Run, Rudolph, Run

Run, Rudolph, Run

What's a warm up?

Warm soft cash

Who and what is on the money in your current story? What denominations do you have? Does the lowest denomination have the most important person since they'll be seen the most often? Or the higher denomination because they're worth more? What's it made of? What shape is it?

If you're not working on a current story feel free to make up money from a favorite story. What does the Red Queen's money look like in Wonderland? Or in Oz? In Pern? I'm not sure if we saw the money in Harry Potter. Would the figures move?

---

As usual, click the picture to be taken somewhere, this time to World's Weirdest Currency where you can see coins with pop up heads and shaped like guitars among other oddities. There's also a book, Unusual World Coins, with "400 years of micro-nation coinage, fantasy issues (such as Middle Earth - Lord of the Rings), medieval fair coinage, historical fantasy and pretender issues." (Which is a bit pricey so hopefully in your library!)

By your command

By your command

What's a warm up?

"In composing ..."

Spanish caravan

Spanish caravan

What's a warm up?

But officer ...

I need to leave very early to get into Boston traffic court for my first ever speeding ticket.

So, in honor of what I get to do today, in the world of your favorite book, movie, your own current work, come up with a dozen excuses to give the officer for why you were speeding. What would Harry Potter say? What would Han Solo say (if he didn't have a Jedi with him?) What would Captain Kirk say?

The best response is to go to court and just plain admit you were wrong and promise to never do it again, but that's not very interesting! ;-) You can be way more creative than that!

(BTW, yes, the not so interesting story worked :-)

---

Here's some creative (contemporary) stories:

Best Ticket Excuses Contest
Best Traffic Ticket Excuses

Ballroom blitz

Ballroom blitz

What's a warm up?

Pleonasms

Yes, it's Photoshopped! No kittens were
squished in the taking of this picture.

A pleonasm is "the use of more words than those necessary to express an idea".

Choose 10 of the following pleonasms. Change one of the repetitious words to come up with a new -- and probably very odd! -- concept then use it in a sentence. Partial satisfaction? Ignorant experts?

(Sorry for the long list! After two whittles, this is what was left and I ran out of time to make it shorter.)

If you've come upon examples of pleonasms in real life or from your imagination, Anu Garg is running a contest this week (ends Friday, Dec 10).

absolutely essential
actual facts
anonymous stranger
artificial prosthesis
basic necessities
boat marina
bouquet of flowers
brief moment
burning embers
cacophony of sound
completely annihilate
desirable benefits
eradicate completely
face mask
fall down
favorable approval
final end
final ultimatum
fly through the air
free gift
frozen ice
full satisfaction
green [or blue or whatever] in color
harmful injuries
introduced for the first time
knowledgeable experts
lag behind
live studio audience
live witness
look ahead to the future
look back in retrospect
manually by hand
mental telepathy
natural instinct
new invention
over exaggerate
personal friend
positive identification
pouring down rain
protest against
pursue after
safe haven
sand dune
serious danger
sudden impulse
three-way love triangle
total destruction
true facts
truly sincere
unexpected emergency
unintentional mistake
very unique

There's even more at Pleonasms.

Black math

Black math

What's a warm up?

"Fiction writing is great ..."

What to do after NaNoWriMo

Writing in the Sky by Shinichi Maruyama

If you found a month madly dedicated to one project exhilarating amidst the exhaustion :-) there are more challenges throughout the year, some lasting a month, some a week, some 3 days, some 24 straight hours. :-) (The NaNoWriMo folks aren't affiliated with any of these except Script Frenzy.)

From the I Wrote a Novel, Now What? page at the NaNoWriMo site which might have more challenges added throughout the year (plus a few free contests). (For readers in the future, if you've stumbled across this page during November, the link probably won't work. A fresh page will go up early December.)

