I bought more bread mixes and made another batch this morning. I need an alarm so I can set it to bake at a time when it would be nice and warm. It did give me a nice opening line as I was drifting off to sleep if I can just find a way to fit it into a story: The aroma of freshly backed cinnamon bread filled the house but failed to mask the sickly sweet scent of blood. That's a nice scent-image... if I can just find something to do with it. Horror is next up on my list of things to do. The darkest I can make it. And with a good MALE character.
I fell asleep last night with an opening line drifting through my head. It was a gift and I've learned never to ignore a gift. This morning the line was still there so I keyed in the sentence:
The aroma of freshly baked cinnamon bread filled the house, but failed to mask the sickly sweet stench of blood.
We had four critiques today and a brief discussion about the continual inflow of stories. We have a ten-story backlog of which three are mine and it's obvious we'll never cover them all. I suggested I tell Lister which ones I cared about and which ones I didn't and we skip the latter.
I fell asleep last night with an opening line drifting through my head. It was a gift and I've learned never to ignore a gift. This morning the line was still there so I keyed in the sentence:
The aroma of freshly baked cinnamon bread filled the house, but failed to mask the sickly sweet stench of blood.
A line like that could go so many different ways and the first few ideas I had, I tossed out. I went downstairs for breakfast and then off to the critiquing session with the line brewing in the back of my mind. I felt the critiques went well today. I can finally look at the writer at least once when I'm saying how I reacted to the story. About two-thirds into the second or third critique when I was thinking about something totally different and really and truly concentrating upon what the critiquer was saying, IT was there. The logical next line and the one after that and then the image. Oh, GAWD! It's such a powerful image and for some odd reason, I'm seeing this happen in the back room of my mother's house. I guess I just needed a familiar setting to see the idea clearly. I flipped open my notepad, scribbled two lines as fast as I could and then wrote, KILL CHILDREN! and closed my notebook.
I know this story will come slowly and yet the parts that coming are coming very nicely. It's all shaping inside my head and I'm recording bits and pieces as they filter through. It was hard to tell my head to SHUT UP! and if I'd been home, I would have run upstairs to my computer. This is probably better because I pushed it aside and went back to the critiques and when we finished, the imagery returned even stronger.
The title for this story will be Throwaway Children and while it's not space ships and other traditional SF trappings, it is very much a social commentary on what's going to happen if this goes on. The concept scares me. It's another one of those things where if I don't do it well, people are going to be ROFL thinking it's all a big joke. I think what triggered it was probably Sean's opening remarks and a casual reference to A PRACTICAL MATTER which I've read and found to be outrageous satire humor. Obviously, something in the back of my mind picked that up and processed it while I wasn't looking. I love it when I go on autopilot.
This will need to be a short one -- I think. I could be wrong. But it is at least dark and there will be a villain with redeeming qualifies and a good male figure. The male unfortunately cannot be a classic hero. He will, however, be doing the right thing to the best of his ability.
I am SO excited about this one.
For lunch, I grabbed a fish sandwich to go from the Owen cafeteria again. If this goes on, I'll be able to swim home.
Tonight: Dinner with the group for a change (I really do need to stop chaining myself to the computer) and then Sean's reading. Four critiques for tomorrow of which three came in this morning and thus I still need to read and critique those.