After the excitement of Thursday night’s play-off hockey game (the team I was rooting for won) I could use a round of Friday Writing Sprints to get my heart-rate back under control and keep me distracted until the next game on Sunday.
Care to join me?
Whether you wrote a lot, a little, or nothing at all this week, a few minutes of Random Word Improv are a great way to have a little fun and get some words on the page. I’ll be wearing my lucky Shark’s hockey shirt, but feel free to dress as comfortably as you’d like. Fuzzy slippers are optional.
Today’s random words feel a little challenging. I’m going to have to give them some serious thought before I start writing. Can’t wait to see what you do with them.
Ready?
For any of you new to Random Word Improv, here’s how we play:
- Pick as many words from the list as you want
- Write the first line(s) of a story incorporating your words
- Post your results in the comments section.
Here’s today’s list of random words from our randomly selected random word generator:
puppet paradise fight diabolic
arcane ring hypnotic deception
naïve bitterness puzzle doctor
promise erotica waffles disoriented
Okay. Are you ready? Go!
*whistling aimlessly while you are off being creative*
Ah, you’re back. Kind of fun, right? Can’t wait to see what you have come up with. .
Happy writing to all.
Eight Ladies Writing 
Waffles – lovely! Erotica Paradise – sounds like a new club for Cassie and Nicolai to investigate 😉 .
Busy day ahead today, and these words are already sparking ideas in lots of different directions. I’ll take them to the pub this evening and see what hatches with the assistance of a large G&T.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Busy day here as well (including a ferry ride to the city for a work-related lunch) so I’ll be back with my own entry later this weekend.
(-: I can’t keep my mind off waffles now. Wish I had a cute little heart waffle-maker (-:.
Doctor Jane was trying to distract little Bitsy with a puppet and a lollypop, but nobody was fooling anyone. The kid clamped her teeth shut, and gave Doctor Jane a diabolic stare.
“C’mon, Bitsy, say ‘ah’ and we can see what’s wrong with your tongue.”
“Nn-uhn,” Bitsy replied, without opening her mouth. Frank sighed. His niece was his for the week, and she’d woken up complaining about a sore tongue. When even waffles failed to distract her, he knew it was time to see a doctor. His sister and brother-in-law were in Denver at an Arcane Erotica convention, and he’d been completely unable to reach them.
“Bitsy, honey,” Frank said, “If you just show the nice doctor your tongue, I promise we can go to the zoo.”
“No zoo,” the little girl managed to say without parting her lips. The kid was going to make a great ventriloquist, he thought with some bitterness. Just like Grandpa Frank. What a load of irony.
Doctor Jane motioned him out to the hall. “I don’t usually do this, but I could give her a hypnotic suggestion. She does seem to be in some pain. Or, you could wait it out and bring her back tomorrow.”
He couldn’t leave Bitsy with the babysitter and go to work if she wasn’t going to eat. Yesterday morning, the babysitter had been a naive, sweet teenager, but after eight hours with Bitsy, she was a cynical hag who had aged about four decades. “Do you have any idea what kind of deceptions this little child practices? This was a jigsaw puzzle at 3 p.m.” The babysitter dumped a mess of colorful confetti on the table. “She put it through the shredder in your office and blamed it on the dog.” Frank was skating on thin ice with the babysitter. The kid had to be fixed, and he had to get back to his project, which was due in two days.
“Fine,” Frank said. “Let’s try it.” They went back into the examination room, and Doctor Jane took off her ring and threaded it onto a golden chain.
“Watch carefully, Bitsy,” her calm, sexy voice intoned. “Just watch the ring.” Frank watched the ring swing back and forth, to and fro and felt . . . very disoriented. He shook his head, but it did nothing to clear it. When Doctor Jane said, “Now, pretend you are in paradise,” he lost all sense of everything, and slipped into a fevered dream of beautiful doctors, and well-behaved little girls pirouetting through the frozen breakfast aisle of his favorite grocery store.
I feel like I’ve slapped all professional hypnotists in the face with this, and I’m not crazy about mixing sexy doctors with dancing little girls and frozen food. A James might be able to pull all of this off, but a Frank doing it just sounds a little . . . unbalanced. Oh well, just a sprint. I’m still struggling with my real writing, but I hope I can get some insight over a lazy Sunday. (Please, please let Sunday be a lazy Sunday!)
I really like this. Between the “arcane erotica” convention and the aging of the poor babysitter, you’ve packed some really great stuff in here. I would definitely read more.
That was fun! Poor Frank deserves an exciting dream, and hopefully by the time he comes round, Doctor Jane will have taken stern measures to deal with that little monster Bitsy.
For some reason, my brain didn’t want to play on Friday. Today it’s back in the game, though it seems to be channeling the dark side. Got all the prompt words, though:
Once upon a time, Hector Oldschool had believed unregulated fighting was the measure of a man – an arcane test of bravery in a neutered, vanilla world. God, he’d been naïve.
