Writes a story every day for a year
If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been doing since the 365 day challenge, then wonder no longer. I have been working with 4 writers from refugee backgrounds to make this website called “We See Each Other” as part of my PhD.
I cannot thank the writers enough for sharing their talent with me and working so hard.
If you feel so inclined, please take a look at the site. For the full experience use Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer (Safari doesn’t like audio).
This site is in need of a full makeover. Please bear with Freya as she migrates and updates her website. For the time being, please take a look around.
Today I answer that age old question: Can someone write a new story everyday for a year?
The Answer: YES, I JUST DID IT! Over the course of this year I have written 46, 102 words in short stories! (That’s not including the blog part before each story)
I set out to become an “extreme writer” (the Bear Grylls of the literary world). Bear, what do you think?
Now I want to talk directly to you readers: thank you for helping me. This project would never exist without you- your ideas are what made this work. You have been generous, imaginative and silly- I hope in return I have entertained you.
People keep asking me how I feel. I’m not really sure how I yet- but I think these GIFs give you an idea:
For my last story I decided I needed to meet some very important folk. (Scroll over the words if you’d like to know more about any of them)
The line stretches as far as I can see, I’ve never met these people but they seem familiar.
“Why are we in line?” I ask a giant and his dog in front of me.
“Giant heard Imaginer is here,” he says.
“Imaginer?” I ask.
“She made us all up,” says the dog.
“Even me,” says a little poo next to the dog.
A small creature somewhere between a crab and a hat tugs on my jeans behind me.
“You look a bit like her,” he says.
“Mun,” I gasp. I’m starting to piece things together.
“How’d you know my name?” the crab-hat asks.
“Never mind, why do you want to meet the imaginer?” I ask him.
“We’re protesting,” he replies.
“She’s going to stop imagining,” pipes up a warrior. “We have to stand up for ourselves like we did when the spirits were upon us.”
Her army cheer.
“If she stops imagining we’ll all be gone,” says a man dressed entirely in teal. “I’m not losing my family!”
Another cheer. I start to feel anxious.
“She isn’t going to stop imagining,” I shout. “This isn’t the end!”
“How do you know?” asks a Dinosaur.
“I’m Freya, I made you up,” I say. “Your name is Dara, I named you after a comedian I like.”
“Yeah right,” says a teenage girl. “Just because you look like her doesn’t mean anything, she imagined herself loads of times.”
The girl looks just like I did when I was younger.
“Fine, I’ll prove it,” I say. “If this is my story, I can have a dragon for a best friend.”
“Don’t let them bother you,” says a rumbling voice.
I turn to see a dragon with a long beard. Everyone gasps.
“You are her!” says a flying eye.
“Then, we’re going to be okay?” a stone statue asks.
“Yes,” I say. “I won’t be writing new stories for a little while, but I will never stop imagining. You guys are in my mind forever, and I hope you will live on in a few other minds too.”
“Come on then,” Giant shouts. “Party at Giant and Rupert’s!”
I clamber up the dragon’s beard and fly off to Giant’s cave.
And that is The End – a 365 word story to end my 365 Day Challenge. I hope you’ll help me keep some of these folk alive- see you at the celebration picnic if you can make it! (Find the details here)
I was having trouble coming up with a challenge for the second last story of the year- so I did a call out and got this response from Niall:
Someone experiences some very strange and unusual events but in the end IT WAS ALL A DREAM.
You can keep that one.
I have experienced some very unusual events during this challenge. FLASHBACK TO: getting a secret from a stranger, doing a TEDx talk and making up a new language with the audience, and writing a story on people’s hands in a pub.
And then I had a thought…
Karl Stefanovic just finished a year long challenge of his own. He wore the same suit for a year without anyone noticing to highlight sexism.
What if…
Here’s my story:
She’d been having these strange dreams that she was a breakfast show host. At first it only happened every few months but now it was happening every night. She dreamt crazy things like that she was interviewing a grumpy cat
slapping a man with pizza
and pretending to be a peacock.
One night whilst chasing pigeons on national TV, she never woke up.
She lived the rest of her life as that breakfast show host, and when she was asleep, she dreamt that she was writing stories.
P.S. If you want to read more Karlfic, I have written one more story about him during my 24 Hour Challenge – you can read it below.
The Karl State – Inspired by Georgia
Rosie was just 16 when she crossed the wall to QLD. She’d heard there was work there. She remembered being terrified. Rumour had it that if you didn’t answer the phone with ‘I wake up with Today’ you could be evicted from your home and that if you failed to salute the Today T at work you’d be fired.
When she finally got to the capital, Karlsville, she found that if you could deal with Karl’s face staring at you from coins, posters and art galleries it really was Australia’s best kept secret. Most of the rumours had been put out by Queenslanders trying to keep people away from the party state. In a bizarre twist Queensland had become a very progressive nation since its breakaway. Laws became publicly driven through reality television shows and a strong artistic culture was born because of Karl’s entertainment obsession. Rosie was now a people smuggler, smuggling alternative Australians into QLD. She hoped she’d never get caught or she would have to face a sentence of 10 years of insanity by dad jokes.
One of my favourite aspects of this entire challenge is that often people pitch challenges to me – in order to have things explained. For example: What do vegetarian zombies eat? What happened to my wallet? And today: “Why does Kate have Santa boots?