December
NaNoFiMo.org - National Novel Finishing Month (December). Goal: 30,000 words.
De-PlotWriMo - Plot Writing Month (December). Goal: Refine the plot arc of your first draft.

Varies or throughout the year
NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month (Year-Round). Goal: Post every day for a month.
WriYe - (Year-Round). Goal: Set a word-count goal for the year and work towards it between January 1 and December 31.
48 Hour Film Project - (Varies; operates via tours around the USA, lasts 48 hours). Goal: Create a short film in 48 hours.
SciFiWriMo - Science Fiction Writing Month (Year-Round). Goal: choose a target word count and reach it in a month, writing sci-fi or fantasy.
750 Words (Year-Round). Goal: write 750 words a day. Includes month-long challenges.

January
JanNoWriMo - Goal: Write either 50k or your own word-count goal in January.

February
FAWM - February Album Writing Month (February). Goal: Write 14 original songs in a month.

March
NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month (March). Goal: Commit to 50 hours of novel editing.

April
Script Frenzy - NaNoWriMo's sister challenge (April). Goal: Write a 100-page screenplay, stage play, comic book, or set of TV scripts in April.
RePoWriMo - Refrigerator Poetry Writing Month (April). Goal: Write poetry using only refrigerator poetry magnets.
April Fool's - (April). Goal: Set a word-count goal for yourself and fulfill it by the end of the month.

May
National Picture Book Writing Week - (First week of May). Goal: Write 7 picture books in 7 days.
NEPMo - National Epic Poetry Month (May). Goal: Write 5,000 lines epic poem in May.
SoFoBoMo - Solo Photo Book Month (Between May first and June 31). Goal: Create a solo photo book within 31 days.
Story A Day - (Throughout May). The only rules: Write a story a day. Finish them. Note from me: this could easily be harder than NaNo if your stories are more than 1667 words each! :-) If you'd like to keep word count under control you might want to check out the various forms of Flash fiction.

June
ComiKaze - Create a 24 page comic in 24 hours. Participants pages are posted at the Pulp Faction forums.
WriDaNoJu - Write a Damn Novel in June (June). Goal: Write 50K in the 30 days of June. It's perfectly situated six months from November so you have optimum time to prepare for WriDaNoJu and NaNoWriMo.
SoCNoC - Southern Cross Novel Challenge (June). Goal: Write 50,000 words of fiction.

July
JulNoWriMo - July Novel Writing Month (July). Goal: 50,000 words for a new or unfinished manuscript.

August
AugNoWriMo - August Novel Writing Month (August). Goal: Write a novel in one month.

September
3-Day Novel Contest - (September). Goal: Write a novel in three days. They've been doing this since 1977. So cool!
SeptNoWriMo - September Novel Writing Month (September). Goal: Set a word-count goal and edit, write, or edit and write throughout the month of September!

October
24 Hour Comics Day - (Date changes annually, lasts 24 hours). Goal: Draw a 24-page comic in one 24-hour period.
GothNoWriMo - Gothic Novel Writing Month (October). Goal: Write a gothic novel in October.

November
NaPlWriMo - National Playwriting Month (November). Goal: Write a play in one month.
NaNoMango - The manga alternative to NaNoWriMo. Either 30 penciled, 15 inked, or 10 completely finished pages of a comic book in 30 days.
PiBoIdMo - Picture Book Idea Month (November). Goal: Write 30 ideas in 30 days.

Cold blood

Cold blood

What's a warm up?

Rose isn't a rose

A field of flowers is obviously more beautiful than a bare patch of ground.

Or is it? What about the microbes and other beasts and plants using that field before the flowers came along and invaded? That flowering plant drills roots down into the soil, stealing water and nutrients that get sucked up into a structure that blocks the sun then drops it's waste onto the ground that attracts different microbes to consume it.

Write about the invasion from the point of view of one of the original inhabitants.

Loud love

Loud love

What's a warm up?

