Bad Air

After finally landing after possibly the worst flight of my life, where I was delayed for eight and a half hours and received horrible compensation, I feel inspired for a prompt: write about the worst experience flying you've ever had and then write how your character would handle the same situation. Tate would probably threaten to hurt someone and be taken away by security.

Give the Dog a Biscuit

February 23 is National Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day! In honor of the holiday, I have a prompt. A man walks into a pet store with his Tamaskan Dog (hooray obscure dog breeds!) and they look around the dog treat section. The man picks one up and asks the Tamaskan, "What about this one?" The dogs says that it has too many calories and doesn't defend against tartar. A clerk comes over and asks if he's looking for anything specific, and the Tamaskan says to the clerk, "Yeah, this guy over here is all out of treats and he won't shut up about it! What kind of biscuit is right for humans?"

Take it from there.

Don't Have a Not Sad Day (cad é?)

January 25th is National Opposite Day! So for today I would like you to write a paragraph from your book again, but with genders and roles switched. So if you have a female hero against a male villain, it's now a male villain against a female hero. However, keep any physical characteristics that would stay in the case of a gender switch, such as hair and eye color, build, and height proportions. (So if you were transferring a male to a female, they wouldn't be 6'4", but probably around 5'11".)

In addition, due to a ridiculously busy schedule I probably won't be able to post Mondays anymore, with few exceptions. Sorry.

P.S. The language in the title is Irish. It translates to "what?", as I'm sure you might have imagined. I was originally going to do "qué?", the Spanish, but I prefer Irish.

Blerg!

Blerg! I wasn't able to get on yesterday because I was too busy, and I Just got a new pair of contact lenses today and I can't see anything close-up, so bear with me because I won't be able to see my spelling mistakes. Anyway, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so for today's prompt I want you to imagine that you are part of a minority for your race/gender/religion like MLK was. Now, what are you going to do about it?

Forced Humanitarianism

January 15 is National Humanitarian Day. I struggled to come up with a prompt for today until it finally hit me. Your character did some little crime, like littering, and was forced into community service. Detail their whole day in diary form for every hour. Do they start out loathing it and then start to get into it a little, or are they a totally helpless case and spend the whole day trying to avoid work and dash home as soon as they're told that it's okay?

Two Holidays

I know not what I have done to
receive this fate.

January 14 has two fun holidays, so instead of picking I've decided to do both: it's a two-for-one day!

First, it's Clean Off Your Desk Day. This means that you need to get organized so that you can start writing without having to look for things all over the place. If you work on the computer, this can mean getting rid of old files that you haven't worked on for a while or that have gotten totally blanked out. Even blank files take up about 18 MB of space.

Second, it's Dress Up Your Pet Day. This is a more fun holiday than the previous one. If you have any characters that have domestic animals, I want you to write a paragraph that involves them finding simply *the* best outfit for their pet and attempting to put it one. Then write the same paragraph in the point of view of the poor victim.

Expensive Jeans and Puddles

You know you want to. Jump!

January 11 is Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friends Day, which is fitting where I live because it rained recently, so there were actual puddles to step in. Of course, splashing your friend may not be something that they are totally up for. Maybe they just bought a $200 pair of jeans that they had specially ordered with a graphic design, and if you jump in a puddle it'll wash the paint right off and they wasted $200 for nothing. So, say that two best friend characters of yours are walking along after a rain storm and one runs up full-speed to a large puddle and splashes it all over the other friend.

Write the conversation that ensues.

Oh, The Strange

10 January is Peculiar People Day! I can think of nothing better than to show peculiar people to you. However, I cannot find any good free-use images of peculiar people. So that's where you come in. Look up "peculiar people" on Google Images, pick one, and go crazy!

I Have a Secret Pal

January 8 is Secret Pal Day, something which sounds mildly creepy to begin with. (In addition, it's Kim Jong-un's birthday today, but that's beside the point). Therefore, I have a horror prompt for you today. Just one, but I hope you have fun with it.

You have to go to your best friend's sister-in-law's baby shower for about the fourth or fifth time. You're less than excited and sit in the doorway of her house for most of the shower when her eldest, a little six-year-old boy, tugs on your sleeve. He says that he has a secret friend and that he wants you to meet the friend. Before you have a chance to answer, he's pulling you towards his room.

Have fun~

A Long, Legendary Journey

Gold, frankincense and my
favorite: myrrh.

Today, January 6, is the Epiphany! Originally, the Roman Catholic Church always celebrated Epiphany today, but it was recently changed to the Sunday after New Year's. However, today the two dates line up perfectly. This is also the day that, traditionally, Christmas trees are taken down from houses.