I love these explanation stories – not only because they feel more like puzzles – but because I think we tell stories to create meaning out of meaningless.
Santa gave her his boots.
“What are these for?” she asked, her voice distorted by the torrential tears falling from her eyes.
“Let me tell you a story. When I was 16, my name was Alan. I used to dress up as Santa for the other kids in the street. Our neighbourhood was pretty poor so most kids didn’t get presents. I made the suit out of an old towel. One day Santa came and asked if I wanted his job, he said he’d been watching me for some time and I was a natural. I didn’t believe him but then he gave me his boots. When I tried them on, I could feel time slow. That was the day my name changed to Santa. Today I think it’s time to go back to Alan. Santa is a title, anyone can earn it. The boots have been handed down for thousands of years, and give you the power to slow time.”
“But I don’t want to be Santa,” she said, her tears had now slowed to a light drizzle.
“I know,” he said. “But Santa can only slow time for one helper. If you take the title and the boots you could have more time with your sister. The doctor said weeks right? You could stretch that to years and travel all across the world together while the normal world has only lived a day. All you need to do is a find a new Santa when you have had enough time.”
The girl’s face lit up.
“Thank you Alan,” she said, “nice to meet you, my name is Santa.”
And so the sisters lived many years together. When the time came, they found a lovely young woman named Kate to take the job. She had a great laugh that suited the job perfectly.
When we first found out that he was a the god of colour, he would spend his time trying to find the perfect shade for everything. But it never worked out, there were no perfect colours. So now he changes the world’s colour everyday. It made me feel confused and even ill at first when the sky was gold and the leaves purple. It was so unexpected and some days it really didn’t work out. But now I go to sleep comforted that tomorrow will be different, and perhaps the most beautiful colours yet.
There are only a 3 stories to go, at the start I remember being overwhelmed with the idea of fitting writing into my days, and terrified about having to come up with new things everyday. Everything would be so unexpected and sometimes it might not work out. Now I can’t imagine a day without writing- whether it works or not- I like the surprises.
I just remembered that when I was little I thought ear wax were creatures called ear wacks that lived in your ear.
It’s lonely but it’s home. Occasionally they send in a big white fluffy cleaner, but if I go deep enough I can avoid the evictions.
It can be hard being an ear wack, no one seems to like our parties. Whenever there are too many of us they force us out of our homes with jets of water. All I want is to feel close, to find my kin. So till we find a way to live without persecution, we’ll just have to keep ear hopping.
Today Jo was saying that perhaps extinct animals are not actually dead they just adapted to be invisible. I asked if I could use this for today’s story so here we are:
People were never kind to me, so I hung out in the forest a lot. I never saw any animals but it always felt like I had friends there.
One day I was so badly bullied I just wanted to dissapear. So I went to the forest and I did.
When I got there, the forest was teeming with animals. Animals I’d only seen in books, animals I thought were extinct. They sat by me as I calmed down.
I didn’t know it then but I had adapted. If you are bullied for long enough by people, you have to learn to become invisible.
There is a school near my house which plays a jingle that sounds like an icecream van, as their school bell. I’ve only just figured out this mystery because I thought it was an icecream van that I’d just never seen… a sort of ghost icecream van.
The icecream had gotten rat poisoning in it and all the children died. At least that’s the story most people believed to explain the mysterious icecream van song that could be heard on the street sometimes. But I was too little to understand that yet. I followed the noise all the way down to the creek.
There, I would play with the ghostly icecream lady and eat icecream all afternoon (no calories is a perk of ghost icecream). She told me there was never any rat poison in fact her icecream was the best in town.
The children had eaten so much they had become hyperactive zombies. So she filled the icecream with sour lemons to stop them, but they had pushed her and her van into the creek.
The next day though the children returned to normal and the details were hazy. She doesn’t mind that no one knows the truth, she is just glad that noone can ever be effected by her icecream again.
Today there is only a WEEK TO GO of the challenge. Thinking about this made me realise that my numbers weren’t matching up to my end date- it turned out that I had accidentally made a mistake around day 128… meaning every number after that was wrong. My “Day Numbers” were having an identity crisis… hence today’s story:
I used to be a two, but I got changed to a three. The other numbers laugh at me, they tell me I’m messy. They tell me I’m a mistake.
I remember when it happened, I’d only just been drawn into existence. I liked being a two. Two was a couple, it was even, I liked being a two. But then, without warning I was crudely changed to a three. It was an odd number, and it felt wrong. Two was solid, three was awkward.
For a while I thought I was a two trapped in the body of a three. But one day I met an 8 who used to be a zero, her round curves entranced me, they were more beautiful than any other number I’d ever seen.
Something switched that day and I realised I am lucky number. I get to have fun, sometimes I tell others I am a fancy five and other times I just let them guess. Now I know I am not a two or a three, I am whatever I want to be.
ALSO REMINDER: On the 30th of November I will be holding a picnic for you all- please come tell tales and eat food. I would love to meet you! Read more about the event by clicking here.
Cinnamon suggested “unwanted phone calls.”
I remember getting her call. It annoyed me, she knew I was busy. I let it ring out. She left a message, but I didn’t listen to it.
When the second call came it was a day later and it wasn’t her voice on the other end. It was her mothers. She was gone.
I listen to the message she left that day all the time now. It’s just a simple message, she doesn’t say anything special. But it helps me remember her voice.
