WRITING SURVIVAL!!!

[legomaestro]

Day 5  'Curry and Sons'

He bought the truck on a whim, really. Silicon Valley had burnt him out and he was sitting on more money than he'd ever need, and utterly unable to interest himself in doing more than turning on his computer and watching cat videos.

On one particular run to shop for a pile of energy drinks and chips, he saw the truck of his childood: Curry and Sons. It had a 'For Sale' cardboard on the front.  Memories rushed him. He knew for a fact that Curry and Sons was Remington Jr. before that, an Ice cream truck, and when he was 10 he and the boys always chased after it on bikes over the neighbourhood before ordering a prodigous amount of icecream as a sort of marathon.

He rememebered every stomach ache the overly-spicy food gave, could whistle the tune of the truck as it came down the neighbourhood.

Seemed like a good investment as any. Besides, he wasn't doing much.

He called the owner, named a fair price and was driving it down the neighbourhood he'd been in all his life. And for the first time in what felt like centuries, he had a smile on his face.

[legomaestro]

Day 6 'Well'

He was the last one still able to move his hands, the others were listless at the lip of the deep tunnel, still clutching the shovels they'd been using to dig the well.

They all trusted Dr. Cobalts' approximation. They had to. If they did not strike water the heat would take all 20 of them, and that would be that.

He kept on digging, and there was a blessing in the delirium that came with the heat. No longer could he even think of the unbearable thirst, his exhaustion. Everything was just a brightly lit monotone of shovelling at the earth, looking for that precious bead of water.

It took him several moments to realize his feet had lost purchase, that they were sinking in cool, cool water.

"W-water." He croaked. He looked up at his companions. They all had bug eyes, having seen what he'd seen.

He sank to his knees even as the well filled up, and it felt like sinking into the essence of life itself. He would cry if he could. Later, after they drank enough water perhaps.

For now he revelled in their collective salvation.

[legomaestro]

Day 7

Red Ball

Okazaki watched as his friends fell one by one. Permanently, finally. No goodbyes, and he understood how naive he had been, wishing to be caught up in battles of a galactic scale, because this was one of the moments where comrades he'd shared lifetimes with meant nothing in comparision to the task at hand.

He was charging an energy blast, and only his particular signature could finish the now crazed Undead God, a mutant mass of skeletal limbs and ligaments that was feeding right now on Cecelia, his sister.

Tears came to his eyes as the energy blast finally reached fruition: Timothy and Braden were still alive. Alice looked OK, but he wasn't sure. It didn't matter, he was ready, and no more would die at the hands of the abomination.

"HAAAH" He released the blast, it turned the very sky red, and the abomination shrunk in an approximation of fear before it was wiped away instantly. Destroyed on a subatomic level, reduced to less than ashes.
Okazaki fell to his knees, and hung his head in victory.

[Suuper-san]

nice work!!!!
just a random thought but you could make a couple of manga pages of each of these stories

amazing the range of ideas you have, what do you do for inspiration?

[legomaestro]

Oh yes I definitely look forward to at least using these stories to make characters, or a year-long blog for flash fiction every day hehe.

I still haven't nailed anything down on the inspiration front, but a sure fire method is always 2 random words that provide for an interesting scenario.


Day 1

Black Air

The megaships were only built with the greatest of stealth tech because they were built for the particular and difficult task of killing a sentient sun.

Due to the severity of the galactic protocol that The Sarak Coalition had done across the past millenia, The Enclose had to step in and wipe them out from the table: That meant sending in the megaships.

 They'd deep dive into the stars that held their particular galactic life in place, space and time and destroy them with well plased anti-matter mines.

Within 500 years every habiteable planet of note was going to be rendered useless, enough time to wait, plenty of time to imagine the next couple millenia that The Enclose would rule the universe.

[legomaestro]

Day 2 "Dimension Dive."

He took a cup of coffee, set the D-Square on his head and put a setting for a 30 Minute session. Enough for 300 iterations of the day.

