Friday, October 22nd, 2010  I was at the local pumpkin farm last weekend. Took a hay ride, played in some shucked corn, had my photo taken behind several of those funny painted signs.
It was one of those days with a bright blue sky and the wind blowing so fiercely that tears run down your face. Nonetheless, I found it perfect.
I love picking my own pumpkins. I do it every year, like an annual pilgrimage. It brings back fond memories…
Like the year I went in elementary school. It was cloudy. It was damp. The ride felt longer than it should have been. We got to the farm and it had nearly been picked clean by other school trips. Frost had hit the fields at least once already, because the vines had dropped, revealing all the mud and a dearth of lovely orange globes. The barrenness was evident before we’d even parked.
We spent a good hour, maybe longer, walking around acres of fields, kicking rotting pumpkins and looking at the remains of some unidentifiable animal left behind in the field by another.
Finally, I found a pumpkin I liked. So did everyone else. Each pumpkin had character. Each of us liked a particular one for a particular reason. Each of us thought, “Mine is the best. I wouldn’t trade this pumpkin for anything.”
Then, we were herded onto the bus and rushed back to the school in time for dismissal. The bus driver hurried along, and we were doing great until the light turned red…and she slammed on the brakes. Hard.
All those beautiful pumpkins? Rolled and tumbled forward to the front of the bus, banging and clanging along until they careened into each other in a big heap, some of them falling into the little well of a staircase by the door.
All that time choosing a pumpkin? Wasted. As we were each handed a pumpkin willy-nilly from the stack by the driver on our way off the bus.
Sadness.
So, that’s my pumpkin farm story… and your prompt.
Write about your best (or worst) day getting a pumpkin. You don’t have to tell a “farm” story. Perhaps you bought yours at the corner store — the biggest you could find — and didn’t realize then that pumpkins get heavier the longer you carry them. Did you have to carry it up a six-floor walk up? Did you drop it? Did you buy a pumpkin and keep it until the day before Halloween, and when you cut it open to make a jack-o-lantern you’d found it was rotten? Did you ever win a carving contest?
Friday, October 8th, 2010 I’ve been teaching a writing/critiquing class at the local college and one of the first things we discussed is where ideas come from. We came up with a brilliant list of ideas (many of which I’ll probably save for another post) but one of the things we didn’t mention was list-making.
As I prepared for class last week, I found an essay by Ray Bradbury entitled “Run Fast, Stand Still, or, The Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or, New Ghosts from Old Minds” which makes a convincing case for list making as an idea resource.
Bradbury wrote, “It was only when I began to discover the tricks and treats that came with word association that I began to find some true way through the minefields of imitation. I finally discovered that if you’re going to step on a live mine, make it your own. Be blown up, as it were, by your own delights and despairs.”
And how did he find his own delights and despairs?
“I began to make lists of titles, to put down long lines of nouns. These lists were the provocations, finally, that caused my better stuff to surface. I was feeling my way toward something honest, hidden under the trap door on the top of my skull.”
Here’s an example of one of Bradbury’s lists: the lake, the night, the crickets, the ravine, the attic, the basement, the trap door, the baby, the crowd, the night train, the fog horn, the scythe, the carnival, the carousel, the dwarf, the mirror maze, the skeleton.
(Those familiar with Bradbury will see at least three of his stories alluded to there…)
While making these lists, Bradbury saw patterns, which eventually turned into the stories he wrote. His method was to pick some item from the list and write a long, prosy poem about it…which usually turned into a story on the second page, he says.
“It began to be ovbious that I was learning from my list of nouns, and that I was further learning that my characters would do my work for me, if I let them alone, if I gave them their heads…”
So…
Here’s Your Prompt: Make a list of nouns. It’s October. In honor of the season, my upcoming favorite holiday (Halloween!) and Ray Bradbury… make it a list of things that frighten you. Don’t fall into the trap of listing things which are generically frightening or “commonly known” to be frightening. Instead, list the things which genuinely scare you or cause you terror. It could be the monster in the closet, if you’re truly afraid of that, but it could also be the fact that you’re out of work, haven’t paid the mortgage, and are being evicted tomorrow with nowhere to go.
Once you’ve made a list, consider it for patterns. Choose an item, and begin a long prosy poem and see if that leads you to something more.
Friday, September 24th, 2010  The Judiciary Act of 1789 established the Supreme Court when it was enacted on September 24.
A “High Court” was hotly debated during discussions during the ratification of the Constitution.
According to Wikipedia:
Indeed, of the ten amendments that eventually became the Bill of Rights, five (the fourth through the eighth) dealt primarily with judicial proceedings. Even after ratification, some opponents of a strong judiciary urged that the federal court system be limited to a Supreme Court and perhaps local admiralty judges. The Congress, however, decided to establish a system of federal trial courts with broader jurisdiction, thereby creating an arm for enforcement of national laws within each state.