Today I parked my car next to a paper bark tree at work.
and then obviously this happened…
I like the way Bananas show all the bumps and marks from its life on its skin. So I wrote a story today at lunch after finishing my lady finger.
I saw this clock made out of a Mona Lisa, it gave me an idea.
I’d never seen art like hers. As I walked around the gallery I could feel all the eyes from the paintings following me around. They were small, playful things and I ended up tripping over a pair of over excited dog eyes. I scooped them up and put them on my shoulder, I didn’t mind having an extra pair of eyes here.
Most people thought the gallery was haunted. I walked deeper into the gallery, to the room no one would dare enter. They say her later paintings toward the end of her life were very dark.
At first I couldn’t see anything at all, it was pitch dark. But then, I realised that the darkness was fur. The entire room was filled with a fury black monster.
It roared at me and the dog eyes on my shoulder bounced around in fear. I reached up and patted the eyes on my shoulder to calm them, which gave me an idea. I extended my hand into the black and started to pat the dark fur in front of me. The monster began to pant and rolled over happily.
I don’t think the gallery is haunted, I think her paintings have always been real. She just knew how to handle them.
Xanthe wanted to give me a prompt today but didn’t get a chance to- I remember she said she’d like to give me a song to inspire me. I’ve seen Xanthe sing before and her voice almost seems like it isn’t coming from her. She is the closest person I know to an actual fairy. When she sings, even though she is young, she sounds more like an ancient wise being. So that idea is going to inspire me today. (Disclaimer – Xanthe is very articulate and intelligent whether speaking or singing).
People think the clouds are stupid. They mix up their words a lot, but people don’t realise that speaking is their second language. They’ve been singing since the big bang, but they only learnt to speak a few thousand years ago. The people don’t hear their singing over the sound of the rain, but it is there if you listen close. They sing their wisest tales and ideas during the heavy rains.
I was talking to Simon about finishing and he said his favourite stories of mine are the object stories. So I am bringing them back. This one is written on a bar of soap.
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When I was little my cousin lived with us for a few years. She helped instill a love of characters and stories in me. This is a carving she did that sits in our garden.
Every house in the village has a gargoyle to protect them. Most are tall and fierce, but when we moved in, we could only afford a tiny one. We left our city to escape war. We shouldn’t really be here, but we couldn’t stay in our home country. No village really wants us.
Our gargoyle sits in the garden most days clutching his knees. Sometimes I offer for him to come inside but he always declines, so I bring out tea for him.
One day I hear reports of thugs heading toward the village. I am sure we will be first to be robbed. Why did we have to get the dud gargoyle? When they find we have nothing to steal they’ll turn us in to the officials for money.
“We’re going to be sent back and it’ll be all your fault,” I say to the gargoyle.
At dusk the thugs come. They try a few houses but their gargoyles roar and fight them stone to fist. Then they spot our house. They come right up to our gargoyle and laugh, trying to push him aside. But he doesn’t budge. In fact he’s rising, controlling the other stones in the garden and forming a huge barrier. The thugs begin to sink into the gravel path. Horrified they drag themselves out and run off weighed down by their stone encrusted feet.
We come out and the other villagers are trying to buy our gargoyle.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” I say to him. “I’m so glad we got you.”
He looks back at the gaggle of villagers and says, “None of you would buy me before so I will not go with you now.”
The villagers threaten to have us sent back.
“Try and I’ll encase you in stone. I am 2000 years old, the only real gargoyle here. The others are not gargoyles, they are thugs from the first war. They tried to burn this city, but I gave them their lives. In return, they swore an oath to protect our people.”
He turns to me.
“Thank you,” I say, completely stunned.
“We are both leftovers we belong together,” he says.
People often ask if I sneakily write a few stories in a day and then post them. I don’t – to be honest I am too pooped after one story. I’m not sure I’ll be able to do more than one in a day after this challenge.
Jasmine has one idea per day. She is told the other idea generators working in the Minds can have up to 10 in a day. She worries that she’ll lose her job and be kicked out of her Mind. But when she finally retires, the Mind sends her a card. They tell her she has generated more ideas than any other employee because the others always burn out and quit. She is the longest giving brain component they have ever had.
I asked my mentor Susan how I could thank her for all her kind words and advice this year, she told me: “I’d like to read a story about an alien abduction set in Australia.” So here it is, thank you Susan, I really appreciate everything you have done for me this year.
Side note: GAH I just deleted this entire post accidentally and had to rewrite the entire thing. I guess that is one way of editing.
We live in a tiny rural farming town. No one is ever interested in travel, but I’ve always been obsessed with seeing the outside world, especially the pyramids. My nan says she doesn’t want to be shot halfway across the world in a tin can to see a pile of rocks.
One night I decide to steal my dad’s ute. I only get as far as the edge of town when the car stops. It’s as if I’ve hit a forcefield. I get out and touch the barrier, slowly I edge my face nearer. I can hear a tapping noise. But then the sound of my dad’s tractor interrupts me. He must be looking for me. I get in the ute and reverse, then drive as fast as I can toward the barrier. There is a cracking noise and a bright light.
When I wake there is a huge figure standing over me. It looks like every inch of it’s skin is moving, like it’s made from bugs.
“Are you being okay?” it asks.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Don’t worry, I am in the…” it pauses to look at a book. “…friend zone.”
“The friendzone?”
“Yes, I am being in the zone for friends. I being looking after you.”