Dwindling dweeby dwarf dwellings

Something quick and, for those on the final day of NaNoWriMo, a bit of a mental break from plotting :-)

There are only 4 words in the English language that begin with dw. Write at least 10 very different sentences using at least 3 of the dw words in each sentence in different ways (obviously changing tenses and forms as you wish).

dwarf
dwell
dwindle
dweeb

---

Inspired by #88 in Unjournaling: Daily Writing Exercises that Are NOT Personal, NOT Introspective, NOT Boring! by Dawn DiPrince and Cheryl Miller Thurston.

Giant balls of gold

Giant balls of gold

What's a warm up?

Or giant golden plot ninja.

"The world is a lot more fun ..."

The Purple Monster Costume

Shin kicker

Shin kicker

What's a warm up?

A shin kicking ninja for your plot ninja perhaps?

Be thankful today because tomorrow ...

Bigger at Motifake

What are your characters thankful for? Yes, even the bad guy.

Let them be blissfully thankful today. Because all those things they're thankful for are their weaknesses and tomorrow you will have Fate and the bad guy take them all away <eg>.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Southbound pachyderm

Southbound pachyderm

What's a warm up?

Or a southbound plot ninja!

Internal conflicts

Have the heart, soul, mind and body of a character argue about what's been done to them and what direction things should go. It can be the character in your Nano, a favorite character you created, or one someone else created.

Rusty cage

Rusty cage

What's a warm up?

Or another potential plot ninja for your Nano.

"I think writer's block ..."

Burning bridges

Burning bridges

Another potential plot ninja if you wish :-)

What's a warm up?

Adambot and Evedroid

Adoptabots by Brian Marshall

Retell the story of Adam and Eve from the point of view of robots with their creator in the role of God.

What knowledge would their creator not want them to have? What would this forbidden portal to knowledge be? What would it look like to them?

Who would want to tempt them to take the knowledge and why? What form would the tempter take?

Their knowledge of the world would be only what their creator allowed them to have. Some artificial intelligence research involves giving robots some rudimentary goals and an understanding of how to explore. This allows them to build their own understanding of their world, refining it as they learn from the results of what they try. So what would their view of their world be? What understanding would they have of their creator? If they were to record their story of how they were kicked out of or escaped from robot paradise how would it read? What misconceptions would they have in their understanding of their creator and his or her motives and of robot paradise?

All of the damned

All of the damned

What's a warm up?

Cripes. All of them? Yes, every single one of them. In your Nano. Soon. (Though of course you can take it in creative directions!)

Muck it up

Are things sailing along a little too smoothly in the middle of your story? Do you have a story you abandoned when things got boring? Try one of these:

• Your character gets defensive, edgy, paranoid. Maybe for good reason.
• Do you believe in justice? If so, who is not getting their fair share of bad karma? Even the scales by doing something unfortunate to the character that has suffered the least.
• Which character, if killed, would really mess up this whole situation? I know, they are too important to kill off. But due to pressing family problems, they could leave indefinitely.
• One of your antagonists is or becomes very wealthy. How will they use this against you?
• Peer pressure [or hazing] is fun, especially when it convinces your character to shoplift, tresspass or go naked.
• An assumed name, identity, role: someone is not who they are pretending to be.
• Tomorrow morning your character rolls over and sees the fruit of last night's mistake on their pillow...more interesting: maybe they don't regret it. [The original said "sleeping on their pillow" but leaving it out opens up the possibilities! :-D]

---

These are from Random Plot Points where there lots of random ways to muck up your plot. :-)

Dead seagull

Dead seagull

What's a warm up?

Not sure why it didn't occur to me before to find song titles that sounded like plot ninjas! But I'll try to continue that for the rest of the month. :-)

"Don't let a single day ..."

Briefcase full of guts

Briefcase full of guts

What's a warm up?

Warm up or a plot ninja for your NaNo novel? Not too difficult if you're writing a murder mystery but might be a challenge for a romance! ;-) I collected a slew of Plot Ninjas if you'd like to try some.

