Pooh Bear awoke bright and early. “Today is a very special day,” he said to himself and rolled out of bed. He stepped over to his wardrobe and inspected his shirt collection. “Got to look your best,” he chuckled to himself as he picked a red one and pulled it over.
He then stepped into the kitchen where he stopped in front of the rack of honey pots. “That'll make a nice snack for on the way,” he said as he took one pot under his arm and immediately dipped his other hand in to start eating.
With both hands occupied he pushed the door open using his butt. He strolled down the path between the trees of Ashdown Forest. It wasn't long until he met Tigger who came down jumping on his tail.
“Hey Pooh, do you want to go down to the lake and throw rocks into the lake?”
“Oh, no thank you. Maybe next time. But can you tell me how I look?”
“That's okay. What do you mean how you look? You're a yellow bear with a red shirt.”
“Hm, thank you, Tigger. Goodbye.”
Winnie-the-Pooh set off, annoyed at how simple his friend sometimes was. He knew what he looked like. He wanted to know whether he looked good, whether he looked sexy.
It wasn't long until he arrived at Piglet's house.
“Oh, Pooh, you look so sweet like honey today. Let's get you out of that shirt.”
“My little Piglet, let me at least close the door behind me,” he said, but as he closed it Piglet already started taking off his shirt and rubbing his strong, muscular chest.
“You really know how to touch me— Oh!” Pooh gasped as Piglet grabbed his bearhood.
“Shush, I'll take the lead from here,” Piglet whispered.
Suddenly the door behind Alice opened. It was Christopher. “Whatcha writing? One of your smutty fanfics again?” He bent over her shoulder and mumbled “taking off his shirt . . . grabbed his bearhood!? Alice, why does every single one of your fanfictions always need to revolve around the characters fucking? Can't you just write something nice? Them going on adventures or some shit?”
“It's just what I like to write. And the people on AO3 seem to like it as well. They are very nice and encouraging. And, like, be honest: Don't you think it's kinda hot?”
Christopher blushed. “Winnie-the-Pooh and fricking Piglet getting it on!?”
“Honest!” Alice insisted.
“I mean, I guess it's kinda hot.”
“Getting you in the mood 'kinda hot'?”
“Maybe,” Christopher grinned.
Alice started pulling up his shirt. “Well, Mr. Columbus. Do you want to explore my wonderland?”
I'm finding it harder and harder to come up with interesting conceits. I knew that I'd run out of ideas eventually and I'm surprised I've made it this far. Part of it is also the daily writing. Life is a bit stressful and I'm not setting aside the time needed to get into a writing mood. Often it's late at night and I just want to get something out before going to bed.
I still think it's better to push through and write some less interesting stuff rather than to lose track. I hope that this is just a rut that I can push through and find some new inspiration at the other side of.
This story I tried a present tense narration. I thought that it'd be important to have the protagonist stressed to justify the immediacy of the narration. Stage fright isn't something that I've ever experienced to such a bad degree so it was difficult to get in that headspace.
I've set myself the rough goal of 350+ words for this project and that made yesterday and today tough. It feels like the basic premise does not justify such elaboration. This story is less than 350 words and still could have stayed a bit shorter or it would need a second idea to carry it.
Tina feels her hands getting sweaty. She is standing behind Keith who now enters onto the stage with his puppet. The audience cheers him on loudly. It must be 200 people out there. Tina's stomach turns at that thought.
Mr. Whitten had pressured her into signing up for the talent show. Tina had said no, Mr. Whitten had said yes, she had said yes. And now here she is. Next in line. With just her juggling balls. Tina is sweating so much that she drops one of them.
As she quickly bows down to pick it back up she feels a sense of vertigo come over her. She feels disoriented and nauseous. “You're up next.” As if she doesn't know that already. “Are you alright? You look a bit pale.”
Tina feels the sandwiches coming back up. She gulps them back down again before they can reach her mouth, but she can feel that this wasn't the last of them.
“Here, do you need a bin?” The stagehand passes her a large garbage bin.
“No, thanks I'm—” That's as far as Tina gets before throwing up.
“Oh dear, food poisoning?”
“Uh-huh,” she nods, knowing full well that it's just her nerves. She spits into the bin again. When she lifts her head out of it she hears the moderator on stage call her name and the audience start clapping.
“I can't. I can't go out there!” she begs.
The moderator looks over expectantly. The stagehand motions widely while mouthing something. When the moderator understands they start stalling for time.
