The Personification Challenge

Take a long look at the title and the picture above.  Do you now what this means?  That means I'm about to do a writing challenge.  And I challenge YOU.  It's not much--I think it would be doable, even for those of you with only a short amount of time to write.  But you've been challenged.  Dared.  Only under extreme circumstances can you refuse. :|  Such as being brutally attacked by schoolwork. o_O

So what is the Personification Challenge?

It's a writing challenge where I dare you to write a personification story (or even a series of stories) and post it on your blog [or, if you don't have a blog, on a forum or Facebook], spreading the word of this challenge and challenging other writers.  I'll be doing the same thing, here: a series of personification stories.

What's personification writing?  It's basically the writing in which you personify certain things.  For instance, in my section of my personification story, I personify my math and Inspiration, portraying them as real things and people.  And it's really, really fun.  Believe me.  So what I'm doing for my personification story is taking real life events over the course of the day and turning them into a fictionalized, personified, and (much more) interesting story.

So here's how it works:

Rule #1
The story you write (and post on your blog) must be more than five hundred words.


Rule #2
You must personify something: an emotion [i.e. "Anger smacked me. And it hurt."], a character trait [Courage liked to tell me to punch Fear in the face.] or an action [Procrastination was my worst enemy.]. Etc. If you can think of things to personify outside of those categories, awesome! Go for it. :D


Rule #3
You must write in any genre you choose. It's more like a recommendation, but feel free to personify in any genre you want, and write in any POV you want. I find it easy to write in first person for this challenge. It makes my story more colorful. ;)

Keep in mind, this is extremely easy to do.  In fact, this challenge started out when I, rather tired of math, took a break and wrote a page or so of personified nonsense (the edited version of which you will see below).

All right: you have been challenged!  Take up the sword below and fight the good fight against Procrastination!  Feel the handle in your hand, and with this, go and hack away at your word count!  Below, you shall find the beginning of my own Personification Challenge.

A BATTLE FOUGHT AT MIDDAY


PART I

So I was sitting on the couch, using my mental powers to battle with the twisty beast known only as Allegebra Mathe. He was being tricky today, and he seemed a bit bigger than usual. Blasted Mathe. He always liked to bite me on Wednesdays.

The phone rang. My phone. The Verizon wireless tone blared over and over, somewhere deep in my pockets. I dug through my pockets to find it.  I almost blew my hand off with the Pen of Doom (rummaging through one's pockets can be dangerous), but I managed to find it and answer it in time.

"Greetings," I said.

"Jake of the Sadaar," someone hissed into the phone. "How--"

"Dude," I said, "Don't put your mouth so close to the receiver. Your breathing is interfering with my hearing. I can barely make out your words."

"I haven't quite managed to master these yet," Breath-Guy said. I heard some noises through the receiver--he was apparently maneuvering the phone a little further away from his mouth.

"That's somewhat better," I told him. "So what do you want?"

"World dominion," Breath-Guy said nonchalantly. "Surrender your turkey spies now and I'll let you live. And your little dog, too."

"He's not that little," I said. "Have you seen him lately? He's a walking sausage."

"That's not the point," Breath-Guy said. "The point is, all turkular weapons must be handed over at midnight tomorrow--"

I interrupted him. "Midnight, meaning--midnight tonight (which is technically tomorrow) or twenty-four hours from now?"

"Stop interrupting, you dunce! Midnight....tomorrow, twenty...now." The breathing was getting in the way of my hearing again.

"Could you repeat that?" I asked. "And quit the breathy voice--it's not really that impressive." I heard a sigh through the receiver.

"This better?" Breath-Guy's voice was louder now.  

"Yup, just fine. Proceed, if you will," I said dryly, "with your threats of world domination."

"You are to hand over all turkeys," Breath-Guy said, trying to sound important, "all weapons regarding turkeys, weapons used by turkeys, missiles directed by turkeys, kamikaze turkey planes, anything pertaining to turkey warfare and all weapons that look remotely like and are affiliated with turkeys to me at midnight tomorrow. Twenty four hours." I heard him take deep breath, but I cut him off.

"No can do. And besides, I ran out of kamikazes last fall. Sorry, man." I hung up on him and turned off my phone so I would have no further interruptions.

************

Well, Friday rolled around, and I was contemplating the fact that I should probably be fighting Allegebra Mathe again.

I had just taken a shower, and during that shower, Inspiration hit me over the head with my shampoo.   He got shampoo everywhere, of course, but after I had brushed my teeth (and subsequently washed out all the shampoo) he told me what the plan was. "You know how Sadai was supposed to have a bow?" he said. "Well, when did he get that? When was he trained?" Inspiration is one of my best editors. His hair was sticky from the shampoo, though, and all I could do was stare at his head.

"Jake!" He waved his hand in front of my face.

"Sorry," I muttered. "Your shampoo is distracting."

He sighed, and snapped his fingers. Instantly his hair cleaned until it was dry and shampoo free.

"Thanks," I told him.

"Yeah, whatever." He rolled his eyes repeated his questions.

I thought about this for a moment. "Well," I said cautiously, "I suppose I must write a scene with the archers training."

Inspiration drummed his fingers on my desk. "And?" He hit me again, this time with a book.

The light dawned on me as my head throbbed again. "Oh! I see. I can write a battle scene with the archers!"  Battle scenes were amazing to write.  It was absolutely my favorite thing to write.

He nodded. "You have--"  Inspiration stopped talking for a moment. He stared past my head, then at my shoes, and then up at the ceiling. He exhaled. "I'm out of here. He's coming."

Before I could ask "Who?" Inspiration was gone.  And a rumbling noise was left in his wake.

****************

See ya next time, folks.  I'll be back with another installment in the 'series'.  In the mean time, tell me what you think of what I have so far.  Like it?  Hate it?  For what reason?  Are you looking forward to the next one, or are you just amiable? ;)

If you do manage to do this challenge, post a comment below with the link!  I'd love to read it.