The Critics

The critics advanced, chasing him up the temple steps. They each carried a stack of paper and were ripping them to shreds, page by page. The scraps danced in the magenta sky like confetti.

“Littered with spelling mistakes!” one roared, revealing rows of serrated teeth.

“Trite and unoriginal!” another shrieked, her piercing blue eyes sparking like exposed wires.

“You dare to let your character look in a mirror to describe themselves?!” a third bellowed, his clawed feet shattering the obsidian stone beneath him.

“How dare you use the word ‘said’?!” another screamed.

“How dare you not use the word ‘said’?!” another snarled, swooping in from above on bat wings.

The writer staggered and crawled up the steps, writing as fast as he could, sweat beading on his brow, throwing page after page to the advancing horde. The critics descended on the pages like wild beasts, and in a moment his writings were shredded and drifting on the breeze. He was running out of ideas, and he was nearly at the top of the temple steps.

“Useless! Purile! Derivative!” the critics shrieked, herding him up the steps, poison dripping from their mandibles. The writer felt his back hit the altar at the top of the temple, felt the warmth of the freshly spilt blood seep into the back of his shirt. The critics paused at the top step, and the leader grinned slowly, her forked tongue running along her lips.

“How are you going to write yourself out of this one?” she hissed.

The writer looked around at the marshmallow landscape rolling away below him, the volcanoes erupting in the distance, and above, the whales languidly swimming through the clouds. His jaw went slack and a light blinked on behind his eyes. He turned to the critics and raised his pen, declaiming like a preacher at church:

“AND HE WOKE UP AND DISCOVERED IT HAD ALL BEEN A DREAM!”

“No!” the critics shrieked, leaping towards him. But it was too late. In a moment the writer winked out of existence, and the hole he left behind condensed to a tiny, death-black pinpoint, unravelling time and space around it and sucking the critics, the land, the sky – everything – into non-existence.

…

Happy #WritingAdvent! Fell off the wagon hard, but I’m clinging on with my fingertips. The 13th prompt was to back a character into a corner and see what happened. Top of a ziggurat temple seemed just as good.

What do you think? Leave me a comment below, and link me up if you’re writing anything yourself 🙂

The Change-A-Word Challenge

VERSION ONE

Young Man Fights the Bad Guys.
Old Man Fights the Bad Guys.
Old Alien Fights the Bad Guys.
Old Alien Assimilates the Bad Guys.
Old Alien Assimilates the Scientists.
Old Alien life form Assimilates the Scientists who came out to the jungle to study it.

Final Draft: An ancient alien life form hidden in the jungles of the Congo slowly assimilates a team of scientists who have come out to study it, learning and growing with each transformation. Think Predator meets The Thing.

VERSION TWO

Young Man Fights the Bad Guys.
Unborn Man Fights the Bad Guys.
Unborn Computer Program Fights the Bad Guys.
Unborn Computer Program Falls in Love with the Bad Guys.
Unborn Computer Program Falls in Love with the Ocean.
Unborn Computer Program Falls in Love with the Ocean and plans to rescue it.

Final Draft: A pioneering learning program still in its developmental stages starts advancing at an accelerated pace when it is tasked to catalogue everything in the ocean. As it discovers more and more about the amazing creatures and plants that live there, and the horrors that humanity are wreaking on it, it becomes self-aware and determines ways to destroy/weaken humanity to save the world. The developers must decide whether to let it continue or shut it down – can they even shut it down???

VERSION THREE

Young Man Fights the Bad Guys.
Fabulous Man Fights the Bad Guys.
Fabulous Ostrich Fights the Bad Guys.
Fabulous Ostrich Convinces the Bad Guys.
Fabulous Ostrich Convinces the Talent Scout.
Fabulous Ostrich Convinces the Talent Scout to help him escape the zoo and become a Broadway sensation.

Final Draft: Oscar the Ostrich is the most fabulous bird in the zoo. He wants to be able to sing and dance every day, but his cramped zoo cage is not big enough to hold his dreams of the stage and stardom. Then one day a Talent Scout comes to the zoo, and Oscar needs to pull out all the stops to convince her to break him out of his cage – and break him into Broadway!