“Take a sip.” The stagehand offers Tina a bottle of water. “Are you sure you can't go out there?” he asks as she takes a few gulps.
“No, I really can't.”
The stage hand motions to the moderator again who announces the next act. Tina sits down on a chair.
“Maybe you should get some fresh air?”
Tina nods and gets up. She leaves through the back. Standing outside she takes a deep breath.
I wanted to write something sci-fi. I played with the idea of some laser pistol battle, but I feel like I've done a lot of violence in the recent stories already. Limiting myself to one character was the obvious choice then.
Originally I did not have Chev's obsession with the egg as a through-line. She had gotten the egg, put it on the scanner and then it would only be mentioned again in the end with the scan results. In my head it was ambiguous what kind of egg it might be.
But when I had to put in some scan results I started out with “97% edible” and thought that wasn't enough of a result so I also added the weight. From that I spun out into Chev maybe also wanting to eat the egg, but to really sell that idea I had to seed it earlier as well.
I get the feeling that all my stories have some humorous (or at least silly) undertones, but with writing every day it's tough to find the time to think about this kind of stuff more deeply. I'll have to make some time after I'm done with the month to reflect on what I can take away from it all.
Commander Chev set down the egg on the scanner. She initiated the scanner's DNA sequencing procedure and left the lab, heading to the medical showers. She turned around a couple of times to glance at the egg as the scanner was spinning around it until the lab door closed, cutting her line of sight. She entered the shower and washed the sludge and debris off her suit. After 30 seconds the computer chimed and she turned off the shower. The water running down the drain reminded her of some runny egg white. A couple seconds later a chime broke Chev out of her thoughts. She had already been dried.
Chev stepped out of the shower and went a couple of steps back towards the lab. She reminded herself of the credits she could get if this was a good egg and turned around. She unscrewed her helmet and took off her suit.
She strolled up to the cockpit and let herself fall down into her chair. She thought about how funny it was that hundreds of years ago this exact design had been pioneered by companies trying to make gaming chairs. Back then they were supposed to look futuristic and somehow they had really gotten it right.
Chev moved the engine from hover into flight mode. She had gotten from this rotten planet what she wanted—or rather, what her client wanted—so there was no point in spending anymore time in its gravitational pull.
As the engine changed its mode of operation the ship began humming. When Chev had bought this piece of junk seventeen years back the dodgy seller had told her it was the sound of electricity travelling through the wires, but through some investigating Chev had found out that it was merely the metal of the hull bending under the stress.
As the ship started accelerating the scanners result flashed up on the bottom left screen. Chev maximized the results onto the main screen.
50g, 97% edible.
That's a good one, Chev thought to herself. Her mouth started watering at the thought of the egg that was sitting just down the hall. No. She had to sell it. An egg of such quality would surely bring in about 12.000 credits. 17.000 even on the black market. 17k, for such a delicious egg. Chev closed her eyes as she pictured the cold egg white running down her throat while the yolk sat on her tongue, slowly unfolding its flavour. Chev snapped back. 17k, that would be enough to get a new ship. Her very own Raptor. Just don't think about that delicious egg until you get to a trading post.
I'm currently reading a gothic novel that fetishizes male physique in a weird way. The protagonist keeps gushing about muscles, raw-ness and stuff like that which I channelled in the first description of the prince. So that's my impression of what hetero women find hot, but I'm a bit puzzled.
Another thing I tried was to have dialogue without explicitly calling out who says what. That's something I've been struggling with in my past stories.
Overall, I wanted to write something in the fairy tale genre. I might have misremembered Beauty and the Beast.
Elle couldn't believe her luck. Here she was dancing with the most dashing prince. They were alone in his grand ballroom. There wasn't even a band, the instruments magically played themselves.
Earlier this week she had gotten a letter from the prince inviting her up to his castle. At first she had thought that her step-sisters were having a laugh at her expense, but the seal turned out to be genuine. The prince hadn't left his castle for five years now and Elle had wondered how she came to the honour of being invited.
Another problem had been choosing what to wear. Her step-mother did not pay her a wage for the chores she did around the house nor was she getting an allowance. When she had asked her sisters for clothes they said: “Here's something for you.” and had thrown rags into the mud.
But on the evening of the visit the prince's butler arrived at her house and had given her a yellow dress. She had been surprised to find it fit her perfectly, as if it had been tailormade for her.
When they had arrived in the castle's entrance hall and the butler called for the prince Elle began to worry. Nobody in the village had seen the prince these past five years. Maybe he had been disfigured in a fencing accident? Or simply not getting enough sun had turned him pale and week? But when the prince appeared at the top of the grand staircase all worries immediately had faded.
