Magenta Monster

Games can be a fantastic way of getting yourself writing ad there are a few on the market – normally cards with a prompt on or a challenge. I made my own version which I take along to workshops and things – based on the monsters of my blogs – you could make your own as well.

But even a simple game of word association were you and your friends say the next word that is connected in some way with the previous – you can theme the game or use sentences on paper and everyone adds a next sentence. These can be surprisingly effective at getting the old creativeness going.

I found this online album called the Most Beautiful Abandoned Places in the World and the potential for writing stories is almost endless! They are amazing – check out the link and get writing!

The dark sleet froze to the surface of the purple specked obsidian, it had a lustre like the abyss and fractured in jagged concentric twists, Annealia knelt before this alter to sing. Her hair seemed to rise and stand out from her fine classic face, regal nose and high check bones, too pale for even 100 summers of forced imprisonment. Her hair floated around her in erri wisps as if caught in some current. Her eyes were closed in concentration, a lapis blue glitter stained her lids excentuating her frigid demenour.

Her lips moved with the song though no sound could be heard in the great cathedral cave, white satin spilled out around her with the glint of silver embroidery, it was the most expensive gown in existance. Annealia would have exhanged it for the coarses cloth without a thought. The turquoise gems at her throat seemed to burn her with heat so cold it would blister any fingers that dared to touch it and yet her skin was unbroken, only she knew of the pain and that she could not acknowledge.

She had been singing for 6 days now, and only the snap and crack of the lightning cracking across her skin kept her from falling forward into slumber. The end was growing near, her lips were moving but it was such an effort to remember…

The air seemed to snatch the words almost rip them in velvet gore from her throat, she was drowning within herself – the process was eating her and yet when she had last been able to open her eyes she had seen it. The coloured ribbon so bright snaking its way through the air in a dance of continual creation. She had been part of that song once and her world relied on this… this sacrifice. She carried on singing. The cavern dwellers watched silently. Few lasted this long and when she was gone one of them would be chosen. The world glittered as a jewelled marble woven from the strands of the girls song but soon she would be able to sing no more and the end times would rip that little globe to pieces.

But time was different here and where they now dwelt and one of them would heal those cracks and begin the world anew. The priestess stood above Annealia watching and waiting, a sword of cracking ice sat awaiting the faltering note, the dark smudge in the rainbow light. Darkness would come then for the world and for the girl who sung it into being and then the next of them would be trussed into the dress, strange how it never showed the stain, they never bled the words had sucked them dry.

Annealia sung and sung and still the words were creating the world in her image, she was no longer concouse of the pain nor the cavern or her sisters. There was just this she was the blue fire at the center of the note, she was pulse of the universe, she was no more, just a song, a note forever sustained.

If you like writing from images Deviant Art is another excellent resource crammed with artists and images. You can even by prints of a lot of the work which I like to pin up on the wall of my writing area.

Tessa sat trembling, the lights had gone out over an hour ago, the temperature had begun to plummet, she knew it wouldn’t be long know, this was it, this was the end. She had held on for so long, she had survived for fuck sake. She shook now with anger at her predicament, this just was not fair, the others had left her one by one. Her worst fears faced and survived and yet in the end there had been no point, she would end up the same as them, as the old poem said ‘No streamin’ there’ she hit her leg in anger. ‘WHY!’ she screamed at the nothingness that surrounded her, the sound of her voice was dead, no echo no resonance came back to her, it was as if the room had a deadener in.

Tears stung her eyes, maybe if she moved about a bit it would keep her core temperature up enough to prevent hypothermia from setting in. She stood but banged her shin the first step she took, this was complete darkness not the semi dark most people think of where you can still see vague outlines of the furniture, this was complete, her eyes strained in the blackness but there was no light to pick up, what was worse was the absence of the little white stars that normally explode in your sight even with closed eyes. No photons here to fly throw the jelly of her eye. Nothing, and yet she could feel the floor beneath her, how long for she didn’t know. If the lights had gone and now the heating, the gravity was soon to follow then she really would panic, she had only been weightless once and that had been a hashed swimming lesson. Her phobias had had her except from most sports, phobias she had mostly faced. She jiggled on the spot, goose bumps where already rising on her arms, she whimpered, the sound died sucked into a vacuum or so it seemed. Blackness had engulfed her, the cold sweat it had wraught now felt like ice in the velvet air as the room lost all warmth. Strange she hadn’t noticed it there before, it had just been ambient background temperature but with out it she was dead. Panic began its familiar constriction on her throat, like a hand clutching at her, may be that was what was happening, ‘NO’ she said aloud, she mustn’t think like that or else she was completely lost. Wasn’t she lost anyway? Hadn’t they all been lost the moment that siren had sounded?

