META: The Tom Russell Vocab-Story Challenge!

[Tom Russell]

I've noticed that this year on RACC there's been quite
a bit of attention paid to forms of constrained
writing-- that is, writing within a formal structure
or within certain rules.  Jamas has recently begun the
adventures of Drabble Girl (written in the
time-honoured tradition of a drabble, or hundred-word
story), while there's been various forms of poetry on
display, from the villanielle to the limerick to, of
course, the damnably difficult haiku.

And while I'd love to take some of the credit for
that, the truth is, I can't: my beautiful wife is the
one who suggested giving Haiku Gorilla a series in
haiku in the first place. :-)

Anyway... I was thinking back recently to the first
constrained writing I ever did, and I'm sure it's an
assignment we've all had in school at one time or
another: the vocab-story.  You know how it is: the
teacher assigns you ten to fifteen vocabularly words
for the week, and you must produce a story in which
you use those ten to fifteen words.

Honestly, though, it's not much of a constraint, and
doesn't give much structure to a story.  And so, I
thought it might be nice to put a twist on this old
chestnut... for those souls brave enough to meet my
challenge.

Below you'll find a list of seventy-five "vocab"
words.  They're quite simple ones, really-- they
wouldn't be hard to use in a story at all.

Unless, for example, you were to only use them to end
an sentence.  And what if, perhaps, you had to use
them in order?

That is, the first sentence has to end with the first
word, the second sentence with the second, the third
with the third, and so on right until you end your
seventy-five sentence story with the seventy-fifth
word.

So!  Are you up to the challenge?  Here are the words,
in order:

stack
fast
down
happen
nose
century
week
leg
remember
bag
out
act
appreciate
luck
book
now
lace
master
bait
dusk
spider
meaning
tail
dough
desk
past
copy
ghost
surgeon
blood
moon
bomb
peace
wrong
cap
statement
squirm
branch
point
wreath
prize
quick
clown
think
vest
blessing
thick
paper
puppet
pumpkin
peel
top
bottle
breath
collect
abyss
squeeze
limit
chameleon
diamond
chorus
glory
often
gunfighter
brick
oats
quit
stone
cold
dead
pink
sweet
glove
chasm
vegetable

It could be any genre, any imprint that you write for!
 Serious or funny or in-between.  Try to make it
coherent if you can!  Try to avoid using semicolons,
as a canny writer could use them to link many
"sentences" into one, and thus get around some of the
difficult transitions from one word to the next.  

Do what you want with the story, and most of all, have
fun!

Remember:

1. Use all 75 words, in order.
2. Each sentence must end with a word from the list.
3. Enjoy!



.         __________
         /          \
        |    TOM     |
         \ RUSSELL  /
          \___   __/
              | /
              |/
          ____
         /  ..\    *
         \____/  * | *
-----------------|---|---------------
-------------------------------------
- turtleneckfilms.blogspot.com ------
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-------fun sites to visit------------
----- www.wilsego.com/racc ----------
----- www.monitorduty.com -----------
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_LNH -------
youtube.com/profile?user=therussells
-------------------------------------

see the zombie sitcom, NED & SUNSHINE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fen83bl8jSw


 
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