Here’s Your Prompt: In honor of the High Court’s “birthday,” make your own law. Do you ever say, “If I ran the world…” or “If I were king…” Well, here’s your chance. Make a law that only pertains to you, or your family, or your friends. Be serious or whimsical. Be long-winded or succinct. If you want to enact a law “for the good of all people,” make certain you outline the reasons why. Do you need to change some other laws to enact it? Go ahead. Provide the rationalization. If your law benefits only you (or your family, your friends, your friends, etc.)…well, you must be living in a tyranny. Explain how you came to be in power. How was the overthrow accomplished? In what way were the commoners brought to heel? Are they now for you, or against you? How does your new law affect them? Do you expect them to abide by it? If not, how do plan to control them?
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 Inspired by Susan Adrian, who was herself inspired by Scott Tracey, I’m posting a little snippet of a story I wrote a while back.
It’s a “coming of age” tale of a unicorn and a young girl. I’d written it for a proprietary world anthology (hence the brackets around the generic city name), but the editors disbanded the idea of the anthology without going to print.
Here’s the beginning…
Süchender bent his long-maned head to the black, rich earth of the forest and dug a small trench with his horn. Boredom more than any purpose drove him to dig the hollow, yet he couldn’t help but enjoy the odor of the fresh-turned soil. Even in this harsh place, on the outskirts of [the evil city], small signs of beauty could be found.
And beauty is what he sought– his own.
At nearly three years of age he should have reached full-maturity. But his dappled coat belied that and prevented him from joining the others during the mating season in the fall. Large, dark birthmarks still peppered his dun-colored hide, the same as all immature unicorns. Only good deeds might erase his spots, brighten his dull gray coat to white, and allow his magic to emerge.
He turned his head and rubbed his sullied horn against a hoof-sized birthmark on his left shoulder. The dirt-stain lay hidden beneath the dark blemish, but the gray coat surrounding the spot now bore the filthy scruffs.
He huffed, letting out a weary sigh, and wondered not for the first time if there were anything he could do to demonstrate his worthiness.
Süchender resumed his digging, using his horn like a spade: stabbing the ground, turning his head to catch the soil in the conch-like twists of his horn, then flinging the dirt aside before stabbing again–until a round, black berry landed neatly in the soil beside his nose.
He froze, noticing a muddy pair of boot-clad feet and ankles standing within his view just across the small clearing.
Then he realized he couldn’t move at all.
Paralyzed by the lasso-berry’s magic, he had no choice but to keep his horn in the ground and his hooves firmly planted in the loamy soil. He cursed himself for a fool, so engrossed in his digging that he didn’t think to keep a watchful eye for danger. Accustomed to the protection of the herd, he hadn’t given it a passing thought.
He had no protection against this witch or her sorcery, but at least the pleasant smell of the fresh-turned soil covered most of her foul stench. Of course, if the scent of new earth had not masked the warning of her pungent odor, he would have discerned it long ago, and retreated.
Instead, he stood there, withers shaking, while she stalked around him, pacing counter-clockwise. Her broken fingernails scratched against his hide as her rough hand caressed down his flank and over his croup. She pulled his tail as she rounded him, and came to a stop in front of his nose.
If he owned magic enough to discern her virginity, her touch would have comforted him. But he hadn’t even power to detect that–though he knew she must be untouched. How else could the witch see him, let alone capture him? No animal-mage had the power to feign virginity.
This close, he could smell the fullness of her witchy musk. Perhaps if she bathed once in a while, her smell might not be quite so offensive. He sneezed as she moved closer, her odor irritating.
“I have you now,” she said, bending to retrieve her berry.
She touched it to his forelock, directly above his horn, and muttered a spell. His muscles thawed, and he raised his head, shaking it about to remove the stiffness.
She was young, he noticed. No warts. Perhaps she was out to earn her first one.
Friday, September 17th, 2010  I spent some time at the dermatologist’s office today.
While I waited for my turn, I read my latest acquired book about writing and scribbled some notes.
After a while, a woman came out of the doctor’s office wearing a Dallas Cowboys football jersey, and hoots erupted around the waiting room.
This is Raven’s country, though there was a single Redskin’s fan and one lone “L.A. Rams” holdout – an older gentleman – in the waiting room, who stated that he was born and raised in L.A. County, but had been transplanted to Maryland some time ago.
There was a round of forgiveness once the woman spoke in a soft, Texas accent, about rooting for her home team.
After she left, the hum in the waiting room quieted, and I returned to my book. But a few moments later, a gentleman seated two seats away, turned to me and said, “You’re sure giving that book what for.”