Betrayed that’s what they had been, her whole class, all of them, betrayed, all sold out by the people sworn to protect them, the tears threatened again, did her mother and father even know what had happened? Had they showed up to pick her up as normal? Or had they… been involved, that thought was too horrible to even contemplate. The others had all been hysterical, she had always been that way, every day was a mass of anxiety to her but this this she had handled, though she had known the anxiety would come later, after the event. As it had before. Those early memories, those treacherous memories plagued her again. She know and her parents know she knew but no one could bring the pain about that a confession would have caused. Orphan the treacherous voice that was her own whispered, sold, she had been sold again. She hadn’t been good enough, now she was in the middle of some sick game, the floor pitched away from her, the antigrav she thought, but no she was just feeling faint, not enough, food and water will do that to you, though how she knew she that she didn’t know. ‘Andrew,’ she whispered hoping somehow her brother would come, but he didn’t, had he been betrayed too? She hope not but part of her hoped he had so that he’d be there with her, be there to protect her, as he had since that first day. A day that had almost been lost to her, lost until this had happened. It was all the same that’s how she had survived, that’s how she had know things. But no one would follow her, the strange one, the freak of the class, no one was her friend, no that was a lie and she knew it. But easier to think that way now they where all gone. Lost like those in her distant memories.

She pulled her self back up – she had to hang on for as long as possible, something drove her to survive, it had worked before maybe just maybe it would work again. The metal tubing she grasped was ice cold, so very very cold, it burned, she let go, ‘impossible’ she whispered the heat couldn’t have leached from the room that quickly could it? Ice crystals from her breath tinkled on the floor, but the air didn’t seem that cold. A coolant pipe? Maybe but they should have protective covers on. Shouldn’t they?

She backed away, hitting her head on some unfathomable object, fear gripped her threatening to tip her into insanity, that she could not allow, not until she was safe anyway. Would she ever be safe? If she survived this then would they just wait another ten years and before coming to get her?

A low thrumming noise caught her attention, so dark it seemed, resonant with the evil she perceived to have caused all this, when had the sound started? Was it even a sound? It seemed far too solid, a movement, the engine she wondered briefly before the world pitched, she rolled, painfully into heap her leg burning on the pipe. She screamed, the pain was intense. It focused her.

She pushed herself away, the heating hadn’t been turned off it was just that the engine had been started and she was in the room with the coolant pipe! The ship had angled itself to a new trajectory but the grav hadn’t had time to readjust, dangerous flying, even she knew that!

Tessa could breath again, think again, someone else was on the ship, she wasn’t alone, but was this a good thing or a bad thing? Another lurked had her catwheeling over herself. The lights flickered, blinding her. What was going on? It was like who ever was driving the thing didn’t actually know which control do what. This gave her hope. A new courage surged with in her as she began to feel her way around the room, desperately trying to remember what had been where in the room, but she was in complete darkness and had been turned around too many times. She knew there was at least one door, she had been thrown in there after all. They had said she would get some food a reward for surviving but they hadn’t come back, she shivered, she was split with feelings, part of her had dreaded their return, as vague feelings of disgust at what else might be her reward flooded her but part of her feared this soulless loneliness. She had once read that humans define themselves by their relationships and interactions with other humans, who was she without other people? The lonely ness threatened to sink her. She pushed it all down deep inside her where it couldn’t affect her chances of survival.

Would the door still be locked? Probably, so why was she still inching her way around the room in the hope of finding it? That didn’t matter it gave her a goal and that’s what matters, something to hold onto, something for the mind to work on. On step at a time, she thought. Ah there a ridge, the door frame, she’d found it! The ‘handle’ would be to the right, ah yeah there, she touched the large circle in the middle of a pressure sensitive pad, she couldn’t see it but they where all the same everywhere so that didn’t matter. She had been opening this type of door her whole life.

A red circle flared, at eye height, in the complete dark it seemed to burn painfully bright, locked! The door was locked, well of course it was – what had she expected. Suddenly another circle lit up, green, the door was opening! Without thinking she careered into the man standing just outside, ‘SHIT!” he exclaimed as he tumbled over backwards. Suddenly Tessa found her self running, darting around corners, she didn’t even know if the gut was following her, she hoped not!