…

Man, I could to these all day. Happy Day 10 of #WritingAdvent! The game is simple – change a word at a time, flesh out your final concept, and then go again! Which of these do you like the most? Which would you like to see developed further? Let me know in the comments below, and have a go yourself and send me what you get! 😀

Love for Ten Thousand Kisses

Once there was a young girl called Magpie, for her hair had strands as dark as night and as white as milk all tangled together, and her eyes sparkled with the blue and green of a magpie’s wing in sunlight. She was the only child of a farmer and her mother had died giving birth to her, so with no one else in the house to help, she joined her father in tending to their fields at the edge of the kingdom, herding the sheep and caring for the cattle, and their life was hard but good. Their little farm stood in the shadow of a mighty castle, and in the evening as Magpie churned the milk into butter or darned her father’s socks, she would look out at the lights glowing bright in the castle windows, and wonder and dream of all of the fabulous feasts and parties that took place within those high walls.

One day as she was taking the sheep out to graze, she saw a royal hunting party pass by. The young man at the head of the party captivated her. His clothes were of the finest spun silk, his eyes were as golden as the rising sun, and upon his head he wore a crown of silver. It was the king’s eldest son, the prince and heir to the throne, and to Magpie there could have been no more perfect a man created. She knew in the instant she saw him that her heart was his, and could never belong to another.

And how she was wracked with grief. It burned inside of her like a cold fire, consuming her. For the prince did not know who Magpie was, and even if he had, he would never marry a farm girl such as her. She neglected her chores and became listless and lifeless. For days she would not eat or sleep, but only lay in bed staring at the thatch above her, until her father, afraid that she would waste away and die, took Magpie to her grandmother’s house deep in the forest, for her grandmother had lived long and was very wise.

When her grandmother saw Magpie’s sleepless eyes and careworn face, she said at once, “Your daughter has had her heart stolen from her, and she will surely die unless the one who has taken her heart returns her love.” Magpie wept and beat at her breast and asked her grandmother if she knew of a spell that could accomplish such a thing, for no other way could win her the love of a prince.

Her grandmother’s heart broke in two at the sight of her own flesh and blood so wretched. So she gathered her granddaughter’s hands in hers and said, “There is no spell to change the course of another’s heart, for the heart is a wild bird that flies where it will. But I will give you a spell to capture his thoughts and walk in his dreams. He will be able to think of nothing but you, he will long for you day and night, and it will feel very much like love.”

Magpie was overjoyed, and the colour flowed back into her cheeks, and for the first time in weeks she laughed aloud. Her grandmother prepared a cauldron over the fire, and together they cut and stirred sacred herbs and chanted secret words. At last the spell was ready, and Magpie’s grandmother stoppered it in a little vial and gave it to her granddaughter.

“Be warned,” she said. “The spell is only temporary. It will last the span of ten thousand kisses, and by then you must have truly won his heart if you hope to keep him.”

Magpie hurried home with her father, dancing and singing for joy, her head lost in dreams and fantasies, for ten thousand kisses from a prince seemed a lifetime to her.

The next day, as the royal hunting party passed the little farm where Magpie lived, the prince’s horse lost a shoe and they were forced to call upon Magpie and her father to rest and wait while the horse was re-shod. Magpie served the noblemen ale and bowls of hot stew, and into the prince’s bowl she emptied the potion. As the prince ate, his eyes grew wide and he looked at Magpie as if seeing her for the first time. He begged to know of her life and childhood, and came and sat with her by the fire, and when his horse was ready, he had to be called away by his men back to the hunt, and even then looked back over his shoulder and watched Magpie in the door of the little farm house until they were out of sight. And Magpie knew the spell had worked.

The very next day, the prince returned to the little farm house with a royal train, and asked for Magpie’s hand in marriage. She accepted, and returned with him on a fine dappled mare to the castle. At the gates of the castle, all of the powdered, painted nobles came hurrying to stare at this young farm girl with her strands of dark and light hair all tangled up, and her eyes as blue and green as a magpie’s wing. They sniffed and scoffed and muttered jealously that a commoner such as her should one day be their queen. But Magpie didn’t care about any of that. She was lost in her prince’s eyes, eyes as golden as the rising sun. She was given royal chambers and ladies to wait on her, and they bathed and perfumed her and dressed her in fine garments made of cloths as light as clouds and studded with precious gems, and soon she looked as fine as any princess. They were married the next day, and as the bells of the kingdom’s churches rang out, the Prince planted a kiss upon Magpie’s lips, and a little voice inside her heart said, “One.”

Time passed. The Prince and Magpie spent their days walking in the palace gardens, hunting in the forests, and dining on plates of gold and ebony. In the mornings the Prince awoke her with sweet music and in the evenings they recited poems and romantic tales to one another into the night. And every time the Prince kissed her, the small voice in Magpie’s heart whispered to her. Ten kisses. Twelve. Fifty. One hundred.

