Divinations Stats and Index

Dice roll stats.

I am participating in Folded Word's writing month event, called "24/7," during August. Participants spend the first 24 days of the month writing short works, then spend the final week in revisions. The second part of this entry gives more details.

I wasn't required to give a central theme to the entries, but I chose the theme "Divinations" and used a pair of dice to generate prompts.

Tomorrow we enter the revision portion of the month. Below is a linked index of my 24 short-form pieces.

August 1
Flash fiction/Water: "Wishing Well"

August 2
Prose poem/Earth: "In Scarabaeidae Sancti"

August 3
Flash fiction/Birth: "Totality"

August 4
Twitter fiction/Fire: "One Morning in Logroño"

August 5
Prose poem/Birth: "Alchemist Reborn"

August 6
Twitter poetry/Birth: "Recognition"

August 7
Micro fiction/Water: "Between the Oases of Sleep"

August 8
Short poetry/Water: "Taking My Future to Tea"

August 9
Micro-fiction/Fire: "Candle Power"

August 10
Prose poem/Birth: "All The Daily Resurrections (for Dave Dog)"

August 11
Twitter fiction/Fire: "Heisenberg's Metamorphosis"

August 12
Prose poem/Earth: "When Civilization Was Young"

August 13
Short poetry/Birth: "Surveillance: A Sijo Sequence"

August 14
Prose poem/Death: "Flightless"

August 15
Prose poem/Water: "In Her Image"

August 16
Micro-fiction/Birth: "Six Characters In Search of An Escape From Their Author (with apologies to Luigi Pirandello)"

August 17
Twitter fiction/Air: "Bittersweet"

August 18
Flash fiction/Death: "Next of Kin"

August 19
Twitter fiction/Earth: "Fierce Harvest"

August 20
Short poetry/Earth: "Layers Beneath a Firenze Road"

August 21
Micro-fiction/Birth: "Crying Wolf"

August 22
Micro-fiction/Fire: "Body Heat"

August 23
Short poetry/Death: "Highest Common Denominator"

August 24
Micro-fiction/Death: "Paradox Resolved"

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too










Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny
Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines
Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, Destiny, and Bloodlines in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

24/7, Divination 24

I am participating in Folded Word's writing month event, called "24/7," during August. Participants spend the first 24 days of the month writing short works, then spend the final week in revisions. The second part of this entry gives more details.

I'm not required to give a central theme to the entries, but I chose the theme "Divinations" and am using a pair of dice to generate prompts (values shown below). My prompt for August 24 -- the last before revisions! -- is to write divination-themed micro-fiction that uses death.

Paradox Resolved (100 words)

All grandfather left us was an eight-inch floppy disc.

It provided some levity at the wake. We repeated his stories of coming from the future, trying to bring us data in a format we could read. It wasn't even ASCII. The tech we took it to said it was corrupted.

Time travelers acclimate, grandfather said. His tales reduced to a vague feeling, as though he were always a little off. Electronics froze within a foot of him.

Nothing fits the disc any more, but we keep it. Next to his wind-up watch, whose face cracked the moment his heart stopped.


Photo collage. The clock face comes from an old transistor radio that still works.

Key to dice values:

Blue Die
1 (CE logo). Twitter poetry (140 characters or fewer)
2. Twitter fiction (140 characters or fewer)
3. short poetry (8 lines or fewer)
4. prose poems (under 100 words)
5. micro fiction (40-100 words)
6. flash fiction (101-500 words)

Purple Die
1 (CE logo). Birth
2. Water
3. Air
4. Earth
5. Fire
6. Death

My Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, defines "divination" as 1. the attempt to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means; 2. augury; prophecy; 3. perception by intuition; instinctive foresight. One meaning of "occult" is "hidden." That gives me a broad range of interpretation.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too










Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny
Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines
Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, Destiny, and Bloodlines in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

24/7, Divination 23

I am participating in Folded Word's writing month event, called "24/7," during August. Participants spend the first 24 days of the month writing short works, then spend the final week in revisions. The second part of this entry gives more details.

I'm not required to give a central theme to the entries, but I chose the theme "Divinations" and am using a pair of dice to generate prompts (values shown below). My prompt for August 23 is to write divination-themed short poetry that uses death.

Highest Common Denominator

Bright vegetables in the garden
grow from small bodies churned into humus.

Worms tunnel through and digest the world.

Every moment is more cells shed. We die
and go on living. Here, take my skin,

your dreams, his memories, her marrow.
We are one today and will be on the morrow.


Earthworm, photographed in April 2006.

Key to dice values:

Blue Die
1 (CE logo). Twitter poetry (140 characters or fewer)
2. Twitter fiction (140 characters or fewer)
3. short poetry (8 lines or fewer)
4. prose poems (under 100 words)
5. micro fiction (40-100 words)
6. flash fiction (101-500 words)

Purple Die
1 (CE logo). Birth
2. Water
3. Air
4. Earth
5. Fire
6. Death

My Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, defines "divination" as 1. the attempt to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means; 2. augury; prophecy; 3. perception by intuition; instinctive foresight. One meaning of "occult" is "hidden." That gives me a broad range of interpretation.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too










Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny
Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines
Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, Destiny, and Bloodlines in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

24/7, Divination 22

I am participating in Folded Word's writing month event, called "24/7," during August. Participants spend the first 24 days of the month writing short works, then spend the final week in revisions. The second part of this entry gives more details.

