Category Archives: Methods

Writing prompt: Invent a pivotal historical person

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“Invent a fictional person who played a pivotal but unknown role in history” [Note: For my historical event, I chose the marathon of the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, which as you can read here, went farcically badly. The whole Wikipedia page is actually worth a read, with gems like this one: “One of the most remarkable athletes was the American gymnast George Eyser, who won six medals even though his left leg was made of wood.”]

I might not be able to win the marathon. But I could ruin it. The damned heavy cast slowed my walking. The bone was nearly mended, but it was too late now. Even if I sawed it off, my leg would be weak, and I could never run so many miles.

It was so hot. I felt the sweat dribble down my leg, itchy and utterly inaccessible. I drove my car along the route while the runners ran. One looked very sweaty and red in the face.

“Sir, you’re only nine miles in,” I said. “If you’re struggling like this now, you’ll never make it.”

The man ignored me for a time, but his pace slowed. Finally he stopped. “Sir, I have no thanks to offer for your discouragement. But I’ve left my clothes in the stadium. Would you make up the injustice by driving me?”

He was right, and I told him to get in. Ten miles in, though, the car broke. I left it, hobbling slowly. Several angry dogs barked in a yard along the path. With my crutch, I unlatched it and kept on moving before the dogs noticed.

I set my crutches across the road now. In the dust, and with the fatigue of the athletes by this point, they might miss it. I laughed, and turned to the man for whom I’d provided a ride. He was gone. He’d started running again. Oh, well, perhaps a sham winner was better than any idea I could concoct.

Writing prompt: What if there was no Bering Land Bridge?

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

This new world is an untamed wilderness, with not a man in sight. What are in sight, or at least in mind, are the terrible beasts that roam the wilderness. They are easily killed by daylight, but at night, we are the quarry. The cheetahs and the lions are the most fearsome. We see nothing, we hear nothing, but in the morning there are paw prints, and another man or horse is gone.

Michael says he hears spirits in the hills. He says that where there are no men, the ghosts of men must roam, that perhaps we have sailed to purgatory or something like it. I didn’t believe him. But then we saw a group of dark-skinned men in boats. They have no villages, and they sow no crops. They seem lost, like us or like spirits. Maybe we are dead too.

I don’t know if these are good spirits or evil spirits, but Michael says they are low and savage either way. He says that we should claim this land for the crown.

I don’t see much to claim, besides forests and beasts. We don’t know what to eat, we have not yet found gold or spice or empire. There is space to settle, but such a prospect seems daunting indeed. Perhaps we must take it, if only to rid it of evil spirits and the Dutch.

Writing prompt: the newt and the cat

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“The newt and the cat” (This prompt inspired by my highly predatious cat, Erg, who happened upon a very unlucky blue-tailed skink in the house. I helped the skink to escape, more or less intact, but Erg was inconsolable.)

I collapsed onto the chair inside the door. Summer was here, and wow, I was sweaty. I looked over and noticed that the door of the cage was open.

“Oh no oh no oh no,” I muttered to myself and I bolted upright. I wasn’t supposed to have brought the newt home in the first place, but I’d gotten attached to it. I wanted to see how a super intelligent newt would react to a new environment, and maybe I had become a little too emotionally invested.

I heard a clatter from the dining room.

Jaws stood, body absolutely taut, staring between two stacks of books.

“Bad kitty!” I shouted. Newton looked up at me, both terrified and accusing. In that moment, Jaws decided to lunge, and the stacks of books collapsed into chaos. Newton shot out from the pile and behind a pile of papers. I chased after Jaws, but under the furniture I was no match in speed for him or Newton.

Jaws pounced again, and Newton darted to another stack of debris. For once, I was thankful for my shabby bachelor digs and cleaning regimen. I went and got the compressed air, Jaws’ arch nemesis. I sprayed and him and he ballooned into a fluff of fur, but he would not abandon the hunt, and evaded any attempts I made to contain him.

I would be finding out just how smart my modified newt had become.

Playing with Paper Cutting on a Silhouette Cameo

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On Friday, my Silhouette Cameo came in the mail. This device cuts paper according to an image file; analogously, a printer lays down ink according to an image file. Until a couple of months ago, I had no idea that such a device existed, but now I am full of ideas for it.

When I researched the Cameo online, repeated complaints spoke of how useless the software was. The software that ships with it is woefully inadequate, and, from what I could see, only much good for making circles and rectangles. Silhouette has a wide variety of templates available for purchase, but I don’t want to pay for everything I print, and I want to design my own things.

Fortunately, there is a plug-in available for Adobe Illustrator that allows you to build vector graphics in Illustrator and then export them to the Silhouette Connect program. Unfortunately, this plug-in costs $40. However, to use the machine properly, this plug-in is basically a must, so I treated it as part of the purchasing cost. This plug-in only came out in December, and the previous plug-in was apparently quite out of date.

