Daily writing prompt
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?
The part that feels routine.
PROMPT: Routine
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Bald Mountain [Haiku]
Spring rains stalk up
behind a bald mountain;
a brown flood flows.
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DAILY PHOTO: More Scenes from Muong Hoa Valley
FIVE WISE LINES [November 2025]
A thing is mighty big when time
Zora Neale hurston; Tell my horse
and distance cannot shrink it.
…if you want to be elected, it is better
hunter s. thompson; Better than sex
to be Mean than to be Funny.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile,
jesus; Matthew 5:38-40
go with him twain.
The only gamblers who will talk openly
Kit chellel; lucky devils
are the ones who don’t make money.
The successful ones keep their mouths shut.
To live a creative life,
joseph chilton pearce
we must lose our fear of being wrong.
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BOOK: “The Jefferson Bible” by Thomas Jefferson
The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth by Thomas JeffersonMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
PDF available online [Public Domain]
Thomas Jefferson (yes, the same one who wrote the Declaration of Independence) produced this book by cutting and pasting excerpts from the Gospels so as to produce a distillation of who he believed Jesus was and what Jesus’s essential teachings were. It mixes parables and other New Testament teachings with biographical description.
There is an introduction which offers the reader more specific insight into Jefferson’s thinking than can be gleaned merely from what he includes and what he trims. The Introduction also discusses the similarities and differences between Christian philosophy and that of the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans.
If you’re looking for a condensed version of the New Testament, I’d highly recommend this book. Jefferson was obviously a sharp guy who looked at the Bible from the perspective of Enlightenment-era thinking.
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PROMPT: Famous or Infamous
The most famous people I’ve met are famed for their scholarly or political contributions to society, which is to say 98% of the population have never heard of them.
What I am really sad to say is that I’ve never met anyone truly infamous. I keep hoping one of those scientists will turn evil, but they just stay nerdy.
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DAILY PHOTO: Autumn Red
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BOOK: “Islands in the Stream” by Ernest Hemingway
Islands in the Stream by Ernest HemingwayMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher Site – Simon & Schuster
This novel was actually published almost a decade after Hemingway’s death. It was found among his papers, a complete — but rough — draft.
The book’s protagonist is Thomas Hudson, a divorced painter living alone in the Caribbean. The story is told in three parts. In the first, Hudson’s solitary existence is brightened by a visit from his three sons (one from one ex- and the other two from a second.) The second part is the story of a prolonged bender in Cuba. The final section follows Hudson and his crew as they track the survivors of a sunken German U-boat as said Germans try to island-hop their way to safety. The three sections are each quite different in tone. The last part reads like genre fiction (i.e. commercial fiction,) while the former two are character driven literary fiction (but of quite different tones.)
The book is mostly about loss and grief and the varied ways with which it is dealt, and the process through which the griever proceeds.
I enjoyed this book. While, like a life, it may be a bit messy, I found it compelling. I’d recommend it for those who enjoy Hemingway.
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PROMPT: Pet
It’s a friend who may not understand what you’re going through, but who will never talk… and sometimes eagerly helps with the digging when you’re burying the body. Try finding a human friend like that.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 