Villainy!

So . . . last week was super busy for me, and quite honestly the prompts were the last thing on my mind. But I did, however, get a piece written for the villain challenge from a couple of weeks ago.

Surprisingly enough, my villain chose to speak for himself. Probably because if I had done it I would have tried to garner some sympathy for him – poor, misunderstood islander seduced by the dark side. But apparently Anakaron, my evil wizard from the Moonstone Chronicles, was having none of that. He’s bad, and makes no bones about it.

Anakaron Speaks:

I come from an island in the Mythric Ocean, so small it does not even have a name. My people were savage, but not savages; powerful and superstitious. I was born under a blood moon – it was known from the beginning I would be a blood mage. My mother was my first victim.

The lesson I learned while bathing in her blood is that only one thing in life matters – power. Those fools at the academy never suspected what they welcomed into their midst. My plan had been to rise in rank and rule them all, the city of fools, and I would have succeeded if not for HIM.

HIM, who had more power bubbling under his skin than he knew what to do with, while mine was hard won. HIM, whose path of veracity was sickening to me. HIM, who claimed to be my friend while scorning the dark paths.

He took everything from me. He basked in the admiration of the other students, not that I cared for their insipid company. He won the esteem of the instructors and the Wizard Council, who were never quite as impressed with my cunning and ability. And he captured the heart of the only woman I have ever loved. I will not rest until he is destroyed.

You say he did none of these things deliberately? Well consider this. I. Don’t. Care.

Reading For Writing

I like to read while I’m eating my lunch when I’m babysitting, but the idea is to read only while eating my lunch and then sneak some writing in afterwards. To help get me in the right frame of mind, lately I’ve been reading books on writing.

I just finished reading Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and it was perfect for lunchtime reading with its super short chapters. I think what I found most interesting about it was her talk about filling notebooks with her “practice writing.” I never thought of practicing writing before, I tend to just . . . write.

I’m still kind of struggling with what I should or shouldn’t be putting in my writing journal/notebook. I write down lines, snatches of poetry, ideas, interesting quotes – which is better than my last journal, but Natalie has inspired me to take it a little further. I actually included my last two prompt stories in there and I plan on continuing to do so.

This is kind of a big step for me. Normally I’d maybe jot down the idea for a story in there, and then use a different notebook (one of those 3-subject spiral bound ones) or the computer to actually write it out. After all, I don’t want my writing journal to look messy. But really, who’s going to see it except me? This is why after all these years I’m only on my fourth journal, and the other three have plenty of empty pages.

Of course that being said, I have little snatches of things written on scraps of paper that should go in my writing journal but didn’t. There’s a quote I didn’t want to forget, a story idea, and a couple of lines for a poem. And then I had to finish my last prompt story before I could add anything else because I didn’t want to have half the story, jump to a bunch of unrelated stuff, and then jump back again.

This makes me wonder if I’ve really made all that much progress in my journaling after all. Maybe I should leave a couple of gaps before starting something that has the potential to be several pages, just so I have space for these random lines and don’t have to rush to get a story done.

Natalie talks a lot about timed writings for practice, just keep the pen moving without thought about what you’re doing. This is something which quite honestly never occurred to me before – the writing just for practice, I mean. I’ve always thought that if I sit down to write it should be with purpose. But artists practice, sports figures practice, why not writers?

Reading her book has helped me loosen up a bit, especially when it comes to the prompt stories. Last time I offered prompts I was only doing one a week, and I’d spend pretty much the whole week working on it, getting no other writing done. This time I’m giving myself a time limit which is incredibly freeing. And I’m having a lot more fun with them.

I would love to have a look at Natalie’s journals. I have this vision of them all lined up neatly on a shelf, overflowing with ideas and deathless prose. She talks about re-reading them and pulling a line here and a line there to create a poem. She advises you to go through your own journals and underline the lines that are good, they might be the basis for something even better.

I don’t know if I’m there yet, but I’m getting close.


Prompts of the Week

Prompt one:
As a doctor for hire you’ve met a fair share of odd folks. Nothing quite like this though. A man in his mid-thirties stands before you, clutching a wound just given to him by another man sprinting down the street. Now the perpetrator trips and lands on his own knife. Screaming for help and not knowing what the heck happened—what do you do?

Prompt two:

The ocean is a vast and beautiful thing. Taking a quick peak off the side of your boat you realize something strange. The tentacles slowly creeping up the hull aren’t your imagination and the captain’s nowhere to be found. Where do we go from here?

