Alien mail

Write a letter to a being living on another planet. At the moment the process is text only the way the internet used to be ;-) so you'll need to describe everything: what humans look like, cars, family structure, fast food, television, trees, houses ...

From: Writing Exercises.

Mouse potatoes

Below is sampling of new words being added to the Merriam Webster's dictionary during 2006. I must admit I only know about three quarters of them! (Which is better than my spell checker which is questioning 10 of them ;-) Use them as a writing prompt. Try to get as many into a story as 10-15 minutes allows. If you want to really push it, try incorporating one of the words into each sentence. (If you want the definitions they're linked at New Words.)

Technology and Computers

• mouse potato
  
• ringtone
  
• spyware

Science and Medicine

• avian influenza
  
• biodiesel
  
• gastric bypass

Pop Culture

• soul patch
  
• supersize

Entertainment and Leisure

• labelmate
  
• ollie
  
• wave pool

The Human Condition

• drama queen
  
• unibrow

International

• manga
  
• qigong

Business and Industry

• agritourism
  
• big-box

Nature

• aquascape
  
• coqui

Miscellaneous

• polyamory
  
• sandwich generation

Google image labeler

Google Image Labeler

Is it a game? I think so! At any rate it certainly challenges your ability to come up with words.

The object is to come up with keywords for a random image found by Google. You're playing with a partner (some random, anonymous person Google chooses for you). The object is for both of you to come up with the same word to describe an image. The trick is that you can't see the words your partner is coming up with.

You have 1.5 minutes to try to label as many images as you can but you can't move onto the next image until you've both found a word for the current image.

It can be quite addictive!

Thesaurus trails

Begin with a word and follow a trail of words through the thesaurus.

This is easiest with a thesaurus on your computer but it will work with an old fashioned hardcopy too. (There's an online Thesaurus a The Free Dictionary. Click the Word/Article radio button. The thesaurus words will be below the dictionary definitions.)

Start with any word: a word that has meaning for you, a new favorite, one chosen at random, one with a definition that might touch on a lot of things or something common place.

Write the word down then look it up in the thesaurus. Jot down one or more words that intrigue you. (It can be fun to deliberately choose a word that means something very different than the meaning you had in mind.) Then look up the new words. Keep going, looking up the words you've found until a trail comes to a dead end that offers no new words. You can then go back and choose one of the other words you chose from the thesaurus and follow that.

Keep following trails for 10-15 minutes or as long as you're having fun :-)

If you're only going to choose one or two words each time, you can write them down in a simple list. If you're going to choose several words each time you might want to make a cluster diagram by writing your original word in the center and then writing the words you chose from the thesaurus around it. (There's an example of a cluster diagram at Clustering characters.)

When you're done, look over the patterns and connections in the trails.

Pick one trail and use that as a writing prompt for 10-15 minutes.

(Inspired by Thesaurus Maze at About Teen Writing.)

Here's a few simple trails I created:

• animal -- crude -- earthy -- dusty -- cold -- passionless -- cold -- black -- swarthy -- dark
  
• beauty -- charmer -- necromancer -- prophet -- haruspex -- augur -- imply -- hint -- fantasy
  
• demon -- evil spirit -- bogey -- aircraft -- flyover -- overpass -- span -- straddle -- perspective -- futurism

Just wanted to let you know ...

In honor of my sister's visit, from the point of view of a bad guy's sister, write home to Mom about the bad sibling's activities. Assume Mom thinks he or she is a paragon so the goal is to break it to her gently. (It can be a bad guy someone else created or your own invention.)

"There's no excuse not to dream."

Seven virtues

This expands on the idea from last Saturday to help you get to know a character you've created better or flesh out one that seems a bit wishy-washy.

What would your character's list of 7 Virtues be? They don't have to be virtues he or she possesses, but ones he or she thinks are most admirable -- in others perhaps! While he goes off and does the total opposite ;-)

Then do a free write on a different one for 15 minutes each day about your character's thoughts and feelings on and experiences with the virtue. People he's known who've had it and the good and bad he's seen of it. Times he's seen it put into action. Just let the words flow nonstop for 15 minutes.

Try making up your own list of virtues first. Then, if you want, you can look through this list compiled from various places around the internet to see if there are any your character might move to the top of his or her list.

acceptance
acknowledgment
assertiveness
beauty
bravery
caring
charity
cheerfulness
clarity
cleanliness
commitment
compassion
competence
confidence
consideration
contentment
cooperation
courage
courtesy
craft
creativity
curiosity
detachment
determination
devotion
diligence
discernment
efficiency
empathy
energy
enthusiasm
excellence
fairness
faith
faithfulness
flexibility
forgiveness
fortitude
friendliness
generosity
gentleness
grace
gratitude
helpfulness
honesty
honor
hope
humility
humor
idealism
insight
integrity
joyfulness
justice
kindness
love
loyalty
mercy
mindfulness
moderation
modesty
obedience
open mindedness
order
orderliness
passion
patience
peace
peacefulness
perseverance
perspective
playfulness
prayerfulness
pride
principled
productivity
prudence
purity
purposefulness
rationality
reliability
resilience
respect
responsibility
reverence
righteousness
sacrifice
self confidence
self discipline
self possession
self restraint
service
silence
steadfastness
stillness
tact
temperance
thankfulness
thrift
tolerance
trust
trustworthiness
truthfulness
understanding
unity
wisdom
wonder

Lost in translation

Copy a paragraph of text from the internet, a poem, something you've written into the translator at Babel Fish Translation or Free Translation

Select a language to translate it into. (Only the European ones seem to work for Babel Fish. Or maybe it's just my browser.) Click Translate.