He was a bit of a masochist in his explorations of the iterations of how his Monday would go. He would visit the dimensions of his worst possible selves, with at least one of them ending catastrophically in permanent injury/or death. It gave him the extra oomph to appreciate what he had in this current life, and he always made sure to end the sessions with his best possible iterations.

So he cheated on his wife and kids in one, his child got killed in another school massacre in the other, he drove off a bridge while playing Angry Birds on his phone, and cussed out his boss and knocked him out with a keyboard (a tooth flew, along with the keys) in another. In another he simply slept the entire day in his boxers and ate pizza in his bed, and his wifes' utter exasperation and digust cut perhaps even more deeper than the times she literally left him or died.

Then, experiencing the happier days of success, he slowly heard a beeping that told him his cycle was ending.

Thomas sighed, removed the D-Square and leaned back, finishing his coffee in peace before a smile appeared on his face. He was motivated to get through not only the day, but the week now.

He knew he should feel some vague sense of worry or concern for the other hims' that may exist in the other dimensions, but that was way above his interest, his pay grade, and abilities. For now, he was glad to have honest eyes into the multiverse of his existence.

It gave him insight. The device was totally worth the 10,000 dollar price tag. He pet it almost fondly before heading to the to the kitchen to make breakfast for all his kids, even as he went through the company reports and prepared to arrive guns-a-blazing in the office. Boss was going to love him too today.

[legomaestro]

Day 1 "Infinite Water"


Troy looked out at the ocean. It reflected the winter sun, and as he shivered there on his hill top, he almost thought it were beautiful.

The drowned looked like driftwood if he didn't think too much about it. They were wearing colourful hoodies, some were still in the process of drowning, and he was still in the process of trying to find a word for what he'd done. Sorry wasn't enough, when you accidentally drowned the planet while messing with an old book of spells.

He looked at the book now, and it still felt warm in his hands, it vibrated with magic. Whoever had stuck the old dusty tome in his little library had been a devil, perhaps, or a trickster.

He stood up and flipped through the pages of the book, looking for something to reverse the catastrophe that'd taken the better part of 20 minutes.

Apologies were pointless at this point, but he'd be damned if he didn't try to make things right for the rest of his life.

[legomaestro]

Day 2 "Time spent plenty"

I have no idea how she couldn't have aged a single bit from the last 20 years. We were both 60, for Christsake, and she almost still looked as she did back in our university days. It's not a face to forget. It just never was.

"Clarissa?" My hand froze at the cigarettes I'd been about to get, and she looked up at me, blinked once, then frowned,

"You still really haven't stopped smoking?"

I scratched the back of my head, "I've toned it down. It's just every couple of two weeks.

She shook her head,  and her eyes, like mine were wet "You never change."

There was something natural about us going over to the cafe. We reeled off all the pertinent details of the last two decades. The kids we'd had, the jobs we'd taken, where we'd been, what were doing right here right now at 2 o-clock in the afternoon in a city we made poems about hating. We'd all ended up right back home eventually, it seemed.

"You look good." She said.

I stared at my wrinkled hands, "Very funny."

"No. I mean it. You seem more... At peace."

I sighed and leaned back, "You know that thing where people tell you that it's all going to be OK and time heals everything and don't sweat the small parts? And you never really can grasp it until you get there and when you do you're not annoyed you just sort of chuckle and sink into understanding it? That's where I'm at right now."

She chuckled and held my hand, "Let's get married, George." Her smile was divine, and my brain tingled at a flush of memories. So many memories.

I clapsed her hand with my other.

"I was thinking the same thing actually. We splent plenty time waiting, I think."

[legomaestro]

Day 3

"Older Sins"


"I'm not going to kill you." Said the voice. I was tied in my chair, didn't recognize the room. The old-television set in front of me played a tape.

"I'm just going to show you a little art project of mine."

A shot of school. Gumrock High. It was an old-school cartoon style, started showing scenes. It took me a couple of minutes to my horror to realize they were smartly caricatured versions of all my high-school friends, and me. Todd Barrels, jock, badass, popular guy. And asshole apparently.

