A lot of people are holing up with their computers and infinite mugs of coffee to participate in this year's NaNoWriMo. And to those of you brave enough to do it, I wish you oodles of luck.
But, then there's the rest of us. Perhaps we already have a WIP, or we're spending the month creating the perfect query, or maybe we're taking time off from the writing gig and experimenting with new hobbies such as ghosting.
So in the spirit of novel writing month, I thought why not do an add on story? For those of you who've never taken part in this oh so fun activity as a child, here's how it will work:
1. I will post the first paragraph to start off this shindig. (Definition of paragraph (for the purpose of this activity) is 3-6 sentences)
2. YOU will add on to the story by posting under the comment section of this post. I repeat, this post.
3. A person may add on to the story a maximum of three times per day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner). We've got to watch our waist lines (aka not stray too far from our REAL works in progress).
4. And then on November 30th- voila. We'll have... well, I don't know exactly what we will have. But that's part of the fun- right?
Bring your steam punk, vampires, bad boys, cliche weak female protagonists and more! Share this on your blogs and post it on your facebooks- nay, let the entire world contribute to this master piece.
And now for the beginning..... (please see the comments section).
The tires of the '69 mustang fastback squealed to a stop. Cautiously, the driver stepped out. He coughed and swatted at the puffs of dirt that fogged the air.
ReplyDelete"What the..." he said under his breath.
It was bright and colorful and moving about wildly, but what was it?
ReplyDeleteFlorian Finkelkrumb narrowed is eyes and pulled himself together. He was not a man to stand about asking himself questions, not with a fortune to win and only two days left to live. He leant back into the car and pulled out his steam-powered blunderbuss.
ReplyDeleteBam! It backfired and killed him, just as Dorian Dundernuts predicted. Oh well, what was another dead Finkelkrumb?
ReplyDelete*This is fun*
Dorian stood from the ground. Dusting asphalt chips from his multi colored track suit and beanie.
ReplyDeleteWho said faking a seizure in the middle of a county road couldn't earn you a sweet ride?
He kicked Finkelkrumb's body aside and hopped into the Mustang. He revved the engine and fishtailed the hell out of there.
He'd been driving for more than five minutes, a country-western song blaring from the radio, before he realized that he was being followed.
ReplyDeleteThe car following him was gorgeous...a silver Saturn Sky. In it was a beautiful woman. Everything about her was black, save her pale skin: eyes, long silky hair, tongue, nails, and black lips against her stark white teeth, the incisors elongated and the tips slightly showing. She was not a vampire, but what?
ReplyDeleteThen he heard the chilling song she was singing, instilling fear deep in his heart...
"There's a Bad Moon on the Rise..." She laughed as she sang. After all it was 1969 and bad moons were everywhere!
ReplyDeleteIn an effort to calm his nerves, Dorian grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey from under the driver's seat, and took a long swig. After all, Finkelrumb wouldn't miss it.
ReplyDeleteNow, with the liquid courage kicking in, Dorian slammed on the brakes and fishtailed in front of the Saturn, forcing it to careen to a screeching halt.
Dorian got out of the car.
ReplyDeleteNothing. Just dust and a faint silver gleam.
He pulled a long Cuban cigar from his left nostril, hoping as he did so that his interest in parlour magic was finally going to pay off.
The door of the silver Saturn Sky opens and a black pointed boot steps onto the pavement.
ReplyDeleteEyes wide. Mouth agape. The cigar drops from his mouth and rolls across the pavement stopping within inches of the boots point. Long manicured fingers, gracefully entwine around it.
ReplyDeleteShe gives it a look of disdain with her cold black eyes. It falls from her hand, breaking up into a fine powder that piled up on the asphalt.
ReplyDeleteWh-who are you?" stammers Dorian. "Wh-what do you want?"
"You don't want to know," says a voiuce from behind him. It is distinctly masculine.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDorian spun in place. The bearded lady from 1944 stood her ground.
ReplyDelete"Do it," she said. "Do it now."
Dorian pivots away from the bearded woman, simultaneously reaching for something in his back pocket. But suddenly something black, muscular, and slimy coils around his neck, squeezing his trachea, gagging him.
ReplyDeleteHe looks down the length of the black muscular chord and shudders when he realizes what it is - her tongue.
He realizes that the bearded lady in black is not, in fact, bearded. What he presumed to be hair is little more than...shadows coiling around her, caressing her youthful skin.
ReplyDeleteThe masculine voice floats to his hearing again. A man wlaks up to him--it is...
..the last man Dorian wanted to see-the shadow-lady's boyfriend. He lets out a menacing howl and proceeds to give Dorian a tongue-lashing he would never forget. No, really. He inserts his black, writhing, cord-like tongue through Dorian's nose, up to his brain, and his venomous saliva starts to eat away at Dorian's fleshy cerebrum. Dorian's screams of pain give way to silence as his eyes glaze over. On the verge of passing out, he sees...