I demurred, and explained that I was just taking a few notes. I showed him the book at his request, and then he’d asked me if I’d ever written anything. (That’s when I pulled out my handy-dandy bookmark listing some of the stuff I’ve published and handed it to him.) He told me he’d written a book, but just as quickly told me it had never been published. When I asked him why, he said:
“The war got in the way.”
And that’s when the conversation got really interesting.
He told me that when he was asked what kind of job he could do, he told his commanding officer that he drove trucks. So his CO made him a truck driver…of ammo trucks. That didn’t suit him at all, he said. (So, matter of fact, this far removed from the war!) And he’d tried to get away from doing it as fast as he could. His lucky break came when the chaplain’s assistant died (got blown up stepping on a landmine while hunting for deer) and he got to be the chaplain’s assistant.
What an awesome story! If I hadn’t needed to get to work, I would have stayed and talked after my appointment. What a life. I hope he’s written this down for his grandchildren.
Here’s Your Prompt: Strike up a conversation with a stranger in a public place. (Repeating: in a public place.) Make it a good public place… not the post office (unless there are huge lines) or some other location where you’ll only meet people in passing. Choose somewhere where you’ll have time to pass a few moments. Ask a leading (polite) question, or compliment someone…anything to start the conversation. And then…listen.
If you’re lucky, you’ll meet as great a person as I did. (If not, you can always try again.)
Once you’ve chatted, take that conversation home and write about it. Fictionalize it, journal it, or write a biographical sketch.
Thursday, September 16th, 2010
A photo of “me,” and the view from the bow of the boat.
I was away for the weekend, but hadn’t planned to be away from working. I’ve got tons of editing to do.
I’d arrived around dinner time on Friday, booted up the laptop and checked mail and comments on my blog, and showed off a few photos to some folks. After a while, my laptop chirped and the little power light started blinking, and I knew it was time to plug in. Except…
…after digging around frantically in the huge laptop bag I carry, I realized I had left the power cord at home.
At first, I was horrified, but by Saturday morning, I felt totally liberated: I had plans, and I needn’t hurry back to get any work done. I couldn’t get any work done.
(Needless to say, I lingered on the water as long as I was able.)
Now, I’m raring to go. Sometimes a little break is all that’s needed.
Monday, September 13th, 2010 
Drollerie Press just announced the cover of their upcoming anthology, “Hellebore and Rue.” Isn’t it gorgeous? I love the eye-catching color of the woman’s hair on the stark black, white and gray background.
The anthology is due out in mid-October…and I’ve got a story in it!
(And, look! My name’s on the cover!)
My story, Sky Lit Bargains, is about a woman who is forced to leave her home or face the repeated, escalating sexual advances of her new brother-in-law. Trained for warfare, rather than domesticity, Sigrid crosses the channel to her Uncle Gervais’ keep and makes a bargain with him to kill the wyvern plaguing his lands. Her plans go awry when she’s followed by her best friend (and sorceress) and her brother-in-law’s guards…
I’ll post an excerpt once I get a go-ahead from Drollerie.
Here’s the Table of Contents (TOC):
“Counterbalance” by Ruth Sorrell
“Trouble Arrived” by C.B. Calsing
“Personal Demons” by Jean Marie Ward
“The Windskimmer” by Connie Wilkins
“Sky Lit Bargains” by Kelly A. Harmon
“Gloam” by Quinn Smythwood
“Witches Have Cats” by Juliet Kemp
“D is for Delicious” by Steve Berman
“And Out of the Strong Came Forth Sweetness” by Lisa Nohealani Morton
“Bridges and Lullabies” by Rrain Prior
“Thin Spun” by Sunny Moraine
“A State of Panic” by Rachel Green
Read more about Hellebore and Rue.
Friday, September 10th, 2010  September 10 is “National Swap Idea Day.”
I’ve had some difficulties locating any truth in that statement…there’s nothing “national” about it, apparently. Yet all sources — even Hallmark– consider it “national” and grant it “holiday” status.
All sources agree that it’s more than just a day to swap ideas, it’s a day during which everyone should share ideas for helping each other out, making each others’ lives better, and helping out fellow man.
This source also encourages the use of a creative imagination.
I’m all for helping fellow man, and, from a writing point of view, I can see the advantages of sharing ideas with each other. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone has an idea…the problem, sometimes, is in the execution of it.
The idea I have, I may not be able to satisfactorily complete.
Or, there are times when I want to write, and I’ve got a zillion ideas on my idea list, but none appeals.
So why not share with someone else?
Here’s Your Prompt: Swap writing ideas with another writer. Give away the seeds of a story or novel that has been moldering in your journal (or your mind!), fruitless. Choose several of your most intriguing ideas, the ones which you really like, but for whatever reason, have been unable to devote the time to write them. Cast them away, like dead weights.
