Sinner boy

Sinner boy

What's a warm up?

Questioning the answers

Laser guided spit balls (click image)

Here are the answers. What were the questions? It could be an online quiz of random questions, an interview, speed dating, an interrogation ... (If you feel a story emerging, feel free to tweak and rearrange the answers. As always the prompts are meant to prompt not restrain your imagination :-)

It made me sneeze.
Red eyes and tangled hair.
3 including me.
I'm certain she was staring at me.
My brain is my worst enemy.
No, but my brother did.
A Mathematics professor living at the edge of town.
A weak sense of smell.
I am cynical and suspicious by nature.
Airplane silverware. The real stuff. The kind you get in first class.
I threw spitballs at her.
2 years or until I'm satisfied with the results.
Chinese New Year.
A nasty messy place.
At least 5 times before Tuesday.
At camp. But just once.
A bratty, pouty woman in her late 20's.
Ten out of 53 are red or have red on them.

Running with the Devil

 

Running with the Devil

What's a warm up?

"Writing is a fairly lonely ..."

New look!

Blogger in draft just released some great customization tools for backgrounds and I've been playing :-)

Some past posts had light text color to work against the dark blue background. Now the background is nearly white. I fixed the posts I noticed it on.

If you stumble across a post with text that's too light, just let me know! Comment on it and Blogger will send me a note.

Thanks!

Joyce

Master of puppets

Master of puppets

What's a warm up?

In short

Pick a profession (past, present, future, fantasy).

Now come up with at least 7 personalized license plates for that profession. You have 7 letters and an optional dash to work with.

---

Adapted from Unjournaling: Daily Writing Exercises that Are NOT Personal, NOT Introspective, NOT Boring! by Dawn DiPrince and Cheryl Miller Thurston.

A couple of books of personalized plates: Pl8Spk: California Vanity Plates Retell the Classics, "a retelling of classic and familiar stories using only the vocabulary of vanity license plates" and The Way Cool License Plate Book, "more than 400 amusing-and revealing-vanity plates organized by subjects".

Overrated

 

Overrated

What's a warm up?

The look

The obvious first guess about what's going on is jealousy or envy. Don't go for easy!  One at a time, try out several ideas below and see how each changes your view of what's happening. Then pick one or one from each category and write for 10-15 minutes.

The people:

Two are siblings.
Two are brother and sister.
None of them know each other.
One is an alien.
What's in the glasses is the most important part of the picture.
At least one is a time traveler.
The girl in the back is looking at the photographer.
One is a god/goddess.
The two toasting are on opposite sides of a conflict.

The theme:

Salvation
Loyalty
Patriotism
Illusions
Wisdom
Censorship
Forgiveness
Bravery
Adulthood
Justice
Fate
Taking a stand
Identity

The location:

Bangladesh
A colony on Mars
Fairy land
100 years in the future
Ancient Greece
Atlantis
Corporate offices in Tokyo
A casino on the coast of France
An alternate time line
Another world
Olympus

Little savage

 

Little savage

What's a warm up?

"The work never ..."

Let us prey

 

Let us prey

What's a warm up?

Secondhand magic

While Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm made themselves famous collecting fairy tales, a younger brother, Karl, followed in their footsteps and quietly amassed a collection of objects from the fairy tales: such as Cinderella's slippers, Snow White's coffin and her evil stepmother's magic mirror, Sleeping Beauty's spindle, the Beast's magic mirror, Rapunzel's hair (and anything else you care to add.)

At first his collecting was for his own amusement. Unlike the romantic versions in the stories, the objects were ratty and mundane in appearance. But as his brothers' fame increased and people mocked his efforts, he became obsessed with the objects, wanting to awaken their magic or something so others would believe him. Then one day ...

Inspired by Fiction Prompts posted by members at Writing.com.

Gut feeling

 

Gut feeling

What's a warm up?

Colum's comeuppance

"The relics [bones] of Patrick were placed sixty years after his death in a shrine by Colum Cille. Three splendid halidoms [holy things] were found in the burial-place: his goblet, the Angel's Gospel, and the Bell of the Testament. This is how the angel distributed the halidoms: the goblet to Dún, the Bell of the Testament to Ard Macha, and the Angel's Gospel to Colum Cille himself. The reason it is called the Angel's Gospel is that Colum Cille received it from the hand of the angel." -- Annals of Ulster

Or so Colum Cille says, trying to put a heavenly twist on grave robbing. Seems Colum Cille is a bit of a fabricator. (He also recorded the first account of the Loch Ness monster.)