First impressions

Write about a favorite character or your character (can be the main character, villain, a character you're intrigued by) from the point of view of a stranger. Put the character in his or her element or everyday life and describe someone's first impression of them.

Now try putting the character in a situation they don't feel comfortable in. How would a stranger describe them?

Tell me something I don't know

Tell me something I don't know

What's a warm up?

Great Expectations

Pointing by Marcus Ranum

A big fan of the gangster era genre, Lizzy has spent weekends designing characters to take with her on her Great Expectations virtual reality experience. The characters are base level, perfectly capable of reacting in unique ways to the novel (or genre) they're designed for, either to help her or to throw monkey wrenches into the plot. If she sets the randomizer before entering her experience, one or more will only seem to be as she designed them.

Lizzy enters the virtual reality world and the doors lock behind her for the duration. Then she realizes she's in the wrong novel, she's in a fantasy genre instead. And she's trapped with characters incapable of realizing the genre has shifted.

Feel free to randomize the two genres Lizzy ends up in.

Genre

(The subgenre list is from AllBookstores).

Here's some that caught my attention as I was randomizing:

• Monastic (Mystery) -- Spicy (Romance)
• English Country House (Mystery) -- Space Travel (Scifi Fantasy)
• Glitz and Glamor (Romance) -- Psychological (Horror)
• Vengance (Western) -- Regency (Romance)
• Gothic (Horror) -- Fairy Tales (Scifi Fantasy)
• Husband and Wife (Mystery) -- Wild Frontiers (Scifi Fantasy)

---

Idea from Teresa Schultz-Jones's Nano.

Pennyroyal tea

Pennyroyal tea

What's a warm up?

"Close the door ..."

?

Pestilence and plague

Pestilence and plague

What's a warm up?

Hairy alternative grungy metal rocks II

I need something easy. I'm falling behind on my NaNo word count. There's a reason Chris Baty says don't start with a story you've already worked on. And it's not because it makes it too easy. It's because it's harder without the ability to let anything happen! ;-)

So ... onto the prompt. Use the following phrases in sentences. (If you can't make the phrase work, feel free use the words individually.)

death clock
blood sweat tears
buck cherry
arrow smith (or aero if you can make it work)
iron maiden
nine inch nails
beastie boys
sound garden
dead seagull
alien ant farm
wolf mother
deaf leopard
finger eleven
living color
them crooked vultures
hammer fist
screaming monkey boners
faith no more

If you'd like some more: Part I.

Perfect insanity

Perfect insanity

What's a warm up?

A maddening cow disease

Click image for larger view
Click -- HERE -- for even larger (but you may want to avoid
the caption at the bottom so it doesn't constrain your ideas).

Yes, those are mini cows bursting out of people. The tub says "Opening Mixture."

The people are panicking but not attacking anyone. Do they know they'll eventually be okay or have their violent reactions been suppressed?

The people in brown, green and blue seem exceedingly calm. They obviously know what's going on but also seem certain the cow people won't attack them. Why?

Are they creating the cow people or curing them? What do they intend to do with these cow people or what caused them to become like this?

What will they do with all the mini cows?

Hell is home

Hell is home

What's a warm up?

"In nearly all good fiction ..."

Call of the zombie

Call of the zombie

What's a warm up?

Talking trash

"The wastebasket is a writer's best friend." -- Isaac Bashevis Singer

What if it were? What if an author sequestered himself or herself with a chatty wastebasket. Does it give good advice? Is its goal to be filled? Does it interact with the Muse (from Tuesday)? Does the Muse not like her creations ending up in the wastebasket? Or does she accept it as part of the process to make room for new ideas?

What does the author do with the wastebasket during NaNoWriMo when the goal is to not delete?

"Life is like ..."

"Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.…"

Samuel Butler

What's a warm up?