And time passed. Magpie’s belly swelled and she gave birth to three beautiful children, two girls and a boy, their eyes as golden as the rising sun, and their hair a tangle of light and dark. She tended them jealously, refusing to hand them over to the nursemaids, and their father the Prince idolized them. Every time he came to see them he planted a kiss upon each of their light and dark tresses, and a kiss upon her cheek. And the quiet voice in Magpie’s heart whispered: Three hundred and four. Nine hundred and twenty. Two thousand.

And time passed. The Prince led his father’s armies to war and returned victorious, with beautiful gold and silver chains to hang about Magpie’s neck, and polished pearls to hang from her ears. She spun tapestries depicting the tales of his battles, and they watched as their children grew. The Prince taught them to ride and hunt, and Magpie taught them to sing and dance, and they were loved by all in the palace. And every night Magpie would lie awake and her heart would count away the kisses. Four thousand. Five thousand. Seven thousand.

And then the day came that Magpie had only twenty kisses before the spell’s power was broken. Her heart filled with a terrible fear at all that she might lose, and so she gathered her belongings and stole away from the palace under cover of night and disappeared into the forest.

When the Prince discovered she was gone, he called all his guards, and sent a proclamation out across the land promising untold wealth for anyone who could restore his lost princess to him. He led scouting parties across the land himself, and refused to sleep or eat until he was too weak to stay upright upon his horse. But Magpie evaded them at every turn and stayed hidden deep in the forest.

One day, as Magpie went about collecting firewood for her camp, she saw a large army marching through the valley below her, marching under the Prince’s banner. The Prince had become convinced that his bride had been captured by enemies in a neighbouring country, and had declared war to try and find her and bring her home. Magpie’s heart broke into a hundred pieces, for she could not bear the thought of losing her love and her family – but she could not live with herself if she allowed people to die by her inaction. She ran down into the valley and commanded the army to halt. They turned around and brought her back to the palace.

As she arrived at the palace gate, the Prince was there to meet her. He was so weak he could barely stand, but he hobbled down the steps and threw his arms around her neck, showering her with kisses. Magpie held him tight and closed her eyes as she counted each kiss away.

Nineteen…Eighteen…Fifteen…Twelve…

Ten…Five…Two…One.

Ten thousand kisses. The spell was broken. The Prince stepped back and his golden eyes met Magpie’s green and blue ones. They stood, looking at each other on the palace steps as if for the first time, and Magpie waited with bated breath to see what he would say.

…

Thank you for reading! This is Day 5 of Writers HQ’s #WritingAdvent and the prompt was GIFT. I’ve had the idea of the gift/curse of love for ten thousand kisses before, so seemed like a good time to expand on it. I also love telling traditional tales, and this story seemed simple and clear enough to fit a traditional fairy tale narrative. What do you think, folks? Could you imagine telling this around a campfire somewhere? Leave me a comment below, and as always, if you’re writing anything yourself, hit me up and I’ll have a look 😊

The Empty Space

Baikal heaves the door open and the sound echoes inside.

It echoes. This place is huge, like some awesome underground cavern hollowed out by hundreds of years of rainfall. The last time I heard an echo like this was while stripping scrap metal inside the wreck of an immense container ship out on the Laptev salt flats, and that was the biggest ship I’d ever vultured.

The light from the door pours down a set of blue carpeted stairs and hits the startling white of a large, raised platform in the shape of a semicircle. As my eyes adjust to the dimness, I see that the room – the enormous room – sweeps around in a larger version of the same semicircle. Channels of stairs descend to the raised platform from several dark doors along the curving far wall. And the place is filled with row after concentric row of folding seats, all facing in towards that white, raised stage. The ceiling matches the floor, sweeping in towards the stage in huge metallic ribs. It looks like the underbelly of a spaceship, and the little circle just above the stage itself looks like it could open up and reveal a tractor beam, ready to capture hapless specimens and beam them up for experiments. The scale of the space is staggering, like stepping into a dragon’s mouth. It takes a moment to rein in my surprise.

“Is big, huh?” Baikal gurns toothlessly, pushing a wad of matted hair back from her face. “I not even see the all place yet.” She gestures expansively. “Goes long, all underground. Could be a kovcheg, huh?”

I don’t rise to the bait. If she really thought this was a kovcheg site she wouldn’t be showing me. She’s trying to screw me out of another few loms for bringing me here. I don’t know anyone who’s found a kovcheg yet – not that I believe anyway. I don’t think they ever existed. Maybe there was a bunker or two dotted around, for rich oil barons and their mistresses. But the old men who talk about whole communities disappearing underground to safety before the bombs fell are deluding themselves.