While the saints in Heaven have come to terms with their graves eventually being messed with, Saint Patrick thinks Colum is full of himself and needs some Irish comeuppance. Maybe something to do with snakes? Or all that green beer Patrick inspired? Leprechauns? Potatoes?

Colum Cille went onto be remembered as one of the 12 Apostles of Ireland and became Saint Columba. So either Patrick's prank turned him around or he just got more full of himself ;-)

Dragula

Dragula

What's a warm up?

"Motivation is when ..."

Cold brains

Cold brains

What's a warm up?

Cave in

Your brother left you a cryptic message and said he'd be back soon. That was 6 months ago. Now you're on a quest to find him. As you follow the clues, an address circled in his journal leads you here. What is this place? What kind of people or race lives here? How does it connect to your brother?

Note there are some anomalies: there are power lines coming in, one of the window frames is aluminum, and there's a stainless steel railing on the stairs to the right. The picture is of a troglodyte (cave dwelling) village. The homes were carved from ancient volcanic rock and some are 700 years old.

The dwellings are part of a the tourist village of Kandovan in Iran.

(Click on the image for more views.)

Plastic man

Plastic man

What's a warm up?

Antithecal alphabet

For each letter of the alphabet write two opposing alliterative attributes. They can be attributes for a person -- and might spark an intriguing character -- or for an object -- which might spark a story idea or add to the atmosphere of a scene.

For example:

• zany and zombielike
  
• yakkity and yawning
  
• exhibitionistic and xenophobic
  
• wacky and well-balanced

---

Inspired by comment #12 on the article A to Z Cure.

(A surprisingly common technique to fall asleep is to create a list of things from A to Z, like animals, diseases, countries. Maybe this prompt can be recycled as a sleep aid!)

Night of the long knives

 

Night of the long knives

What's a warm up?

"If you're going to be ..."

Two ton paperweight

 

Two ton paperweight

What's a warm up?

Thunderous fool

Write a farewell speech or letter. It can be from anyone to anyone for any purpose but include the following words (in any order). Feel free to change the form of the words (eg, discovery to discoveries, discovering, etc.)

discovery
deluge
renewal
fool
explosive
heritage
thunderous
mystic

Down with the sickness

 

Down with the sickness

What's a warm up?

Immortal Love

Immortal Love, the vampire dating site has just opened up. Write several vampire singles ads. Vampires seeking vampires ... Vampires seeking humans (or other creatures of the night) ... Humans (or others) seeking vampires ... Wherever the imagination leads. :-E

Okay, personal ads are old school. Singles now write online profiles with pictures, but the short ones are more fun to write. :-)

---

If you'd like examples to get the creativity flowing, here's some that are safe for work and kids:

• SWM, old, fat, balding, many disgusting habits seeks SWF with money. Send pictures of your house, car, RV. This could be your lucky day.
• JELLO BOY-SWM who likes to slowly fold canned fruit into jello, seeks female partner for distinctly American activities. Dirty pigeons need not respond.
• Hideous-looking, obese, smelly, ill-tempered, lazy, cowardly, chronic, and a complete liar seeks total opposite.
• SWM into chainsaws and hockey masks seeks likeminded SWF. No weirdos, please.
• SWM seeks 300lb+ woman to sit and squash doughnuts on me.
• I like eating mayonnaise and peanut butter sandwiches in the rain, watching Barney Miller reruns, peeing on birds in the park and licking strangers on the subway; you eat beets raw, have climbed Kilimanjaro, and sweat freely and often. Must wear size five shoes.
• Small lumpy squid monkey seeks healthy woman with no identifying scars, any age. Must have all limbs. Recommend appreciation of high-pitched, screeching noises. Must like being bored and lonely. Must not touch the squids, EVER. No tongue.
• Mmmm Pez! Rabid Wonder Woman fan looking for someone in satin tights, fighting for our rights and the old red, white 'n blue. You look like Linda Carter? Big plus. Know all words to theme song? Marry me.
• Gentle, middle-aged teddy bear with unfortunate flatulence challenge seeking olfaction-impaired ourdoors girl for good times and possible matrimony. Must enjoy open-air activities and prefer spending time alone as a couple.
• Jungle girl seeks Tarzan for swing through the trees. Must look good in a loincloth.