Fighting was easy. The diabolic skill was in the promotion of the illegal bouts.
This wasn’t the waffles-and-ice-cream family entertainment dressed up as a fight beloved of TV channels and advertisers. Not even the pay-per-view version with hypnotic strobe lighting and near-naked Birds of Paradise parading the ring between rounds, a plastic surgeon’s wet dream of cut-and-paste erotica. Here there was no music. No ring, no referee and no doctor. No rules.
No rules, except one. Gino (no last name asked or given) was the puppet master, and when he pulled the strings, they all danced, kicked, punched, stood and fell.
When Hector had seen the new kid, full of promise, all flat-top haircut and pretty muscles, the last piece of the puzzle had fallen into place. He’d known, long before Gino had fixed him with that thousand-yard stare and said quietly “Not tonight.”
He was beyond bitterness. So relieved that he felt faintly disoriented, and in the circumstances that could only be a good thing.
For the kid, it was just beginning.
For Hector, the deception was almost over.
Good job,Jilly; glad your brain decided to play along today. What will Hector do, now that his fighting days are done, I wonder?
This week’s words have resulted in some interesting pieces. I’m still trying to get Cassie and Nicolai to play along – theirs is looking to be a tension filled entry.
What a good sketch! Did Muhammad Ali influence you at all with this? I know he was in legal fights, but his death must be influencing a lot of people at this time. IIRC, he paid a terrible price for his career. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/06/ali-and-parkinsons/485798/
I *think* it was the juxtaposition of the prompt words – ring/fight/disoriented/doctor, and then naive/paradise/puppet/deception, but truly, who knows what sparks the connections?
A little late, but here’s my entry for this week. Cassie and Nicolai weren’t as cooperative as I’d hoped.
——————————–
We made the walk to the station after breakfast in silence. I promised Nicolai we’d talk about Demitri when we got there, but I wasn’t in any hurry. He seemed to understand my hesitancy and didn’t push; a fact I appreciated.
Nicolai may have taken me to paradise for a few hours last night, but today was likely to be a bumpy ride to Hell. If I was being honest, I’d admit to feeling a bit of bitterness over the fact that, once again, my personal life was going to be a casualty of my work life.
I wasn’t naive enough to think there wouldn’t be repercussions over the secrets I’d been keeping. It had been a necessary deception, but that didn’t mean it would be any easier to accept.
Chief Daniels called Nicolai into his office as soon as we walked into the station. “Not you,” he said as I started to follow. “Go to the hospital and talk with Penelope’s doctor. See if she’s alert enough for questioning.”
I nodded my agreement, more than a little relieved to put off my discussion with Nicolai. Grabbing the keys for one of the unmarked police cars, I headed to the hospital.
Penelope’s doctor was wearing the flat expression from the night before – the same shirt too, if I wasn’t mistaken. He had precious little information to give me however, citing patient confidentiality rules. “She’s conscious and alert, but you’re going to need a court order before I tell you any more than that.”
“I’d like to talk to her,” I said, hoping to at least get that much without a fight.
“No.”
I waited for him to say something further, but that was apparently it. He turned to leave then turned back. “She had some valuables with her when she arrived. We’d appreciated it if you would take them to the station for safekeeping.”
He pointed me to the admissions desk where I signed a receipt and took possession of a small plastic bag containing a necklace, a ring and, if I’m not mistaken, the missing arcane amulet from the Egyptian Museum.
Another piece of the puzzle to figure out.
When I got back to the station, Nicolai was nowhere in sight. I turned the bag of valuables over to the custody clerk; then updated the chief on Penelope’s condition. He just grunted when I mentioned the court order. His mind was definitely on other things.
“Where is Nicolai?” I asked, wondering what their earlier conversation had been about.
“Nicolai is no longer on the case.” My confusion must have shown on my face because he added, “He’s related to our prime suspect. His continued involvement would be a conflict of interest.” He waved me out of the office before I had a chance to ask anything further.
I was surprised at how disappointed I felt at the thought of not seeing Nicolai every day. My surprise was followed by a feeling of relief that I didn’t have to talk to him about Demitri just yet. Instead, I could focus on figuring out whether Demitri was a diabolic murderer, somebody’s hypnotic puppet, or just a disoriented casualty, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was really hoping it was the later, and not just because I wanted another chance to take a trip to paradise with Nicolai.
Ooh, the plot thickens! Sorry Cassie and Nicolai weren’t playing ball, but I enjoyed this a lot. A nice change of pace from last week’s intimacies. Can’t wait to find out more about Penelope and Demetri’s secrets.
Thanks Jilly. This didn’t quite work out as I planned, and I may rewrite this bit somewhat, but we will definitely be hearing more about Penelope and Demitri’s secrets next time.