While cruising some LJ’s (because, as well as not feeling well, I was bored out of my mind) I stumbled across taibhrigh’s answer to a challenge originally found at 1fandom. Go and check out her answer, it’s really good!

The challenge was to take 50 words and write a sentence for each word. I didn’t want to actually answer the challenge itself at the 1fandom because I feel pressured when I say that I’m going to write something, makes my writer’s block even worse. So I decided to do it at my own pace, with my own 50 words (words that have to do with the Magnificent Seven fandom, OW and ATF) that should hopefully get me to write an actual story. I also thought it would be a good writing exercise as taibhrigh points out on her LJ and also a bit of fun.

1. Death

It’s a well known fact of life that if a gunslinger wasn’t quick enough on the drawl, he faced the prospect of an early death, after which he would be buried in a shallow, unmarked grave on what is known as ‘Boot Hill’.


2. Silence

After the last bullet was fired, and the dust had settled around the fallen bank robbers, the resulting silence that filled the town was deafening.


3. Weapon

Larabee drew his weapon, aimed it at the man who stood before him, and pulled the trigger, the bullet creating a small hole in the man’s forehead, before exiting out the back.


4. Sleep

As he tossed and turned in the large bed, Buck realized that sleep was eluding him, maybe some female company would tire him out enough to allow sleep to take control of his mind and body.


5. Bone

Ezra knew the bone was broken because it was protruding through the skin, the blood dripping onto the ground beneath him, leaving a trail in the dirt as he dragged the now useless leg behind him.


6. Garbage

When JD made the mistake of breathing in through his nose, the smell of garbage littering the floor caused him to gag against the bile that suddenly filled his throat.


7. Throat

Ezra cleared his throat, trying to garner the attention of the two men who were arguing – in loud voices with their arms waving in the air – about who was going to eat the first slice of Mrs. Potter’s freshly baked peach pie.


8. Fear

Fear was an emotion that Ezra Standish was not accustomed to, normally he liked dogs, but this particular animal, with its flat ears, raised lips and sharp teeth was causing him to contemplate turning tail and running for his life.


9. Encounter

It was a violent encounter with a group of angry women that had left the bodies of both Vin and Chris covered in multiple cuts and bruises.


10. Balance

When Nathan lost his balance on the stairs that led up to the clinic, his first thought was, ‘who the hell is going to look after me’ and after hearing the sound of bones breaking when he landed on the hard ground, he realized it was going to be a lot worse than he first thought.


11. Jacket

With a frown marring his features, Ezra brushed the dust from his jacket and said, “Good Lord, will this never end.”


12. Scream

When Nathan cut into the wound, Ezra let out a scream that could be heard by the men gathered outside the clinic, and each man, knowing what their friend was going through, grimaced in sympathy.


13. Doctor

Nathan had wanted to be a Doctor all his life, if only the act of slavery hadn’t taken the opportunity from him.


14. Blood

Josiah stared at the blood dripping from the injury on the forefinger of his right hand before sticking the tip of his finger into his mouth; he hated paper cuts.


15. Conversation

Even though he listened carefully to the conversation between mother and son, JD couldn’t understand a word of it.


16. Bounce

Josiah didn’t expect his body to bounce when it hit the ground, but it did, in a very painful and embarrassing manner.


17. Smoke

Nathan didn’t know what to say in response to what he thought might have been an insult, so he took a few quick puffs from his cigarette and blew smoke into the gambler’s face instead.


18. Form

Josiah, not wanting the body of the young child to be seen by his brother, gently picked up the small form and carried him home to his father.


19. Anger

Before the anger caused him to lash out at his closest friend, Chris took a long drink from the bottle of whisky, hoping that it turned the anger into self-pity, therefore pushing the pain onto himself and not Buck Wilmington.


20. Defeat

With his shoulders slumped in defeat, Buck walked away from the table, the alcohol in his system causing his legs to trip over themselves and he fell to the floor, it was the last time he was going to try and out-drink someone of the female persuasion.


21. Lie

Lying was part of his nature, he grew up surrounded by lies, but for some strange reason that even he couldn’t begin to understand, he found it very difficult to lie to these men; men that had become his friends, something that hadn’t occurred very often in his life.


22. Unusual

The unusual circumstances called for some tactile sensitivity, so Chris insisted that Ezra take control of the situation, a request that Ezra was reluctant to undertake without any form of monetary payment.


23. Open

Chris glanced to his left and then right, before pushing the door open with his left hand, finding the room empty, he realized the man who had shot Nathan had managed to get away, but not for long, they would find him and then make sure he was incapable of inflicting pain on anyone else.