"It's just a pet project I've been animating over the years. I don't really have a grudge against you anymore or anything. I just thought it'd be a waste to leave all the work unwatched. Don't worry, you're the only one whose seen this, and by the time you finish watching it, I'll be dead. Ah. It's just cancer, nothing sad or anything."

I sat tied to the chair and watched 2 hours and 30 minutes of the story of an asshole jock and the strangest introvert I'd ever gotten to bully and I felt like I was being fed maggots. Even when the cops came and took me away and I landed in my king-sized bed at my mansion at The Bay, I still thought of those older sins, those innocent natural things that I'd perpatrated.

I'd never been much for art but damn did that rank as my favourite, and most terrible film I'd ever seen.

I'd make sure the world would see it.

[legomaestro]

Day 4

"The Bookshop."

There's a book shop in Venice where there's barely any elbow-room to browse, and anyone who goes there comes out with some obscure old book - a history or a novel and they're always changed by what they read. Famous artists, authors and musicians. Travellers and scientists, lost kids, depressed widowers come out of the shop with books that send them into epiphanies and journeys, into grand stories of adventure and romance.

I visited it two decades ago and quietly, as quietly as possible asked a soul here or there who actually owned it, if the magic existed. But never more than that. I don't want to disturb the magic of that grand place.

[legomaestro]

Day 5

Havold spent the next couple of years training. It's what all smart vigilantes did, didn't they, go through a ridiculous period of dedication to their art and craft. He knew he had the billions, he just didn't want to end up dead on the first day. He practiced with a gusto and dedication that drove all his friends away, and his wife left one month before his planned debut.

He'd call himself Shatter: based on his military battle suit that used sonic blasts to either incapacitate or demolish structures.

And just before his first act... The comet came.

It flew across the sky, purple in its glory and utterly uncharted by any agency on the planet. Everyone who gazed upon it that long 30 hours became super human, and the first Espers popped up across the continent within the next week. Wreaking havoc, saving lives.


Havold stared at his equipment, his empty house, and tasted ash in his mouth. The day of the hero was here, and he'd been utterly unable to start it as he wished.

He roared as he blasted his sonic canons across the mansion, reducing the empty husk to wood, and standing in that wreckage, he smiled to himself.

If he wasn't going to be the first hero, then he might as well be the best villain.

[Suuper-san]

I still haven't nailed anything down on the inspiration front, but a sure fire method is always 2 random words that provide for an interesting scenario.

Where does one get 2 random words from I'm wondering? ahahaha
I upgraded my random word generator lists with more diverse range of adjectives and nouns but I'm wondering if there is a larger pool of words that can give inspiration? I'm finding I get a lot of duff suggestions that plain dont make sense. Unless I just keep skipping until I find one I can work with? I guess that works :P

I'm thinking I might starting doing writing survival myself for the extra writing boost, although I dont know what format it will take. It'll be scrappy that's for sure lol

[Suuper-san]

Ok so any level of narration is utterly scary for me so I'm going to try the next best thing - random synopses.
Not really writing but I think it just about passes?

Since my tutorial examples went well I'm trying to write 5 plot ideas for the same prompt. This also works well with my art as it gives me time to process interesting interpretations and combinations of the prompt words. And surely 1 out of 5 ideas will be worth doing something with, at some point?

Day 1:
medieval fantasy , playing card games , mortification , glorious , cruel

• A man finds out that a card game he lost was rigged. He travels to find the men who conned him.
• A slave forced to fight in gladiator games tries to escape.
• A boy is the only survivor in a dragon attack on his orphanage. He swears he will have his revenge.
• A world that only has 1 year left before it gets reset.
• A prince travels to find people to help him usurp the throne and bring peace from a reign of tyranny.