“What?” is all I can think to say.
“You broke the enclosure. I being thinking you resistant to the anti-travel injections. Don’t being worried, I making it closed again.”
“Enclosure?”
“I being from another planet. We abduct your town for observing 200 hundred human years ago. That being 2 of our years. We making enclosure, so real none of you realising. I being learning your language. You being thinking my talking is awesome?”
“Er, yes your English is… awesome.”
“My colleagues being talking, saying I am too close to humans. Now you being knowing everything I having to keep you like pet. Sorry. Will you still being in my friendzone? I observe you like pyramids, I can take you.”
“Yes I think we can be in the friendzone together,” I say.
The other day I was complaining that no one had taken any notice of my story paper cranes that I left all around the city. Well today I found these boats. I took a moment to inspect them and saw they are for “walking borders” which seems to be a refugee rights art project. It really brightened the street so here is my story:
Rupert the rabbit had inherited a large plush rabbit hole. When storms came most rabbits got washed out, but not Rupert, his home was perfect. One year the storm season was particularly bad.
He watched over the valley as sodden rabbits with droopy ears slowly made their way to higher ground. He felt uncomfortable that they were getting so close. This was his land.
In the morning the storm had worsened and rabbits were now lining up near his home. They asked to come in and share the warmth but Rupert couldn’t let everyone in, they wouldn’t fit.
He turned around and did not come out till night. He thought they would have given up by then, but when he emerged there were double the rabbits, all still waiting to be let in.
“Go away!” he shouted as a crack of thunder rent the air.
And with that, they did. For a huge torrent of water rushed toward them and swept them all up. Rupert suddenly felt his first pang of guilt.
This was his fault, he had to save them. The first thing he came across was a childrens toy boat his parents had found. It was an heirloom but it might just work. He rode it along the water, down into the valley and collected as many rabbits as he could.
Rupert no longer lives alone, the other rabbits helped him burrow extensions. Rupert and his new family patrol the valley during storm season looking for rabbits who need help.
I visited a cave today and watched the light dancing across the rocky ceiling.
People think the lights that dance above creeks in on the rocks are just reflections. But they are rave fairies. To their ears, the noise of water bouncing off rocky caves is the funkiest beat. They follow it across the world and never stop dancing.
The other day when I did the paper crane story drop, I tried throwing a crane from up high onto a food court table. It fell straight onto a girl’s shoulder and her and friend looked at it. I was so excited! But instead they just watched it fall the floor and kept talking. This kind of thing has happened to me a lot during the challenge- some people are open to these types of surprises and some people won’t even see them.
It used to make me angry- how can people not be curious! Why don’t they question a paper crane with “read me” falling from the sky? But I think I must let this go- sometimes these things will work out perfectly like sending the letter to a stranger, and sometimes they won’t. That’s what makes spontaneous story writing fun- there is an element of chance and danger. I always wanted to be an “extreme writer”- the Bear Grylls of the writing world.
Being a lion statue can be dull. It was hard only being able to prowl at night when the court was empty. Hen liked to make it interesting. When people came to touch her cold stone back she would purr, just ever so quietly. Most people didn’t even hear it but some people would smile. Look into her colourless eyes inquisitively and pat her more. Then she would curl her lip and they would either have a beautiful moment of connection or run a mile. Either way was fun.
At the start of the challenge I sent a story to a strangers letterbox. She is no longer a stranger and her art has inspired many stories since. This will be the last Bonnie inspired story.
I was born without some of my brain. I can’t remember names or faces. For a long time I was lost. But one day I found a worm. She seemed to understand my problems and cpuld tell me what was going on. She told me that she wished she had legs so she could see the world. Now she is a permanent resident in my hat. She tells me what’s going on and I carry her around. She is my guide worm, and and I am her guide human we are happy together travelling the world.
It’s time for another story drop! Today in paper crane form. I’ve been supervising an exam all day and enjoying the feeling of having to just sit quietly and people watch for hours. It gave me this idea:
I saw a girl fold a crane out of paper. I watched her, too afraid to talk to speak. When I got home I had memorised the sequence, so I folded my own crane.
I told it how I was too nervous to talk to her and that all I could do was sit in silence and admire. I had always done this, I learnt to speak Vietnamese from watching my neighbours but never spoke to them. I learnt knitting from the old lady across the road but never said a word. I wished I had a friend who understood, I told the crane as I folded another smaller one.
The next day I found I had not 2 cranes but three. The original paper crane I had made appeared to be folding a forth. It must have been watching me yesterday, too afraid to speak, just like me.
Which I then folded into cranes and left around the city.
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(plus one that I couldn’t take a photo of – because I looked to creepy- on a plastic life sized dog’s head in a pj shop).
This painting has been in my house for years and it’s blurred into the background- I almost don’t see it anymore. But today I looked at it in a new light- it could be my story trigger!
The flying eyes can be deadly and watch out for their fight whistle, my mum tells me after dinner.
I ask for seconds. She gags into my beak for a while, but she can’t bring up anything. She tells me I’ll have to start collecting for the smaller ones. She can barely find enough food for me as it is. Her wing is hurt and she can’t fly far enough. I look around the nest at my unhatched siblings.
