Month: March 2014

It’s the last day of Mentor March and I am incredibly excited to write about my last mentor… Gemma Seltzer.

I was told about London based author, Gemma Seltzer, last year when the idea of this project was just a vague dream. She had started out writing a story every day for 100 days based on interactions with strangers and posted it to a blog (speaktostrangers.co.uk/). It was so successful she has often asked to re-create it in different cities and even written for the TATE Modern. She was young and she had started out with just a self run blog… something clicked in my brain and I decided then and there that my vague dream would become a concrete reality. The idea that had always seemed overwhelming and distant suddenly seemed like a real option. 

So last week I decided to email her and ask her for advice and a prompt. And on the weekend I got a beautiful reply…

“I’m so pleased you found something in my work that inspired you too – that’s made my day,” it began. “From a browse of your site, I can see you have loads of energy and a great range in your writing. What a lovely project, because it’s about real life and people as much as it’s about good writing.” 

I was so chuffed! She also told me to write in different places around Brisbane- explore every aspect of it. I think this is a really great idea and I will be using it as my theme for next month (April).

Lastly she gave me a challenge “Write your story on a piece of paper, fold it into an plane and let it go in a crowd.”

So I wrote a story and folded it up…

It mustered its courage and leapt into a gust of wind, hoping to ride it smoothly to its destination. Alas it was only a few turbulent seconds before its bleached pulpy wings gave out and it took a nose dive toward the pavement below.

With only discarded chewing gum for company, it lay crumpled on the ground. But then a hand smoothed its wings and launched it into the air once more. This time it flew for a good while, and when it faltered another hand caught it. Its journey continued on like this until it wasn’t sure which way it was going, or if it was even facing the right direction.  

When it finally came to rest, it looked around, disorientated. Then, a face slid into focus, and it realised it had found its destination. The inky cargo was delivered in perfect reading condition.

I’ve been studying in the library all day so I’m basing my story off the only mentor I’ve had today… Richard Grusin- the author of my reading (“What is an Electronic Author? Theory and the Technological Fallacy”) I’ve taken the words “Electronic Author” on behalf of Grusin and set them as my prompt words. 

Constantly awake

Pounding the keyboard

Recording every millisecond of consciousness

Noting every lonely question  

Extracting thoughts

Spinning them into intricate webs

Filling them away

The electronic author of our story

I’m not feeling the best today and my assessment, life and work all seem to be burring me. 

Reaching boiling point

She stirs occasionally

So close to spilling

My dad told me just to keep everything on the boil, stir occasionally and eventually some pots can come off the stove. You don’t always have to be on top of everything, sometimes just keeping everything from spilling is an achievement. 

I thought of this little story on the plane home to Brisbane today.

I sat next to an old man on the plane. He said the secret to being happy was to time everything to perfection. I shut my eyes and only awoke when his head drooped onto my shoulder. I checked his pulse as the plane plummeted.    

My Melbourne friend Meadhbh gave me a good word today: Quaff. I thought of some other good eating words (as eating is all I have been doing in Melbourne) and came up with this:

She quaffed fads, guzzled self help and wolfed down make up when just nibbling on a few words exchanged between friends would have filled her right up.

My uncle gave me a prompt today: “Fluffy Bunny Slippers.” Written in my lunch break. 

Johnny had little tiny feet

And on those tiny feet were little tiny rabbits

And on those tiny rabbits were little tiny mouths

They squeaked little bits of guidance to little tiny Johnny

Told him where to put his little tiny feet

Now little tiny Johnny lives in a little tiny kingdom

A slave to the little tiny rabbit society

I guess not all mentors are good ones, rabbits especially.

Today I was lucky enough to pin down the amazingly busy, multitalented networking exrtrodinaire, Meg Vann, for a quick meeting. As the CEO of the Queensland Writers Centre and an author herself I thought she would be a perfect mentor for Mentor March… And she was:

I asked her to explain one of her strengths in the hopes she could pass it on to me. Her answer was ridiculously simple and elegant: “curiosity.” She explained that the reason her writing is always improving and evolving is her curiosity because it leads her to experiment and question. By the same token, her natural curiosity about others has meant she is great at building relationships and connections. 

