It’s high time I did another “prompt on the web”—a link to a nifty prompt found on someone else’s site so you can get all SORTS of inspiration from everywhere! Today’s inspiration comes from Design your writing life, and I insist, insist, that you check out the prompt, Paddling in the Kayak, a Wiki Parable. I was hooked from the first two phrases:

Once upon a time, just yesterday, …

So go to it! Read the parable’s beginning and continue it from there!

Once again, use the following story starter to begin a piece of fiction:

“When she said the school was full of zombies, I thought she was speaking metaphorically. Who hasn’t felt that way about their classmates and teachers at one time or another? But no, when I arrived for parent-teacher conferences I found not a bored teacher, but one with her skin stretched taut over her skull, patches of bone visible through ragged holes. Flies buzzed around flesh that was half-rotted, half-cured by the desert sun. She smiled at me with teeth that looked huge without the flesh of now-receded gums and lips to keep them in context.”

Use the following story starter to begin a piece of fiction:

“Butterflies. She’d called me to make the hour-long drive to her house first thing in the morning because of butterflies. Admittedly, it seemed more than a little odd to see hundreds of them flitting about in such a small garden space, and their vivid blue coloration was striking to say the least. But still—butterflies?”

Today, turn the following story starter into a piece of fiction:

“Cats of all shapes, sizes and colors flooded through the open doorway. Calico and tortoisheshell, seal-point and tabby, tiny kittens and huge bruisers, they made their way out of the warehouse with a calling and shrieking that must have been audible throughout the district.”

Here I am, back yet again with another “spam game,” in which I present you with an intriguing randomly-generated spam subject line and turn it into a writers’ exercise. This time the subject line in question was “incinerated labyrinth.” Write that phrase at the top of a piece of paper and free-associate/free-write beneath it, letting your imagination take you anywhere at all from that starting place. You could diverge outward, generalizing to terms like “fire” and “maze” or “flames” and “lost” and seeing where that takes you. Or you could literally start with the concept of an incinerated labyrinth and try to figure out what on earth you could do with that!

I love odd word-jumbles like this because they could lead anywhere, from a poignant story about firefighter’s last fire to an epic fantasy involving a great and fiery labyrinthine realm.

I’ve been playing “City of Heroes” and “City of Villains” lately, so my brain is steeped in the superhero genre at the moment. Therefore, for today’s exercise: If you could be a super-villain or super-hero, which would you choose? Answer the following questions depending on your choice—or create one villain and one hero and answer them for each.

• What would your hero or villain name be?
• What’s the mysterious origin of your powers? Do you use gadgets like Batman? Are you an alien like Superman? Are you a mutant, or the result of a strange accident like Spiderman? Have you been altered by technology like the Bionic Woman?
• What would your costume look like? Go into as much detail as you like. If you’re an artist, draw/sketch/paint/whatever it for bonus points.
• What would your goal or motivation be? What drives you to go out into the world and right wrongs?
• How do the authorities and populace view you? Are you a savior, a dangerous vigilante, a mysterious and largely misunderstood figure?

Enjoy your heroism or villainy!

Death is a good reminder
of the need for situational awareness

I know it’s a little odd for me to link to the same blog in two successive posts, but Chip’s Quips once again has some great quotes that make me want to pass them on. This time they’re quotes from Euripides in which Sterling has found some relevance to today. For example,

O gods, spare me the sight
of this thankless breed, these politicians
who cringe for favors from a screaming mob
and do not care what harm they do their friends,
providing they can please a crowd!

  –Hecuba, 255-259, William Arrowsmith translation

Today, do any of the following:

• Write about one of the quotes in the linked blog article and its relevance (or not, as you see it) to today’s world and events.
• Write a scene or story inspired by one of the quotes in the linked post.
• Pick out one to three other quotes from at least 500 years ago that you also believe have great relevance to today’s events.
• Carry out one of the first two options but use a quote from the third.
• Write about the eternal nature of mankind—our politics, governmental struggles, wars, and so on, whether in essay format or fictional format.

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