If you are of the Roman Catholic faith you have probably heard that three wise men named Balthazar, Caspar, and Melchior followed the star to Jesus and brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Actually, nobody knows how many magi there were. The Roman Catholic Church assumes that there are three because of the three gifts, but most Eastern Orthodox churches assume that there are twelve. We do know that they followed the star to Bethlehem, came from the east, brought three gifts, and were probably scholars and astronomers. The rest, including their names, come from legend.

So, say that your characters go on a great journey and become famous amongst their people. What parts of their story will actually be true? Which parts of their story will be made up for it to be a better story, or will be assumed about them? What will be recorded and what will be left to word of mouth?

Hobbits and Hornblowers

One ring to rule them all...

Today (January 3) is J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday! It would be interesting if The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey had chosen to come out today. Now here is where I admit something I'm a little hesitant to say: I have never actually read any of the Lord of the Rings books. I attempted The Fellowship of the Ring twice. The first time the print was too small for me to read anything. The second time I got the large-print copy, and that's when I realized that it just wasn't my particular cup of tea.

But no matter! Today there was going to be an A-Z of Middle-Earth, but I ran out of time, so there are only a few. Sorry it looks pathetic.

C is for Creatures: There were a variety of creatures on Middle-Earth. Tolkien made some of these species ridiculously popular to the point of explosion. Try to write a paragraph about Middle-Earth where none of these creatures exist, only humans.

I is for Inspiration: Tolkien got his inspiration for The Hobbit when he came across a blank page when grading papers. He wrote the first thing that came into his head. "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit". He didn't know what it meant, but he was determined to find out. Write down whatever you think of. There may be a story in there somewhere.

L is for Linguistics: Do you know the reason that you like Tolkien's language systems so much? Because he used to be a linguistics professor and knew what languages were made of. If you have a special language in your fantasy work, look at its speech patterns and develop complex rules of grammar to tighten it better.

N is for Nazgul: I don't know if you feel the same way I do about these, but I find them absolutely terrifying. Think of mythical creatures (if there are any) in your book that are supposed to be terrifying, and amplify what makes them so frightening.

S is for Sauron: Think to yourself: What made Sauron such a compelling villain? Think about him and ask yourself how you can make your character more like him. This doesn't mean make him exactly like the Necromancer, but strengthen your antagonist's personality so that people want to read about them nearly as much as they want to read about the protagonist.

W is for World-Building: Middle-Earth is a very complicated place that obviously took a lot of time and effort to work out the quirks of. Therefore, I encourage you fantasy writers out there to fill out every question at http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/ and answer all of the questions that apply to your work. (Some of the questions are in multiple places, so take care not to answer them more than once).

New Year's Resolutions

A snowman coming to life to tell
you happy 2013: not the best
start to the year.

New Year's Resolutions. Everybody has them, and they're usually ditched by sometime in mid-January. The lucky get to February. I made mine to late October when I realized that it was futile, but I'm trying again this year.

So for today's activity you're going to be doing resolutions for both yourself and the character that you're working on. You must have one writing-themed resolution, not just "lose 30 pounds" or something like that. List them in the comments if you so choose.

My resolutions:

1. Finish the first draft of Wolf at the Door
2. Finish every Stephen King book (this was last year's resolution that I made it until mid-October with. I got to The Tommyknockers, but it was so boring I decided it could wait until next year).

Tate's resolutions (from Wolf at the Door)

1. Take down a bull moose.
2. Stop Felan from bashing his brains out in football (futile)
3. Crank out a short story or two.
4. Finish the commission that I've been sitting on for three months (why am I putting this off? It's $350!)
5. Get a real job.

Horror Writing Prompts (First Installment)

My favorite: average person!

#1. Take your least favorite horror creature (vampire, werewolf, zombie, demon, etc.) and make it the main character in a piece. It can be either the protagonist or the antagonist, but it must be one of those two. Keep working at it until you actually like the creature and think of it as original.

#2. The zombie apocalypse has just arrived, and you are someone who has no skill with any kind of weaponry, any food stored up, or great knowledge. In fact, you're thoroughly average. It's a miracle you haven't been bitten yet. What are your short- and long-term goals to survival? How do you plan to save yourself now? Once you're relatively safe, how are you going to stay alive and decimate the infected?

#3. You receive a strange gift in the mail; a decapitated dog head. Before you're about to throw it out, it starts barking at you. You are startled and drop the box. The dog reveals that it has one paw that it can slowly move with. You attempt to kill it and it grows another paw. What happens next?