On the next page copy the translated text at the top and paste it into the box at the bottom. Choose another language to translate it into. (Note: Dutch is listed below English.)

Repeat for as long as you find this amusing :-)

Use the final output as a writing prompt.

Some hints:

• At times it leaves a foreign word untranslated and those will persist. If foreign words creeping in bothers you, translate it to English fairly regularly and replace them. (To see what the words used to be -- it probably has altered from the original -- you can click the back button despite the dire warning about resending the form. It works just fine.)
  
• Less frequently typos creep in -- ex, "if" became "if f" -- You may want to keep an eye out for those also if it bothers you.

Here's one that I did. If you want to see the original, click the Comments.

Maria had small paralyzed. To be excessively and the rag to float was the target eats of the snow. Everybody, where one became paralyzed to this Maria that must go away stops towards has been correct. As - it walk yet to teach to a day that is contradicts the norms to him. It provided for that the children and, laugh of the games to see paralyzed in the school.

The Devil and his publicist

Choose one of the following as a 10-15 minute writing prompt.

• Depict an allergy gone haywire.
  
• Pen the monologue of a nostalgic vampire.
  
• Script a dialogue between the Devil and his publicist.

From Michael Arnzen's THE GORELETTER. A bi-monthly email newsletter of the bizarre. Michael Arnzen is an author of horror novels and poetry.

Top Ten Tabloid Headlines for October 2006

From The City Newsstand's (a newsstand/bookstore in Chicago) monthly MAGBAG -- Top 10 Tabloid Headlines. (Mostly from Weekly World News (WWN) and the SUN.)

1. FATAL FARTS! — WWN
   
2. GRANNY SCARES OFF ROBBERS BY PULLING A BIGGER KNIFE! — SUN
   
3. SATAN CAPTURED BY GIs IN IRAQ! — WWN
   
4. VAMPIRES ATTACK U.S. TROOPS Army of undead taking over mountains of Afghanistan! — WWN
   
5. VEGAN VAMPIRE ATTACKS TREES — WWN
   
6. Sherriff serves up a bowl of his own blood as bait to capture... VAMPIRE CAT! — WWN
   
7. Mystery of the floating coffin — SUN
   
8. SCIENTISTS END TERROR OF THE WALKING MUMMY! — SUN
   
9. AMERICA'S LATEST ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS — VAMPIRES — SUN
   
10. JUDGE WHO BARRED WITCHES FROM ADOPTING CHILDREN TURNED INTO GUINEA PIG! — WWN

Freewriting to character building

Use free writing to build characters.

Make a list of emotions. Each day free write for 15 minutes -- that is write without pausing, push the ideas out -- about what your character thinks about the emotion, what emotions it elicits for him, experiences he's had with it in himself and in others. Anything and everything that flows out nonstop for 15 minutes.

There are several lists of emotions on the internet. The one here is from Basic emotions - list of emotions.

Wikipedia also has a list of Emotions.

And at Burning Void: Passion (though some seem more akin to characteristics).

(From an idea posted by Sesselja on the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) forums.

love
compassion
sentimentality
lust
passion
infatuation
longing
joy
satisfaction
ecstasy
enthusiasm
zeal
thrill
contentment
pleasure
pride
triumph
optimism
rapture
relief
amazement
aggravation
frustration
anger
hostility
hate
scorn
vengefulness
resentment
disgust
jealousy
torment
suffering
depression
sadness
grief
disappointment
guilt
shame
remorse
alienation
loneliness
insecurity
embarrassment
humiliation
insult
pity
sympathy
shock
fear
panic
anxiety
dread

Words of the Year

Only three months away from this year's list but I just came across this: Merriam-Webster OnLine posted a list of top searched words of 2005.

(There are links to definitions there. But feel free to make up your own definitions.)

Use them as a 10-15 minute writing prompt (story or poem).

integrity
refugee
contempt
filibuster
insipid
tsunami
pandemic
conclave
levee
inept

Wanted!

Create a Wanted poster for a notorious criminal. Make up an evil person, use your favorite evil character, or write the Wanted poster the bad guys would put up for a pesky good guy they want eliminated.

If you need some inspiration, there are some real wanted posters at FBI's Most Wanted. They are, of course, not nice people being very not nice currently so not for the faint of heart.

There are some Wanted posters from the old west at Outlaws of the American West. Who were also not nice people but at least they're long dead.

One at Wikipedia for John Wilkes Boothe. (A longer version of the picture at right.) There's also a bigger version that you can read the smallest print if you don't mind waiting for it to load.

And some Wanted posters for bugs at Bug Mugs :-)

Dragon Writing sticks

Here's the list of words that I used for the writing prompt -- though more of a game really! -- in the Dragon Writing fun shop at the Live and Learn Conference. (Click on Comments at the bottom of the post for a list of the words.)

For those who weren't there, I had a whole bunch (maybe 300) colored popsicle sticks with words written on both sides. We drew a bunch of sticks and tried to come up with fantasy tabloid headlines.

The only instruction I gave was to choose 2 sticks of each color. That just gives you a good mixture of word types to start working with. You don't need to use them all. You don't need to use each color. You can throw back and redraw any that aren't working and draw whatever color. Whatever helps!

I used two packs of colored popsicle sticks and put words on each side. I can't remember how many were in each pack. (150 maybe?)

Plain - Conjunctions and Prepositions. These are the only ones that have 4 to a stick. Katelyn came up with this idea in the headlines she sent to the list and it seemed to make them more interesting. I went through the newspaper and kept track of the prepositions that were most common. There are multiple copies of each set. Katelyn needed an "on" a couple of times so I made one but it's all by its lonesome at the moment. There's a list of prepositions at Test Magic. Way more than the newspaper headlines ever use! ;-)

Green - Places and Objects. Probably the least useful category but interesting to have.