Which is not to say that this place doesn’t have value though. The stage is worn and stained, but the rest of the place – the chairs, the walls, even the carpets – are in something close to pristine condition. I run my hand over the top of the nearest seat. This room has barely had dust settle in it.

Baikal watches my hand. “Is good. Is clean. No one come here but me. No one know.” Considering the debris above ground, and the combat zones we had to cross to get here, I could believe it. You’d never know this was here from above. And that means it’s probably unlooted.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s see what there is to see.”

Behind the stage is a large, open space, with frayed ropes leading up to metal struts in the ceiling. I’ve seen a similar mechanism in some of the dom na dereve communities out in the dead forests, raising and lowering heavy weights. Twisted metal boxes with sprays of shattered glass dot the floor and our feet crunch as we make our way through.

Beyond the stage is a maze of passageways, but Baikal has a destination in mind, and leads me through on a route she already knows. She opens a door to a little side room. The smell of damp and dust is overwhelming. I hesitate, and Baikal leers at me once more.

“Go look,” she says. “You will like it.”

I cover my mouth and nose with my sleeve and step inside.

The roof here has been cracked and damaged by falling buildings overhead, and everything is covered in a thick layer of plaster dust. An old burst water pipe sagging from the ceiling drips idly onto the mildewed floor. Orange mushrooms fan up against the putrid carpet where the watermark ends.

But that’s not what catches my eye. All along the walls here are racks and racks of clothes. Old clothes, some of them in ancient styles. Dresses sewn with sequins, jackets with puffy sleeves, voluminous skirts completely impractical to wear. I run my hand along them in awe and I hear the smacking sound of Baikal grinning to herself. Damn. She got me. Kovcheg or not, she’ll squeeze another handful of loms out of me for this find.

And let her. Beyond the value of the fabric just in scrap, this is a priceless find. This is history and culture, in a land wiped clean and taken back to the dirt. This is a memory of who we used to be. Maybe of who we could be again, one day. Each garment here is a story. Each one is hope.

Of course, I don’t care much for that myself. But if I can find the right dreamers, and spin the right tale, these mouldy old costumes will keep me in food and uncontaminated water for months.

…

Here’s Day 3 of Writers HQ‘s #WritingAdvent, a little late. Our prompt was ‘Lost & Forgotten’. We were sent to find some inspiring Urbex pictures (and I highly recommend you go and Google ‘urbex’ right now. You’re welcome.) and devise a story from one that we liked. I went with this one from Fubiz:

In among all the pictures of peeling paint walls and rotten floorboards, these eerily perfect theatre seats really spoke to me. It also put me firmly in the world of Mutant Year Zero, a roleplaying game that I’m a part of at the moment. And so the story began…

But what do you get from it? What stories do you see here? What’s your favourite urbex location? Leave me a comment below – and if you’re doing #WritingAdvent, let me know so I can cheer you on on social media!

Sex for Dresses

Today I’m buying myself a six-hundred dollar dress.

The fit is sublime. It hugs my body in all the right ways, cinching in around my waist, cupping my breasts like a lover, sliding around the curve of my toned backside like cream. The back plunges down to the dimples at the base of my spine. It’s the sort of dress you don’t wear underwear for, the sort of dress that sends the tabloids into a whirl of speculation. The green complements my auburn hair perfectly, brings out the amber in my eyes. It shimmers in the light, the way that only painfully expensive fabric can. It feels like I am wrapped in clouds. It caresses my body. I run my hands across it and vamp in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in the changing room. I love how the cool of the fabric flares warm immediately under my hands, responsive, eager. I lick my lips at my reflection, trying on this sensuality. I look stunning. I look like a movie star. I look like a fucking goddess. And for six hundred dollars, I’d expect nothing less.

I’m doing it because I can. I’m doing it because he won’t notice. I’m doing it because I want him to notice. I want him to pull up the bank statement at the end of the month over breakfast and go, “Honey, what on earth was this for?” So I can get the thrill of choosing a lie to cover it. That charity ball we have coming up, darling. I needed something new for the ambassador’s dinner. Don’t we have an invitation to that new film release? I get so forgetful…

Maybe he’d ask to see it. Maybe he’d get angry. Maybe he’d shout, or laugh, or maybe he’d snap out of autopilot and see me, really see me, just for a moment.

He won’t. I know this. He never does. I buy something outrageous every month. Hundred dollar expenses don’t even make a dent in our shared bank account. But I’ve never bought anything this expensive before. This is a test. Uncharted territory.

