Magenta Monster

I try and put out some story starters to help writers get the old creative juices flowing.

1) The carvings were chipped and weathered but the form a face was still visible

2) The design desk was cluttered with sleek looking cars and sketches of animal back bones

3) The rhinos stared at him, it was a mother and a baby, he smiled slowly…

4) The ground mist had rolled in hiding all but the tips of the trees which stretched up into a dark clear sky

5) The storm hit, the rig swayed but held, for now…

Story starters originally started on twitter where authors were write the beginnings of stories and then share them for other writers to finish off.

1) The distortion on the images was caused by the fish eye lens it allowed them to see more the room

2) They were finally up in the mountains and the car was still purring smoothly

3) The snow packed mountains were reflected in the quiet glacial lake, the sky was blue and seemed to go on forever

4) There was no food but there was tech, the kid was hooked and dreaming whilst his body starved

5) The bird was a dowdy brown and sat in it’s nest with golden light streaking in through the tall reeds

I do love my writing challenges and April is a busy month with a poem a day writing challenge known as National Poetry Writing Month and Screnzy or Script Frenzy which was an off shoot of Novel Writing Month that I do in November.

Now Screnzy stopped officially existed a while back but there is still a forum on the nano site and I use it as a time to focus on my comic books 🙂

This year I am writing one on the origin of the Aquatic Apes within my Punk’s Universe. On the off chance that I actually finish that one I am going to be trying to complete previous years scripts – I am bad at screnzy – the challenge is 100 pages – I fail!

Having said all this I’d better get on and do some writing!

Selorian: It was driven into him that he was the bad kid–a monster. He was neither; he was autistic & people were too scared to care. #storystarters

It was driven into him that he was the bad kid–a monster. He was neither; he was autistic & people were too scared to care. Everybody that was except Amy, Amy would listen too him – for hours on end – of course people were generally nasty to Amy. Beautiful shy Amy who couldn’t keep eye contact and who’s hair appeared lank and dull. Her medication made her skin greasy and spotty, he didn’t care. She was beautiful and sweet and lovely.

Jonathan would take her for walks around the Airways Museum and show her all the world war II planes and then they would sit in the cafe and he would draw them for her – always in green biro. Her favourite was the Suzy. Then it happened, she did not turn up and he knew that he would never see her again. He waited for hours, inside his heart broke, he had no one to tell.

Worst still he felt no surprise when the police turned up on his door step, there was just a deep aching sadness that tied his tongue. He stared at them in the interview room as they accused him of hurting her.

It was the stomach punches that broke him and he with drew into himself where they could not hurt him, where the crashing wall of sound, that was people, washed across his consciousness but did not drown him. He needed Amy. He tried once to explain.

They took it as a confession, Jonathan knew the cold of the cell but did not see anything other than his need. A body turned up dredged from the river, no one was surprised and the court case was a farce. He’d stopped talking and there were wails about care in the community, the community had never looked after him – but Amy had.

He waited within.

He was thin and gaunt, dying of consumption or starvation and pneumonia, something like that, bits hacked up. It hurt.

The Dr frowned at him and had him moved, to a nice place, with a garden but why would he want to be here? She was not here. Another six months before they put him near the pens, biros. There was a green one.

He drew and drew and drew, the Suzy, always and only the Suzy, it was her favourite. The schematics and the real life sketch, he added something to the last one. And curled up, the fever returned and consumed him.

….

The nurse tisked in the morning but arranged things very efficiently and the funeral was less than a week later. It was strange that a flyby should happen then, but it did, one plane seemed to shimmer as if not real, green sparks of saint Elmo’s fire whooshed along it’s frame and for anyone looking they would have seen that one of the pilots was a woman, the other a man far too big to be flying in the cramped cockpit.

They looked happy.

Picture a story is a regular writing exercise I post to help other writers who might be suffering writers block.

Concrete and stone sides to the river, why and how and what does the river think?

Story Starters are posted here to help writers create new stories 🙂

1) The photo was black and white, it showed a diver with big eye mask and tube in the mouth, they looked clunky by modern standards

2) The walkway was hung from the trees and yet still here there were roots of the larger trees looped in high arches that swept down to the ground far below.

3) Curly grey hair framed a chubby face with a well trimmed tash, it too was grey, large tinted glasses hid the eyes

4) The business man grabbed her, he tried to pull the tasseled skirt off of her lean frame

5) The royal blue smock was hanging from her still ample frame, but it had been stretching seams not long ago

Picture a story is a writing challenge I set.

Look at the picture above and do ten minutes writing from it – if it does not initially spark a story idea just start describing it.

I took my zines and cartoon jokes and wiggly pets and info about the Punks world to the True Believers Comic Festival in Cheltenham – I did not have Bamboozeled which had been the plan but I did have a Wiggly Pets and Snobberlinks and I had a fantastic time.

