I thank my good friend, Diane, for suggesting I set up a formal Challenge. Almost everything she writes makes me smile. (Except when she makes me cry.) Check out her blog at “On the Border.”

I started a challenge to write a story that is exactly 50 words! Thank you, Boy with a Hat. Not that he set up a formal challenge, but it was his idea. And his writing is worth checking out. So please click the link and find out what he’s up to. If you want to begin at my beginning, click here or search in the side panel with the words, “fifty day.”

So how to proceed? For the most part, I’m using my character inspiration, Dorothy Astoria’s The Name Book. Today, I turned to Simon. Immediately, I have a vision of who Simon is. Ramone’s name comes without bidding.

“What does Simon say?” Ramone elbowed his entourage into laughter.

“Leave me alone,” Simon’s last word cracked soprano, every inch of his ginger-haired complexion gone red.

“You didn’t say ‘Simon says.’” Ramone’s guffaws echoed across the hallway.

Incongruously, Ramone remembers ten years later. “Redundant.” Tears escape. ”By a menopausal woman.”

Oh my! A bit of poetic justice. I like using the British term for “fired” or “laid-off.” Rendundant: unnecessary, needless, unwanted… So much more explicit and cutting that “laid-off.”

Wednesdays are super-fun and challenging because paring down to 50 words is really hard. And so much fun. I never know what’s going to flow directly from my brain to my fingertips and onto the virtual page.

I love finding out what you think.

Would you like to join me in for a Fifty-Word Wday Challenge? Please join my 50-Word Wednesday Challenge Click here to join.