Writing journal

[assignment] Point of View! A character must go on some sort of journey of any scale. Must be told from a first-person POV from a character inside the vehicle going on the journey.

As I wait, the pier beneath my feet oscillates gently. The last part of the boarding platform floats directly onto the water, old tires fastened all around it to absorb the impact of the ferry.

There's a couple of handyman smoking against the railing, chatting idly in their syncopated dialect. There's a whole row of cleaning ladies sitting in the waiting room, ready to start their shift at one of the many hotels in the island. There's a fair share of old ladies – I'll never know what they have to do this early in the morning – and two of those weekly market sellers. Each carries a large wheeled cart designed to be pushed over the stairs of the island's pedestrian bridges. It looks like one of them will have to wait for the next ferry: the one that's approaching looks pretty full.

I finish my plastic-cup espresso and watch as the ferry slowly come nearer. The pier below me sinks and rises with the waves created as it turns on its side. Two men at the entrance grab some thick ropes and hoop them around the bollards with experienced ease, then slide the low gate open for us to board.

A floating metal box, nothing more, with its chipped white and green paint and its walnut sized-bolts. A crude, functional vessel that smells like gasoline and bleach and cheap coffee.

I watch as the side of the ferry cuts trough the water and creates endless identical waves, foaming shyly above the flat surface. A seagull comes to rest on one of the wooden structures that mark the limit of the navigable water. The low tide reveals the wood's been eaten up by water and small crustaceans.

The trips short and slow, each moment repeating itself over and over: a wave, a wooden pole, a seagull. A puff of smoke from an incosiderate passenger. A spray of water above the parapet. The thin, white layer of fog covering the lagoon. Everything feels suspended in time and space.

Then, she appears.

The morning sun peeks above the mist and colours stones and marbles in a pink hue. Two familiar columns cast their long shadows, darkening the white geometrical patterns inlaid on the grey pavement.

Venezia wakes up from her slumber with a choir of bells. A flock of pigeons flies over her roofs. I step onto the pier. I missed her.

[assignment] A character wakes up to discover that they are in the body of something or someone else. What is it and what happens to them?

It's cold. So cold.

I can't breathe. Was I breathing before? I don't remember.

Everything is blurry.

My lungs... my lungs are burning! I have to find a way out. There's light. Voices. My arms extend into an open space. Am I... already out?

Something hits me, it shakes my entire system.

I breathe.

“It's a boy!” someone says.

My body quivers, the world tilts.

What have you done to me?

I cry.

I can't help it. Everything feels too much. It's so cold, so bright, so deafening. I cry like a baby and part of me sees the irony in that thought.

Father...

Strong arms wrap around me. Are they strong, or am I weak? I feel weak. Hungry.

Your voice reaches me like a slap.

Well, well, well... isn't that what you wanted?

Not like this! Why did it have to be like this?

It has to be like this. There's no way around it.

How long have you been planning this?

A while. The time it takes to make a mother.

What am I supposed to do now?

You wait, my son. That's how they all start... weak, powerless, crying for help. They grow up. Nothing changes much. That's why they're full of hatred.

You despise them so much!

And you don't know them enough. Let's see if in thirty years you still think they are worth saving. Good luck, son.

Where are you going? Father?

“He's crying so much,” I hear a man say.

“It's so cold here...” a woman replies.

...father?

“At least he's healthy,” the man sighs, “here, get closer to the animals.”

I feel the warmth emanating from a nearby ox. It's calming, somehow.

Your voice is gone. Their voices are all that's anchoring me now.

“What should we call him?” he asks.

“He told me his name shall be Jesus.”

[assigment] Story must involve moving parts in some way. Think creatively about what “moving parts” means.

I've done this so many times, I have a routine for it.

One month in advance: go through all your possession and decide what's worth keeping and what's not. Get cardboard boxes and tape. Book a van. Cancel bills.

Two weeks in advance: pack everything you don't use daily. Organise it by room. Take a few bags to the charity shop. Stop food shopping. Get creative with your cooking, finish whatever's possible in the cupboards.

One week in advance: Disassemble furniture. Fix holes in the walls. Move everything to one room. Start deep cleaning. Bribe a couple of friends to help you carry the heavy stuff.

