160 - I'm also writing...fiction? ✍️✍️
Hey there, !
What are the stories that I've written on vincentjrx.blogspot.com recently?
the bombs fell on tuesday - Inspired by the first two sentences which randomly came up while I was at work. I wanted to bring some Slaughterhouse Five vibes - some very stark, fact-based description of an attack on a city - but I don't have the greatness in writing of Vonnegut. It wheeled out of my control as I wrote it anyway, with the characters and their descriptions strolling straight out of my brain with frustrating annoyance. One of the things I was working on with the novel I'm writing is that I'm not very good at stopping and describing things - I just want to go straight to the action. So this helped me exercise that part of my writing!
exercise - frame story: the tree men - A piece I finally finished after a while - using Frame Story and Climate Change as the format and content prompts. I initially thought of a frame being 'writing a letter', but then changed it to a court case because it was going to be more interesting. In a post-climate change world, there would be likely something like the Peace Corps, except for the Climate, where people would volunteer for big projects, but at the same time, technology can be weird and used for evil things. Also, I thought writing like an old timer would be a fun exercise too! (it was).
exercise - meetings: modern day - I don't love this one, but it's part of the exercises. Meetings and Modern Day as the format and content prompts meant I had to put it in reality, rather than my favourite sci-fi and fantasy genres. It's a piece I had put more action into (another think I was working on) but I think it went okay? I didn't love the ending but I just wanted to finish it off and publish it :D
new vengeance - my favourite idea of the last few stories, because it's based on one of my favourite Roald Dahl short stories - Vengeance is Mine Inc - essentially, two unemployed dudes start up a crappy hitman service. I thought - what would that look like in the modern day? Cue - streamers, texting, food fights - the works. A bit more complicated than the original, and the desire from the characters isn't at strong, but that's something to work on.
What's your creative outlet? :) Let me know!
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
-
The Dollop: UK - bit of a cop-out because it's technically a repeat, but I recently found a sub-podcast of The Dollop (an American History podcast) which focused on stories from the UK, and they are hilarious. It's a 10 episode series, and one of my faovurite was literally one of the first ones they released called 'Cyril the Swan', which was the story of an English football team's mascot that was a WILD story. Highly recommended!
-
Dodee Paidang - since we're repeating I may as well repeat another one - Dodee has just opened in Box Hill! So much closer, so much easier to access delicious Thai food :D Recommended if you've still not tried it!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
-
How to Download All of Wikipedia on to a USB flash drive in 2022 - not something I had thought I wanted to do, but now I know how to? Why not :D
-
A flower woman by 1500+ artists - yes, AI generated, but a fantastic look at how the same sorts of features crop up over time, and how different styles get moved across the same images!
-
What to read to become a better writer - I haven't read all of these, but I'm going to try and read some of them! I have heard of On Writing for a while, just haven't got around to reading it yet.