A week later my siblings emerge and I know it is time. Gliding around is wonderful, I take a dip through the clouds. As I emerge, I see an eye ahead and hear the whistling. I fly beneath the cover of clouds for a while hoping to get rid of it. A moment later the whistling gets louder and it flies straight through the cloud nearly knocking me over. It slows and begins to dig in the cloud as if it is earth revealing a nest. There are tiny eyes in it that remind me of my siblings.
They open their mouths and blow at the big ones belly, now I can see it is filled with tiny tubes that make noise when the wind passes through them. The big one unloads some food from it’s arm and the little ones eat. It looks delicious, I sigh, wishing I had some. Suddenly they all look at me. The big one speaks.
Are you hungry?
Yes
Then take some, fellow eye. There is more below in the valley, I can show you where to go.
I’m not an eye, I’m a bird.
That whistle you made just now, it sounded like a call.
I sigh again.
That’s it. You’re a natural.
Why do you whistle? I thought it was a fight call.
Because we are blind. We find each other by the whistle our bodies make as we fly. The eye is just there to keep predators away.
She shows me the best place for food and my family is never hungry again.
If you remember this– from start of my challenge gold star! It’s been sitting in my house for 288 days now, shrivelling up. Today – because it is the last month of the challenge – I decided to return the seed pod to where it came from.
It then gave me this idea.
The oldest scroll in the public Book House has been stolen over 340 times. It’s huge, heavy and worth millions. They say the Book House has a fierce spirit that searches for the scroll and brings the thief to justice.
Han thinks this is a tale made up to stop the book being stolen. A Book House can’t have a spirit. One day takes the scroll. His plan is to sell it, but he figures he may as well read it before getting the money. It is a disjointed story of kings, slaves, monks, cooks and children, the writing styles are all different and there is no main plot. He decides it would be funny to add his own story into it before he sells it.
He writes all night. He’d almost stamped out the memories of being left on the street or being beaten by the baker where he used to work. In the morning as he heads to the market to sell it to a private book House, he finds himself walking straight back to the Book House. He’s very attached to the book now, he wants other people to understand him, laugh at his jokes, feel his grief and know why he steals.
As he puts the scroll back on the shelf of the House, he understands. The Book House does not have a spirit. These tales are just everyday people who want to be understood. That is why the book always returns, to be read.
Today I am exhausted and fell asleep several times trying to write this.
The people were placid as they followed the chief’s horrific orders. They cleared, jailed and killed those in their path without a fight. Every time they thought about leaving, their eyelids drooped, their minds dulled and they fell into a deep sleep. The slumbering were carried as they moved through villages.
One young girl in particular was almost always being carried. She was rarely awake for more than a day. Her body was wasted away but her mind was strong. She had been training for years. Every time she woke, she would think about leaving, trying to beat her record of conciousness.
When the chief finally asked her to kill for the first time, she ran away from camp, just managing to keep her eyes open. He found her in a nearby forest and tortured her. She slept through the entire thing and so did the people. They took her example and there was a mass sleep. The chief watched their unconscious bodies wither from thirst and hunger.
But before they starved, their minds grew strong. Together they shook off the chief’s spell. Now he is imprisoned by the people, his eyes dry and his mind buzzing, never able to sleep again.
Foot to the floor we sped toward the ramp. The car became airborn. Camping gear jumbled around as the ferry ramp began to close. But the tyres hit the floor of the deck just in time. We smashed into the cars parked in front. Car alarms rent the air and my toothbrush slid under the car in front. I picked it up as I got out and like Indiana Jones picking up his hat, I put it in my mouth proudly before exchanging insurance details with the other car owners.
I’ve been staying on an island and today we nearly missed the boat back home. It was a mad drive to the barge which we just made before they left. It was like an Indiana Jones scene – I kept thinking about what would have happened if you tried moves like his in real life.
I was sitting under this for shade today and met the man Kris who helped make it. He made it with a large community group out of basket weaving and bark.
The air turtle patrolled their community. It would ask the sun to shine for them, though it wasn’t hard, the sun is a bit of a show off. And it would convince the grumpy clouds to rain when they needed it most.
One day the clouds were feeling very bloated. The hail they were carrying felt heavy and uncomfortable. They threatened to unleash it on the community but the air turtle pleaded with them. The small bark huts might not withstand it. But the clouds couldn’t hold on any longer.
The turtle flew underneath the clouds and let the hail shatter on it’s back to save them.
When the clouds had cleared the community was safe but the air turtle landed with a thud. Its shell had been broken.
The community cried for weeks tending to the turtle’s every need but they could not repair the shell. Until one day the old basket weaver had an idea.
The turtle roams the sky once more clad in an intricate basket weave and the clouds even apologised.
Bodie told me he has explosive hiccoughs today.
He had been hiccoughing for years. He got teased at school, kicked out of lectures for being too loud and his first kiss was a disaster. He wondered why he had been cursed with this affliction. He’d gotten very good at suppressing them but he’d never be rid of them completely. One day he decided he wouldn’t hide them any longer. He embraced the urge and let out one huge hiccough. It was so forceful it launched him into the clouds and he could fly around for quite a time if he continued to hiccough, and with that he left the teasing behind.
Today I discovered this: zoomquilt.org
It’s amazing.
“Ouch, there’s something in my eye,” he says. “Can you take a look?”
I look in his eye, there are buildings, tiny trees and even a little monkeys swinging around, no wonder it hurts. Before I can say anything, he starts jabbing around in his eye.
I swear I can hear little screams.