Now, accept the ideas of another writer. Read them. Write them in your own journal — or type them into your files — put them in the place you collect your own ideas. Give it a few hours, a few days, a week at most to percolate. With luck, you’ll be inspired sooner, rather than later. Now, write your story.
I wouldn’t be joining into the spirit of the day if I didn’t share some of my own ideas. Here are a few:
- An author is haunted by the ghosts of characters he’s killed off.
- A sudden sun shower, a field of dead trees, a human skeleton, a small whirlwind of dust, wild horses and sun-bleached papers
- Worry not. Pray not. Don’t have one, don’t need the other.
- A man on a bus, carrying his lunch–two slices of pizza–in a disposable grocery sack.
Good luck! Please share your stories.
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010  This was supposed to be the entry full of character naming resources, but I’ve had a fun offer I want to tell you about.
Matt Marotta, the programmer of The Name Stooge software program, happened to wander by my blog as I was discussing character names. He offered me a free copy of his program – no strings attached.
Well, of course I couldn’t pass that up. And of course I’m going to tell you all about it. But the best part is: Matt’s going to give away some extra copies to readers of this blog!
We haven’t worked out the details yet…but keep your eyes here over the next week or two for the details. It’ll be something easy, like leaving a comment about characters, or maybe linking to mine or Matt’s blog.
Name Stooge is intended to help you choose the perfect name for your character. You enter a few bits of data:
- Your character’s age and gender
- When the story takes place
- How common the name should be
…and it spits out the possibilities.
I like the idea that you can determine how common (or uncommon) the name is. And knowing when the story takes place helps to weed out names that weren’t used in a particular time period. (How many Brittany’s or Aiden’s were walking around in 1920?)
I’ve already installed the program (very easy to do) but it’s begging me to register before I take it for a test drive. And you know my litany: I’ve got some writing to do…
So, look for a review of the Name Stooge software sometime in the next week or so…at which time you’ll get your opportunity to score your own copy.
Friday, August 27th, 2010  When I was a freshman journalism major, the teacher asked what I thought was a trick question:
What’s the number-one news story today ?
(It was a big deal to get this question right: the professor worked at a large radio station and always had lots of swag to give away. The person who responded correctly would receive a coffee mug.)
I don’t remember the various answers that were called out. But I do remember the hunky guy across the aisle asking if it were about rain.
He almost got the mug.
The answer: the weather.
Weather is all the rage. It’s the first thing people want to know when they get up in the morning. It’s what they wait for on the evening news each night. Some folks get email alerts or install browser plugins so that they’ll always know what to expect. It’s imperative to know whether or not to carry an umbrella tomorrow, or if they should stay in for lunch. Vacations are planned around it.
(I myself have driven as many as six hours in pursuit of sunshine.)
We no longer think of weather as a gift (or scourge) of the gods, yet the elements are still credited with significance in our lives. On the eve of my wedding, during the rehearsal and dinner afterward, the skies opened up and rain came down so hard and fast that the streets of Baltimore were flooded. Water rose atop the curbs and gushed over the sidewalks.
Worried. I was worried about the morning. Okay, I was a little excited about the storm, I admit, but I certainly didn’t want a torrential downpour on the day of my wedding. What would that signify? I thought. Who wants to begin a life of marital bliss with that kind of omen?
Here’s Your Prompt: Think of a time when the weather — or the elements in general — played a major role in your life. You don’t have to choose a significant event, like a wedding, but any situation in which the weather was pivotal.
Be creative. Discard the first three events that come to mind (I’ll bet they’ll be similar to my own weak example: it rained when I was looking for sunshine). Maybe you got snowed in at a friend’s house. What happened? Maybe February has been 27 days of bleak, watery daylight and sleet, but the 28th dawned bright and clear and seventy-two degrees. How did you take advantage of it? Maybe that flash-flood washed away the pick-up, but it saved the crops.
If you’ve never been affected in your life (really?) by the weather, make something up:
- Pretend you’re in high school serving detention with someone you despise and a freak storm blows the electricity. The teacher goes off to find some flashlights and you’re stuck with that person, in the dark, and it’s getting stuffy in the classroom without any airflow. Write the conversation you might have.
- Pretend it’s October and you’re walking outside in a crisp autumn night. Is there a moon in the sky, or cloud cover? What do you hear and smell? Are leaves burning? Does the wind rustle the leaves? Are you scared? Or, does the cool air invigorate you? What goes through your mind as you experience the elements?
- It’s snowing: tiny flurries spiraling down out of the sky, blanketing the ground and lessening visibility. Three feet or more has been predicted, and you can’t help yourself, you’re as giddy as a kid. With that kind of weather, you know that secondary roads will be blocked: you won’t have to go to work. But you wake up in the morning and there’s only a dusting. You’re groggy and disappointed, and you have to head off to work. Write all about it.
- Etc.
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