With this plug-in, I found the Cameo really easy to use. For comparison, it is much easier to work with than a basic desktop printer. You just set the blade to a height appropriate for the paper (thick card stock will obviously require a taller blade than thin printer paper), export the vector graphic to Silhouette Connect, and select the layer you want to cut based upon. You can cut around printed designs; you simply have to include some marks on the print out to help the Cameo optically align.

So, below are some of my first works. The butterfly is not my own design work, but came from a Lynda.com tutorial video; it seemed like a robust test of the Cameo’s accuracy. The second has a design printed onto a yellow background which was then cut out by the Cameo.

photo 1-1 photo 2-1

 

There are tons of exciting options for the future. I mentioned my enthusiasm for pop-up books many months ago, but it was too hard to reproduce the work. Now the process of making copies is easy. Additionally, I have always loved paper dolls, which seems right up the Cameo’s alley. I admire bookbinding techniques that allow interactions between the pages through cut-outs; this device is perfect to obtain the reproducible results I would want.

Final conclusion… this thing really makes me want to get a CNC machine.

Or at least a 3D printer.

Writing prompt: The Shortcut

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“the shortcut”

Angie knew all the steam tunnels under campus. They were for maintenance, and students weren’t supposed to use them, but Angie did anyways. She used them because they were convenient and because they didn’t pile with snow and mostly because they made her feel special. She didn’t always make as many friends or attend as many parties as her classmates, but she understood the university and the campus in a way that they didn’t. It was their college experience, not hers, that was stunted.

She first discovered the tunnels by accident her freshman year. A door leading into a hillside, normally a nondescript metal thing, stood wide open. She went inside. And found a secret world coexisting with the world above, with scrawls upon the wall and interesting pipes and strange words. She’d begun to draw maps of the pipes, as well as she could work them out in her head.

Today she wasn’t here to get to class quicker or avoid the rain. Today she was here because a door in the north tunnel and a door in the south tunnel looked strangely similar and very old, with marks and carvings like she’d occasionally seen elsewhere in the tunnels. And if they connected, they would take her to an unexplored area. And they would make an awesome shortcut from chemistry to econ. She pulled the door, and with a great squeal, it came open.

She heard chanting. Did others know of the tunnel? She didn’t know if she was jealous or if she’d just found a group of people to whom she could truly belong.

Writing prompt: The rain man

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“the rain man”

I rolled into Pittsburgh around 3 PM; by 5, the rain had begun. I can travel at 400 miles an hour 30,000 feet above the ground—it’s called a jet airplane. Those hours gazing out the window at the blue sky and the bright sun, and those first few minutes on the ground in a new place, the beams of sun warming my skin and the green leaves of trees shining—those are rare and special moments in my life. Because where ever I go, the rain follows me. At the least, the clouds follow.

The rain followed my father too. He told me that we have an obligation to keep to the road. He was a travelling salesman, and I didn’t see him too often. I didn’t understand at the time what he meant. Now I do, and I travel and sell too. He said there were other people of the rain, that we were the origin of rain dances, special men who, more attuned to nature, could turn the rain on and off with a focus of concentration and desire.

I wonder if maybe everybody’s got it, and maybe my switch just won’t turn off. Dad said his father learned to control his own curse, over many years, or maybe his curse just weakened with age. Dad died last year in a flash flood outside Las Vegas. He probably thought he was safe there. I’m so tired and I’m so alone, and more than anything, I want to stop running.

Writing prompt: The dream weaver

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“the dream weaver”

I slipped the electrodes onto the ports behind my ears and at my hairline, shuddering slightly at the slight tingling. I leaned back into the bean bag chair and set the timer to 30 minutes. No, it was already 2 AM. I dialed it back to 20 minutes. I had six hours and desperately needed to come up with an idea and fully develop it in that time. I positioned myself so that nothing would go numb or fall awkwardly, and I pressed the remote control and I entered the dream weaver.

The first thing I always dream about is heights, damn them. Each time I have to cross a bottomless canyon or climb a tree or something like that. I can’t decide if my fear is growing stronger or weaker with these constant reminders. I need an idea. I remember the words of my instructor, to try to visualize the landscape. I see the glow on the horizon of idea. I walk in that direction.

Once I read a story about a woman who went mad using a dream weaver—she had to face the things that frightened her most, and when she couldn’t, she simply shorted out. I sometimes wonder if it was true. Maybe it was something that someone thought up using a weaver. On a distant hill, I see a man with a strange intensity to his eyes. He holds a knife. I suppress unease, and I walk toward him; this is the focal point for today. They can’t all be comfortable.

Writing prompt with edit: preparing for a long trip

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Time: 7 minutes. I then set it aside for about 30 minutes, and then edited the piece for ten minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“preparing for a long trip”

The first run: 7 minutes.

Dale looked at the empty suitcase. It wasn’t the one that would accompany him on his journey, but it was the same size. That suitcase was in a sterile environment, and everything that would eventually go into it would have to be sterilized as well. He would have to be scrubbed and cleaned up as well. But looking at this empty suitcase, not even the one that he would take, lent an air of finality. Whatever in the world that was his from now on would fit in this small space. Any memory, and hobby, any cherished treasure would go into this space or he would never see it again. This said nothing about all the people that wouldn’t fit into the box.