~
I’m picking fleas off Ooo’s back. I look at his hair closely it looks like there is a little temple perched upon his spine. But I don’t get another chance to look at it because suddenly the ground tips and we are both screaming.
~
I’m meditating, looking at the bowl of water in front of me. I can see a reflection, it looks like there is a tiny sea monster eating swimming around. I look again but the water is vibrating, I can feel the entire temple shaking.
~
I tell him to stop jabbing, he’ll hurt his eye. I take another look, the little monkeys have stopped screaming. I tell him there’s nothing in there, except a whole world.
“You’re sweet,” he says. “I like you.”
We kiss.
~
We hug. I am careful not to touch the temple on his back.
~
I pick the bowl up and try to scoop the monster back into the water.
Got a tweet last night:
Ahhh time to try the walking again. I’m so excited! One day you might even be good enough to do one by yourself. Hurry up, strap onto me so you don’t get lost.
Keep up! Today I am going to pull extra hard, just to make it that little bit more challenging for you. Hmm, you still don’t want to go fast. I get it, don’t feel down on yourself, I’ve got twice as many legs as you.
Is that kid “woofing” at me? Make him stop, it’s so patronising, he completely doesn’t understand the subtleties of this ancient language. You’re not even stopping him! I’m not allowed to bark at strangers, why should he?
Hey look, a dead pigeon! What a find! Here can you carry it? I have to admit those arm things you have can come in handy.
Fine, don’t take it. You’re always so fussy. You know those tins at home are full of dead things too you know? You can be so frustrating sometimes! That fence you built isn’t high enough you know, I can jump it. I could leave anytime and then you’ll never learn how to walk properly!
What’s that you’re doing? Ah you’ve found a lovely stick! Oh you’ve dropped it. Here let me get that for you. Oh you’ve dropped it again. I’ve got it, here you go. I’m sorry I said I’d leave, you wouldn’t make it on your own. I’m here, don’t worry.
At the start of the year I met with my old writing lecturer, Susan (read full story here). Today I met again with her to ask her how to survive after this challenge. She said “tenacity”. In the dictionary the first definition for tenacity is the ability to grip something tightly.
No one knows exactly what is on the island, but anyone that manages to get in never comes back. It was rumoured to get in, you must prove our tenacity by hang on to a rope dangling over the water for as long as you can. The safekeepers of the island will then judge whether you have enough to enter or not. Some people believed this to be the path to great riches but most thought it was a fairytale and a sure fire way to be eaten by barbarians.
Lu was born without arms and lived on the street. She hated begging and stealing. The only thing she liked doing was imagining the island, the way trees might look and the smell of the grass. One day she decided she had nothing to lose. So she stole a small fishing boat early in the morning started the engine with her teeth.
When she arrived two children came to meet her.
“We are the safekeepers.”
“But you’re kids,” Lu said.
“We are the wisest. Would you like to live on the island or not?”
“Yes,” answered Lu.
The two children looked at the space where Lu’s arms would be.
“Er, you know the deal with the rope don’t you?” one asked.
“I still have tenacity,” said Lu. “I can grip things with my mind.”
Lu began to describe how she had imagined the island.
“The bark on the trees have fingerprint patterns, the purple grass smells like rust after it has been washed with soap…”
At first the safekeepers just laughed, but ten hours later most of the island had come to watch her all through the night till her voice was just a husky whisper. One man even broke the rules to give her some water. She described for another day until the safekeepers spoke.
“We see you have much tenacity, welcome.”
When Lu walked through the gates. Everything looked just as she had imagined.
“How could I be right?” she asked.
“The island is what you imagine, most people just see a generic city with money or cars,” answered a safekeeper.
“Yeah all I see is a bunch of trampolines,” said the other.
Today I am on the train everything I am seeing out the window is dark and concrete.
Brian is a train driver. Everyday he goes through several dark and boring tunnels. One day in the small hours of the morning he begins to draw lines in chalk on the dark walls. It’s just stick figures but he is pleased that they will work as an animation as the train drives through. That morning the train is filled with oohs and ahhs. At first his employers gave him a warning, but after many packed trains they have given him a day off each week just to chalk.
I was looking at this wall sticker and it gave me an idea!
We are a wood tribe. Traditionally everything we own was made of wood, so we used to cut down a lot of trees. But long ago the trees began to adapt. They grew thinner and thinner. Nowadays our trees are all 2D. It stopped us from cutting them down, it was chaos at first.
We use the trees differently now. Our houses are just trees growing in strategic places, and they are much more obliging now. Most will even grow their branches into doors and windows if you treat them well enough.
I got a new phone and it is giant. I couldn’t seem to avoid it- they are all massive and I don’t really understand why.
You are not your phone, my mum used to tell me decades ago when I texted too much. Today my sim card is my wrist and hand can be turned to call or text mode. If I want to watch a video simply hold my palms apart and they generate a hologram screen. Everyone is a phone these days. Whenever I think of mum, I flick the switch on my arm and remember I am not only a phone.
Georgia donated this link (Ten of the best collective nouns) to me, and Chloe loves collective nouns.
I really liked “a misbelief of painters” which was named that because portrait painters earned their money off painting rich people in a flattering way (kind of like medieval photoshop).
A misbelief of painters filled the small pub with the paint fumes ingrained on their skin and clothes. Their voices were a quiet murmur, but if you listened close you could hear them speaking of the evil deeds their rich employers had done.