Breathing hard, acid rising in her throat she ran on, she had a vague notion of the ships layout from all those ‘exercises’ they had put the kids through. The control room or bridge or what ever it was called should be her target but right now she was just too busy running, she had to put some serious distance between her and her captor, especially now he’d be peed off. If she got some breathing space then she could look for an un obvious hiding space, air vents where no good as that would be the first place they looked probably by flooding them with knock out gas. Too little food and rest where taking there toll, stitches, that horrible sharp pain from lactic acid, in her chest in her side, arhg, now her calves where cramping. She ran on, breathing more ragging, a thick mucus seemed to be rising in her moth; all she could taste was salt. The ship lurched dangerously sideways slamming her into a thankfully clear wall. She was in a narrow corridor so there was nothing to fall on her either. The gravity seemed to take an age to come back on; at least here there was emergency lighting. She heard swearing off in the distance, with the gravity still not adjusted and likely to adjust any moment she didn’t want to risk running, she would break something sooner or later with all this tossing around. She began to crawl along the now floor-wall but right next to what had been the floor. Her hand brushed against three slightly raised circles, warning her that she was about to crawl over a door. The swearing voices where getting stressfully close. Cold sweat now make her hand slide on the smooth metal she crawled across, she needed somewhere to hide. Instinct took over she was on the door and hit the green circle. The door slide from beneath her, she plunged through the opening.

I’m dead she thought as she slide into darkness. The door swooshed shut above her, just as her feet touched the opposite wall. A gasp escaped her then an hysterical chuckle. A bunkroom! Tiny, she had slide no further and no more violently than if she was on a slide in the playground. The gravity restored itself finally, thumps and crashes out side told her that the owners of the voices where near by, she froze, terrified that her manic chuckle had been heard. But no one burst in the room, they had moved on in their search for her. Lighting seemed to be coming and going, dull red emergency alert lighting cast erry shadows around her. A year or more worth of nightmares if she ever survived. In the half light she searched the room for anything useful, to her disappointment there was no cache of weapons but then she hadn’t really expected there to be one. What there was, was a map of the ship. With this she could make plans.

Five hrs later and she had managed to get almost all the way to the control room, that was what it was called according to the map anyway. It had been an uneventful time with no close calls, she was relieved, although now she was fighting the fatigue of post adrenaline rush, a too keen hunger made here shiver and keel slightly. The Control Room would be just around the corner, there should be guards. It was time for her to do the obvious; she hoped that any gas they had flooded the pipes with would be dissipated enough by now not to affect her. Extract the only other thing she had picked up on route from her pocket she began to undo the bolts on an air vent in order to remove the grill, She knew this could still trap her though as the system could close itself off from the ship via shutters to stop the ‘flushing’ gas from getting to the ships crew. A technique mostly used for killing vermin. She shuddered at the thought.

Crawling into the shaft she fought the familiar panic her claustrophobia clawing at her insides, she had no choice though, over come it or be caught and probably be killed or worse. With a little bit of previously unknown gymnastics she managed to turn around in the shaft, hang out of the opening with her thighs pushing outwards against the wall to stop her tumbling straight back out. She grabbed the grill and gingerly balanced it back in place – of course she couldn’t bolt it back into place so it would come off the next time the ship jerked but it was worth it to cover her takes until then. She backed up the shaft so that she wouldn’t nock the grill off the wall again during the panicky hamster like turnaround. The shaft angled upwards making it more of a scrabble than a crawl but it soon levelled out, the little pieces of metal that had fastened the grill where in her thigh pocket and where causing her a few problems as she squeezed through the smaller junctions. She had to concentrate hard, relying on the keen sense of direction that only seemed to appear when she was under stress. She rounded a corner and had to bite down a scream, she had put her hand straight onto a little twitching bundle of fur. It was one of the ‘vermin’ so they had use the ‘flushing’ gas, the poor thing was still some how holding onto life, maybe they where developing a resistance to the poison? Curiosity got the better of her she rolled it over, a cute squashed gueni pig face with too large saw like teeth looked dazedly back at her. It pathetically waved its little sucker pad feet in the air, its ancestors had once been rats, they’d studied the concept in school but she had never seen one of these ‘vermin’ controversy meant they didn’t even have a name. Somehow she felt immensely sorry for it.

She was just about to push it two the side when a dark shadow at the next junction stopped her, she froze. A man with a gun squeezed past the opening or the tube she was in, somehow he had failed to notice her, he had been to intent on what ever his purpose was. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a good idea. Her heart was thudding away apparently in her neck making her feel nauseous. She had to focus herself, regulate her breathing again before she could continue. The little fuzzy vermin had in the mean time had apparently expired. This she felt did not bode well but at least made her want to move away form it.

She got to her vantage point with out any furthur sightings, Tessa looked out across the low above ceiling vista of cable spaghetti, one look at the ceiling tiles told her that they where not going to hold her wait. The metal supports for them would but she would get inextricably tangled in the wiring.