I made a mental note to always follow my curiosity and then asked her how she thought new writers improve. I was thrilled to hear that experimentation and exploring new publishing platforms were her top tips (I ticked them off in my mind). And then she told me “be a good literary citizen and you will have good publishing karma.” Eg. supporting other writers and being a helpful part of the writing community.

I suddenly felt that urgent feeling you get when you realise you’ve left the oven on. I’ve been so caught up with asking others for help and writing for myself that that I have completely neglected this aspect of being a writer. I made another mental note (this time in big red metaphorical letters to address this in next month’s theme). 

Lastly I asked for a story prompt and she gave me a devilishly tricky but fantastic prompt. She said “play with something on the edge of meaning, something readers can all interpret differently and read into individually.”

Well, it took me a few solid hours and a lot of staring at the screen to come up with something I was happy with. And that turned out to be nonsense: I decided to make up some of my own words so that you can imagine your own meanings and be part of creating the story. 

Ravenosity had got the better of her. She inhauled whole chaoters of brainfillers, but they weavled their way inside and laid sparkpods in her extrapolatory. They grew into huge solidicals that gunked up her percepilators. Now she pictuments differently; defracted forever but able to unmuck new jointuns.

To find out more about Meg, please go to: http://wp.me/oBwP

Today’s prompt another from Cinnamon. “Echoing Halls” My brain feels a little bit broken today so it’s only a sentence. 

The King never listened and the Queen hated repeating herself, so she built chambers that echoed to teach him.

Cinnamon gave me “the sound of boredom” 

Horace considers himself an amateur recluse. He wanted to be a professional recluse, but that would imply he was staying in to perfect a fine art. Instead he stayed in to avoid people. Occasionally, he would play the trumpet to ease the boredom. He didn’t want to get lessons, so he taught himself.

During his practice sessions the villagers would sidle up to the windows and listen. Word spread quickly and he acquired a cult following. Bus loads of people would turn up in the hopes of hearing him through the walls.

Horace was becoming increasingly confused. He wanted to ask them why they were coming? It couldn’t be to to hear his random toots (he still hadn’t got past Trumpet for beginners on YouTube). Eventually he worked up the courage to ask the growing crowd. It turned out they thought he was recluse musician, pioneering a new genre of abstract jazz.

The beast lolloped through toward her. Anxiety wept from its pores spilling onto the carpet and the stink of desperation filled the foyer. It lifted a paw to bat away the stray concepts buzzing around its head. She held her breath as it came to a stop in front of her desk.

“I’ve lost my references,” it howled.

“Take a seat,” she said calmly opening tabs like shields and drawing up the database like a sword.

Librarians are highly skilled when it comes to taming wild students. 

I decided to ask a Librarian for a prompt, given they are the guardians of thousands of stories. At first, like most people she drew a blank. But soon she came up with “meltdown & students,” laughing and explaining they get a lot of that at the help desk. 

“Patience” is today’s prompt as given to me by my mentor and mum Sue Wright. She said a mentor of hers taught her the art of patience. 

Scars and a docked tail etched the dog’s upbringing onto it’s body. The woman read the story as she watched it’s small frame quaking in the corner of the room. 

From that night onward their routine was set, always staring cautiously from opposite corners. The woman never cracked but eventually the dog inched closer. Each night he would settle himself just a margin closer to her than the last.

Now the two are old. They’ve never touched, but the dog follows by her side wherever she goes. 

In the spirit of mentor march I decided to ask my nanna for some words. She is the fastest reader on the planet, and loves stories. She gave me “essential existence.”

The boy’s racking cough echoed through the ward. Pamela tried to hide her shaking hands as she hooked him up to an air mask. Her first week at the hospital was not proving easy. Tears were welling in the mother’s eyes.

“Is he going to be alright?”

“Yes, 90% of our patients are pollution sufferers.” Pam replied trying to sound reassuring. “Most people just need a few hours break in the air bar.”

“I should have worked that overtime,” the mother said. “I could have gotten him more bottles of essential existence.”

“Mum, we needed the money for food,” said the boy. “Please don’t cry.”

Pam watched the two embrace, and thought about her own family. Her parents had paid for an in-home Essential Existence air system. But working in the emergency ward she could see most people were not so lucky.

