Creativity Exercise: Bradbury's List of Nouns

After listening to Scriptnotes episode 321: Getting Stuff Written with John August and special guest Grant Faulkner, the executive director of National Novel Writer Month (NaNiWriMo) and author of the new book Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo.

One exercise he describes on the podcast and in the book is Ray Bradbury's List of Nouns. Bradbury would write a list of 20 nouns and then write short essays, 100 to 200 words, about each word he called 'pensays'. This would warm him up and get him writing stories that he would later become famous for in his career. 

My adaptation of this exercise is to write the 20 nouns, then pick one and write a short paragraph story that involves that noun in some way. For example, in my list I wrote the word FLOOR. Within seconds a story popped into my head that I wrote down. 

    Gina was standing in the center of atrium watching the other students gather into their groups, carry their lunches into the cafeteria or linger before the bell rang. Under her foot a crack appeared in the floor out of no where with no warning of a rumbling or shaking. The crack split into more cracks and those cracks split into more cracks until there were enough cracks that the whole floor started to fall away and all that was left was a deep black hole. The other students began to scream, the ones at the edges ran for cover, but it happened so fast those in the middle didn't have time to run, so as the floor fell away so did they. Girls reached out for the strong arms of boys, but they couldn't hang on and slipped away, the boys too falling in after them as the more and more of the floor broke away or struggling to pull them up led to them being pulled in themselves. Gina stood on the edge watching the horror take place. Feeling helpless, feeling scared a voice broke through the panicked room. Kurt from homeroom reached out his hand begging for Gina to grab on while wrapping his other arm around a pillar holding the ceiling from the floor. The breaking glass from the library windows shattered as the dissolving floor continued to consume the school. Gina turned and threw out her arm making contact palm to palm with Kurt just as the floor caved in the total weight of her body shot straight down and her hand slipped out from Kurt's grip. Gina watched as everything faded away, the bright vibrant colors of reflected from the sun's yellow rays stretched farther and farther away until the high-pitched voices of terror were silent and all around her the landscape was darker than that of the deepest sleep.

Of course you can adapt this exercise to fit whatever creative endeavor you enjoy, whether it be writing, photography, painting, drawing, music, film, programming, sculpting, etc. A list of nouns can help you find inspiration in the most common or weirdest of places. Whatever it is you do create please feel free to share with me your stories, photos and art of all kinds. 

Thank you and happy creating!

Flash Fiction Story: Cow Cutters

Flash Fiction story, 600 words or less, for the Google+ community Writer's Discussion Group Weekly Writing Exercise. This story wasn't published in the group.

Cow Cutters

Once we're inside the Earth’s atmosphere we have about one Earth minute to land on the surface, extract the pieces of cow and get out of there before the humans have time to realize what's happening.

We fly in two man teams for cow part extraction. We sell the parts to butchers in the dark side of Yuriba, away from the eyes of the Xeniack planet guards. What we do isn't legal, any inference with the human’s planet without special permission from the Xeniack government is punishable by a life sentence mining minerals on various moons throughout the system. Selling is easy, staying out of sight of humans is the important part. All of Earth’s transmissions are monitored by the Xeniack Earth Security Agency. Any mention of what the human’s call UFO, space ship, alien, or other keywords gets picked up by the agency then investigated, but mostly they just watch Earth TV.

From our telescope we can see the cows gathered in the field below the mountain. We fly down right under the trees that border between them. Once the door opens we move fast. First, we set the bait to lure the beast inside of the trees. From there we can work under cover without worry. One takes the bait, it starts wandering into the trees. Strike. We use a powerful sleeping agent so it won’t feel a thing. We then use our laser cutters to slice through the body with precision taking all the valuable parts as our bounty.

In the ship a motion detector has been triggered. The screen projects two humans on the mountain carrying flashlights and what looks like,

‘Cellphones.’

‘That means they may be recording us. What do we do?’

‘Abduction.’

‘Abducting without a license is a death sentence.’

‘I know but we have to erase their phones.’

‘We’ll have to move the cow too.’

‘Alright. Let’s do it.’