Remember, don’t spend a lot of time on these, they’re just meant for fun. Take 5 minutes to think about it, then write for 10 or 15 minutes. And if it turns out you like what you’ve written, then by all means turn your exercise into an actual story.

Cookies and Ghosts

Well, what do you know. I managed to come up with something for both prompts this week. Not only that, I had fun doing it. How about you? Anything you’d like to share?

And just so you know . . . these pieces are un-edited. So don’t expect any deathless prose. :-D

Prompt 1: One day you come into work and find a cookie mysteriously place on your desk. Grateful to whoever left this anonymous cookie, you eat it. The next morning you come in and find another cookie. This continues for months until one day a different object is left – and this time there’s a note.

Julia hurried into work, late again, with the words of last night’s argument still ringing in her ears. Maybe she’d been a little hasty, giving Geoffrey the heave-ho, but what was the point in staying in a relationship if it wasn’t going anywhere? She was tired of being someone’s “plus one.”

The cookie, centered carefully on the blotter on her desk, was a surprise – a welcome one. She loved cookies and this one was a rich, dark chocolate. Just what she needed to start her day off right.

The next day there was another one, this time a pecan cookie with buttercream frosting. It melted in her mouth and put a smile on her face for the whole day.

Julia never thought to question where these mysterious cookies came from. Perhaps everyone in the office received one for a job well done, or maybe it was just her. She didn’t really care, she’d just enjoy them while they lasted.

Every day it was a different cookie – shortbread, chocolate chip, macaroon – she never realized there were so many different kinds. She looked forward to going to work, just to see what cookie was waiting for her.

After several weeks of this she arrived at work one morning and instead of a cookie there was a flat, white bakery box. Opening it slowly she let out a gasp.

Nestled in a layer of tissue paper was a large, heart shaped sugar cookie. There was a diamond ring embedded in the point of the heart and the words, “Will you marry me?” written across it in pink icing. Smiling, Julia reached for her phone.

Prompt 2:Writing as yourself or a character, tell the following tale: A ghost appears before you one night and tells you to expect a visitation by three spirits who will each transport you to significant moments from your past, present, and future. However, you soon discover that the three spirits aren’t quite like the ones who visited Ebenezer Scrooge . . .

The first spirit that came to her was a shock. “Buttons!” Gracie exclaimed.

The grey and white tabby wove around her feet, rubbing up against her legs before jumping up on the counter.

“Okay, so here’s the deal,” the cat told her in a no-nonsense tone of voice.

“But you died when I was just a little kid.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“And you can talk!”

Buttons puffed out her fur and hissed. “Yes. I’m dead and I can talk. Get over it.”

“The Buttons I knew was never so rude,” Gracie muttered

“Pay attention. We don’t have all night. I’m here to take you into the past, to where your problems all started.”

“What problems? I—”

“Pfft!” The cat cut her off and suddenly they were in her grandmother’s kitchen.

Four year old Gracie was sitting at the table with a plate of cookies in front of her while her grandmother poured her a glass of milk.

“Wow, I forgot how stern grandma always looked,” Gracie said.

“Shh!” said Buttons. “Listen.”

“Always remember the golden rule Gracie,” her grandmother was saying as she set the glass of milk in front of her.

“What’s that grandma?”

“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” her grandma said solemnly.

“I’ll remember,” little Gracie said.

“Only you never quite got it right, did you?” Buttons said.

“I don’t know what you mean,” big Gracie protested.

“You took the rule at face value. You thought that all you had to do was be nice to people and they’d be nice back. But it didn’t work out that way, did it?”

“Well, I—”

“How many times did people disappoint you?”

Gracie was silent. Suddenly she was back in her own kitchen again. There was no sign of Buttons.

“That was just weird,” Gracie said.

“It’s about to get weirder,” a voice behind her said.


And that’s as far as I got before I ran out of time. Looks like it’s going to turn into a short story and I’m going to have to finish it because I wrote it out long hand in my journal and I don’t know how much of a gap to leave, so I’ll have to finish it before I can move on.

But that’ll be a story for another day. LOL

Getting It Together

Yup, that’s right. I feel like I’m finally getting my s**t together.

My depression usually gets a lot worse just after the time change in the fall, and I’ve noticed that this year it seems to be getting better now that the time has changed back again. Which begs the question, is it because of the time change itself, or is it because the sun has been making more of an effort to shine lately?

Maybe it’s a little of both. But whatever it is, I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

I believe I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: if you are writing a series whereupon the plot of the next book relies on events of the previous one, DO NOT write the next book before finishing the previous one!

