Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Blog (10/20/11)
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TITLE: Weblog | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mildred Sheldon
11/02/11 -
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“Gramps, are you in that sawdust filled shop of yours?” Joshua said as he gingerly strode towards Jed’ open arms.”
“Joshua, my boy it is so good to see you. Are you ready to try and outsmart your old Gramps?”
“That will be the day Gramps. You may not use computers, but with your voracious appetite for reading all the latest updates on PC’s that would be hard to do.”
Jed tucked the birdhouse under his arm, and put his other arm around Joshua’ shoulder.
“Well, Joshua, shall we head to the house? We’ll grab a large glass of fresh lemonade from the kitchen, and sit on the porch, and you can fill me in on all that is going on in your life.”
“Gramps, it is so good to see you and Grams. I love visiting you. My life is going great and I love working with computers. Now tell me about yourself and how things are with you. I learn so much just talking and listening to you about what life was like when you and Grams were young. People had to rely on using their minds instead of computers because they were not invented yet.”
Jed threw his head back and roared at Joshua’ remark.
“I love telling you about what was, but time marches on and man is always looking for way to do thing faster and more efficiently so now what is the latest in the computer world?”
“Well, Gramps, you buy a computer and before you get use to it they have a better one out, but what I find interesting is the inventions of new words added to the English language. Did you know that in 1997 Jorn Barger coined the word, ‘weblog.’ In 1999 Peter Merholz coined the word, ‘we blog’ and now it is known as BLOG.”
“All this new fangled language is all well and good if you enjoy using computers. Martha has taken to computers like ducks take to water. She loves them. She was going on yesterday about making friends with someone in England on Facebook. I shook my head and told her that’s nice, but computers and I just don’t see eye to eye.”
“Gramps, you should check them out. They open up new worlds. I have my lap top if you’d like to take a look.”
“Joshua, my boy I didn’t say I don’t know how to use them. I said I don’t like them. I’d rather talk to my friends face to face instead of using a cold unfeeling machine to convey messages, and blogging is not my cup of tea. I’m old fashioned, but that’s me.”
Martha came to the door and told Jed and Joshua that Joshua’s mother called. Suppers ready and they are waiting for us so they needed to stop their yakking.
Jed slowly stood up picking up the little birdhouse and handed it to Joshua.
“I promised I’d make you a special birdhouse, and I just put the finishing touches on it when you came looking for me at my shop. I hope you like it.”
“Gramps, it’s a miniature computer with keyboard attached and; it says Joshua’s blog on the little screen. Oh Gramps, I love it. I have the perfect place for it in my office. Thanks Gramps.”
Joshua placed his arms around his great grandparents hugging them firmly before all three walked slowly towards Joshua’s parents house where the rest of the family had gathered to share a sumptuous meal, and enjoy each others company.
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I think your weakest area is crafting. There are several minor errors. You have some run-on sentences and several places where you should have a comma. For example when you use a descriptive phrase like
Josh, his great-grandson, you should put a comma at the end of the phrase as well as at the beginning. Hyphens help the flow with phrases like great-grandson too.
At the very end when Grams called for dinner you switched from third person to first person. I've done this before especially when my characters are based on real people. A challenge buddy would help catch these nitpicky errors and Capipulate you intothe next level.
You have natural talent and a sweet, old-fashioned feel to your story. Reading it made me feel safe and brought back many happy memories!
You have a few gammar mistakes, but the content was heart warming.Thanks, a good read.
It was a unique and clever entry, thank you! God Bless~
Unfortunately, several grammatical errors distracted the flow.
One consistent error was that there seemed to lack an "s" on the end of possessive words, like Joshua's.
I was a little confused in the first paragraph about how Gramps was eager to have a conversation about the latest PC's and yet, he had no use for them. By clarifying that, while he had no use for a computer, he made a point to be knowledgable about them for the purpose of conversing with his great-grandson, this would be clarified. (If that is, in fact, why he was knowledgable.)
I do, however, feel this scenario is a bit unrealistic.
Having said that, I did enjoy the story. I liked Gramps and, as I said, it kept my attention.