And developed (sort of):

• In a high stake betting match a man lost all he owned. Out of shame he leaves the town. Years on he revisits and hears one of the players talking about how they had cheated to beat him. Out of anger he kills the other person. But now on the run as a murderer, he decides to find the other players who no longer live there and take back what was his, all the while on the run from the law. Maybe he lets himself get caught at the end. Maybe he dies - was it all worth it?
• A merchant and his brother were attacked by pirates during a voyage. Expecting to be killed but were instead sold to slave traders, and ended up fighting for their lives in the gladiator arena. Forced into fighting each other, his brother lets him kill him (tricks him or doesn’t guard, otherwise he wouldn’t have killed him). He tries to escape and free the other slaves who were also in similar positions to him.
• Dragons rarely attack humans unless provoked. So it’s unexpected when a dragon attacks an orphanage and basically levels the entire building, people and all. The only survivor, an orphan boy, grows up with survivor guilt and also the ostracism from others who also blamed him for eing the only survivor (like maybe he caused it somehow). He has a hatred for dragons and swears he will hunt down every last one. The real cause was that someone wanted the land (or something hidden in it) and so wanted the orphanage destroyed and controlled the dragon into doing it, so they could purchase the land (at a cheap rate since no-one else wanted it)
• A giant clock appears in the sky (everywhere) with the disturbing voice “This world will soon end - You have 1 year left”. Most people give up and pillage and plunder as the world falls into chaos. But there are those who are determined to fight to the end and overturn the fate that awaits them, and they band together to travel and find the cause or way of stopping the world’s destruction.
• The entire royal family is corrupt. The nobles are corrupt. In fact there’s very few who aren’t corrupt in power, causing misery to the mass of commoners who live in the empire. Determined to take the throne and rule for peace, a prince travels to find warriors who will help him to overthrow the empire. But not only must he travel in disguise (does he fake his own death?), but it’s hard to find those who will fight against the current system, having lost hope for anything better.

It's something ahaha
I hope it helps somewhere in my head to get into more writing practice and experience.
They all kinda ended up to do with revenge somehow, but the prompt was pretty dire I guess /(T_T;)\
Maybe I'll use these to somehow work into a one-shot or written something or other :P

But I'm still trying to work out short stories, I can't get my head around how Lego can write these short snippets :P

[Suuper-san]

Wow I actually forgot completely that I started this lol
I'll see if I can participate in a workshop since I need to pick up my writing skills.

well, Day 1, again:
classroom , flash flood , club , disturbed , burnt umber

• A school comedy where everyone in the paranormal research club is a vampire/werewolf/witch etc but they are all hiding it from each other, thinking that everyone else is normal. Maybe one normal person.
• A massive flood cuts a school off from the mainland (it’s an island, ish?). The students have to survive on their own.
• A student notices that students are disappearing, but on inquiring, he finds that no-one else remembers them.
• A boy sharing an umbrella with a girl club member, but is seen by his girlfriend who gets jealous.
• A girl finds out that another girl in her club is being bullied/blackmailed. But she has her own trauma and finds it hard to help.

And developed:

• A school comedy where everyone in the paranormal research club is a vampire/werewolf/witch etc but they are all hiding it from each other, thinking that everyone else is normal. One normal person who knows all their secrets (do the others know that?) and is utterly terrified, to even leave the club. No major plot but perhaps they find out each other’s secrets one by one. Or different ones find out certain secrets so it’s always a worry to remember who knows whose secrets. Each one is unnecessarily knowledge about their own kind, which they pass off as just having done lots of research. Possibly vising each other’s homes for club activity/doing homework together and the rest of the family has to pretend to be human.
• Borderline Isekai. During class the heavy rain doesn’t stop and the water level starts to rise. The students are trapped inside and can’t contact anyone outside for help (bad reception/lines down) The water level rises and a mist sets in. When it settles down and dries up, the students find they are somewhere completely different, with no other buildings remaining. They have to learn to survive on their own and find out how to get home.
• Probably a similar feel to Another. A girl goes missing from class one day, finding it odd that no-one says anything he asks her friends what happened to her, and they don’t know who he’s talking about. He thinks their joking until the teacher says the same thing, and there’s no mention of her name on the class register. And then another student disappears under the same circumstances. Other than worrying that he might be next, he tries to find out the cause of the disappearances and to stop it before anyone else disappears. Perhaps there’s one of the 7 mysteries of the school that mention it.
• School romcom. The story starts with a couple already going out. But the boy is the typical harem MC, to his girlfriend’s dismay, and everything he does attracts unneeded love interests, to which he is oblivious to their obvious attention. He’s loved by the girls and hated by the boys, but his girlfriend just wants a normal relationship without interferences.
• A girl who has rich parents is being blackmailed by someone who saw her do something vaguely illegal (like stealing from a shop or something, but it only looked like it and it didn’t really happen that way, but they have “proof” like a photo or something) and they take money off her each day. She’s a quiet but hardworking girl, but with not many friends. One normal girl notices how she’s being treated one day and wants to speak up, but she has tried to help in the past and it has made things worse (like the bullies attacked her and bullied the other person more afterwards), so she worries about helping out. Maybe she starts to be friends with the other girl in the hope that her being around will deter them.

