Cyclist Dan

The prompt last night at Word Whips was "Cyclist Dan," the theme for the evening was "circles," and this is what came to mind:

Cyclist Dan can ride to the moon. Riding is dream time- a trip through Province, a journey into space. Old friends ride with him, because a friend never really leaves. He refuses to take riding "seriously" - no special pants, no paniers, no silly shoes that are no good for walking. Dreams shouldn't be serious, but little trips of joy. The bike is a ride back to childhood, the chain connecting all his life together, because he is a circle himself, growing but always complete.

I've been trying to come up with more interesting character combinations for writing prompts. I like this one, but it didn't get very far:

The Queen Lets the Plumber In
"Please, do come in."
"Oh. Uh, thank you Ma'am. What's the trouble?"
"I'm afraid the toilets are malfunctioning."
"Aren't there servants to handle these issues?"
"Yes, quite right, but all the staff are down with ghastly food poisoning. We would normally simply wait until someone could take care of it, but, with the illness, you see, it's rather urgent."
"Of course Ma'am. I'll get right to work."

Button Flu teaser

I will eventually write this story, but I can share the intro for now:

The Great Button Flu has struck dolls and teddy bears all over the world! Buttons pop up on fabric and fur, impossible to remove without catastrophic stuffing loss. Soon the poor toy is completely covered with buttons- left hard and un-huggable. Can anyone stop the epidemic? Or will children everywhere be left with nothing to cuddle?

Tonight the prompt was Shaggy and Batgirl in an elevator:

"Oh no Batgirl! I think we're stuck!"

"You fumbling idiot! You've gotten us trapped in the elevator and now Mega Evil Man will get away."

"Can't you use your awesomeness to get us out?"

"I could if this wasn't a brand-new building, but too many bumblers like you have died trying to escape from stuck elevators. Now they're making these things escape-proof - we have to wait for the fire department to rescue us."

"That doesn't sound so bad - we chill here until the heroes come save us."

"But we're supposed to be the heroes! We're supposed to stop Mega Evil Man before he takes the diamonds back to his secret island."

"Whoa, Batgirl! It can't be that bad. People don't really need diamonds anyway."

"UGH! How stupid are you? Mega Evil Man is going to use the diamonds for his lasers to destroy North America. Millions of people will die!"

"That's, like, really bad."

"Duh! I never should have let Batman team us up. I hope Robin and Scooby-Doo are having better luck."

"Yeah, they'll take care of Mega Evil Man. Wanna, like, make out?"

*POW*

I'm a crappy blogger

I had hoped I'd blog more consistently with this attempt, but this blog is further evidence that I'm a crappy blogger. This time I'm not giving up however, I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Tonight I'm trying to write, but feeling very frustrated with everything I come up with. I have story ideas, but when I try to get the actual words out on paper, I'm always disappointed with the results, and that gets discouraging. I know I need to keep trying and that it'll improve with practice, but I'm not particularly good at doing anything that isn't immediately satisfying. So yeah...

I have tried to post, I promise, but my iPhone wouldn't let me type anything.

One of my new favorite picture books is My Garden by Kevin Henkes, whose books I loved growing up. The dust jacket asks the question "How does your garden grow?" and I decided to answer:

Sparsely With careful attention to each plant, and little knowledge of what's right.

Clumsily With so many mistakes made.

Joyfully With each sprout seen as a miracle and new leaves and flowers greet with smiles.

Beautifully.

I think this synopsis of the opera The Italian Girl in Algiers from the Vancouver Opera is some of the best alliteration ever:

"Intrepid Isabella crash-lands her plane in Algeria while searching for her lost lover, Lindoro, who languishes locally in the labour force of Mustapha, the governor."