Lily panted in the doorway. She seemed to sense her master’s discomfort, but feared suitcases and other boxes for reasons Dale still couldn’t fully explain. Lily would be going to his sister. She might send letters with Lily’s picture, but one can’t do much with the picture of a dog. The picture of a dog can’t startle you with its wet cold nose, or rest its rest in your lap when the day was nearly too much. He couldn’t look at her, and he couldn’t look at the suitcase. After a few years, the letters would grow sparser as the separation from Earth grew. If Lily was even alive by then.

He tried to tell himself what an opportunity lie ahead. But it was hard not to feel the weight of all the opportunities closing behind him. Many a master lost a beloved pet. But where he was going, there would never be a Lily ever again. Soft fur brushed against the back of his bare leg. Lily whimpered. It was time to go for a walk, but Dale fancied some deeper sensibility.

The edit: 10 minutes. I tried to eliminate unnecessary text while still preserving Dale’s emotions. I removed scifi-ish stuff that didn’t seem to contribute to that end, regarding the suitcase, and tried to give more time to Lily and Dale, which to me ended up being the best part of my first run.

Dale looked at the empty suitcase. It had an air of finality. This space would encompass his life until this point. Any memory, and hobby, any cherished treasure would go into this space or he would never see it again.

Lily panted in the doorway, unable to come closer due to a fear of suitcases and other boxes that Dale still couldn’t fully explain. Lily would be going to his sister, Eva. Eva might send letters with Lily’s picture, but one can’t do much with the picture of a dog. The picture of a dog can’t startle you with its wet cold nose, or rest its rest in your lap when the day was nearly too much. After a few years, the letters would grow sparser as the separation from Earth grew. If Lily was even alive by then.

Dale could not deny his excitement for his future, the opportunity of a lifetime. But it was hard not to feel the weight of the opportunities closing behind him. Where he was going, there would never be a Lily ever again, never a new puppy, never an old companion. His eyes burned.

Soft fur brushed against the back of his bare leg. Lily whimpered, her eyes uneasily fixed upon the suitcase, but determined to be near him. It was time to go for a walk, but Dale fancied some deeper sensibility. He grabbed two tennis balls. One he put into the suitcase; hopefully the decontamination process wouldn’t destroy the scent of dog drool. The other he kept in his hand as he and Lily walked toward the door.

Writing prompt: Modified pollen

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“Modified pollen” (quote at bottom by Alfred Tennyson, in ‘The Lotos Eaters’)

The hazard flower came to our county five years ago. Another invasive species, blown in on winds from the south and trucks. No one knows how exactly it came to exist, going on twenty years ago now. Terrorism? Science gone bad? A chance cross-pollination?

Pollen season started yesterday, so often course we are all indoors, with the windows closed and the filtration systems on. The count is still well below two inside, so all is well. It looks so beautiful out, and I am trapped inside with canned air. The season only lasts about a week.

In the last year or two, I’ve wondered… what would it be like? The ‘Lotos Eaters,’ as they call those exposed, seem serene and at peace. Damage to the emotional center of the brain, the doctors say, not so different from a lobotomy. But they seem at peace, and right now, I do not feel at peace. I watch the yellow dust drift, and know that until the hazard crews come and hose it all off, I will remain inside. Once an injured cat lay in my yard during pollen season, and I simply watched, unable to help, but unable not to care.

It’s 75 out, a beautiful day. A lovely day to take a walk.

“Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.”

Writing prompt: An impending storm

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“An impending storm”

Enka jabbed at the thin soil with her trowel. If the flimsy little sprouts took to this thin soil, it would be a miracle. She knew that this work was essential, but understanding its importance didn’t make it any more enjoyable. Sometimes Sasha sang when she worked, low and slow, like a dirge. That matched more with how Enka felt about the work.

Around her, people paused in the work. “The tower,” they said. Enka looked up, and indeed, there was a light in the tower. She and the others watched the light, eager to know how severe the coming storm would be. The sky was clear and purple now, but Enka knew not to trust it. She’d heard stories of how confusing the sudden weather was to the Founders. People who lived with radars and satellites and never had to rely on their instincts. Not that instincts did much in the sudden and violent weather on this planet.

Two long blinks. A bad storm was coming. She helped the others pull tarps over the delicate seedlings. Then they would have to find shelter. Sometimes she wondered what the storms must be like for the towerkeepers, so high in the air during such violence, unable to run. A few months ago, one to the north collapsed, taking its keeper and several homes with it. Enka was glad that her own home was not in the shadow of the tower.

A little part of her longed to be up in the tower. Every time the storms came, she hid, and she saw the beautiful violence afterwards. It must be enthralling to stand within. The others had already fled home. Did she really have to be in the tower to stay and watch the storm?