Writind Drills: Random Word Genorators

      Drills are a seriously underrated part of creative writing. They're great mind- and style-stretching exercises, prompting you to explore things you’d never try on your own. Whether you've got writers block, a procrastination problem, or just a bad case of brain-fluff, writing prompts are great for clearing out the muck and get back on track, but aren't so all-consuming that you can't go back to your current work in progress when you're through.

      There are a lot of ways to go about prompt writing. My favorite method of late has been the random word generator. Let me explain:

Short Stories - Eyes of the Moon

(A stab at ancient, poetic prose) 

     Thick the scent of baked green things rises heavy from the earth. Light hangs low and dusky over the fields, warming the bows of trees and brushing the grasses in painted gold. But the hour grows late, and the glory is fading.

     Low the light falls, softer grow the shadows, ‘till all is grey with dusk.

Prompt Writing - The Harp

 

     The kits rampaged through the room, bouncing off the walls and ceiling, tallons taking chunks out of anything softer than stone. The bard made a mental note to thank the man who had removed all the furniture. The broods' mother was turning flustered circles in the middle of the room, snarling and barking at the pack with little effect. She was putting dents in the stone and looked ready to put the whole place up in flames if it would only get the young ones' attention. She kept looking at the bard with an exasperated expression he didn't understand. It was making him uncomfortable.

Short Stories - Warbird

The old war bird was quite ready for retirement by the time it went down.  It had almost considered going down on purpose already, but it cared too much for its crew for that.  They had taken care of him for a long time after all—custom paint jobs, constant tune up, even came up with a team logo to slap on his side.  Dropping out of the air on a whim seemed like a rude way to go after all of that. So he had held out, waiting for the day when something would inevitably go wrong and he would be scrapped.  Only then would he start his long anticipated retirement—hopefully as a household refrigerator. He had heard good things about household refrigerators.

As it turned out, though, things didn't go that way.  His career ended quite suddenly one night somewhere off the coast of Australia.

Terrible turbulence, rain, then a pop from the engines—down he went into the water and that had been that. He wasn't sure what had happened to his masters, swam away hopefully, and there he was left to get along as best as he may.

Now there are fish in the cargo bay—live ones, not rations—and crabs living under the seats.  Every day at three o'clock sharp an octopus turns nobs on the dashboard because it can, and fluorescent snails crawl over his cracked batteries because it makes them feel jittery.  It turned out to be quite a fair place for an old war bird to retire. The perfect place to rust in peace.

Maybe even better than being a refrigerator.

Short Story: Kites

      The wind was up, whipping the bay into a frothy mess; any ships that knew what was good for them were tied to the docks, bobbing around like multicolored rubber ducks.  Out on the horizon a mound of grayish fluff was rolling in, the first sign of the bad weather the port was in for that evening.  That wasn't stopping the kiters, though.

       Roelly and Grace sat on the roof, their legs dangling over the edge, watching the fantastical shapes dance in the stiff wind.  The sky was crowded, dangerously so, but the fliers were too experienced for mishaps.

       "Does this happen every time there's a storm?" asked Grace.
       "The kites? Yeah.  Right up until it rains. sometimes even through the rain if there's no lightning," answered Roelly.

Short Stories- Adventures in Nightwatching

Nora awoke in a black closet, her foot in a mop bucket and the bristles of a broom digging into her back.

The first thought to cross her mind was: 'you have got to be kidding me'. The second: 'I don't think that bucket is all the way empty.'

She squirmed in the confined space, trying to get her sodden boot out of the bucket. All she managed to do, though, was dump its contains all over the floor and knock the corresponding mop on top of herself.  She gave up on that and fumbled for the handle of the door instead, only to find it was locked from the outside.

Brilliant.