I’ve also mentioned before that the first 50,000 words of Wandering Wizards, the third volume in my Moonstone Chronicles, were written as a NaNo novel. This is all well and good, it got the novel started, but the problem was I hadn’t yet finished Lucky Dog, volume two of the Moonstone Chronicles.

I thought I only needed to make a few minor adjustments to Wandering Wizards and then carry on. Turns out I was wrong. Oh, so wrong. For one thing, considering the series is really about Jessica and her journey, there was very little Jessica in WW. And there were a few things from Lucky Dog that had a big impact on the action in WW. And WW ended up going in an unexpected direction that was taking it well away from the story line as a whole.

Normally I get the first draft done and then worry about re-writes, but Wandering Wizards is such a hot mess that I finally broke down and printed out the current version – all 165 pages of it. THEN I discovered a second document labeled “current version”, which was about 8,000 words shorter. Which came first, the long one or the short one? I had no idea.

After wasting far too much time on Sunday trying to compare the long one to the short one, I finally got fed up and just deleted the shorter one. If I edited out 8,000 words, well, I’m sure I can edit them out again. It was stupid to waste so much time (with the potential of wasting a lot more) trying to figure out what changed between the two. And no, I didn’t think of using the track changes option in Word until after I’d already deleted the short version.

So where does that leave me? With 165 pages to edit to get the story back on track. And hopefully before I get to the end of those pages I’ll have figured out where to end the book. There’ll be a case of mistaken identity, a kidnapping, and the potential for many bad things to happen - the big question is, will the book end before or after the wizard is rescued?

Buckle up folks, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!


Prompts of the Week

Prompt one:
One day you come into work and find a cookie mysteriously placed on your desk. Grateful to whoever left this anonymous cookie, you eat it. The next morning you come in and find another cookie. This continues for months until one day a different object is left – and this time there’s a note.

Prompt two:
Writing as yourself or a character, tell the following tale:
A ghost appears before you one night and tells you to expect a visitation by three spirits who will each transport you to significant moments from the past, present and future. However, you soon discover that the three spirits aren’t quite like the ones who visited Ebenezer Scrooge…

Remember, don’t spend a lot of time on these, they’re just meant for fun. Take 5 minutes to think about it, then write for 10 or 15 minutes. And if it turns out you like what you’ve written, then by all means turn your exercise into an actual story.

It’s A Start. . .

It was a busy week, it being March Break and all, so I only got one of the prompts done. But it’s better than nothing, right? This little story proves that you don’t have to take these prompts too seriously. :-D

To get the story straight. Dave, we think, has become a chicken. Just the worst of luck with that guy. Tom is claiming he married the futon that’s now covered in yogurt, Carl is on the chandelier with the dog and you just walked in after getting groceries. What the heck is going on?

You set the groceries down with a sigh. “Millicent!” you call.

There’s a pink swarm of dust motes hovering in the corner and a high pitched giggle comes from the sparkling cloud.

“Millicent,” you say again, looking sternly at the pink swarm. The sparkle intensifies and two bright fuchsia eyes appear. “What have I told you?” you ask sternly.

The effervescent of the swarm tones down slightly. “No using wild magic on your friends,” a high-pitched voice replied.

“And what did you do while I was gone?”

“It was just a little magic, and it wasn’t my fault.”

You sigh. Raising any child on your own is hard, but raising a half fairy, half genie is challenging, to say the least.

The swarm drifts down to the floor in front of you and begins to coalesce. Another few seconds and a small form takes shape. The fuchsia eyes remain the same and today she’s sporting bright pink, spikey hair, a pale blue tee-shirt with the slogan “Unicorn Trainer” emblazoned across it in darker blue sequins, and jeans. As usual, her feet are bare.

You crouch down so you can look her in the eyes. “You’ve had your fun, now change them back please.”

She looks down, hands behind her back, and her glow dims a little further. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?”

“Carl used my wand to play fetch with the dog and the dog bit it in half and it broke. That’s how they ended up on the chandelier.”

“And the rest?” you ask with the patience of a saint.

One bare toe rubbed on the carpet. “The magic kind of spilled out and went wonky.”

You sigh and straighten up again. “Okay. Give me the pieces and we’ll fix it.”

She produces the pieces from behind her back and hands them to you. You pat her on the head and take the pieces gingerly.

“All right, let’s glue this up and you can put things to right again.”

Millicent skips happily beside you as you go into the kitchen to get the super glue. At the rate she keeps breaking her wand, maybe you should be buying glue by the case.