Frustrated to have got this far only to be stopped by some stupid wires had her almost in tears. Maybe she should have gone for that side vent rather than the ceiling but it would have taken longer to get there and then she wouldn’t be able to scope the situation in the Control Room out properly. She looked at the spaghetti hatefully; maybe she could move the wires to the side for just one ceiling tile? She could defiantly fit through such a gap; she’d have to just hope there wasn’t a tall equipment rake right underneath it. Gentle she put the screw driver bit of the multi tool into the minute crevasse between the ceiling tile and the metal, a little gentle levering had it loose, she shifted it to the side carefully hoping that the slight scrapping noise hadn’t been detected. She realised she was involuntarily holding her breath and let it out slowly. Damn! The angle wasn’t good. She could tell there was someone in the room but not who, she’d have to risk it and stick her head through the ceiling, she swallowed down the laughter that threatened. Laughter at a time like this!

She inched forward until she could do sort of press ups above the opening, her arm mussels quivered painfully and threatened to crap, she readjusted her position dreading what she would find. The light in the room hurt after the gloom of the tunnels, it took awhile to adjust. Tessa drew in a sharp breath as she recognised Tony Bellegrave from her class. From his posture he looked more than stressed. The question was had he gone over to them? How was she going to find out?

A movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention; she pushed against the crick in her neck that was growing more painful by the minute. There was movement in a vent in the wall to her left, the one she probably should have gone too. With sickening realisation she thought of the gun wilding man who had passed her in the tunnels, no time to wonder who he was or what side Tony was on. She drew herself back up through the hole, a plan already formulating in her mind, she extracted the screws from her pocket and with a lot of really too loud wriggling she got her self into a very strange cramped squatting position just above the opening. She watched from her new angle as the grill was silently slide from its mountings and gently placed on the floor. She marvelled at the silent stealth of the gunman, regardless of her fear she had to admire him.

He extracted himself with an almost feline grace, not making a sound he was just bringing the gun up to his shoulder when Tessa sprang into action. Wondering to herself why he had bothered to climb out of the tube when he would have had a clear shot from within it and would therefore not have exposed himself. She threw the screws in the furthest corner, the sound of them tinkling and crashing distracted him. She moved her feet off of the metal struts allowing herself to basically drop through the opening. She landed a bit clumsily but recovered quickly, grabbing a map tub from a stake near her, she hit him as hard as she could, but he was quick and agile and most off all unlike her he was trained.

He deflected her blow with his fore arm; it wouldn’t have been powerful enough even if the blow had connected with his head. Movement out of the corner off her eye had her diving off to the side in some instinct before Tony had even shouted. Tony the most annoying kid she could think off was welding a gun, he was shaking, he had also fired it, sending the gunman off his feet. Tessa hadn’t even heard the gun but what she did notice was that the bullet had only knocked the guy over, ‘He’s wearing bullet proof clothing Tony!’ She yelled. The gun fired again, straight into the guys chest with no affect. He was beginning to rise, Tessa knew they where doomed. Tony fired a third shot just as closed her eyes in despair, there was a heavy thump as the gunman slumped to the floor, Tessa opened her eyes. ‘Nice shooting!’ she said. The gunman had a neat whole in the middle of his forehead, the wall behind him was a mess, Tessa would not think about that for now. ‘I did it’ whispered Tony; he was shaking badly, ‘Tony?’ Tessa asked. Had she done the right thing, was Tony friend or Foe, who was the gun man could he have been a rescuer?

‘Saved by Trumer Girl’ he giggled a tad hysterically. Tessa flushed in resentment of the playground torment. It was one of the kinder knick names though so she couldn’t be too angry. Suddenly Tony seemed to snap out of the strange hysterically bubble that was growing around him, he looked at her, she recognised the cold calculations in his eyes but too late, he was aiming the gun at her. ‘Tessa Tessa,’ he said a bit too snidely, ‘whose side our you on?’ She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

‘I’m on our side Tony,’ she said quietly soothingly, ‘ on the side of us kids and us surviving, what about you Tony?’ He glared at her.

‘No who you with Tessa? The Spariates or the Pigs?’ She looked at him trembling slightly now, had she survived all this only to bed shot by a classmate.

‘Why do you think I would side with Space Pirates she asked him suddenly angry.

‘Cos you where their pet before weren’t you that’s why your Trumer Girl. It was all explained on your first day to us before you came into the room, all about your great trumer and how brave you where. Well I think you’ve got that syndrome you are sympathetic to your captor!’ She looked at him dumfounded.

‘Tony, she said carefully, ‘I wouldn’t side with them anyway, but this is a different set of Pirates to the lot that took me before,’ she hadn’t remembered properly, now she felt the shadows of it hit her like a tidal wave, screams and shouts, fire. The cold dark of a hull, the motion of the ship sickening, her mother hugging her so tight, until they finally dragged Tessa away, away from everyone she knew. She had been about 3 her memories where strange distorted as she hadn’t understood what was happening at the time. She was rescued that time, just over two years she was a slave, then she had been plunged back into reality, refusing to believe that her mother was her Adopted parent and not the one who had struggled to keep hold of her on the ship. The state had a programme for helping Traumatised children integrate back into normal life, hence her nickname. She hated it, suddenly she hated everything.

