Sometimes you just need a push to get yourself writing. Or a pull maybe.
(Hey! Do you remember the push-me-pull-you from Dr Doolittle? That creature both unnerved me as a kid and…yeah, no, they just unnerved me. They're unnerving me as we speak. (Is me bringing this up going to help you write? Who is to say?))
So anyway, sometimes we need a pull up or a push forward to get words on the page, and Improbable's going to aim to offer a prompt every other week (or weekly if anyone expresses interest in that frequency) to help you do just that.
What To Do With These Writing Prompts
Write.
Anything.
Aaaaaaaanything.
It could be related to one of those four squares to the right. It could be as unattached as I am from the reality of how many coffees I have actually had today and when I should stop.
IT IS ALL UP TO YOU.
Bi-weekly or weekly (remember that's up to those who express a preference) we'll post a prompt. With each post I'll encourage you and maybe discuss my last bee sting (it was five wasps thank you), the weather (bright and brisk today), last week's prompt fills (please give me something to talk about by posting them here, puleeez), or what the new prompt brings to my mind.
What To Do With These Writing Prompts (Part 2)
Once you've written a thing do any or all of these things:
* keep writing
* share your writing here as a comment (I absolutely would love that)
* be patient if you share here as I have to clear each comment due to spam bots
* keep writing!
* come back and do it again
* read what other people share here on the same prompt and comment (alas our blog software doesn't allow your comment to be a reply to theirs — we're trying to change that)
That's it!
I'll start us off with the first writing snippet/comment — ready? GO!
“Come, see the horses!”
I grew up on earth, which is a rare thing since humanity has gone out to conquer space. We had a big ranch and I could ride before I could read. So when we stopped at one of the planets that had already been inhabited by another race (and wasn’t that an uncomfortable truth, that we were neither the first nor the only ones and had to share) and the local tour guide asked if we wanted to see the horses (at least that is what my translation tool offered: cloud horses) I was all for it. Maybe I should have wondered when they gave me an overall that very much resembled chainmail but I was way too excited to see and maybe ride a horse again after years in space.
A huge air hoverboard took us higher and higher until we crossed through the layer of clouds. The guide opened the door we stood on a small platform, secured from falling by security belts. I was about to turn and ask him what we were waiting for when it rose out of the clouds: a being as huge as a house with eyes the colour of the setting sun in the evening before everything turns red. And yes, it did resemble a horse but mostly one of the medieval warhorses with their own armour except this one was made out of clouds.
I gaped.
“Holy shit. How do you ride them?”
“Ride?” He laughed in my face. “They hate the smell of metal otherwise they would already have eaten us for breakfast.”
Love this!
Where there’s smoke… there’s fire.
Is there, though?
Maybe that used to be the case.
Back in the day.
Back when smoke was more warning than screen.
But now, in this world that moves faster than flames, smoke seems so often to be just… smoke.
Blowing up gullible arses.
Sound and fury.
Signifying nothing.
Amplifying everything.
Look at this smoke over here…
Isn’t it outrageous?
Isn’t it scary?
Doesn’t it ignite your fear of change, of difference, of opportunities you never had and chances you shied away from.
See the big dramatic smoke.
See how it lets you ignore the fire.
And our world burns.
It’s said Agni, the Hindu god of fire, is reborn each time his ten mother’s set him aflame.
As Annice bows low in the shallows, shivering at the trickle of water running down her back, she’s grateful her own rebirth at her mother’s hands comes in the cool river.
When she’d told her mam her new name this morning, Annice’s voice shook. When she took a breath and couldn’t find more words, Bridget had nodded and said, “I know.”
Then they’d walked down here to the water, as they’ve done since Annice was a bab called Patrick, and not even thinking about it they walked into the river, still cold in morning shadows. There Annice is baptized with her new name in a ritual Bridget alone is qualified to offer, simply by being her mother.
Afterward they sit in the sun on the shore and Annice talks about Agni and his daughter Agneya because though born in Ireland, with legends enough stuffed inside her to last a lifetime, she’s got a soft spot for myths of resurrection and rebirth.
She’s named herself after a woman who embodies both and occasionally she’ll need Lydia Annice Foy’s drive for the challenges facing her, but Annice Collins Bhamjee is born of two cultures, both ancient and each strong.
Annice will find she’s got fuel enough inside her for a lifetime of fire and change.
—
I was reading about Lydia Foy and her long work toward LGBTQIA+ rights in Ireland, and I too have a fascination with myths, so here we are.