ReplyDeleteSunlight coming through the rear winshield of the '69 Mustang. Dorian stretches his neck and vows to never fall asleep in the backseat again while letting a hitchhiker, no matter how beautiful she is, drive his car.
ReplyDelete"You okay?" she asks. "You were making a lot noise back there?"
He shudders in relief when he realizes it was a dream. The shudder turns into horror as he realizes that something much, much worse was blocking the road. The first thing he sees is the thing's huge white wings...
ReplyDelete"Hey Lady! Do you see that?" Dorian screams.
ReplyDeleteThe driver glances at him in the rearview. "See what?"
Dorian points at the road with a trembling finger. "Th-that thing with giant wings."
She looks back at the road and then glances at Dorian in the rear view again. "You trippin' man? There isn't anything out there."
"No, I'm not tripping. Maybe a little stoned." I wondered if that last batch of Acapulco Gold was bad shit.
ReplyDelete"See the giant white wings, we're practically on top of it. Watch out! Shit, my new Mustang."
Which is worse, a guy with a tongue the size of a python up your nose or a chick driving your new car? I barreled over the seat and hit the breaks, crushing her delicate, sandaled foot. She screamed. The car careened...
Dorian cringed, not because he feared the pain, but because he couldn't bear a scratch to blemish his sweet ride. The mustang tilted to the right, riding on only two wheels, before it flipped. Not wearing his seat belt, Dorian was tossled in the back seat like clothes in a dryer.
ReplyDeleteThe eerie quiet was the first thing Dorian noticed. He tried to move his legs. They worked. His arms, fine. His head felt a little fuzzy, but OK. He looked around. Where was the babe?
ReplyDeleteHe leaned over the front seat. Not there.
He managed to crawl out through the open passenger side window. A little wobbly on his fett, he looked around. Vanished. No babe ,..and no white wings.
"Huh," he said to himself, scratching his head. He shaded his eyes and looked around the stretch of dry, grainy flat land, dotted with thorny cacti- Arizona desert. He looked at his demolished mustang, sighed, then started walking.
ReplyDeleteIt was gonna be one Hell of a stroll to Nogales to find the woman carrying his baby. At least he'd have plenty of time to form some plan. Dorian never was that sharp. He was the butterknife in the drawer, and it hadn't occurred to him that she didn't want to be found.
ReplyDeleteShe ran. She ran surprisingly fast for a pregnant woman.
ReplyDeleteShe didn't look it, not really. You had to be a)an obstetrician or b)freakishly eagle-eyed to notice.
She didn't feel bad about leaving her child's father. It was for his own good anyway. He wasn't very smart, but somehow he'd known she would become pregnant as soon as the child had been conceived, no test needed.
"Oh, Dorian," she sighed to herself. She sighed, not because she missed him, but because he knew too much for his own good.
But she wasn't looking when she fell into the pool of water that wasn't there a moment ago.
But was it water? The liquid was clear, but viscous like oil. It coated her skin and hair and glistened in the blistering sun like a beetle's carapace.
ReplyDeleteNo, it was truth serum. And she had to tell Dorian the truth. She wasn't carrying one baby. She was carrying six, and Dorian was the father of only one of these.
ReplyDeleteShe would name his baby Gray. No matter the gender. Unless, of course, it had a tail. So many of her other children did.
Meanwhile, Dorian trudged along in the desert sun. Much to his surprise- he heard the sound of wheels approaching. He turned to look over his shoulder.
ReplyDeleteHis heart lightened. A Mustang, the spitting image of his now totalled one.
ReplyDeleteThen he looked closer. No one was driving.
The woman on the Mustang rolled her eyes. She knew the drill, of course. The idiot man was approaching her, as planned.
ReplyDeleteGood thing he couldn't see her.
She would inhabit the vehicle and influence Dorian to go to the woman carrying six children, one of which was Dorian's. Then, she would spill, thanks to the truth serum puddle she had laid out so carefully. And Dorian would leave her to go back to the woman he had better learn to love again.
As she slipped into the vehicle's very being while Dorian got on, she reveled in the contact with the man who had left her, the man she loved.
But did she really? Love him, that is. Did she truly want to be with him forever, or was this just an excuse to get back at that woman?
She, Actaea Gillespie, had lost her conscience long ago.
Which was probably for the best.
Because the woman she was possibly about to kill was her sister.
As if someone had pulled down the mini blinds, a darkness wiped across the once blue sky.
ReplyDeleteSomething bright blossomed in the sky slicing through the darkness. A deafening roar ripped through the air followed by a hot nuclear flash. Everyone died.
ReplyDeleteTHE END.