‘Tony,’ she said bitterly her voice full of venom, ‘if you are with the pirates you’d better just kill me now, I do not want to be a slave again, believe me, they wont let you go free either no matter what you do for them.’ Tony seemed to sag with trembling he sat down in the pilot’s chair.

He looked up at her gave a watery smile then slide the gun across the floor to her, ‘Enemies on the playground become allies in battle!’ he squeaked. ‘You’d best be look out in case anyone else tries to sneak in here, at some point they’ll get the welding equipment and start on the door but until then we have a chance.’

She nodded in relief, and picked the gun up, ‘What’s the plan?’ she asked whilst giving the room a cursory once over biting her lip.

‘Well I’ve been transmitting a message saying that Spirates have us but I don’t know how to work out coordinates, a ship has responded but they are going to take a while to track us down. So basically we just need to hold the fort until they get here. Assuming they aren’t rival Spirates.’ The contraction of space pirates always jarred on Tessa’s nerves as it was what they used themselves, she bit back the comment though.

‘Ok,’ she was slightly relived, ‘but how much ammo for this do you have?’ She waved the gun vaguely in the air. Tony looked suddenly crest fallen.

‘Erm… what ever left in it?’ not good she thought, she looked around sometimes places like this would have cashes of weapons in case of intersection but they might be in a safe or something, Ah the gunman, he was covered in ammo and weapons, she knelt beside him. ‘What are you doing?’ Tony asked horrified.

‘Well we need it and he’s not going to use it, I don’t suppose I can convince you to wear any of his bullet proof stuff can I?’ She smiled they had a chance of survival she was going to keep them alive as long as she could, and why was it that dead bodies where so hard to undress?

A staticked message began to come through on the radio, their would be rescuers where almost there, she just hoped they where rescuers. Just in case she concealed a slim sheathed knife under her trousers, the gunman was proving to be very useful. Just in case she though. Then smiled reassuringly at Tony, he nodded and responded, she could see in his eyes he was worried too, well there was nothing to do now but wait.

This was first blogged on Snell-Pym mine and my Husbands personal blog and then later on Wiggly Pets as a webcomic type thingy.

A New Arrival

The lightbulb in the bathroom died.

So we placed an order with Lightbulbs Direct, and a few days later, a parcel arrived:

We took the new bulb – still safe inside its egg – and set it up in a little hatchery until it was ready to emerge:

Before long, the egg came open, and our new bulb peeked out:

After all that effort, it was hungry, so quickly tucked into the pile of batteries we’d left out for it:

After a while it had built up its strength and started trying to find a nest:

So we took it to the bathroom and set it free:

It quickly settled in the nest in the ceiling:

And began to roost:

It seems very happy.

This piece of flash fiction is part of a lovely collection of writers from the South West of England called Kissing Frankenstein and Other Stories.

Ivory Towers

On the planet Ibis, covered in turquoise ocean, a young warrior stood on a white beach looking to the sky tinged green and the harsh binary stars. The warrior’s name was Malock and like all large life on Ibis they were a multitude of life; not just a single entity. A consensus of organisms held together by flimsy filaments so they could cooperate. Malock thought as a hive but a hive that moved on two apparent legs, a hive that was contained in a single form. Malock was a colony, but mobile; not fixed as rock. It was a trick their ancestors had learnt in the seas, as they left the reef bed. Specialisation of specific members allowed so much, and Malock’s form thought they were the peak of the evolutionary ladder.

They were wrong.

Malock picked up a crude spear that they had made out of a dead leaf colony. Such groupings built their structures from a hard fibrous substance and the creatures on the edge became specialised light collectors to help feed the rest. They could be huge; the one Malock held was about the same height as they were and thinner than their apparent wrist. They had been entrusted with a sacred mission; sighing deeply, they thought in unison about the task ahead and ran into the sea. Their apparent feet, flat and flipper-like kicked up the fine white sand made from reef-colony secretions.

Malock opened their eyes; the world shimmered and rippled, distances were no longer the same. A lensing film flopped in front of their light receptor specalists and they swam, powerfully and strongly. Their lungs shut down and an older form of respiration begain, slits allowing the warm rich water to enter into the mist of the colony. The founder memebers still remembered incarnations when they had not left the sea’s warm languidness.

They swam out into the darker waters, deeper and cooler. Currents swirled, threatening to drag them in an unchosen direction. They gritted their apparent teeth and swam resolutely onwards. Floating colonies made clouds in which Malock had to wade. The reefs made the founders hum with an ancent homesickness. They left the glittering world behind heading for the deeps. They altered their internal pressure and went deeper.