We raise the ship into the air. On the screen we can see the humans with that shocked look on their face. Mouths open, eyes bulging, disgusting. We shoot our tractor beams on the two of them pulling them up into the ship. We’re not quite equipt for abduction, but we can make this work.

Once they’re in the holding bay we spray the sleeping gas, the same stuff we use on the cows, on the humans. We take their phones to erase all the video and pictures of our ship. Using our telepathic ability, we enter the mind of the human to change his memory. We go back to the point where they saw our ship then implant a memory where they're asleep instead. When we’re finished we put them back on the mountain. We grab the cow’s body then dump it where it can't be found. Finally, we jet off into the open void of space to sell our meats.

‘That was a close one.’

‘Too close.’

At the Yuriba market we make a hefty 30,000 Xen for our trouble. Everything is going fine until we’re approached by the bounty hunter Orik.

‘There’s a bounty for your arrest.’

‘Why? What did we do?’

‘Your ship was caught on Earth. The Xeniack government wants to bring you in for questioning.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘You ever hear of the Cloud?’

‘The Cloud?’

‘No. The Earthlings invented a computer memory bank that transfers their pictures and such from their communication devices to this bank through wireless signals.’

‘No. Never.’

‘You will soon.’

Flash Fiction Story: Craving

Flash Fiction story 600 words or less. Written for the Google+ community Writer's Discussion Group Weekly Writing Exercise.

Craving

‘It told me if I didn’t do this, than it would eat me.’

‘But it’s just not right.’

‘So I should sacrifice myself? Is that what you’re saying?’

    Holly didn’t speak.

‘Oh geez Holly.’

‘I was thinking.’

‘Maybe I should just feed it you.’

‘You wouldn’t?’

    Teresa smiled at Holly shaking her head side to side.

‘We’re getting close. Are you in or out?’

‘We’re gonna get in trouble Teresa.’

    Mocking her, ‘We’re gonna get in trouble. Blah. You make me sick, you know that.’
    Holly made an embarrassed face.

‘Alright. I’m in.’

‘Good. Just let me do all the talking. I don’t want you to give it away.’

They walked up to the door on Beverly drive knocking three times on the screen door. An older woman answered giving the two girls a judgmental look. 

‘Yes.’

‘Is Maggie home?’

‘Who would like to know?

‘I’m Teresa, and this is Holly.’

‘Hello.’ Holly said.

‘We know Maggie from school.’

‘Alright, just a minute.’

The woman went inside leaving the door open. The two girls heard muffled voices, then footsteps coming towards the door. 

‘Who is it?’

‘Hi Maggie. It’s me, Teresa. And Holly.’

‘Hi.' 

‘What are you doing here?’ Maggie asked.

‘We wanted to let you in on a secret.’ Teresa said.

‘What is it?’

‘We can’t tell you here. Can you come to the woods with us?’

‘I don’t know, I’ll have to ask my grandmother. Wait here will ya?’

‘Sure.’

Maggie went back in the house. The two girls again heard muffled voices followed again by footsteps. The door swung open. 

‘I have to be back in an hour.’

‘It shouldn’t take that long.’

The three girls walked towards the woods. Holly was very uneasy, pulling at her shirt sleeve. She wondered if there will be a lot of blood, or if Maggie would just, disappear. Or if anything would happen at all. Probably another stupid story Teresa made up to scare her, and Maggie is playing along. 

‘Up here.’

‘Is the secret something you want to show me?’

‘Yeah. Up here.’

    Teresa ran ahead. Holly and Maggie watched her jumping up and down, waving her arms into the trees..

‘Maggie.’ Holly said.

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you playing along?’

‘What?’

‘Did Teresa put you up to this? To scare me?’

‘Put me up to what? I’ve never hung out with Teresa before today.’

    Teresa turned around waving to the two girls, ‘Come on.’

‘You shouldn't go Maggie.’

‘I know Teresa is mean, but I'm bored so, why not.’ 

Holly opened her mouth to tell her, but Maggie had started running towards Teresa. She got about ten yards when a giant creature with beady green eyes and a bullet shaped black cobalt body stepped out from behind the tree. Maggie came to a halt. 