I'm saving these ideas for throwaway one-shots and mangas because they're all vaguely interesting core ideas, although some sound a lot like "XYZ anime but with A intead of B", but I think that can't be helped sometimes.

[Suuper-san]

Realised why I forgot Monday, I come home from work late and I'm totally tired normally. Cos that's how I feel today after work but I remembered this time ehehe.

Day 2:
scientist , daydreaming , Canon , threatening , tuna

• A run of the mill scientist decides he’s fed up of the normal life he lives and wants to be a bad guy.
• A researcher in a quest to find the ultimate sushi ends up starting his own sushi restaurant to fund his research. Comedy.
• A girl always gets bad grades in class, but not because she’s stupid, because she’s always daydreaming and can’t focus. But she wants to become a scientist (and solve....global warming?)
• One day all the fish in the sea start disappearing rapidly. Scientists discover a massive creature that’s eating them (alien/awoken monster). But what will happen when it runs out of food?
• There’s a monster that invades peoples dreams, and the heroes that also enter dreams to fight them off.

And developed:

• Comedy. A researcher working on some incredibly irrelevant projects (like making rubber balls more bouncy) wants to buy something really expensive but on his wages he could never afford it. So he considers making counterfeit money. Being a scientist he is very serious about getting it perfect and does lots of research and testing to make every element right, By the time he finishes, perhaps inflation or the currency has changed and his efforts are in vain, or to forge the money took more money in the long run that what he wanted to buy. Or he is successful and the story continues with him having unlimited funding to make other stupid inventions.
• Comedy. A boy growing up loves sushi and has been to every sushi shop in the city where he lives, but he feels something is missing. He went on to study [some related subject] at university but even after in his studies and research he was unable to find a perfect taste of sushi. So needing funding for research on leaving university he starts his own sushi shop. Still trying to find a perfect taste of sushi. He always gets people to try out new recipes and combinations but they can’t express themselves detailed enough (like just saying “It’s really tasty”)
• A girl wants to become a scientist and solve something big (like global warming), but her grades are too low and she’ll likely fail any exams on the way to reach her goal. But it’s because she daydreams (or is really slow) and actually when she puts her mind to it (helping others?) she’s really intelligent. So her friends help her to focus more and raise her grades and help her to pass exams, and she (being actually good) helps them as well.
• Sightings of giant sea creatures are not new, but recently there are more and more reports of seeing monsters by sailors travelling. When the fishing spots start to dry up as well people are suspicious, but only when boats start to disappear as well that people think that something really is in the sea. A giant hunt ensues to find whatwver creature is causing the problem to restore the balance. Is it actually an alien or just a giant squid/kraken/lochness monster?
• There are mystical creatures that inhabit this world. Not always visible. Not all are harmful but they interact in the world in a strange and unpredictable way (Mushishi style). Some people don’t believe in them, a similar treatment as ghosts. When they do cause trouble, sometimes by possessing people or objects, altering the world, then a group of people can help. Sometimes by moving the creature on, sometimes by killing or capturing it. Often to deal with it they have to enter its own world, which is chaotic and strange, unique to each creature (Madoka witch style)

So this is quite interesting, although some of these plots are utterly ridiculous or terrible, it's still 5 new ideas each day, and all from the same prompt, so really goes to show that you can interpret things in many different ways.