Red - Verbs. There are more words than I had sticks for so I colored some plain sticks with a red marker.

Blue and Purple - People and Creatures. Probably the most useful category since the nouns can often do double duty as adjectives: vampire astrologist for instance.

Yellow and Orange - Adjectives. If I were doing it again, I would change what adjectives I could to nouns, like "baby" for instance. (Especially since I had extra blue and purple and ran short of yellow and orange so had to make some.)

Using colored sticks isn't important. It's just less annoying. My daughter and I have another set of just plain sticks with random words on it originally intended to generate manga-ish story ideas. They've expanded beyond that (a recent one had something to do with a local radio personality and sparkly pants ;-) But since they're all the same color, it's annoyingly easy to pull out a whole series of nouns as you search for a verb.

I don't know if it makes a difference but, as I was writing them, I had the words printed in two columns (4 columns for the adjectives) and chose the word for one side of a stick from column A and the other side of the stick from column B so all the "a"s, for instance, weren't clustered onto the same sticks. As I said I'm not sure if it makes a difference but it seemed to make sense at the time!

Killing ways

Write 35 (or more!) *ways* for a character to murder another. Again, push it even if they start sounding wacky. Try doing one or more for each letter of the alphabet. It might knock some more ideas loose!

Aliens ate my antenna

Write an alliterative (tabloid if you wish) headline for each letter of the alphabet.

Hack your way out of writer's block

Hack Your Way Out of Writer's Block

by Merlin Mann
I recently had occasion to do some…errr…research on writer’s block. Yeah, research. That’s what I was doing. Like a scientist.

I found lots of great ideas to get unstuck and wrote the best ones on index cards to create an Oblique Strategies-like deck. Swipe, share, and add you own in comments.

• Talk to a monkey - Explain what you’re really trying to say to a stuffed animal or cardboard cutout.
  
  [Joyce: This is a variation of the classic "What Am I Really Trying To Say?" Sometimes we get so lost in the details of the trees that we can't see the forest we're trying to write about. You can also try explaining your story to a friend in an email. (You don't need to send it.)]
  
  
• Do something important that’s very easy - Is there a small part of your project you could finish quickly that would move things forward?
  
  [Joyce: In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamont suggests looking at a project one piece at a time. "Bird by bird" as her father suggested to her brother when he had to write a report about birds. A novel can be intimidating but you've "assigned" yourself just to write a description of the main character, that seems more doable.]
  
  
• Try freewriting - Sit down and write anything for an arbitrary period of time—say, 10 minutes to start. Don’t stop, no matter what. Cover the monitor with a manila folder if you have to. Keep writing, even if you know what you’re typing is gibberish, full of misspellings, and grammatically psychopathic. Get your hand moving and your brain will think it’s writing. Which it is. See?
  
  
• Take a walk - Get out of your writing brain for 10 minutes. Think about bunnies. Breathe.
  
  
• Take a shower; change clothes - Give yourself a truly clean start.
  
  
• Write from a persona - Lend your voice to a writing personality who isn’t you. Doesn’t have to be a pirate or anything—just try seeing your topic from someone else’s perspective, style, and interest.
  
  
• Get away from the computer; Write someplace new - If you’ve been staring at the screen and nothing is happening, walk away. Shut down the computer. Take one pen and one notebook, and go somewhere new.
  
  
• Quit beating yourself up - You can’t create when you feel ass-whipped. Stop visualizing catastrophes, and focus on positive outcomes.
  
  
• Stretch - Maybe try vacuuming your lungs too.
  
  
• Add one ritual behavior - Get a glass of water exactly every 20 minutes. Do pushups. Eat a Tootsie Roll every paragraph. Add physical structure.
  
  
• Listen to new music - Try something instrumental and rhythmic that you’ve never heard before. Put it on repeat, then stop fiddling with iTunes until your draft is done.
  
  
• Write crap - Accept that your first draft will suck, and just go with it. Finish something.
  
  [Joyce: Pretty much the idea behind National Novel Writing Month. When the goal is to write 2000 words a day then what you write becomes less important than just getting words down on the page. And it's amazing the stuff that comes out when the inner editor is on vacation.]
  
  
• Unplug the router - Metafilter and Boing Boing aren’t helping you right now. Turn off the Interweb and close every application you don’t need. Consider creating a new user account on your computer with none of your familiar apps or configurations.
  
  
• Write the middle - Stop whining over a perfect lead, and write the next part or the part after that. Write your favorite part. Write the cover letter or email you’ll send when it’s done.
  
  [Joyce: Another idea is to write something outside of the story: background of a character, a letter from one character to another.]
  
  
• Do one chore - Sweep the floor or take out the recycling. Try something lightly physical to remind you that you know how to do things.
  
  
• Make a pointless rule - You can’t end sentences with words that begin with a vowel. Or you can’t have more than one word over eight letters in any paragraph. Limits create focus and change your perspective.
  
  
• Work on the title - Quickly make up five distinctly different titles. Meditate on them. What bugs you about the one you like least?
  
  
• Write five words - Literally. Put five completley random words on a piece of paper. Write five more words. Try a sentence. Could be about anything. A block ends when you start making words on a page.

Time to kill

Write 35 motives for why a character would want to murder another. Push it even if they start sounding wacky.

If you want, take the third-last item you wrote and use that as a writing prompt for 10-15 minute.

From the writing prompts at OnceWritten.com.

The Famous Wombat Specter

Choose a hero and a villain. Set the timer for 10-15 minutes and write their latest encounter.