Times They Are A Changin’

I’m going to be upfront with you here. I hate the time change. It serves no purpose, other than to mess with our circadian rhythms and I promise to vote for the first Politian who swears to abolish it.

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article linking the shift to Daylight Savings Time (DST)to a rise in incidents of myocardial infarction (heart attacks). Different studies have shown there is an increased risk of stroke in the days following a time switch. There is an increased number of traffic accidents and more on the job accidents in the days following the time change.

Danish researchers uncovered a link between time change and an increase of hospital admissions for depression. Another study shows a link between time change and an increase in suicides. This begs the question, why do we still do it?

Supposedly, the switch to DST saves us money on energy. Moving that extra hour of daylight from the morning to the evening means we can work longer, play longer, and have a longer exposure to vitamin D. But studies have shown this isn’t really the case. Just because it’s still light outside doesn’t mean we’re out there enjoying it. And the decrease in energy used in the evening is offset by the needed increase of use in the mornings.

Forbes Magazine published an interesting article showing that the top 5 reasons for keeping DST have no science to back them up. You can read it HERE.

So back to my question, why do we still do it? The only answer I can come up with is that we do it because we’re told to by the government. And that doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to me.



Prompt of the Week

You may have noticed I forgot to post my take on last week’s prompt. Yeah, well, you didn’t send me anything either, so there! LOL

On the weekend I spent some time with the prompt jar actually going through the prompts which I had mostly copied from the Writer’s Digest site, not realizing that a lot of them you had to click on to get the whole prompt. And prompts from other sources that I again mostly just cut and pasted from proved to be . . . lame.

But the jar is refilled now and my friend and I both chose a prompt for the week, so you get to have your choice:

Prompt 1:
To get the story straight. Dave, we think, has become a chicken. Just the worst of luck with that guy. Tom is claiming he married the futon that’s now covered in yogurt, Carl is on the chandelier with the dog and you just walked in after getting groceries. What the heck is going on?

Prompt 2:
You take a sip from your drink and feel different. That may be because your torso has an extra arm protruding from it. Another sip, another arm. Then a wing. What happens if you finish the drink?

Bonus

My friend has extended a challenge: Everyone has had a villain in their life. Challenge. Write a paragraph or two about a villain’s point of view. What makes them tick.

Remember, these prompts are just to flex your writing muscle, so have fun with them!

A Goal Without a Plan is Just a Wish

I had a whole vision in my head of how life was going to continue after I got back from my retreat. I was going get back into my exercise routine, eat healthier, spend the mornings in my office writing, pay a little more attention to my blog by establishing a weekly prompt. . . Great goals, right?

What I hadn’t planned on was being struck down by the mother of all colds. I had a bit of a sinus thing going before I went on the retreat, and didn’t get enough sleep while I was away so the medicine I was taking was less effective, so by the time I got home I was really feeling like crap. And I felt like crap all of last week. So no writing, pretty much no anything.

I still feel like crap, but my head doesn't seem quite so muffled. And right now all my good intentions seem to be covered in a layer of snow – is anyone else as tired of winter as I am? Seriously! It kept waffling about whether it was going to be winter or not all season long, and now that it’s March it’s suddenly decided to commit. In fact, as I type this it’s snowing like crazy. Go away snow!

Back to my good intentions. One of the ideas I’ve been toying with is adding a weekly prompt to this blog. I was going to write out all these prompts and stick them in a jar, and a friend was going to come over and we’d pick a prompt for the week. The idea was for us to write from the prompt for 15 minutes to exercise our creative muscles, and I could share the prompt here for anyone else who wanted to give it a try.

Well, the friend blew me off but I’d already spent considerable time and effort on the prompts, so I see no reason why that time should go to waste. So I’ve picked a prompt for the week and I invite anyone who’d care to participate to use this prompt to kick start their own writing. It’s more fun if you use pen and paper, but that’s up to you, and I suggest limiting yourself to 15 minutes – write without thinking too much and without stopping.

If you like what you’ve written and want to continue, go for it. And if you don’t think it’s going anywhere that’s okay too – at least you’ve had a little fun with your writing. AND if you keep it to around 500 words, you can either post it in the comments or send it to me at carolrward(at)gmail(dot)com and I can post it here on Friday, when I’ll post my own.

Give it a try – at the very least it’ll get your creative juices flowing.

Prompt of the week:
There’s a thunderous knock at the door. You open it to find an improbably tall, black-robed figure towering over you with a scythe in one bony hand. The figure peers at you for a long moment, then looks down at a clipboard in its other hand. Then back at you. Then back at the paper. It has no apparent face, but you sense that it is puzzled.