Many of these are supposedly from: Professional Stool Sampler Looking For Place To Sit: A Collection of Personal Ads From Alternative Newspapers by Skippy Williams and Zohre Crumpton, 1996, Simon and Schuster. I don't see the book, even used, actually existing anywhere other than cited with the same few excerpts.

If you get inspired for a more fleshed out love lorn vampire, there's some amusing dating profiles at Nothing Personal Ads and Advice: "Take a break from your quest for long walks on the beach and candle-lit dinners. Meet some people you've probably met -- and hope to never meet again."

And two longer singles ads: "I need an unstable woman ..." and "Single black female ...".

Shaman's blues

 

Shaman's blues

What's a warm up?

"Write what you want ..."

Land of a thousand dances

Land of a thousand dances

What's a warm up?

1001 cliffhangers

1001 Arabian Nights.

Actually today's post is number 1002, but the connection didn't occur to me before I posted yesterday's warm up. ;-)

Like in the original, write a series of cliffhangers. You don't need to write 1001. ;-) Try for at least 11.

For this prompt, create a series of cliffhangers. It might be easiest to treat it as camp so Good doesn't get in the way of Creativity ;-) Begin in your favorite genre, bring in some campy genre characters and stock genre situation. Brainstorm as many plot turns as you can.

Pick your favorites and organize them as a series of events. Describe the character's actions then tack on "but then" and throw in an obstacle or plot turn that slams the character off the direct pathway to happiness and gives them a problem to solve. Each time one obstacle is removed, slam them with another "but then" that makes things worse. It's even more satisfying if, rather than a random obstacle, a resolution creates another obstacle and makes matters worse.

Write it as a streaming narrative. Begin with the set up and environment, for example:

In the Kingdom of Brandish, Princess Peacock was preparing to marry the heroic farm boy who had saved her life ...

but then he was stricken by the flesh eating plague, followed in quick succession by her sister, the ministers, the guards and she was about to flee to escape the contagion and seek a cure ...

but then the also-plague stricken court jester, dropped before her choking out "The Mad Wizard ... he has ..."

but then the court jester passed out and uncertain if the Mad Wizard had the plague, had the cure or had a grudge she set out for his hut in the woods ...

but then ....

If you need help getting started, at Serendipity you can generate a fantasy plot. And generate plot twists. If you'd like to mine One Thousand and One Nights for ideas, Wikipedia has a list of characters:

---

If you've forgotten, One Thousand and One Nights is a series of continuing stories wrapped within the tale of King Shahryar. The King discovers his first wife was unfaithful and had her executed. He declared all women to be unfaithful and marries one virgin after another only to execute them in the morning. When virgins are seriously in short supply the Vizier, whose job it is to procure the virgins, his daughter, Scheherazade, offers to be the next bride. To save herself, she tells a story (to her sister as a goodbye as part of Scheherazade's plan) but ends it with a cliffhanger at dawn when she's supposed to be executed. The king, wanting to hear the end, spares her life until the next dawn. That night Scheherazade continues the story, but again comes to a cliffhanger at dawn. After 1001 nights she declares she has no more stories, but by then the king has fallen in love with her, had 3 sons and become a much better man because of the stories so makes her his queen.

Not all the stories in One Thousand and One Nights end with traditional cliffhangers. In some the characters begin telling other characters a different tale or in the midst of a discourse on philosophy.

Strange brew

 

Strange brew

What's a warm up?

1000

As of today, that's how many posts there are at Dragon Writing Prompts :-)

I had vague thoughts of a prompt inspired by 1000 as I saw the number approaching. Well, no great original ideas popped into my head. No not-great original ones, either. ;-) So, since a picture's worth 1000 words, I browsed through the writing area of Worth1000.com for a picture prompt.

(Click for larger view at the artist's Worth1000 page.)

Write a 1000 words inspired by the picture. Who is she? Or is she merely a tool and what she's doing more important?