He was muscular and wore a dark blue suit with gold cufflinks. He had a handsome face with a clean shaven, angular jaw. He had brown hair with some light curls. His blue eyes immediately enchanted her. She was in love.
They had had a few drinks and then he had asked her to dance. And that's what they had been doing for the past hours. She was amazed by the prince's endurance as she could feel her own legs aching and her lungs were begging her to take a break as well, but being held in his arms she felt home and thus willed her muscles to endure another dance, and another.
But then the clock started striking.
“Is it midnight already?!”
“What is it to you? You are a prince.”
“No, you don't understand! Go, leave!”
He turned away and ran off to some door.
“Will I see you again?” she called after him.
He did not respond and disappeared behind the door.
Elle decided that he had probably just not heard her question and decided to follow after him. When she reached the door she heard strained moans and coughing on the other side. She carefully opened the door just a tiny bit to peer in.
Elle was shocked at the ghastly sight she beheld and her hands immediately went to cover her mouth to stop her from gasping. She could not make out any details as the only light was the full moon shining out through the opposite window. But she saw the black silhouette of the prince hunched over, holding his stomach and vomiting up some dark liquid.
Then something on his back began to move. Or was it his back that was moving? Lumps grew across his spine. Then they consolidated into spikes that violently shot out from his back and ripped his jacket.
All this had been accompanied by pained cries and belching, but the sound of these now started to change into a terrifying shriek. And when the body shifted position against the moon Elle could understand why. The head had become extended, the neck had widened and the mouth and nose area was no protruding in a point, the eyes had fallen back and the ears had completely vanished. The prince had transformed into some kind of reptilian monstrosity.
Elle couldn't believe what was happening. She stumbled backwards in fear and tripped. She still hadn't mastered high heels.
The shrieking from the other room stopped. Elle rushed to get back on her feet, but in her terror it took her three attempts. By the time she got up the. . . creature was standing in the door, just a couple paces away from her.
Its nostrils widened and narrowed in its breathing. It began slowly circling Elle. She was completely frozen and was only able to slowly turn her head to follow the creature.
Suddenly, it shot forward and its teeth tore into her neck.
Based on this meme, which I find absolutely hilarious. I like the original story as well (Franz Kafka's “The Metamorphosis”, give it a read when you get the chance. It's short and available for free online).
With such a zany premise it's tough to go anywhere serious or tell a real story, so this was just a quick exploration of the concept.
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into gigantic insect. “Yes! Fuck yes! Hahaha. Finally!” He pumped his little insect legs into the air in triumph. “Fuck work. Fuck the bank— No, fuck the whole capitalist system. I'm out!”
He wiggled out of bed and with a 'Thump' fell to the floor. He was quickly getting the hang of his new body and scuttled towards the door. Crawling on all—six, now—he wasn't big enough to reach the door handle. But Gregor didn't care. He threw his new and, in his view, improved body against the door four times until it gave way and broke open.
His mother, father and sister stood there, in the living room, in stunned silence. They had been awoken by the celebratory shouts and wanted to check on their Gregor.
His sister Grete was the first to break the silence. “Holy shit. I told you guys he'd do it! What a madman. Congratz, Gregor. I'm proud of you, big brother.” His mother turned to his father. “I always knew our Gregor was special. That he could achieve anything. And you doubted him.” To Gregor she added, “I'm proud of you, son.”
“I guess I was wrong, son,” spoke now the father, “I saw you toiling away at the bank to pay all of our debts while we were at home. I really believed you to be a spineless pushover. But look at you know, do you even have a spine? Just kidding of course, just a bit of humour from your old pops.”
Gregor was deeply moved by all these nice words of affection and appreciation and would have turned red had he any blood in his body. Instead, the hemolymph rushing to his face gave it a hint of yellow.
“Well, I'm outta here. Peace!” he said and scuttled out into the backyard, free of all cares and obligations.
Horror seems incredibly difficult to write. The setup needs a lot of atmosphere, but then when action happens it seemingly all need to happen simultaneously. While I have seen a bunch of horror films I haven't read a single horror book, so I'm also missing a point of reference.
Well, that's a bit of a lie. I have listened to audio versions of a couple ghost short stories on LibriVox, but didn't pay well enough attention to draw on them for technique.
I generally don't enjoy horror very much, so maybe it's not the best genre to write in. But it was fun to try.