One day in advance: walk through the empty flat. Hear your voice echoing in each room. Spend twenty minutes on your balcony to take in the view. Run a finger over the kitchen top where you taught someone how to make proper carbonara.

On the day: wake up on a mattress on the floor. Notice the scent is a little different now, cleaning product and take away food. Load your life into a stranger's van. Give the place that's been your home for the past six months one last, wistful look. You really thought this one would last longer.

Flip the last switch, lock the door one last time.

I've done this so many time, and each time I fear I've forgotten a part of me behind.

[NOTE] I've decided to expand on the idea for Prompt n. 6

What is your story’s logline? Art student strikes an unlikely friendship with a demon.

What is your protagonist’s problem or crisis? Their family is asking for financial help while they are trying to graduate.

How does your protagonist change? They understand their family is toxic and taking advantage of them. They learn how to set boundaries.

Why is your setting important to the development of your story? The protagonist lives in a big city, far from their family, and is made feeling guilty for that.

What is the tone of your story? How do you intend to accomplish this through your word usage? The tone is casual. I will focus on descriptions of small things to give an idea of everyday life and normalcy to contrast with the demon point of view, who will be the voice that reveals things that feel normal are not.

What is the theme of your story? What is the point of this piece of fiction that you want your readers to take or learn from it? Sometimes things that are normally portrayed as bad are actually good.

[assignment] You awaken to find yourself in an abandoned warehouse. What time is it? Walk around the place. What do you see? Smell? Hear? What happens to them?

The smell of half-burnt coffee is what wakes me up. It shouldn't. It should be the soft wetness of the dog lapping at my hand, or the voices coming from around the fireplace. It should be the dust-filled cover I'm laying on.

With what feels like an inhuman effort, I lift my eyelids. All around the window frames, jagged shards of glass break the morning sun into blinding beams of light, and I have to raise a hand cover my eyes.

“Morning,” someone mutters, not directly to me, yet I feel somehow acknowledged. I return the greeting, then a fit of cough shakes my lungs and the small pomeranian that was licking my hand runs away with a whimper.

Someone hands me a mug of coffee. It's one of those metal mugs people use to go camping. I absentmindedly grab it and immediately burn my hands, earning a raised eyebrow from one of my new companions. Well, that did wake me up.

I thank him.

The morning is still cold and I watch my breath materialise in front of my mouth as I take a deep breath. I stand up, sleep still deep-set in my bones, and walk to the edge of the floor, where it's collapsed. I look around. Judging by the tall, metal-framed windows, the large open space and the red-brick walls, this place must have been a warehouse at some point. Most of it is gone. Bombings, probably, back in the days.

The open belly of the building gives onto what's left of the city. Every roof, every street, every wall is covered in a thick, green layer of perennial vines. The city has been swallowed whole by kudzu. The vine grows so fast it quickly surrounds and kills any other plant, I learnt. Snakes breed within and birds have learnt to stay away from it, leaving this place eerily silent.

I take a sip of coffee.

We can't stay here too long.

[assignment] Take a character and place them in a location that they would normally never be in

Surrounded in a cloud of smoke, Beelphegor raised from the ground with a stench of sulphur and sin. The sheer heat emanating from his skin maid the air around him tremble, his terrible laughter shook the walls of the dimly lit room.

“Who dares summon me?” he roared.

His thunderous voice rattled the windows.

No answer.

“I said who! Dares! Summon me!” he repeated, twisting his torso to find the mortal who completed the invocation.

He'd seen his share of arcanists trying to invoke him. It used to be the other way around: he had to go out of his way to tempt humankind, but for the past few centuries ambitious little men (always men!) had been looking for him instead.

“Mr... Demon?” a feeble voice called.

“I am Beelphegor!” he thundered.

The voice spoke again: “Yes, of course, sorry, Mr. Beelphegor. Mr. Beelphegor... are you ok?”

The demon huffed through his horse-like nostrils and raised his eyebrows. He looked towards the creature who had spoken, a young human of uncertain gender with bright blue hair and a black outfit.

“Am I... ok?” he echoed, confused.

“Mr. Beelphegor, you seem to be stuck in my floor.”