Sleek predator colonies swam here Malock had to be aware of every ripple. The faded colours of predator colonies and their sleek forms made them hard to detect. The light was dim and they had to shift to a different type of vision, making world into a grainy, luminous, monotone. But the deeps were no stranger to their colony-form. They had offered protection from the periodic solar blasts that had scoured the planet’s surface through the ages; the founders gave Malock and others of their form a genetic memory, each creature within a colony could lock itself away, superate and be born anew, memories intact but jumbled.

Something in one of the Founders had ignited such a memory, they were heading for something, something important. Malock swam through the fire of fatigue. Some of the creatures died of toxins or lack of oxygen, others were so old the effort obliterated them, but still Malock swam, swam down deep and deeper. They swam for a… duration, the creatures of the colony sleeping in fits and starts so that 60 percent were always functioning as they plunged onward. Eventually even the grainy light went and direction seemed meaningless, and yet they swam onwards untill from the abyss a faint star appeared in the blackest of nights. It grew stronger and another appeared, followed by two more and then suddenly the world was full of star light.

The stars coalesed to form a myriad panatopia of small creatures, single and on their own, occastionally bundles of entangled organisms would form. They glowed with their own light. Malock watched in wonder as one budded a small replica of itself. This was the cradle. Malock could feel the warmth; the water bubbled mineral rich, it had a soapy feel. Malock swam on, a fear tinging it’s collective thoughts. Heat was becoming unbearable and more of it died. The colony knew the danger of this, it was becoming stupid. Each creatures’ death, regardless of how permanent, made them thicker. Thinking was getting harder and yet they were driven on towards the warmth, the ruddy light ahead.

White towers of scalding bubbles poured rich life, giving smoke into the sea. The Ivory Towers, the founders whispered. And Malock knew they were almost there but Malock was disintegrating. They had failed, they would die and their mission with them… what had it been again?

Find the origin? Find the safety of the Nursery? Those things made no sense now. Malock wondered why they had left the cities built as mocking effergies of the reefs, surely they had been safe?

Welcome Malock a voice glittered in the water; Malock shuddered. ‘Who?’ they thought sluggishly.

We are everything it reverberated around the disintergrating colony.

‘Everything?’ managed the remnants of Malock.

Yes everything, we have been waiting for you

‘But we are dying, we were supposed to save… something?’

You have you have bought yourselves here to the crucible, others will follow but may have left it too late your… elements will be the new world. You will lay dormant until the cleansing of stars is passed then each fragment of you will be a new life. You are the new founders.

‘But the cities… ?’

They will live again through you and others of your form, they are… the next level, next time they will become

‘Become?’

The cities will live and then… then we can truly be once more

‘?’

The cities will reform us, and we will truly think once more, we have been dormant for so long, thinking the thoughts of the small

Malock could no longer answer as awareness drifted apart and floated to the hot mineral sands below. The World sighed and went back to waiting.

I dreamt a long rambling dream about machines that put spikes into belly buttons on the back of your neck and jacked into your nervous system but that was the least of what they were doing. The jack was a path way in and up would go a… creature of little substance, all electric impulses held together with loose fitting joints. These would climb up your spines and enter you head were they would control the body looking out from the eyes.

But then that wasn’t quiet right either, they would become the body, be a new brain, be the controller and the feeler and the physical and emotional being in there. In… the… human. They were the person in many respects and my fear lay not in having seen them and the horror that bodies were being snatch in this way but more in the thought that one of these creatures may try to oust another… if that one was deemed by the whole to be… defective.

I had a strange sense of recognition of the little creatures, it was as if they had turned to stare at me. When I awoke from the dream I had the percular feeling that I only even inhabited my head and never really connected with the rest of it and then I started to notice how other people moved, how some were graceful and at home with all their limbs and others just weren’t, it affected little of how successeful they were in sports and other endevours. A disquieting came upon me as I wondered if I was indeed just a little person of electric sitting in a cockpit of brain steering a meat robot. But then I thought of the body I inhabited and thought how much I loved it. How the sensations all still over whelmed me and how I would die for it.

I began to wonder if a person would be a person at all with out that little electric creature.

I forgot about the idea in time and carried on with my life – failing to connect with others as much as I should have done and after one agonising confrontation when the person who’s attention I had sort out in formed me that a christmas office kiss did not count as a relationship and that if I told anyone she was a lesbian she would see that I did not stay at the office. I felt a dull hurt but it was too far away for me to catch, as if I was floating above the body. I decided not to point out how much more there had been to the encounter. But at that moment the thoughts came back unbidden and I went to sit in a cafe and think upon it all.