24. Situation

It was a difficult situation that Ezra found himself in, a situation made even more difficult by the fact that he didn’t have the strength to hold a gun in either hand, making him incapable of shooting the man who was trying to take his life.


25. Burning

Without his knowledge the home he’d built for his family was burning to ground, flames dancing with the direction of the wind burned the flesh off the bones of his wife and son.


26. Hung

The stranger hung from the thickest branch of the tree, the tips of his boots barely scraping the ground as the strong winds caused the body to swing left to right, giving the appearance that the man was struggling to escape the noose.


27. Back

The wound wasn’t as serious as Nathan had first thought, the bullet entering Ezra’s lower back and exiting from the side, but there had been enough blood to scare even Josiah who had retreated to the church to pray for the life of the Southerner.


28. Innocent

He was blameless, innocent of any wrong doing, but they still blamed him, because he did, after all, have the money on his person.


29. Beneath

After searching the town for three hours, Buck found the town’s resident gambler sitting cross-legged beneath a table at the back of the saloon, a shot glass of whiskey in front of him and a game of patience lying on the floor at his feet.


30. Found

Hearing the sound of galloping horses, he let out a sigh of relief; they had found him.


31. Slammed

It had started out as a verbal argument between two men, but soon escalated into an all-out brawl that ended with Josiah being slammed into a wall by a man who was at least three inches shorter than him; it was story he had no intention of sharing with his friends when he returned to Four Corners.


32. Jump

JD glanced down at the raging river, closed his eyes – he told himself that if he didn’t see the river, he wouldn’t feel as scared as he did – and then jumped into freezing water that stole his breath and filled his lungs.


33. Time

They moved fast – time wasn’t a friend today – fear dictating their actions, as they circled their seventh, protecting him from any more harm.


34. Restraints

His wrists turned and pulled, gaining only an extra inch, these weren’t the types of restraints he was use to, handcuffs were a simple thing but rope was more complicated than Maude Standish.


35. Struck

He had struck out verbally, knowing that words were capable of causing a lot more pain than any physical blow could.


36. Window

Ezra watched as the rain splattered against the window, reminding him of the days he’d spent sitting in front of a warm fire while his Aunt Martha read the letters his mother had sent him during the winter of his fifth year.


37. Minutes

It had felt like hours but in actuality it was only a matter of minutes; it’s what pain does to a man's sense of time.


38. Pursuit

The horses had been running hard for the last hour, trying to evade the men in pursuit, but if they didn’t slow down soon and give the animals a break, the horses would fall and die beneath them.


39. Christmas

It was the first Christmas he would spend without his mother, but his friends intended to make it a special day for him, hoping to make the day easier for the young man who had come West searching for a new life.


40. Justice

Today, justice had been made for a man lost to the violence of a gun.


41. Impress

“Your words don’t impress me, Gambler, so shut up or put up,” the man, new to Four Corners, thinking that he had easily won the hand, threw his cards into the center of the table and began to pull the pot towards his chest, but stopped at the sight of the Gambler’s cards. “You cheated!”


42. Buried

Ezra buried his emotions, not allowing his associates to see how their words had hurt him.


43. Covered

Buck covered his nakedness when he realised the woman – who was trying to place herself into a seductive position - standing at the foot of the bed wasn’t the woman he had spent the night with; it was her grandmother.


44. Tactful

“Tactful,” Ezra explained to Buck when the ladies man had insulted the young woman’s mother. “It means, polite, thoughtful, sensitive, considerate . . . perhaps next time, you’ll . . . oh never mind.”


45. Uncomfortable

It didn’t matter that Vin felt uncomfortable in the gambler’s clothes, they needed to convince the man that had tried to kill their friend that Ezra was still amongst the living because Ezra wasn’t in a healthy enough state to do it himself.


46. Spook

“Try not to spook the horses, JD,” Buck warned the Sherriff. “I don’t want to be stuck in no-man’s land with no way to get home.”


47. Alone

He’d spent his entire life feeling as though he were alone in this world, but after meeting the six men who quickly became friends, he no longer felt the isolation that had followed him from childhood into his adult life.


48. Home

Ezra glanced at the stitched sign in the window, reading the words ‘Home is where the heart is’ and wondered if his mother would understand the meaning of those six simple words.


49. Push

Chris didn’t want to push the injured Wilmington into moving, but he no longer had a choice, he pulled his friend into an upright position and began to drag him towards the rocks that would hopefully hide them from the men who were intent on killing the two lawmen.


50. Tall

Ezra looked up at the tall man, knowing that if he didn’t say something, and quickly, this man was going to attempt to beat the living shit out of him.


Watching: Bottom Live – 2004 An Arse Oddity