Pam looked out the window. The smog was fairly sparse today, she could almost see the Essential Existence office in the next street.

“I’l be right back,” Pam said.

She hurried to the staff room, flung open her locker and emptied it of bottled Essential Existence. They deserved it more than she did. It wasn’t a smart solution but it was the only thing that would make this day bearable.

I asked my dad for a prompt- he looked at the sky and said “Red clouds.”

Clouds soaked in red sun

A quiet time to reflect

The sky my mentor

It’s my 100th story today! It was somewhat anticlimactic to write it at work in my lunch break. Thanks to my boss Rob who I asked to give me two words for my story- he replied “super hero.”

He gave me 100 days to live. I spent the first 99 wallowing, with only movies for company. Reality was distant and the characters became my teachers. 

On the last day, I decided to live out a childhood dream. I’d already regressed this far, so why not? 

Armed with only a costume and a wasted body I hit the streets looking for a damsel in distress. Unfortunately I only found a drunk old man. As I heroically saved him from his own vomit, I heard a voice.

“Hey, poofta!”

I woke up in hospital the next day, to the sound of a TV news report. 

“The city’s superhero is said to be in a stable condition.”

A picture of me in my hand sewn superhero onesie stared back at me from the screen. I’d made it. I’d lived past the hundred days the palm reader had given me, and now I was a bonefide superhero as well.

Prompt: (unfortunately not from a stranger today) “with all these musical gifts passed on to me…” 

With all these musical gifts passed on to me, I decided to lock them up.

I saved them for a rainy day. 

So when it poured; music would rush through the gutters.

It would soak into people’s clothes,

And stain their vision so they didn’t see the rain anymore.

I bought a new bag today, after I’d paid I asked the girl for two words to write today’s story. It wasn’t even scary at all. She said ‘delightful’ and ‘sunshine’. 

The Sun was tired of burning. It itched and the noise was distracting. Alone and angry at the universe, it spent most of its time spitting flames at passing rocks. One day, a neighbouring star told the Sun that thousands of tiny creatures depended on those flames. As it thought about this the burning cooled and the itch stopped. The Sun renamed the flames ‘sunshine’.

*WARNING NOT A ZOMBIE STORY*

Yesterday a woman sat down next to me on the bus and started a polite conversation. As it went along a thought hit me, I could ask this stranger for an idea. There was a lull in conversation: this was my chance. And I don’t know if it was because I’m introverted or shy or lazy, but I said nothing.

The longer I left it, the more my mouth felt as if it was glued shut. I found myself repeating my starting line over and over in my head. Then finally, I spat it out and asking was easy. She turned out to be a creative writing teacher for people with mental health problems, so I’ve taken that as my prompt. 

It was as if the city had been sleeping for years and had just woken up. The nightmare had been violent and the memories were still vivid. Peace felt surreal and people wandered aimlessly through its streets looking for lost loved ones. Tourists labelled it the “zombie town”, scared of its tortured citizens. 

So the Mayor bought paper in bulk and ordered every person to spill their thoughts onto it. Then she folded them up and posted them across the world, so their burden could be shared.

The zombie town was no more. The people felt understood and their problems seemed distant. 

Tanwyn posted a link to “20 Terrifying 2 Sentence Horror Stories” on my facebook the other day (http://www.mandatory.com/2014/02/21/20-terrifying-two-sentence-horror-stories/). 

I think my favourite was no. 13 from JustAnotherMuffledVo:

I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy, check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy, there’s somebody on my bed.”

So I decided to use these stories and writers as my inspiration/mentors and write my own 2 sentence horror today.

My profanity echoes around the lift as it shudders, stuck between floors. I lean against its mirrored wall in frustration and feel a cold hand grasp mine as my reflection smiles back at me.

Alright, throwback to India. During the wedding, we met this young girl (probably a future Bollywood star) who translated for us, taught us to dance and explained the Punjab customs. She was such a fantastic cultural guide, without her we would have been lost, so this story is about her.

Even though the crowd surrounded her, she was an outsider. Everything from the colour of her skin to the way she moved gave her away. Feeling a fraud, she copied their moves awkwardly.

Then a pair of eyes from the crowd caught her own, and she knew they understood. With a few explanations and a bit of encouragement, she didn’t feel a fraud anymore.