The coffee was bitter water barely luke warm and the waitress was rude. A business man in a pearlised blue-steel suit came in, he winked at me and turned to the counter, I had thought that a squirm of blue light had escaped his iris, lightening watched through the smoked glass of a weilder. He sat opposite me at the counter on a high seat, the suit pulled too tight on him, my attention was fixed.

There were very few people there and the suit material began to ripple, my nightmare creature oozed it’s way out, it wasn’t really that small being larger than my hand by half again. It had a sort of gellatinous skeleton that pulsed and sparkled and created the electrical impulses, they were alarmingly bright and I wondered if staring at them too much would render you blind.

It scrambled up on to the table where I sat and I wondered what on earth I should do, no one else seemed to have noticed the little creature but then no one was looking either were they?

I hovered in indisision it stared at me as if I were something strange, ‘Hello?’ I siad at last, tired of trying to make my eyes not see it. It jumped backwards startled and then slit it’s glowing orbs of eyes, they glowed a faint rosey hue and seemed now unfriendly rather than puzzeled.

‘Disconnect,’ it said in a whinning buzz.

‘Disconnect from what?’ I asked. Now it’s eyes opened wider and the light hurt my own, I wondered how they did not fry peoples actually brains. My eyes shifted to the empty body and to my amazement it was not slumped but having a conversation with the waitress.

‘You’re fused!’ it snapped and then walked up and with painfull eyes that felt fuzzy warm up close stared into my eyes. My muscles began to twitch around my eye, an unpleasent feeling that made me think of worms and maggots and voodoo dolls.

It stepped back in disgust, almost as if I had burnt it. ‘Why the hell haven’t you reported this?!’ sparks escaped it’s open slash of a mouth in evident frustration, I sat and stared at it dumbly. ‘You have already caused yourself damage evidently. The machines are not the people remember that! We are the real people now report yourself before they have to get you by force and you know how much worse that would be.’

A shudder rippled through me but I could not imagine why. It went to go shaking it’s head saddly and looking back at me with evident regret in it’s dejected form. ‘What are the humans if they are not real people?’ someone asked, I realised with a sense of real detachment that it was me and I had indeed said the humans instead of us! And more than that these creatures from my dreamscape were real? Was this the advancement of some nurological disorder, aka was I going mad?

It seemed to dim slightly and then spoke, ‘you don’t remember?’

I shook my head.

‘They are nothing, just machines. It is dangerous to become fused… it causes confusion. Go and get treated.’

I nodded but sat frozen, there had been a lie there hadn’t there? Who were the real people? I watched as the business man chatted away without the creature, I felt I would spew my guts as it climbed back up his back and oozed into him.

I sipped the coffee now cold as can be hoping he would leave and I could put it down to a neurosis but as he got up to leave he gave me a sparkling wink and I saw the danger. They would be after me now and I could not even remember what they were. Not every human had one and I… I had become something else, something dangerous to them, I disproved what they wanted to believe. I was a dead woman walking.

Yes I am writing an advice piece on writing advice!

The main thing about advice is realising that what is good for one person is not good for everyone, and trying different things until you find what works for you is the way to go (or not depending on the type of person you are!). What I found helpful was to read as many books on writing and being creative as I could, I followed lots of writers on twitter and took part in the hashtag discussion groups such as #scifichat, #litchat and #writechat. I joined other communities both on and off line and had a stream of almost continuous advise – some of which appeared to be contradictory.

I found what worked for me but this didn’t mean I could ignore the rest as I found I would grind to a halt after about a year with any one technique. So I now work my way through various creative processes.

I found [Joanna Penn](https://twitter.com/thecreativepenn_ on twitter to be a really good source of inspiration and determination – I decided early on that I wanted to focus on self publishing and she is a brilliant example with videos and everything 🙂

This is her website.

Though I think for inspiration Neil Gaiman and his make good art speech is probably the best thing a writer can watch!

It’s been made into a book now!

I also found Matt Cowards Success and How to Avoid It, brilliant in it’s realism and dry humour, though it does deal alot with getting on with markets rather than the creative process.

I also love Stephen Kings On Writing.

I could keep going with communities and specific blogs but think I shall keep them for another post.

Alexia knew she had gone too far in questioning her husbands motives in the business deal, she had spoken out of turn she would have to work hard to make it up to him. She brushed her strewberry hair with a gilted hairbrush, her long pale hands gripped it too hard. Surely she was safe? The children were still in need of a mother and he had married her after all. That must give her some protection. At the school they had taught her how to behave and how to try and secure married.

She had acted like a free woman though, acted like she was not owned and that could be fatal. She didn’t even have human status, and she knew there was something more to her, even her children could not see things as clearly as she did. But she loved them, she loved him too, surely he wouldn’t choose his pride so?