THE SUPER HEROES

The famous Wombat Specter
Power(s): Dark generation/control, Precognition
Source of powers: Solar
Weapon: Light Derringer
Transportation: Meteor Ornithopter

The fearless Cyberfly
Power(s): Insect control, Super intelligence
Source of powers: Abnormal brain function
Weapon: Ether Throwing Stars
Transportation: Ring Portal

The lucky Dragon Princess
Power(s): Sharp shooting
Source of powers: Electrocution
Weapon: Force Missiles
Transportation: Vibro Forklift

The wondrous Tiger Light
Power(s): Dark generation/control, Prehensile tail
Source of powers: Raised by animals
Weapon: Kryptonite Sword
Transportation: Tomorrow Tractor

THE SUPER VILLAINS

The deadly Ghost Whatsit
Power(s): Super strength, Juggling, Extra-dimensional travel
Source of powers: Radiation
Weapon: Omnithrowing stars
Transportation: Insect Skates

The socio-pathic Fire Warrior
Power(s): Matter consumption, Radiation generation/control
Source of powers: Evolved artificially
Weapon: Silver Bazooka
Transportation: Cosmic Rhino

The maniacal Phantom Weirdo
Power(s): Illusion casting
Source of powers: Soul sold to Devil
Weapon: Foam Tentacles
Transportation: Ant Warhorse

The abhorrent Android Rage
Power(s): Autonomic function control, Super-human weight-guessing accuracy
Source of powers: Demonic
Weapon: Slime Sling
Transportation: Wingwing

These were randomly generated super heroes and super villains at Lee's (Useless) Superhero Generator.

Harvest Moon

It's the harvest moon and she's agreed to pose for a portrait. Who is she?

(Click the image to open a larger one in a new window from Amy Brown's website. Or here if she's moved her pictures again and the link doesn't work.)

Include this sentence

Write a story that contains one of these sentences.

To get started, try writing the sentence down on your page and continuing from it. Then if you find you need to build up to the sentence for the story to make sense, add sentences before it.

• Winds seem horrible even though they are absent.
  
• Families look dim despite the fact that they are old.
  
• Brains will be content wherever anger arises.
  
• Friends appear important as long as they are determined.
  
• Skies could be inefficient until they find contentment.
  
• Enthusiasts feel incompetent when they are doing what must be done.

Sentences generated at Writing Fix's First Sentence Creator: Deep Thoughts.

"To me the greatest pleasure"

100 sentences

I'm going to collect some "writer's block" tips. I don't like the term writer's block. It sounds like a disease that will stay with you until find a cure. Which only turns it into something worse than it is.

Stuck. Stalled. The point is to get moving again, often by doing something different, or off in a different direction rather than sitting there spinning your tires.

This is an idea from 3AM Epiphany, a book of writing exercises by Brian Kiteley.

He suggests writing 100 sentences about a character you're stuck on. Or a place. Or a setting. Or an Idea. Don't lift your fingers from the keyboard through the whole exercise. Let it sit for a day and then revise.

100 *short* -- he lists the exercise as 800 words total -- sentences. (Though 200 or 500 sentences he thinks would be even better but 100 is enough to be useful.) They shouldn't connect. He says just relax and let your mind flow free to find new material. "It is unnerving to have to write so many sentences in a row, and after a certain point the pressure of creating character details overcomes the pressure to tell a story."

Top 10 tabloid headlines for September 2006

From The City Newsstand's (a newsstand/bookstore in Chicago) monthly MAGBAG -- Top 10 Tabloid Headlines. (Mostly from Weekly World News (WWN) and the SUN.) 

1. JACK THE RIPPER WAS A WOMAN! — SUN
   
2. STUDIO BUYS MOVIE SCRIPT FROM A CHIMP! — WWN
   
3. RESEARCHER CALCULATES A SNOWBALL'S CHANCE IN HELL TO BE .000000000134% — WWN
   
4. Michael Jackson wants to live with leprechauns — SUN
   
5. MICROSCOPIC SPACE ALIENS INFESTING CARPETS — WWN
   
6. UFO ALIENS ABDUCTED MY CAT! Now frisky Felix is home safe — and has a gift of ESP, says amazed owner — SUN
   
7. BARBER BLEEDS RED & WHITE STRIPED BLOOD! — WWN
   
8. SPEND IT WHILE YOU CAN! U.S. currency accidentally printed with disappearing ink! — WWN
   
9. ASTRONOMER DISCOVERS PLANET MADE ENTIRELY OF NOODLES — WWN
   
10. CREDIT CARD EXPLODES WHEN GAL GOES OVER LIMIT! — WWN

Spiked beast

Use the following in sentences or a paragraph or a story. They don't need to be in the order given this time. (But of course you can if you want!)

1. spiked, beast, evaded, eager, unfriendly, fairy, fierce
   
2. liver, sly, twisted, wander, competition, laugh, giant
   
3. spare, horse, sick, bubbly, baboon, book, crockery
   
4. shapeshifter, modified, cavern, brain, typical, crafty, squealed
   
5. invent, stuffy, overgrown, talons, moldy, tournament, amazing

(The original photo is even cuter. You can click on it if you want to see. :-)

Not quite an argument

Reveal character and past and relationship through dialogue with two characters arguing. They should both be convincing since they each feel strongly that they're right. You can choose from these ideas or come up with your own:

• dog who can speak arguing over why he won't be sleeping on the floor anymore
  
• a child who wants to go to wizard school rather than stay in the family business.
  
• a couple arguing over whether to stay on planet or move to a new primitive colony.
  
• two beings of different races/species, arguing with their families/villages over a partnership the two want to form
  
• a young person who has awakened a magical power for thievery but just wants to be a good person, arguing with her grandfather who wants to train her in the family tradition
  
• an android arguing with it's owners over it's right to be free and independent

From What If?: Writing Exercises for FIction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter

"Every dreamer pays a price."