Does the skeleton have something to do with death? Or bringing something back from death? Or the foundation of something she's building? Or is it her employer looking over her shoulder? ;-)

Why a cat and an octopus? What's imaged in the other balls? Why the bugs?

---

Some other stuff that doesn't have to do with the prompt, but does have to do with the picture and Worth1000.

marymagdalyne created and posted the picture that inspired the The Quatrains of Nostradamworth writing contest at Worth1000. It was originally for a photo effects challenge, Magical Mishaps, -- which is the original foundation of the Worth1000 website. The photos she used are here.

Pretty cool! Of course Worth1000 is chock full of coolness :-)

Worth1000 always has several writing contests going on. There are Advanced, Beginner and "Head to Head" (HxH, contests set up between specific members).

(You can enter without paying, but can't win. Credits are 10 for $1 so the entry fees aren't bank breakers ;-)

Just for fun, here are a few photo effects contests that relate to language. (Each has multiple pages of entries and at the bottom of each page are often links to previous or related contests.)

Literalisms 10
Some of the entries are "Tree Frog", "Road Rage", "She's an open book", "Change your mind". Very clever!

Emotion: Love 2010
Some very heart warming, some very clever :-)

And a few recent ones with loads of pictures begging for the stories behind them :-)

Cats vs Mice 3 - "Classic battle between good and evil."

Bizarrchitecture 10 - "The unique dream houses you'd like to own."

Anatomy Scramble 5 - "Rearranging body parts."

Ghost Ren 6 -- "Haunting art"

Back 2 Basics: Trolley

As a total aside -- though Pokemon is the reason my daughter began writing and drawing in earnest so the connection is not so far off in space as it seems ;-) -- I stumbled across a challenge there to create Pokemon from actual photos. There are 7 pages. Cubone (the winning entry) is astonishing :-) My daughter loved looking through them :-)

Who's the joke on

Who's the joke on

What's a warm up?

"Truth may be stranger ..."

Trade yourself in

Trade yourself in

What's a warm up?

Seriously lacking

Use as your first line:

"Three thousand habitable planets in the known universe, and I'm stuck on the only one without ______________. "

(Fill in the blank. Which is obvious *except* that this line is for a contest run by The First Line where one of the rules is you can't alter the given line -- except when noted ;-)

If you'd like to enter for a chance to be in their quarterly publication (in print since 1999), this one is due August 1, 2010. If you'd like to give it a try:

Fiction: All stories must be written with the first line provided. The line cannot be altered in any way, unless otherwise noted by the editors. The story should be between 300 and 3,000 words. The sentences can be found on the home page of The First Line's Web site, as well as in the prior issue. Note: We are open to all genres. We try to make TFL as eclectic as possible.

(The full submission rules. Note, unlike many contests, they don't charge for submissions.)

This year's first lines and due dates are on the front page. All they ask is that you not submit stories with their first lines to other journals or publish them on line (for the current or upcoming contests, I think. They're wording isn't clear so if you have a burning need to put up a story with a past first line, best to check with them.)

If you'd like to mine past first lines for ideas, they're listed with each volume on the subscription page.

I hate everything about you

 

I hate everything about you

What's a warm up?

All dressed up

"Any other bright ideas?! We dressed up for nothing!"

Take it from there. :-)

Follow the sign

 

Follow the sign

What's a warm up?

"Obstacles are ..."

Dead meat

 

Dead meat

What's a warm up?

No! Yes!

What's happened that's caused these two very different reactions? (You don't need to stick with the contemporary setting if your imagination takes you elsewhere :-)

From Bright Ideas for Writing.

Heaven beside you

 

Heaven beside you

What's a warm up?

Alphacharacter

For each letter of the alphabet, come up with an adjective that fits your character.

Or, if you have a dumpster load of characters, have each adjective describe a different character.

(A little rusty on your parts of speech? An adjective describes a thing, like the ginormous, magenta, vivacious, flatulent elephant.)

Rhinosaur & Who's the joke on

Rhinosaur & Who's the joke on

(Two this time. Rhinosaur seemed to need something to riff off of.)

What's a warm up?

"I like density ..."

Paradise City

 

Paradise City

What's a warm up?

Ghost wars

"Ghost wars ... Not happening on my watch."