I also learnt that whilst at craft fayres the books and zines I take along on the off chance are what sells… the opposite was true here and it was paintings of monsters and pompom snobberlinks and the polymer clay characters the books are based on, that sold. Who knew!

I am now on the hunt for more comic book things and hope to fill next year up with them 🙂

My friends came and kept me company whilst hubby was off demoing his step brothers game. It was lots of fun and there were epic costume about – I will be dressing up next time! Though I want to go as my own character which maybe cheating 🙂

I broke even so doing better than a lot of craft fayres! And that was taking hubby’s table into account – though to be fair I think this was due to people who knew me coming and buying my stuff – I really hope they actually like it!

It’s also shown me just how much stuff I have lurking about that I really should do more stuff with what with Little Books of Poetry, Wiggly Pet adventures and all the rest of it 🙂

I spoke to other artists and got the lo down on how to run the stalls and the comic book selling world and people asked me to draw in their doodle pads.

More pictures and yes that is my toddler flopped in exhaustion she’d been chasing super heros and villians everywhere 🙂

It was Valentines Day and the table was set for a lovely meal, the hoomins had all been working really hard on it, both the bigs and the small bigs or as Lithium liked to think of them… THE KITTENS.

The Kittens were fearsome lovely things and were fine as long as you made sure you only go strokes and NOT hugs. Kisses weren’t too bad but there were a bit snotty and drooly in general so Lith felt they were best avoided.

Sparkly hearts and beads and glitter had taken over the house the last few days and now there was a wonderful food smell wafting from the kitchen. Lithium’s tummy rubbled – she was a very hungry cat.

She looked up at the table, it was all set out with place mats and candles and what not. It looked so lovely and the hoomins always brought the food to the table so it made sense that the place to be was on the table. The only problem was… Lithium was not allowed on the table. She walked around the table three times trying to decide what to do and then checking that the hoomins were all busy she hoped up onto a chair and then onto the table.

And… promptly settled down!

When the hoomins came in they stopped and stared at Lithium, normally they shouted and told her to get off the table but this time they oohed and ahhed and the biggest of the Little Bigs stroked her and scritched behind her ears.

Lithium made sure she was right in the corner of the table – cats like corners, it was because it was very mathematical and cats like maths. She sat at a special angle cutting the corner into two triangles – it was lovely.

But she didn’t remain that way for long, with everyone moving about the candle flame started to flutter, looking exactly like a small thing to be caught and if not eaten then chewed alot!

Ears pricked to attention she prepared to leap and take down her foe!

But the light went off and a small big distracted her and explained that the candle was hot – she would have burnt her paw! Horrified Lithium reached out her paw to the Hoomins for inspection – just incase she had accidently burnt it anyway.

The Littlest Little Big assured her it was ok, she even kissed her! Now Lithium was drooly and had to groom her fur clean by licking and licking, everyone knew that cat drool was hygienic unlike hoomin drool.

Then she settled down and with a bit of petting began to purr loudly.

But after a while Lithium got bored, there was still lots of lovely cooking smells but where was the food?

She began to mew pathetically but all that happened was the Little Bigs stroked her which was all very nice but not what she had in mind! FOOOOOOD!!! Hoomins could be so silly sometimes!

Complaining meoawly she got them to put the light on again – it had nothing to do with the lost spoon and bad eyesight of one of the Bigs.

It had been very Catmospheric with the lights out, Lithium had to agree and so they put the light out once more and they sat in the flickering candle lights.

Finally the food showed up, Lithium’s nose twitched and she sniffed at it but there was no meat 🙁

Poor Lithium had forgotten that the Biggest Big, the one that went all the way up to the sky, he only ate grass like things. Hoomins were so strange. Feeling disappointed she meaowed and licked his hand.

But the the Medium Big or was she the Smallest of Big Bigs? Got up from the table and went and got a special tasty from the fridge which she put on Lithiums fish shaped plate. Lithium jumped off the table and rubbed herself all round Mummy’s Puss-Big Hoomins feet and then chowed down on the lovely yummy that had been put out for her.

It was a lovely Valentines Day for everyone.

(This story is part of the Wiggly Pet Collection)

I try and post story starters to help kick start my own and other writers stories. This started as a twitter thing with a hash tag and everything – I have posted rather a lot of the things and some of the stories people have produced have been amazing – some have even been published!

So here are this weeks 🙂

1) The time was flitting away, where was he? Soon it would be midnight – the New Year, she couldn’t do this without him.

2) It was a new day, but the sunset had been insipid at best, it did not bode well…

3) The moments drifted out of step…

4) They waited, and waited and then waited some more, frowning eventually their mum went to the door

5) One day left, that was all there was