How To: Quit Your Day Job

Holly Lisle has, in addition to 30 fantasy and science fiction (and other genres) novels, compiled a wealth of essays on writing. (Some of her out of print books are available from her site for free download also.)

Here's a bit from her Middles essay:

I'm in one right now --- a middle, that is. Actually, I'm nearing the end of the middle, which in my humble opinion is the utter worst place in the universe to be.

The loathsome middle in question happens to be in Curse of the Black Heron, but it wouldn't matter. I've never met a middle I liked, and if the middle weren't CotBH, it would be something just as bad, or worse.

Writers come in all sorts. There are folks who dread the blank page, and who have an absolute terror of getting the thing started, but once they've been plugging on a bit, they're fine. There are folks who start well, middle well, and hate endings. And then there's my sort --- we who start well and end well (or at least enjoy doing our beginnings and endings, which I admit isn't always the same thing) but who do awful things to ourselves in the middle of every book because halfway through, we're certain that whatever magic we once had is gone and that every word that spills from our fingertips onto the keyboard has become total crap.

Here's a sampling:

HOW TO'S

• Quit Your Day Job
• Format a Manuscript
• Start a Novel
• Create a Character
• Finish A Novel
• Revise A Novel
• Collaborate
• Design a Career
• Steal Ideas
• Fantasy
• SF Worldbuilding
• Time & First Person

WORKSHOPS

• Creating Conflict
• Novel Pre-Writing
• Set Writing Goals
• Character Creation
• Dialogue
• Maps
• Scene Creation
• Timed Writing
• Worldbuilding
• Pacing Scenes
• Plot Outline
• Fast Plotting
• Visualization
• Characterization
• Using Strangeness
• Honing Your Talent
• Write Suckitudinously
• Evaluate Your Work
• Description
• One-Pass Revision
• Revising Vincalis

Alphabetical actions

Adverbs and adjectives can be useful but sometimes they're used to prop up weak nouns and verbs, like "ran quickly" and "walked slowly". Much better is dashed, bolted, darted, whipped ... and strolled, sauntered, wandered ...

For the following sentence, for each letter of the alphabet, write down a strong verb -- or several strong verbs -- that captures the essence of the night/moon/darkness leaving and the day/sun/light arriving. Dare to come up with bad writing :-) Bad is fun and loosens creativity. Some will change the flavor -- vanquished? -- but still get at the same idea. You can switch it around and make the darkness the subject (the active one) rather than the sun.

"The sun washed away the darkness."

Your own superhero

Create your own superhero at Superhero game at Scifi.com and then write about them: a typical adventure, an origin story, the final showdown ...

(Hint: I went through the whole process choosing items in black and white. It's lots easier to see the choices if you color them first! ;-)

"The person who says it can't be done ..."

Periodic Table of Science Fiction

And here it is. Michael Swanwick's Periodic Table of Science Fiction. 118 short short stories, each involving an element from the periodic chart. Very clever!

In Loco Parentis

Here’s another short short story from Michael Swanwick’s collection to write the ending for. I’ll put up a link to the collection on Saturday.

Iodine
In Loco Parentis

It was all done in the name of security, of course. My security, your security, national security … it hardly made any difference which. Smoking was banned from public places. Motorcyclists had to wear helmets. Drivers were required to wear seat belts. Airline passengers couldn't carry nail clippers. Pregnant women weren't allowed to drink. Hardware clerks had to submit to random drug testing.

Some of these laws made sense, of course. Others did not. But they all added momentum to the slow erosion of liberty, and then to the rapid erosion of liberty, and then to the redefinition of liberty as a threat to Our Way of Life. Everyone was required to carry ID cards with their gene-print and retina scan. Contact sports were banned. Distressing news was kept out of the media. Walls were built at every border. International travel was halted. Government finkware was installed in all new computers.

The day dawned when everyone's existence was finally safe. Free of danger, violence, sex, or human contact. Free of hate or envy or jealousy or lust or even love. Nothing new or unexpected ever happened. One day was much the same as another.

...

A Beryl as Big as the Ritz

One classic writing exercise is to read half of a short story and then write the ending you'd like to see happen. Then read the rest and see which ending you like better. (You can do this with TV shows too. Think about what you would have happen next if you were the writer.)

Here's something to try it out on that's in keeping with the 10-15 minute nature of the prompts here. Michael Swanwick has created a short short story for each element on the periodic chart, The Periodic Table of Science Fiction. This is about half the story. Where would you take it?

Beryllium
A Beryl as Big as the Ritz

On the Gem Planet, the rarest and most valued of all substances is dirt. Just the scrapings from beneath a hobo's nails would bring enough to support him for a year.

Across the desert plains of sheer diamond wealthy tourists come. They wear slitted goggles to protect themselves from the blinding reflections of the sun. There is a red glint ahead. That is their goal.

Hexagonal in cross-section, it is the largest outcrop of pure beryl on the planet. Artisans have carved rooms into it, with fluted columns and elaborate fireplaces, and there are banquet halls and ballrooms as well. At the break of day, when the sun shines through the Ruby Mountains and dawn lases across the plains, the guests are escorted to basement safe-rooms carved from darkest emerald. Even there, the walls glimmer elegantly.

But it is not beauty that brings visitors to the Ritz-Beryllium. Beauty, for them, is so common as to be invisible.

....

"Reading is to the mind"

101 Writing tips

101 Writing Tips

by Prof. D. J. Higham
Department of Mathematics
University of Strathclyde

(These are all original, but some are based on old jokes.)