Whose Muse?

Who is your Muse?

Describe the Muse that comes up with the wild ideas that seem to come from no where as you're writing. What is she/he/it like when you remove the shackles and open the cage door for NaNoWriMo? What about after NaNo when the editing process begins? How do your Muse and your inner Editor interact? Is there conflict of epic proportions?

Or, if you'd rather, what about Ozzy Osbourne's muse? Or J.K. Rowling? Lady Gaga? George Lucas? Alfred Hitchcock?

Even in death

Even in death

What's a warm up?

"There are many reasons ..."

My name is mud

My name is mud

What's a warm up?

Speak of the devil

“Speak of the Devil, here she comes now," Raz grumbled into Limo's tufty ear, then immediately punctuated it with an "Erp!" when the Devil's crimson gaze turned toward her.

Take it from there!

Don't judge ...

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

English proverb

What's a warm up?

Reality bites

Create a reality show around a favorite character, or, if you're doing NaNoWriMo this year and have a story idea, your main character or main antagonist. Putting them in a high pressure situation is bound to bring out some new personality quirks and conflicts.

Perhaps one of your NaNo characters is the central figure of the show and the other competes to win an opportunity to be a partner or be mentored. Or the protagonist and antagonist compete against each other.

---

If you have only an unwilling knowledge of reality TV, there are far more types than you might imagine. (Wikipedia has a good list of subcategories of reality TV shows with examples of each.) Some cribbed from there:

Documentary style shows: Selected strangers required to live together. Recording a celebrity's or unusual person's home life. Or the daily doings of someone in an interesting profession.

Contest style shows: Competitors face a series of physical, intellectual, skill based or creative challenges and are eliminated by the host or the audience. This includes dating shows and career opportunity shows.

Improvement shows: Someone or something is made over.

Swap shows: Someone is inserted into another person's life to sink or swim.

Night crawler

Night crawler

What's a warm up?

"Our lives with ..."

Loud love

Loud love

What's a warm up?

High Church of the Evil Stepmother

The World is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide just because we can't agree on whose fairy tales to believe. -- Ed Krebs, photographer (b. 1951)

Of course Krebs's "fairy tales" is a snarky reference to religion, but what if the beliefs actually were fairy tales? What if the wars are over which of the various interpretations of Snow White is the real one? Were they dwarves or theives? Was it 7 dwarves for 40 dragons? Was the instigator an evil step-mother or two jealous sisters?

(There's a list of mostly European fairy tales at Fairy Tales if you'd like to explore other fairy tales with multiple versions.)

Or broader, perhaps Grimm versus Perrault? European versus Chinese? Marvel versus DC? Classic Star Trek or revamped story line?

A book is like a garden ...

"A book is like a garden carried in a pocket."

-- Chinese proverb

What's a warm up?

Congenially congealed

Aunt Hexia has brought her (in)famous lime jello salad to the family picnic.

There are, as usual, mysterious things suspended in it. (Could those be pretzels? Are those olives or is something looking back at you?)

Capture the dozen tactful statements you hear being made. What do you say?

---

Inspired by #111 in Unjournaling: Daily Writing Exercises that Are NOT Personal, NOT Introspective, NOT Boring! by Dawn DiPrince and Cheryl Miller Thurston.

Baby Gotterdammerung

Baby Gotterdammerung

What's a warm up?

"A blank piece of paper ..."

The Prince

(Geez, I just totally disappeared. I did the 24 hour comic book challenge over the weekend with my daughter and didn't expect it to throw me completely off schedule. If you're curious to see it: A Morning in the Life of a Magical Girl.)

You're hired to be The Prince's bodyguard, caretaker, watchdog, general factotum while he's visiting your city. The Prince proves to be quite high maintenance. You need to keep him occupied, happy and within sight. For the next 48 hours when he will give a speech at the opening ceremonies of the intergalactic exposition your skills are challenged to the fullest.