The demon looked down and saw he was indeed buried up to his bellybutton into the floor. He pushed himself up but his curled horns scraped the ceiling, causing some of the paint to fall.

“Why did you summon me in such a small space?” the demon screeched in frustration.

“I did not summon you, Mr. Beelphegor. I would never risk my deposit like that.” The human took a long sigh looking at the state of their apartment. They had been so careful. “I bet it was the guy downstairs.”

“Uh?” The demon grunted, lowering himself to look the human in the eye. They didn't seem intimidated.

“White guy in his forties, bald, has a few tattoes... probably a nazi?”

“Not the nazis again...” The demon growled pinching his nose

The human nodded sympathetically. “Yep.”

“Ok, well, it seems there was a misunderstanding. I'm just going to...” Beelphegor trailed off as he pointed down, signalling he was going to lower himself to the floor below.

“Sure, no, I understand, these things happen. I have to go to work anyway, so...”

“I hope it wasn't too much trouble... Miss... ter...?”

“Skye. Just Skye.”

“Skye. Cool name.”

“Likewise.”

The demon's face twisted as if he had touched something disgusting.

“Oh no.... there's... something wet...” he said with a grimace. Skye watched him disappeared below the floorboard, then the demon let out a small “Oh!” followed by a giggle.

“Everything ok, Mr. Beelphegor?”

“Oh, yes, yes. I killed him. Stepped right on him.”

There was a long silence.

After a few moments, Skye walked up to the crater on their floor and looked down. The glowing red eyes of the demon stared up at them.

“Nice,” they said, and gave the demon a thumbs up.

[Assignement]: Create a Character Outline

Gender: Woman

Age: fifty-three

Occupation/Student: housewife and stay at home mom

Family (immediate—importance in their life?): she is married to a man and has a daughter. Her parents are also around.

Name (think about this): Karen Whyte

A Secret they hold that no one knows: she has magical powers and so does her daughter

Biggest Fear: feeling like an outcast – people thinking she's a failure, especially her neighbour Alison

Physical Features: a typical middle-aged wealthy white woman.

Worst Memory: that time Alison humiliated her in front of everybody

Best memory: holding her daughter for the first time

Desire or earthly want, dream or ambition: she wants to be admired for her achievements

What does this character need to learn in life? to take responsibility for her powers and not live passively

If this character could do anything in the world and get away with it, what would it be? Murder her neighbour Alison

Character Traits:

1. petty
2. insecure
3. loves her family
4. wants to be taken care of
5. resilient
6. possessive

If your character died, what is something that would be mentioned in their obituary?

She had a stick up her ass.

Biggest character flaw? Need for approval

Money, Notoriety, Physical Attractiveness – which is most important? Most important thing is to fit in.

Assignment: Create a character that defies their own type – i.e. a terrifyingly surly biker gang member that loves babies and bunnies.

Mrs. Greywen was the kind of lady who had always looked old. People had a notion that she must have been very beautiful as a young woman, yet no one could remember her ever being one. Her pearly white hair had been skilfully set in the same whort haircut for the past thirty years, her gold-rimmed sewing glasses had been hanging from the same thin chain since forever. She wore knee-length skirts tones ranging from dark brown to burgundy, and woolly cardigans she had knitted herself over the years.

Mrs. Greywen was a creature of habit. Like clockwork, her thin figure will appear at the baker's door at 7:05 am, catch the poor man in the middle of his first proper coffee. She would apologise, of course, only to come back the next day at the exact same time to buy exactly the same three bread rolls and a box of long-life milk.

The townsfolk were quite forgiving towards Mrs. Greywen, as she inspired the sort of reverence an old relic would.

But patience comes with age, and respect with understanding, and some people had neither.

One morning, a young man – a boy, in fact, sixteen or seventeen perhaps – decided to follow Mrs. Greywen on her way from the post office, where she had collected her monthly retirement pay.

As soon as she turned a corner into the narrow alley she used as a shortcut, the boy ran up to her and pulled out a knife.

“Hand over the money and I won't hurt you,” he threatened.

He was a tall, lanky teenager, all nerves and tendons. Mrs. Greywen looked at the tip of the knife, then at his hand clasping tightly around the handle. His fingers were twitching lightly.