“I painted out a slave master’s warts,” piped up one.
“I made the rotund tax man into a handsome slender model,” said another.
They all agreed that their employers needed a reality check. So they devised a plan.
For the next few weeks the painters would ask to follow their employers around for a day, “to get a better sense of their true beauty.”
In their spare time, they painted normal people, the bar lady, the one legged farmer and the paper boy (who was in fact a girl).
All the paintings were displayed as an exhibition, and the misbelief of painters became known as the “true beauty see’ers”. Many of the ordinary people were painted as bright and beautiful creatures while most of the rich customers were painted in repulsive gory detail.
The painters are now very popular, and people come from all around to be “seen” by them. It is believed to be the ultimate test of character and many will not marry a person who receives an ugly portrait no matter how rich and beautiful they may be.
A man I met in a shop told me to write about a Yowie.
People do not understand Yowies. Yowies are protectors of the forest. Only one is born every 50 years. They are created by the biggest tree in the forest, and they live for an awfully long time. They must be trained by the plants and the animals before they can begin their job. They are as strong as a trunk, as loyal as roots, and have the natural instincts of all the animals in the forest.
Yowies are sent by the forest to pick up on the vibe of anyone who comes in. If they are friendly, the Yowie will report back to the big tree and she will send word through the root systems to protect that person. But if they are hostile, it is the Yowie’s job to scare them away. They get in the background of photos, make strange noises and sometimes grab at people’s feet.
I was explaining this project to Ross and said “people give me suggestions like ‘dog rockclimbing’ and then I write it” and then I just had to do it.
The other dogs said he couldn’t climb the building to steal the food. But he knew a master. He met the goat at the bottom of the mountain just outside of town and they trained in secret.
Now the city calls him the rooftop king.
Remember Jon? One of my mentors from earlier in the year (read here). We met up again today to talk about how I might survive the real world after locking myself away in the special world of the 365 Day Challenge. We basically concluded that I can just keep making more special worlds. I like this.
He suggested today’s story be about swallows, because he saw one fly off at the end of our meeting.
The two swallows had always sat patiently on my collarbones. I got them because they were a symbol of freedom and travel. Barn swallows travel all the way from England to South Africa every year. It almost felt cruel that they were trapped, forever sedentary on my skin.
One day I woke up to find them gone. I was disturbed but even more disturbed when my housemate burst into my room screaming that two swallows had appeared on her back overnight.
I couldn’t convince her that it wasn’t a prank I had pulled. I asked to have another look, they might suit her. But when she lifted her shirt they were gone.
We ran out onto the street and saw an old lady with swallows on her ankles, and a small child with swallows on his rosy cheeks. I smiled, they had found a way to free themselves and do what they knew best. The next week the news was filled with reports of swallow tattoos appearing on people all over South Africa.
She lives off the kindling of ideas and the spark of connection between minds. She wouldn’t exist without the people who kindly give her fragments of their brain. She is very grateful and wants to thank everyone. So she decides to burn in all different colours and she puffs embers into the atmosphere like tiny stars, hoping this is enough to thank everyone for not letting her extinguish.
A small story to say thanks to you and the next stories are going to be fun and varied. If you have any ideas for more creative ways of doing stories please tell me. I’m thinking more random story drops and stories hanging from trees…
I got the word “creep” in pictionary. This is what I drew:
Jules cannot walk. He only creeps. It’s not his fault. He was born with that walk, the drooling and glasses are his own choice. He decided he would accentuate what nature gave him.
Today I built some of my favourite characters… Avatar Aang and Appa (and Momo too)…
I’ve always liked the idea of having a giant creature follow me round as a friend/helper.
We live on the swamp because we were driven out of our hometown by war. It’s hard to get around on the swamp, it can be sticky and slow. We used to envy the Nuzzler’s who flew above us only stopping to graze on the plants that broke to the surface. Nuzzlers are as old as the swamp and they are wise.
When I was born my parents left me out in the swamp to sink, they couldn’t feed another child. But a Nuzzler flew down from the sky and pushed me out of the swamp with her nose. We never left each other’s side after that. She would fly me to the greenest bits of the swamp to get food for my family. And now everyone leaves their babes in the swamp.
It has become the choosing ceremony. Nuzzler’s never let a babe die. No one goes anywhere without a Nuzzler. We are bonded forever.
Today I am thanking Sean- another mentor to me this year.
She’d built a huge pile of words. They were a good pile of words, but she wasn’t sure exactly what to do with them. One day the word architect visited. He chiselled off a word here and there.
She watched apprehensively, he didn’t rearrange much. But when he’d finished, she realised the word pile now had turrets and a door she’d never noticed before.
This story is for Geoff (one of my mentors for this project) to say thanks for all the help. He is always talking about “knowing one’s self” so I am running with that idea.
We’re kept apart as much as possible when we are small. We are told that we must know ourselves before we can understand others. The big ones tell us it is so we can be our unique selves. Not be tainted by others.
I try to know myself. I try different foods, different hobbies, different readings. I still feel there is something missing. They tell me I am not ready, I don’t know myself. I feel alone. I wonder if I am the only one who feels like this.
One day I see some other small ones from next door. I try to talk to them but a big one leads me away. That night I sneak out and find the other small ones. We talk into the morning. They are lonely too.
I try food I’ve never heard of, hear thoughts I don’t agree with and play games. I feel better.