The first Thursday of the month is Date Night. It’s booked into his calendar. We go out to a restaurant somewhere, we eat tiny portions of food piled onto our plates like modern art sculptures. He talks about the guys at work, the new merger, the deals being made. He asks me how my day has been, and he makes polite, non-committal replies. I don’t know if he’s not interested, or not really listening. I consider throwing stones into the calm of his predictable evening.

What did you do today, Honey?

I took a sledgehammer to the perfect marble kitchen worktop you just bought, and had a team in to replace it before you came home. It’s a whole different colour now, didn’t you notice?

I went through your things and burned all your childhood photos in the fire pit outside, chain smoking as I watched your fat smiling boyish face curl and blacken over and over again.

I caught a butterfly in a glass on the chest of drawers in your bedroom, and sat there for hours as it beat its wings against its glass prison, until finally exhaustion took it and it lay trembling like an autumn leaf. It’s still there, if the cleaner hasn’t tidied it away.

I lay in the bath and considered slipping beneath the surface and never coming back up for air.

I wonder how he’d react if I said these things.

When we come home I am summoned to his room like a business appointment. He doesn’t look at me as we undress. It’s not a deliberate unkindness, and that somehow makes it worse. I’m just another cog in the machine. Another box to be ticked.

The sex is formulaic and predictable. I could do it with my eyes closed. I have done it with my eyes closed. I think when we were first married I tried to get him to put his hands where I wanted them, tried to explore his body. I think I was genuinely excited about it at some point.

He thrusts above me, his eyes focused on the headboard like a runner looking for the finish line. Sometimes he kisses me, but he’s always looking through me. When he’s finished, he rolls over and goes to sleep – a simple, satisfied full stop to the evening’s activities. Date Night is officially concluded. Next item on the agenda, please.

I lay awake and chart the numbness. Sometimes there is rage, sometimes the sorrow burns down to the roots of my hands. But usually there is just sleepless emptiness. I watch the lines of the moonlight shift across the ceiling, and I listen to the creak of the central heating and the calling of night birds in the trees outside.

The next day, I take his card and go out on the town. The most expensive shops, the most exclusive designers. I allow the staff to fawn on me, bring me champagne and chocolates, roll out their personal shoppers and effuse over my choices. The worse the night before, the more expensive the purchase.

There is a delicious satisfaction in swiping that plastic. It feels like reclaiming territory. It feels like punching him in the face. It makes me want to scream and laugh. Sometimes it feels like I’m shattering into a thousand pieces, and as the cashier rings up the price I want to break down and cry. But swiping that card and knowing that in some small way I’m rebalancing the scales keeps me together.

And I can’t complain too much. Because at the end of the day, I get to come home with a fucking six hundred dollar dress.

…

Day 2 of #WritingAdvent with Writers HQ! Today we had to choose a piece from Post Secret, an online art project where people anonymously send in secrets on postcards and they are put up online for everyone to see. I chose this one:

This is an exercise in getting to the truth of the story you’re telling. I think the truth of this is story is that people need to find ways to feel like life is fair, even if that way is nonsensical – otherwise they break. How about you? What do you think the truth of this story is? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

On the First Day

God rolled up the shutters. The garage was dark and dusty and lifeless, jammed with boxes and rusty tools and splints of broken furniture. Even the spiderwebs were empty. But the spirit of promise moved across the surface of the detritus.

God rooted around in one of the dusty boxes and gently pulled out a bulb, giving it a shake to make sure the supernova inside was still swirling. She twisted it into the fitting above her head and moved to the switch by the door. “Let there be light,” she said, flicking the switch.

The supernova condensed down to a tiny glowing point and then exploded, sending clouds of gas and base elements scattering across the wild, formless space. God watched as the clouds swirled like milk in a teacup, and then began to fall in on themselves, building a fiery glow within them from the battle between explosion and gravity. Soon the whole garage was littered with hundreds upon thousands of tiny suns, winking and sparkling like glowbugs.

There was light. And God looked upon her work, and nodded to herself. It was good. Then she went and got herself a chamomile tea and watched an episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine. She wasn’t in any hurry. Besides, you couldn’t rush these things.

…

Happy December! I’m playing Christmas music on repeat, my diet is now exclusively pannetone and minced pies, and I am doing Writer’s HQ‘s #WritingAdvent – writing prompts and inspiration for every day in this most holy and commercial of months. The prompt for Dec 1 was, fittingly, “On the First Day…” and a god in dungarees rolled the garage door up in my head and had a root around (Sellpen thinks she’s played by Meryl Streep – what do you think? Who do you think would play this God in the movie adaptation. Because you know there’s going to be a movie adaptation.)

Want to get in on the fun? Head to Writer’s HQ and sign up. Then send me what you come up with. Happy writing!