1. Every sentence should make sense in isolation. Like that one.
   
2. Excessive hyperbole is literally the kiss of death.
   
3. ASBMAETP: Acronyms Should Be Memorable And Easy To Pronounce, and SATAN: Select Acronyms That Are Non-offensive.
   
4. Finish your point on an up-beat note, unless you can't think of one.
   
5. Don't patronise the reader-he or she might well be intelligent enough to spot it.
   
6. A writer needs three qualities: creativity, originality, clarity and a good short term memory.
   
7. Choose your words carefully and incitefully.
   
8. Avoid unnecessary examples; e.g. this one.
   
9. Don't use commas, to separate text unnecessarily.
   
10. It can be shown that you shouldn't miss out too many details.
    
11. Similes are about as much use as a chocolate teapot.
    
12. Avoid ugly abr'v'ns.
    
13. Spellcheckers are not perfect; they can kiss my errs.
    
14. Somebody once said that all quotes should be accurately attributed.
    
15. Americanisms suck.
    
16. Capitalising for emphasis is UGLY and DISTRACTING.
    
17. Underlining is also a big no-no.
    
18. Mixed metaphors can kill two birds without a paddle.
    
19. Before using a cliché, run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes.
    
20. There is one cheap gimmick that should be avoided at all costs..............suspense.
    
21. State your opinions forcefully-this is perhaps the key to successful writing.
    
22. Never reveal your sources (Alistair Watson, 1993).
    
23. Pile on lots of subtlety.
    
24. Sure signs of lazy writing are incomplete lists, etc.
    
25. Introduce meaningless jargon on a strict need-to-know basis.
    
26. The word ''gullible" possesses magic powers and hence it should be used with care.
    
27. The importance of comprehensive cross-referencing will be covered elsewhere.
    
28. Resist the temptation to roll up the trouser-legs of convention, cast off the shoes and socks of good taste, and dip your toes refreshingly into the cool, flowing waters of fanciful analogy.
    
29. Don't mess with Mr. Anthropomorphism.
    
30. Understatement is a mindblowingly effective weapon.
    
31. Injecting enthusiasm probably won't do any harm.
    
32. It is nice to be important, but it is more important to avoid using the word 'nice.'
    
33. Appropriate metaphors are worth their weight in gold.
    
34. Take care with pluri.
    
35. If you can't think of the exact word that you need, look it up in one of those dictionary-type things.
    
36. Colons: try to do without them.
    
37. Nouns should never be verbed.
    
38. Do you really think people are impressed by rhetorical questions?
    
39. Pick a font, and stick with it.
    
40. Sufficient clarity is necessary, but not necessarily sufficient.
    
41. Less is more. This means that a short, cryptic statement is often preferable to an accurate, but drawn out, explanation that lacks punch and loses the reader.
    
42. Sarcasm-yes, I bet that will go down really well.
    
43. The problem of ambiguity cannot be underestimated.
    
44. Never appear cynical, unless you're sure you can get away with it.
    
45. Many writer's punctuate incorrectly.
    
46. Colloquialisms are for barmpots.
    
47. There is a lot to be said for brevity.
    
48. To qualify is to weaken, in most cases.
    
49. Many readers assume that a word will not assume two meanings in the same sentence.
    
50. Be spontaneous at regular intervals.
    
51. The era of the euphemism is sadly no longer with us.
    
52. Want to be funny? Just add some exclamation marks!!!
    
53. Want to appear whimsical? Simply append a smiley ;-)
    
54. Some writers introduce a large number, N, of unnecessary symbols.
    
55. Restrict your hyphen-usage.
    
56. Choosing the correct phrase is important compared to most things.
    
57. Some early drafts of this document had had clumsy juxtapositions.
    
58. Try not to leave a word dangling on its own
    line.
    
59. The number of arbitrary constants per page should not exceed .13.
    
60. Use mathematical jargon iff it is absolutely necessary.
    
61. And avoid math symbols unless $ a good reason.
    
62. Poor writing effects the impact of your work.
    
63. And the dictionary on your shelf was not put there just for affect.
    
64. If there's a word on the tip of your tongue that you can't quite pin down, use a cinnamon.
    
65. If somebody were to give me a pound for every irrelevant statement I've ever read, then I would be very surprised.
    
66. Strangely enough, it is impossible to construct a sentence that illustrates the meaning of the word 'irony.'
    
67. Consult a writing manual to assure that your English is correct.
    
68. It has been suggested that some words are absolute, not relative. This is very true.
    
69. Be careful when forming words into a sentence-all orderings are not correct.
    
70. Many words can ostensibly be deleted.
    
71. In your quest for clarity, stop at nothing.
    
72. Complete mastery of the English language comes with conscientious study, notwithstanding around in bars. Moreover the next page. Inasmuch detail as possible.
    
73. Sporting analogies won't even get you to first base.
    
74. If you must quote, quote from one of the all-time greats (Cedric.P. Snodworthy, 1964).
    
75. In the absence of a dictionary, stick to words of one syllabus.
    
76. Steer clear of word-making-up-ism.
    
77. Readers will not stand for any intolerance.
    
78. If there's one thing you must avoid it's over-simplification.
    
79. Double entendres will get you in the end.
    
80. Vagueness is the root of miscommunication, in a sense.
    
81. Don't bother with those ''increase-your-word-power" books that cost an absorbent amount of money.
    
82. Self-contradiction is confusing, and yet strangely enlightening.
    
83. Surrealism without purpose is like fish.
    
84. Ignorance: good writers don't even know the meaning of the word.
    
85. The spoken word can look strange when written down, I'm afraid.
    
86. Stimpy the Squirrel says ''Don't treat the reader like a little child."
    
87. Intimidatory writing is for wimps.
    
88. Learn one new maths word every day, and you'll soon find your vocabulary growing exponentially.
    
89. My old high school English teacher put it perfectly when she said: ''Quoting is lazy. Express things in your own words."
    
