Are you a word unscrambler? Can you out scrabble the scrabble masters?
Can you face down a word wizard wearing sunglasses? 

Do you have the guts?

Answer the Word call all you word masters.
Someone from this blog needs to get in
the top 10 for this game.

It's called Word Spell, and it haunts my waking dreams.
I know someone out there can be the Word champion.
Do it!

And after you do it, post a comment saying so. That way we will all know how awesome you are.

As I was driving to work this morning, I saw a bumper sticker that said,

 

Remember what you wanted to be.

 

It made me smile. 

 

What do YOU want to BE when you grow up? If you're a kid, you are always being asked that question, right? By adults, of course. I used to hate that question, and I’m betting you do, too. For one thing, the question implies that you are nothing right now. You will only BE something once you grow up.

 

Let's face it. Adults who don't know what to say to young people use this question as a fall-back conversation starter. I've probably done it myself. But it's a dud. Sure, we all know a kid who decided at age 3 to become a hedge fund manager (whatever that is), who has geared his entire life to making that happen, and who will, in fact, become a hedge fund manager. (That's not a gardener, by the way ... it's some kind of financial investment career which is totally beyond my comprehension. Seems to pay well, though.) But most kids don't know, and I would say can't know what they will BE when they grow up until they get there.

Ahhh, sweet summertime! School for me ended last week, and with homework, final exams, and term papers blissfully out of my life for the next two months and seventeen days, I arrived back home and prepared to write up a storm! However, between visiting friends, sleeping in, and whittling away hours on the Internet and running errands, I soon found that I was putting a lot less time into my writing than I had originally planned to. This became all-too-clear yesterday afternoon, when I logged online to send my friends from college my "Weekly Update" about my life (it's our way of staying in touch over the summer.)

Hmmm ... what have I done this week? I thought. Watched a couple movies, cleaned my room, voted for American Idol ... But not much on the writing front. I realized that sometimes having "all the time in the world" to do something that really matters to you (which, for me, is writing) causes you to procrastinate or push your passion aside because you can always "get to it later." The past week, in fact, I got less writing done than I had accomplished the week before, when I was busy studying for final exams -- because last week, working on my short story for half an hour had been a blessed release. Now, even though I have all day free to write, I still need to schedule a specific block of time, to make sure I actually get around to writing!

Click here for a few tips I learned the hard way about beating summer procrastination.

The following story was received as part of Writing's Take Five Contest. Although it did not win, we enjoyed it very much and wanted to share it with you. Check back throughout the rest of May to read more excellent poems and stories from Take Five.

Fairies and Dragons

- Story by Emily Christian, Grade 8

 

The wind howled outside of the house like a wounded animal, longing for comfort. Oak branches were tossed to and fro. Tomorrow morning, the snow would be two feet deep, blanketing the broken tree limbs.

   

Inside the warm house, I burrowed further under my warm covers. A wide smile crept across my face because I knew that tomorrow the old kitchen radio would announce that school would be canceled. I would spend the day talking to friends on the phone, reading in front of the fire, and sipping chicken noodle soup. 

   

My sister's loud snoring interrupted my warm fantasies. Last year, things would have been different.  Kate, my sister, would not be able to sleep at all on a night like this. She would be telling me about her made-up magical world.  Laying right next to me, she'd enthusiastically be explaining that what we were hearing outside was not a late fall storm, but a battle between the fairy Queen and the evil goblins of the north. Her stories would have flown out of her like water out of a fountain. Last year, she would be jumping all over the room because her make-believe friend, "Dewy-Dragon", would have foretold this battle and that is why she had to put up the Fairy Fort.

   

Dewy Dragon no longer existed, and fairies, in her opinion, belonged only in Fairy Tales. Invisible people no longer hid in the shadows behind doors. And staying up late at night retelling her adventures to her older sister was no longer a priority.

 

Click the dress-up dragon to finish the story.

Click here to read my review.