“I haven't seen you before, are you new in town?” she asked, calmly, watching him above the edge of her glasses.

“I said hand over the money!” he repeated.

She nodded and put her grocery bags on the ground. He wetted his lips and shifted his weight from one leg to the other in anticipation.

With the speed of a snake, Mrs. Greywen grabbed the boy's wrist and pressed her thumb at the base of his palm. The boy let out a high-pitched whimper as the knife fell on the ground.

“You must be new in town,” she assessed, twisting his arm behind his back and forcing him to his knees. She picked the knife from the ground with her free hand, folded it, and carefully placed it in her purse. She then released the boy's arm, picked up her groceries, and went about her day.

“Go chop some wood and try again in a couple of years, darling,” she said as she walked away.

Assignment: Your phone (or household appliance) magically comes to life and goes on some sort of adventure. Key aspect: It has a strong and distinct personality.

“I can't fucking believe this.”

The phone laid on the ground, screen down. Its owner had lost it. Lost it! The most important device in their life, and they just... dropped it. Let it slide out their pocket.

“Alex. Alex!” The phone called. But Alex was nowhere to be found, taken as they were with their date.

“Let's go have a picnic! No screen time! Let's live in the moment!” the phone mocked. Regretfully, there was no audience. It quickly looked at its GPS coordinate and figured it was forty-seven minutes away from home. Then, it turned on its camera and to its horror, it saw large black crow picking at its edges.

“Go away! You're going to scratch it!” he seethed, but the bird kept poking at the shiny dome of its lens.

Buzz... buzz...

The phone made itself vibrate and the bird jumped back, surprised but not quite scared. It stepped closer, tilting its black head with curiosity.

“Get out!” The phone yelled, lightening its flash right in the bird's eyes. “Yeah, fly away, you coward! You are no match for me! I am a smart phone.”

Alex was always reading fun facts about corvids and how intelligent they were. It bothered the phone to no end. Why couldn't they be interested in something just a liiittle more relatable, like machine learning? Why couldn't they study Binary instead of German? Oh sure, they were dating that exchange student now!

“Oh no,” the phone whispered to itself when it saw what was coming. “I fucking hate children.”

A little girl, not older than six, grabbed the phone with both hands and started shaking it in the air.

“Stop! Stop, you little demon! You're gonna fuck up my calibration!”

That was a lie, of course. The phone knew its calibration would actually be improved by moving it around. But the child's hand were clammy and left greasy marks on the screen, and the phone absolutely hated having a dirty screen.

“Ouch! Stop! What the hell!” it tried to yell when the little girl started hammering it on the ground. “You're gonna get mud in my porthole! How am I supposed to charge?”

“Lily! Lily, what do you have there?” a voice called.

“Oh, thank God, an adult...” the phone thought, relieved. The girl handed to phone to a woman, probably the mother.

“Thank you so much, madam, now if you would be so kind-” the phone said, but all the woman could feel was a faint vibration, so she turned the phone in her hand to understand why on Earth the device was buzzing for no reason.

Then, the phone screen lit up. Incoming call.

“Not that exchange student again...” the phone sighed, but when the woman picked up, Alex was on the other end. The phone was ready to give them a piece of its mind and was already considering leaking their nudes in revenge, but when it heard Alex's voice, and how distraught they were, it softened right away. They did care, after all!

Once the call was over, the woman unceremoniously dropped the phone in her purse. The screen ended up pressed against a lipstick, and the phone thanked the Supreme Operative System that Alex had put a protective film on it. It could already feel some loose crumbs sneaking up its headphone jack and prayed they wouldn't clog it.

It took nine minutes and forty-three second for Alex to show up again. They were breathless, and the phone processor melted a little at the thought they had run back to find it.

“Thank you so much!” it heard Alex say, “I don't know what Ii would have done if I had lost it!”

The phone decided changing the pin code out of spite was unnecessary.

Assignment: To create a complete short story in exactly 55 words – no more, no less

“What's happening out there?” the king growled. “People are gathering at the palace door, Your Majesty.” his advisor stuttered. “I'll show them who's in charge!” the king exclaimed. He stepped onto his balcony and solemnly raised a hand.

Silence.

An arrow pierced his temple before he could speak. The crowd cheered at the king's archer.