90. She also said: ''Don't use that trick of paraphrasing...... [other people's words]...... inside a quote."
    
91. A lack of compassion in a writer is unforgivable.
    
92. On a scale of 0 to 10, internal consistency is very important.
    
93. Thankfully, by the year 2016 rash predictions will be a thing of the past.
    
94. There is no place for overemphasis, whatsoever.
    
95. Leave out the David Hockney rhyming slang.
    
96. Bad writers are hopefully ashamed of themselves.
    
97. Eschew the highfalutin.
    
98. Sometimes you publish a sentence and then, on reflection, feel that you shouldn't ought to have been and gone and written it quite that way.
    
99. Practice humility until you feel that you're really good at it.
    
100. If there's a particular word that you can never spell, use a pnemonic.
     
101. A strong ending is the last thing you need.
     
102. Make sure that your title is accurate.
     
103. Spelling dictionaries should be made compulsary.
     
104. Sometimes, a foreign phrase can add a little 'je ne sais rien.'
     
105. In terms of writing convoluted sentences, don't.
     
106. Let's face it, we all hate it when a writer appeals to the lowest common denominator.
     
107. Learn the basic spelling rules; don't just rely on fonetix.
     
108. Only take writing tips from world-renounced writers.
     
109. Writing for the non-native English speaking market is a different kettle of fish.
     
110. If you can't afford a book on grammar, at least find someone to lend one off.
     
111. Nothing is worse than ambiguity.
     
112. Oh, and avoid afterthoughts.

Cursed

Pick one of the following. Set the timer for 10-15 minutes and tell what happened after the curse. Did the curse come to pass exactly as pronounced? Was the universe twisting the caster's words? Did the character manage to change the curse?

• Hear this, O ye exceedingly foolish virgin, for you will be kicked by an incontinent camel!
  
• Behold, thou shalt be trampled by a herd of stampeding pigs, O thou wolf in sheep's clothing!
  
• Thou shalt be taunted by the king's concubines, O thou love-crazed Gittite!
  
• Harken, O thou relative of Herod, for you will beget difficult teenagers!
  
• Woe unto thee, O ye relative of Herod, for you will be cast onto a steaming dung-heap!
  
• Take heed, O thou who art a byword for idiocy, for you will be swallowed by a whale with excessively bad breath!

From Biblical Curse Generator

Executioner baby explodes 340 pound vampire

Create newspaper headlines using the words from the list. Try to use at least five of the words in each headline. (Feel free to add some words like "in", "on", "after", "and" ...)

If you want, print out the words, cut them up and draw from the pile until you come up with headlines you like. (You can reshuffle them after each headline.)

blind
accused
fights
dragon slayer
monastery
temple
charms
exiles
crumbling
crooked
baby
executioner
explodes
bizarre
blasphemous
340 pound
warrior
corrupt
sarcophogus
palace
proves
quests for
vampire
tomb
shames
rips off
destroys
fairy
curses
barbarian

"There is no try."

Getting off the starting line

This was posted by Arathe on the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) forums. I haven't planned out either of the stories I used for NaNoWriMo. The time pressure seems to force the ideas to come out. But without that time pressure, when you're staring at a blank screen, planning can be very helpful! -- Joyce

---

Getting off the starting line by Arathe

Well, I just sat down today to start working on my plot for this year's NaNo. I attribute my lack of success in earlier years to my lack of planning. Trying to throw something together two weeks before go-time just doesn't cut it for me. ;)

So, I plan on giving myself a lot of time to plan and tweak this year. Unfortunately, I have no ideas, no plot, no characters, nothing! All is not lost, however! I have a little trick for finding a good jumping-off point that I'd share with everyone else out there who are having a hard time finding that elusive plot this year.

1. Pick your genre.

A bit obvious, perhaps, but deciding on a genre will give you a bit of direction. I'll pick Fantasy.

If you can't pick a single genre, at least try to narrow the list down as much as possible and move on to step 2.

2. Make a list of concepts that you like.

- This should naturally try to stay within the bounds of the genre(s) you chose. Spaceships, for example, might not be a good choice when you've decided on Fantasy. Likewise, Evil Magician might not be the ideal choice for your contemporary murder mystery.

- The list can be as long as you like. The longer, the better. You'll find that the longer the list gets, the more unique and interesting your ideas become. Someone who's name I can't recall at the moment said once that the first five or ten ideas on a list are throwaways. It is in those that you'll find your most common ideas, your cliches. The farther down the list you go, the more you have to stretch your imagination, and the more original and interesting those ideas will be.

Which isn't to say you shouldn't use the ideas on the top of your list. The point of this exercise is to find something you're excited about, something you WANT to slave away at for a month. The important part is getting it done. Being innovative or original comes second to that.

Some examples for my Fantasy genre:

- Gods in mortal form.
- Corrupt religion
- Shapeshifters
- Demons
- Taboo magic
- Magic as science

This is only a sample of course, my list will be much longer when I finish it, as yours should be. I'd suggest a list of at least twenty concepts that appeal to you.

3. Circle the concepts that appeal to you most.

- Choose anywhere from 2-10 concepts on your list that jump out at you. The exact number can vary, depending on how many you really like and how long your list is.

4. Write a one sentence plot summary based around each of the circled concepts.

- I want to stress that a single-sentence summary should take you no more than five minutes each. You're brainstorming here. If you find yourself unable to come up with something within five minutes, move on to the next concept on your list and come back to it later.

- Feel free to merge two or more concepts into a single plot summary if it strikes your fancy. If you can't fit it all into one sentence, don't worry; you'll get the chance to expand on it in the next step.