‘It’s alright. Come closer. This is it. This is the secret. Come take a closer look.’

Teresa continued, but Maggie didn’t move. Holly watched in terror while the creature’s eyes turned to red daggers. It opened it’s mouth full of jagged teeth then chomped them back down together. Its hunger was too strong. There was no more waiting as it bent down and picked up Teresa with its thin chopstick fingers.

‘No! Not me! Her! I brought her for you!’

The creature didn’t listen. It brought her up to its mouth and dropped her inside. Maggie screamed a high-pitched squeal that dogs in the next town over could of heard. The giant began walking towards them craving for more. Maggie turned to run while Holly watched motionless.

‘Teresa?’
    Maggie pulled on Holly's arm.

‘Come on Holly. We’re next.’

Holly felt her legs moving alongside Maggie, both running as fast as they could. Neither one ever turning to look back. Neither one ever returning to those woods again.

Art Storm

Written for the Google+ Writer's Discussion Group: Moderator Selected Writing Exercises. The goal is to write a short story (less than 600 words) about a photograph within one week. The story has to reference the photograph in some way or another. To view the picture, post and other entries visit the page here.

Art Storm

“What does it say about people?”

“That we are getting too fat?”

As two men discussed the possible meanings in Yuka's new sculpture, I can only think of the movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman we watched almost a year ago. A source of inspiration that maybe held some meaning, or the thought, 'it would be fun to make a giant bra and panties.'

The gallery's theme was about big things. Because of the size of most pieces, the gallery decided to hold the show outdoors. A terrible decision due to the ugly weather coming this way, but as the curator protested, 'the show must go on.' So here we are, watching as the wind blows stronger and ominous clouds roll in from the east.

“A comment on he overtly erotic society we've become.”

“A satire on pop stars performing in their underwear thinking they are larger than life.”

The two men prattled on as a gust of wind came blowing in hard. The giant underwear went sideways, pulling hard on the line that held it up off the ground. The two men backed away and headed into the gallery. Yuka ran up, panicked.

“Help me take it inside.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

We looked at each other with anxious eyes. The wind got stronger and the line started to snap. I decided to act. There was a service truck next to the gallery that had helped put all the pieces together earlier that morning. I ran to the truck and found the ladder in the back. I pulled and it came sliding out.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to pull it down. You stand at the bottom and try to pull the line as hard as you can, so it comes down before the wind catches it.”

“OK.”

I opened the ladder and started climbing. The giant bra whipped back and forth. Yuka's hands couldn’t get a grip. She’s yelled something, but I can’t hear her through the howling breeze. I grabbed the top of the bra pulling as hard as I could with one arm. The panties, next to me, slapping my face. I’m surely going to have nightmares about this for days.

The bra is still holding onto the thin wire binding. No matter how hard I pull, it won’t come loose. Yuka waved her hands signaling me to come down. I gave up and started to climb down. The ladder shook, then my foot slipped bringing my face down on one of the steps. I bit my lip. Tasting blood, the wind heaved a big blow forcing the ladder on one leg. I panicked and reached out for the line, but instead found myself gripping onto the panties. The ladder went crashing down. Yuka's faint scream echoed around the wind. 

I was gripping onto the crotch, dangling six feet from the ground. Another powerful gust and the bra snapped off the line, then the panties snapped off too. I reached my other hand up to get a two arm hold on the underwear. The bra flew off into a building while the panties carried me over the parking lot like a parachutist coming in for a landing. 

After I landed, I tried to reel them, but they were pulling me across the asphalt until my body slammed against a red SUV forcing my hands to let go. The panties went flying, followed by the bra flopping off of the building not too far behind. There they went, into that gray sky.

A few days later, I was recovering in my apartment with Yuka sitting next to me. I opened the newspaper and saw a picture of a giant bra and panties stuck on a tree with three children underneath pointing in disbelief.

“Yuka! Look!”

“Oh my god. Where is it?”

“It says they landed in, Oakwood.”

“Let’s go!”