At first the big ones are angry with us, but then one looks at me closely.
“He’s ready, they helped him,” says the big one.
Small ones are encouraged to interact now.
“How long will they keep us on the juicer?” asked a new youngling.
“I’ve been here a long time,” I tried to comfort him.”If you have enough ideas they won’t throw you in the pit.”
I’d always believed this to be true, but I’d never seen anyone survive the juicer for as long as me. Everyone goes to the pit eventually, but I was going to change all that. The youngling was crying now.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s alright here, take a look around. There’s nice showers, and we always get fed.”
He stops crying and looks around. I remember when I was a youngling it was hard to find food with no elders around. I can still taste the first meal I ever had in the juicer.
“Will you be my friend?” the youngling asks.
“Of course,” I say. “I’ll look after you.”
The next day I wake to find myself being carried by a hand. I am headed to the pit.
“No!” I yell at the giant. “I still have ideas!”
I rack my brain but nothing comes.
“You served us well,” says the giant. “But everyone is born with a finite amount of ideas.”
The giant drops me. The pit is worse than I’d imagined. Everyone is weak with hunger and the smell of rotting bodies is thick.
One of my old friends from the juicer flings herself onto me.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I never thought I’d see you here, but I guess the pit gets everyone in the end.”
“I’m hungry,” I say.
“There’s no food.”
“Well lets look for a way out.”
“There’s none.”
“Have you tried?”
“No. What are we supposed to do? There are no ideas down here.”
She was right. I’d failed, the giants had taken all my ideas. There was nothing I could do now.
But that night I have an idea. What if the giant’s were wrong? What if we were just assuming they were right and disregarding our ideas in the pit.
It’s a small idea, but an idea nonetheless. This proved the giants were wrong. I hadn’t failed, I could still change everything.
Sometimes I still get scared that I have a finite number of ideas and that I am using them all up- this story is inspired by that fear.
Yesterday I wrote a story inspired by a dream I had. Today my dad told me about the only dream he actually remembers – his name was Khan and he walked… people called him “walking Khan.” That’s all he remembers- he has no idea what else happened or why.
My parents were proud squirmers, they used to tell me about how their ancestors lived in had to stay in the sea and the great “land revolution.” They’d tell me how learning to squirm was the best thing that ever happened to us, because now we could go between land and sea.
But I was a freak. I couldn’t swim well and I certainly never squirmed. I was born with legs, at least that’s what I called them. They were like my parents fins but they were bonier, and had little flat pads to balance on (I called them feet).
I was very self concious of it when I was young but now I am older, it’s my defining feature. People even call me “walking Khan” (walking is what I’ve called the way I move about). Even though I’m not a great swimmer I’m very fast on land. I go for long walks into the land and tell the others what is beyond the shore. Many of the squirmers now want to be just like me.
Today I handed in my honours exegesis with links to this website. It’s going to be marked!
I feel a lot like Mulan in this clip (only replace the old ladies with academics, replace the grooming with editing/reading, and change the words to “you’ll bring honours to us all!”)
It feels scary and a little anticlimactic.
Also, last night I had a dream that there was a floating road made of sand that led straight to the sun. So I’m combining these two ideas for my story today.
People had lived in the sands for thousands of years. I’d always loved the way the sand moved. Everyday I woke to a new landscape. There were new mountains to explore but everything was still somehow familiar.
One day I awoke to find a ramp that seemed to be leading to the sun. It was beautiful and that day everyone enjoyed playing on it and pretending to touch the sun. But the next morning it was still there.
Every night the wind would howl, but always, the ramp grew larger. People started basing religions off the ramp. They thought it meant all kinds of things, usually involving the end of the world or the start of new one. And the ramp continued to grow, stretching up to the sun.
They say the sun is building it, so she can walk down to meet us. They say it will happen tomorrow. I am scared.
But in the morning when I wake up, its gone. It’s very anticlimactic. People are devastated that the sun hasn’t come down from the heavens to meet us. But I am glad that I get to see new landscapes again, and that I won’t have to shake the sun’s fiery hand.
Today it is my dear friend Kait’s birthday. A group of girls went out for breakfast with her this morning to celebrate and ended up having some of the most inappropriate breakfast conversations of all timez. Kait suggested I write about it- and since she is the birthday girl here it is:
They’re called the ‘breakfast ladies,’ and they are natural enemy of the cafe. The two tiny old ladies can be found creeping around cafe strips early in the morning. Equipped with only their frail bodies and their delicate handbags, they can clear an entire cafe. Conversation is their weapon of choice, they know no bounds. Masters of description, they paint every bowel movement, bunion and pustule in vivid phrases. So beware. Do not be fooled by their white wispy hair and soft frail bodies, their tongues are knives and they will carve your business up.
Jasper was an explorer. He trudged through thousands of words just find a new phrase.
Tear sucking
Wonder deficit
Eye Flakes
Teeth bending
Biting optimism
Wilted love
Sleeping gusto
and his favourite
giggle nubs
He felt his work was a serious matter but no one else seemed to agree. They laughed their way through his sold out seminars. Years later, after Jasper died. A memorial was built for him. They were the happiest and most literate town in the world. It turned out laughing was a serious matter.
Today I considered my tools: words.
I’d been playing a game where I come up with disgusting phrases made from seemingly innocuous words (eg. crumbly tongue, juicy toilet and toe milk)
freyawrightbrough 