- If you have more than one idea for a sentence summary for a single concept, go for it! Write as many as you feel like. This part of the process isn't limited to once concept, one sentence. Keep going for as long as you can. The more you have when you're finished, the more you'll have to choose from.

Example summary from my list above:

"A God, imprisoned in mortal form by his sister, seeks a way to free himself and exact his revenge."

Okay, I know that isn't going to win any awards, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. Don't worry about quality here; you're simply trying to churn out as many of these as you can. You can always tweak later.

Another example using the same concept merged with another:

"In a world where science and magic are one, where mystery, mysticism and religion are disdained and ignored lives a boy, the living incarnation of a god old and forgotten, whose emergence into the world once again will send the lives of all who encounter him spinning out of control in ways no one could imagine."

Much better than the first one, even if I cheated a bit and made an awfully long sentence there. It's okay if you fudge the rules a bit, the important thing is the end result. See how I took two concepts, "Gods in mortal form" and "Magic as science" and slapped them together into one idea?

5. Pick any of your single-sentence summaries and turn it into a single-paragraph summary.

- Try to incorporate your sentence into the paragraph.

- This should read a bit like the blurb on the back of a novel might.

- You can do this with as many of your sentences as you like. I can almost guarantee there will be a few that won't work for you, so don't feel bad about scrapping them and focusing on the ones you DO like.

- But what if I don't like any of them? Tough cookies. I expect you to pick at least one and make it into a paragraph. You might surprise yourself. Or it might just suck, but honestly, I dare you to do this and come out without a plot bunny that's at least passable. It's amazing what we can dredge out of our own heads when we put our minds to it.

Example paragraph:

"In a world where magic and science are one, where mystery, mysticism and religion are disdained and ignored, lives a boy. He is the living incarnation of a god old and forgotten, though he has no knowledge of the powerful creature residing within him. As he ages, the god begins to emerge, taking him away from home and family, tearing him from everything he knows and loves. He struggles constantly with Other in his mind, as the god himself puts into the works a holy revolution the likes of which the world has never known, changing the lives of countless people, and possibly the world, forever. Caught in the tide of change being wrought by the creature with which he shares his mind and body, the boy fights to hold on to his mind, his sense of self, in a struggle that becomes increasingly difficult and the Other grows stronger.

Will he survive? Or will he find himself crushed beneath the weight of a will so much stronger than his own?"

I cheated again, since it is technically two paragraphs, but since the last bit was really for dramatic emphasis, its okay. Try to keep it to a single paragraph if you can, though.

Once you're finished, take a look through what you've done. I can almost guarantee you'll have at least one workable idea that you want to use. I actually like the idea in the above paragraph. I think I might even use it, hehe. Least if this doesn't help anyone, I may have gotten something from it. ^^

And you're done! Like I said, you should have at least one plot bunny that begs to be expanded upon. From here, you're on your own. Get started on worldbuilding, flesh out characters, at a few more bones to the plot skeleton, whatever you want! You have your starting point. ;)

If this helps anyone, please post here, I'd like to hear about it. ^^

Best of spam for July 2006

Some intriguing odd phrases that almost mean something, names, single words .... It makes me appreciate the people who write spam filters. They have to find patterns in these nonsense generators.

Well, the list used to be here. Now it isn't.

In less than 24 hours there were comments from 3 spammers. I assume the post Technorati picked up the post and that's the route that lead the spammers to the blog but which of the phrases attracted the spambots? And why would they be attracted to spam anyway?

So now they're at Spam-O-Rama.

The human whose name ...

Click the picture for a larger version in a new window.

• Who is she? (Assuming you don't know! Or can come up with an alternate version of who she might be.)
  
• What is her relation to the creature behind her?
  
• Who and what is the creature?
  
• What is its goal?

Take it from there.

Top 10 Tabloid Headlines for August 2006

From The City Newsstand's (a newsstand/bookstore in Chicago) monthly MAGBAG -- Top 10 Tabloid Headlines. (Mostly from Weekly World News (WWN) and the SUN.) 

1. SENSIBLE PUTTY! — WWN
   
2. BOOZE CAN MELT AWAY POUNDS — SUN
   
3. 'NOSE HOSE' WILL MAKE TISSUES OBSOLETE! — WWN 
   
4. EXPLORER LOCATES ORIGINAL 'COMFORT ZONE'! — WWN
   
5. DA VINCI WAS A TIME TRAVELER! — SUN
   
6. WAR IN HEAVEN According to the Archangel Michael, female angels led by the powerful Hillaria have revolted . . . — WWN
   
7. Demons influencing presidential policy! — WWN
   
8. BOY TURNS BELOVED AUNT INTO ROBOT! — WWN
   
9. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, along come . . . NAVY ANTS! — WWN
   
10. BILLIONAIRE WILLS HIS FORTUNE TO IMAGINARY FRIEND — WWN
    

Cooling off period

To chill down from Thursday's writing prompt, create cool breezy phrases or sentences for each letter of the alphabet.

"I have long since decided"

10 irritants and 10 delights

It's been a while since I posted a Writer's notebook idea ...

Carry a small notebook around with you this week and write down 10 things that irritate you and 10 things that delight you. They don't need to be big things. Stepping on a marble. Dew on a leaf. Stereo that was left at a high volume and blasts you when you turn it on. Oreos on sale.

At the end of the week, choose some and reset them in your favorite genre.

If you joined recently, I've collected past Writer's notebook ideas. (They're in newest to oldest order, so scroll down for an explanation of what a writer's notebook can be.)

(The white cat and lady with the sock make me smile each time I see them so those are the first on my list of delights for the week :-)

Inspired by #9 Mining Memory of What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter.

Heated exchange

Create hot and humid phrases or sentences for each letter of the alphabet.