She climbed into the dark green statin dress, gathered in a slight rippling affect around her upper body, it showed off her luminous skin and brought out the colour of her eyes. ‘Ah Alexia, you are so bueatiful,’ he sighed stepping across the room holding a box. He laid it on her dreeser and removed the contence, gold encrusted with little diamonds, to sit on her neck, his gentle hands placed the necklace and did the catch whilst she held the hair out of the way. His hands rested on her shoilder, they were warm, but they rested too long, he let out a long sad sigh. And kissed her neck.

‘I will walk down with you on my arm,’ he said.

She placed her feet into gold strapped sandles and linked her arm with his. They gluided over to the stair case and down the hall. They entered the dinning room. Alexia caught her breath at the site of the gold and cream sashes draped from the ceiling, wedding sashes. Her foot steps faltered but he forced her forward, she dared not ask who the sashes were for their children were far to young to marry. She feared the answer but prayed it was something benign, he had told her loved her that morning.

The table was lain extravigantly, not with the fayre she had ordered for the business meeting the meal really was. A dark haired woman stood under a canopy, her long neck and slender elegance told Alexia she was another bounded, she could smell the other woman now she thought about it. Cinnamon and butter. ‘Alexia,’ he said turning her towards him. ‘Did you kiss the children good night?’ she nodded mutely.

He sighed and took her thick arrangment of hair in his fingers and yanked back, she didn’t even scream, ‘you silly thing,’ he snarled, ‘in private I could have ignored it but we had guests.’ He hissed. He crushed her too him and kissed her and then a wave of tightness choked her from the necklace. He let her go and she spasmed on the floor. Inside the shocked pain she curled up and slept.

‘Master?’ said a voice to her left, a young man stepped forward, ‘are you sure you want to do this? The bond you have with her… it is not usual with her kind.’

‘She has to go, I have Rachel now, take her to the cliff, I have had orniments made of the weights, nothing is every too good for her…’ he hesitated but nodded and set his jaw.

Alexia was not really aware anymore, her eyes were open but clouded. Her heart was broken, and her soul was shattered, James has not been a bad man. He was better than the others she had seen since leaving the school. But something always twisted them, that was what her teachers had said, had it been her?

She was scared but unable to move. He was fullfilling the contract. This was the way of disposal for the bonded, electricution and being dumped in the sea. There was myths about them becoming mermaids, Alexia wasn’t sure she wanted to be a mermaid, if she could of reacted her heart would have been erratic instead it seemed to have slowed to almost non existance.

Weights were attached to her feet, they were gold, she knew they would be solid, the dress she was in was worth a fortune, this was his way of morning her. Anger flared in her imobile form. Surely it didn’t have to be this way. She would get him. Somehow. Fear choked off thought as she plunged the short distance into the shockingly cold water. Drowning was not a nice way to die she had looked it up out of morbid curiocity. But the burning, bursting pain did not come, water flooded into her mouth and nose and if she could have moved she would have thrashed in panic.

But it was slippery, like thick honeyed air, salt quenched her thirst and finially after lifetimes of nothing she swollowed and blinked and moved her hands. The world was a shifting mass of greys and greens, sunlight rippled down and her hair and dress danced in the currents. Shapes lurked in the dark, her eyes went wide as she saw the preditory way they moved, she was still alive! She was damned if she was going to be eaten by some sea creature.

She pushed herself down knowing instictually how to move in the brine but the weights were attached fast with chains, dispair consumed her in a wail of no air as the shapes emerged. But they did not eat her, instead she looked from one to the other recognising two of her old teachers, they cut through the chains that bound her, swimming freely, they stripped her dress which dragged her back and swam into the depths until it was too dark for her to distingish anything, they held her hands and led her to a brighter piece of water, a cave entrance. She emerged into a cavan full of fresh air.

‘You are home Alexia,’ an old woman, the Matron of the school said, Alexia tilted her head elegantly in acknowledgement.

‘The reset worked perfectly again Madam, some of the men must not be disposing of the girls in the prescribed way.’ Said one of the women, she was shaking with rage.

‘My children?’ Alexia asked.

‘Are in good hands, they are 60% you and will respond to a bonded queen naturally. If you wish it we will exterminate your husband? He is half bonded himself so we had hoped to bread from him some more but the decission is yours.’

Alexia hesitated, ‘I want my children,’ she said with tears burning her eyes a luminous shade. ‘I can not deny them their father as well.. but if he does this again… if he disgard her or hurts them can I exterminate him?’

The Matron smiled and nodded. ‘Come there is a lot for you to learn about your true nature and what you have achieved.’ Feeling sure she must have died or be in the mists of an asphyxiation dream. Alaxia left the cave only to find herself in the elegant world of the school she had been born into, she laughed at the myth of mermaids, they weren’t mermaids they were sirens.

Prideful men who thought they controlled everything would meet their end in a bridal song.