Take it from there.

Keep away

Keep away

What's a warm up?

Excitement wears orange socks

In The Book of Qualities, J. Ruth Gendler has personified 76 qualities and written mini-character sketches of them. (I copied a few of the shorter ones below.)

Give it a try. Think of the good and bad of each quality, the inappropriate reactions (I'm thinking of how envy can cause people to hate beauty, for instance), and how qualities interact. With some fleshing out, the mini-bio could form the basis of a character :-)

The generator randomly chooses a quality from Ruth Gendler's list. (Click on comments below for the full list.) There are also lists of qualities, emotions and characteristics in previous prompts: Character traits, Seven virtues and Freewriting to character building.

Quality

Beauty

Beauty is startling. She wears a gold shawl in the summer and sells seven kinds of honey at the flea market. She is young and old at once, my daughter and my grandmother. In school she excelled at mathematics and poetry. Beauty doesn't anger easily, but she was annoyed with the journalist who kept asking her about her favorites -- as if she could have one favorite color or one favorite flower. She does not mind questions though, and she is fond of riddles. Beauty will dance with anyone who is brave enough to ask her.

Confidence

Confidence ignores "No Trespassing" signs. It is as if he doesn't see them. He is an explorer committed to following his own direction. He studied mathematics in France and still views his life as a series of experiments. The only limits he respects are his own. He is honest and humble and very funny. After all these years, his sister doesn't understand why he still ice skates with Doubt.

Devotion

Devotion lights candles at dusk. She braids her grandmother's hair with an antique comb. She works as an ecologist at the university. She wears long flowing tunics with bright cotton pants. She has never taken a dance class, but she moves with an unstudied grace, sensitive to the edge where her body meets the air.

Devotion balances periods of great stillness with times of movement and exuberance. She has prayed in many temples and seen evidence of God in unlikely places. She keeps a postcard of Saint Francis above her desk. A Yemenite amulet hangs in her window. Always she remembers to honor the Mother.

Uncertainty

I have lived with uncertainty for a long time. I had thought ours would have been a much briefer affair. I had no idea how intimate we'd become until you showed up.

And now you are asking me to leave him, and there are a few things I need to know. Who are you? What are your motives? Can I trust you? Is it really me you want to spend more time with or Uncertainty you yearn to visit?

Power

Power made me a coat. For a long time I kept it in the back of my closet. I didn't like to wear it much, but I always took good care of it. When I first started wearing it again, it smelled like mothballs. As I wore it more, it started fitting better, and stopped smelling like mothballs.

I was afraid if I wore the coat too much someone would want to take it or else I would accidentally leave it in the dojo dressing room. But it has my name on the label now, and it doesn't really fit anyone else. When people ask me where I found such a becoming garment, I tell them about the tailor, Power, who knows how to make coats that you grow into. First, you much find the courage to approach him and ask him to make your coat. Then, you must find patience inside yourself to wear the coat until it fits.

Your lies become you

 

Your lies become you

What's a warm up?

"You must learn ..."

No attention

 

No attention

What's a warm up?

Excuses excuses

"If God exists, I hope he has a good excuse." -- Woody Allen

So, what *is* his or her or its excuse?

You're an investigative reporter -- here, in the future, in the afterworld? -- and you've tracked down Earth's god. Was creation of the Earth a cosmic joke? Was it a child's experiment? Was it a project the creator forgot about? Or can love and war and compassion and tragedy all be logically explained (though perhaps not exactly in a way the denizens of Earth might appreciate!)?

Did the project turn out as God expected? What surprised him or her and why?

At the bottom

 

At the bottom

What's a warm up?

Sleep talking man

Sleep talking. No one could make this stuff up. And you don't need to! The Sleep Talkin' Man's wife's is taping what he says each night and transcribing the good parts. (There are a few sound bites too.)

I'll let you take it where you will. Some of the lines could make for a very forthright character ;-) Some of the more cryptic lines might be prophetic. Or perhaps he's a spy and he wants to tell his wife what's going on but his spy training only allows it to come out coded in his sleep. Or ...?

The maze

 

The maze

What's a warm up?

"The act of writing ..."

Happiness in slavery

 

Happiness in slavery

What's a warm up?