I'm not required to give a central theme to the entries, but I chose the theme "Divinations" and am using a pair of dice to generate prompts (values shown below). My prompt for August 22 is to write divination-themed micro-fiction that uses fire.

Body Heat (100 words)

Edgar held his hands over a trash can ablaze, leaning in.

Itch, the kid, gawked. "It doesn't melt you?"

"Nah." The old robot grinned. "They don't make 'em like me any more."

Itch took a swig. Thick glass clattered. "Will Slick live?"

Edgar spoke from inside the flames. "Odds are 88.6 to one against."

Two vagrants comforted Slick, proffering rotgut. Edgar parted their cigarette smoke, glowing like iron through rags.

He folded himself around Slick on their shared cardboard, felt the man's muscles unclench.

His warmth would last until morning. Fire danced in his eyes as the others huddled 'round.


Bicycle transport box marked "Shelter" at Park Avenue West and Lawrence in Denver, CO, August 2008.

Key to dice values:

Blue Die
1 (CE logo). Twitter poetry (140 characters or fewer)
2. Twitter fiction (140 characters or fewer)
3. short poetry (8 lines or fewer)
4. prose poems (under 100 words)
5. micro fiction (40-100 words)
6. flash fiction (101-500 words)

Purple Die
1 (CE logo). Birth
2. Water
3. Air
4. Earth
5. Fire
6. Death

My Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, defines "divination" as 1. the attempt to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means; 2. augury; prophecy; 3. perception by intuition; instinctive foresight. One meaning of "occult" is "hidden." That gives me a broad range of interpretation.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too










Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny
Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines
Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, Destiny, and Bloodlines in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

24/7, Divination 21

I am participating in Folded Word's writing month event, called "24/7," during August. Participants spend the first 24 days of the month writing short works, then spend the final week in revisions. The second part of this entry gives more details.

I'm not required to give a central theme to the entries, but I chose the theme "Divinations" and am using a pair of dice to generate prompts (values shown below). My prompt for August 21 is to write divination-themed micro-fiction that uses birth.

Crying Wolf (99 words)

The other pack members sit on the couch, entranced by a lighted box.

Dog doesn't understand the predictions, or his humans arguing with the TV's talking heads. The faces around him are flushed and smell of jollity.

Some words awaken Dog's memories: leaning out of the car window, wind blowing his floppy ears back. But right here, right now, something is terribly wrong. His great head drops with a whine into a lap.

"Shh." Fingers scratch his brow. Whiff of sickness beneath the nails. He falls obediently silent.

Blissful and unaware, the pack leader toasts to the newborn year.


A friend's 3-month-old miniature Doberman washes Mary's face. Photo taken November 2005.

Key to dice values:

Blue Die
1 (CE logo). Twitter poetry (140 characters or fewer)
2. Twitter fiction (140 characters or fewer)
3. short poetry (8 lines or fewer)
4. prose poems (under 100 words)
5. micro fiction (40-100 words)
6. flash fiction (101-500 words)

Purple Die
1 (CE logo). Birth
2. Water
3. Air
4. Earth
5. Fire
6. Death

My Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, defines "divination" as 1. the attempt to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means; 2. augury; prophecy; 3. perception by intuition; instinctive foresight. One meaning of "occult" is "hidden." That gives me a broad range of interpretation.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too










Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny
Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines
Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, Destiny, and Bloodlines in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

24/7, Divination 20

I am participating in Folded Word's writing month event, called "24/7," during August. Participants spend the first 24 days of the month writing short works, then spend the final week in revisions. The second part of this entry gives more details.

I'm not required to give a central theme to the entries, but I chose the theme "Divinations" and am using a pair of dice to generate prompts (values shown below). My prompt for August 20 is to write divination-themed short poetry that uses earth.

Layers Beneath a Firenze Road

Tired centurion
dreams of a gelato cart,
cold nectar of the gods
on a hot Tuscan march.
The Duomo rises, terra-cotta sun.
The future flees as he stirs awake,
his certainty grounded
in eternal Rome.


Florence, February 1987.

Key to dice values:

Blue Die
1 (CE logo). Twitter poetry (140 characters or fewer)
2. Twitter fiction (140 characters or fewer)
3. short poetry (8 lines or fewer)
4. prose poems (under 100 words)
5. micro fiction (40-100 words)
6. flash fiction (101-500 words)

Purple Die
1 (CE logo). Birth
2. Water
3. Air
4. Earth
5. Fire
6. Death

My Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, defines "divination" as 1. the attempt to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge by occult or supernatural means; 2. augury; prophecy; 3. perception by intuition; instinctive foresight. One meaning of "occult" is "hidden." That gives me a broad range of interpretation.

Elissa Malcohn's Deviations and Other Journeys Promote Your Page Too










Vol. 1, Deviations: Covenant (2nd Ed.)
Vol. 2, Deviations: Appetite
Vol. 3, Deviations: Destiny
Vol. 4, Deviations: Bloodlines
Free downloads at the Deviations website and on Smashwords.

Go to Manybooks.net to access Covenant, Appetite, Destiny, and Bloodlines in even more formats!

Participant, Operation E-Book Drop. (Logo credit: K.A. M'Lady & P.M. Dittman.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.