her last moment on Earth she was unaware that her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman was a daily disaster." Below is my response. 

The knocking on the door was barely audible over the music blaring from the speakers next tot he tub. 

"Luanne! Luanne, open this door!"

If she could hear in that moment, she may or may not have recognized his voice. She didn't even remember her own name.