I Gazed Up

  • by Kenthave tried animal bladders
  • touches without touching
  • never legally divorced her first husband
  • shared greeting ritual
  • pulled his silk handkerchief over his head

Tune in next time part 636      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I gazed up at Hildegard, who loomed in the doorway and showed no indications that she would be granting me any privacy anytime soon. It was a silent stand-off. The forgotten latex puppet was mashed into the slope of her hip like a skydiver whose chute hadn’t opened.

The inherent limitations of the human bladder are among the very few problems no one at the Academy has found a good solution for. Some daredevils have tried animal bladders for increased capacity, but the trade-offs aren’t worth it. Others have dabbled in tele-micturation, a mind-over-matter technique where the fluid “touches without touching” the commode. You can always tell when one of them’s been around.

As long as she stared at me, I wouldn’t be able to pee. I had to make her leave. Taking a wild stab, I said, “You know Chartreusse will be furious when he learns that his new wife never legally divorced her first husband.”

She shrugged. “What I did to him was just as effective and far more affordable.”

While I pondered that ominous remark, my hopes for privacy were further dashed by the arrival of her father. The old man and Hildegard launched into their peculiar shared greeting ritual right there in the bathroom doorway. But, at least they were paying no attention to me. Perhaps this was the opportunity I needed. I had never timed their intricate salutations, but I knew they wouldn’t be done until she pulled his silk handkerchief over his head.

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The Disco Artist She was Talking About

  • by jenthat’s just how my throat works
  • sky was a vivid tranquillity of green and yellow
  • elegance without pomp
  • A bear!
  • what kind of fish to put in the moat

Tune in next time part 635      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The disco artist she was talking about was Chartreuse’s brother, Deuce. Deuce Pamplemousse had a huge hit with “Hop on my Caboose.” It was an insidiously catchy number, and once you had it stuck in your head, the only way to exorcise it was to sing a snatch of it backwards. I did that now, hoping to banish the tune before it lodged itself deep in my psyche.

“What was that?” Hildegard demanded. “That noise — is that what you call singing?”

“Don’t get so worked up,” I said. “That’s just how my throat works. I never claimed to be a singer.” I took a deep breath and tried to relax and pee.

“But your twin is America’s number one wedding rapper!” She grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around to face her. “Your identical twin!”

“Rapping is not singing.” I tried to remain calm. I looked out the window where the morning sky was a vivid tranquillity of green and yellow over the fresh snow. The sulfurous emissions from the nearby valley did strange things to the sunlight.

I shrugged away from Hildegard and sat on the toilet. So much for the elegance without pomp that standing urination embodied — I was desperate for release and didn’t care how pompous I looked. My innate elegance would have to carry me through.

Hildegard’s eyes widened in alarm. “What are you doing!”

“I told you I need to go.” My voice sounded more pleading than elegant.

“But, as you Americans say, does not a bear shit in the woods?”

“A bear! Are you calling me a bear? I’m not that hairy. And unless you want to witness what an American does in the bathroom, you’ll give me some privacy.” I didn’t actually have to poop, but Hildegard didn’t have to know that. “Give me five minutes, and then we can talk about whatever you want — what to have for breakfast, what kind of fish to put in the moat, who your favorite disco artist is — anything. But please, five minutes.”

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10,000 New Writing Prompts

We spent the summer carefully curating a new collection of text snippets to add to our Stichomancy Writing Prompt Generator. For those of you who are new around here, stichomancy is the art of divination through random passages from books. You grab a book, close your eyes, riffle the pages, and poke your finger (or a pin) into a page at random. You then read the sentence or paragraph that you stabbed and figure out how it relates to the question that’s eating at you — sort of like a horoscope. In our case we dispense with the whole fortune telling aspect, and simply use the phrases that the universe thrusts upon us to inspire quick fiction pieces. And with our handy dandy Writing Prompt Generator, we dispense with the whole “shuffling through books” part of the process, too. And so can you!

Head on over to the SkelleyCo Amalgamated Fiction Enterprises LLC Stichomancy Writing Prompt Generator today, and begin your journey into the world of chaotic inspiration! You’ll be glad you did.

“Look,” Hildegard Said Raggedly

  • by Kent“Ahh, but we do.”
  • sex with you when it was convenient
  • Perhaps I don’t need to say this
  • aggregated skill, luck, laziness and chutzpah
  • was once a disco artist

Tune in next time part 634      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Look,” Hidegard said raggedly, “we don’t need to hang around in here.”

“Ahh, but we do.” I winced. “Or, I do at least.”

“We didn’t get married just so I could have sex with you when it was convenient,” she replied. “We also got married so you could have sex with me when it was inconvenient.”

“Perhaps I don’t need to say this. Well, clearly I do. Inconvenient is one thing. Right now it’s impossible. Even with my lifetime’s worth of aggregated skill, luck, laziness and chutzpah there’s just no getting around certain biological necessities.”

She hadn’t been listening. She was mumbling and staring off into space. The only words I caught were “Pamplemousse” and “was once a disco artist.”

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When Your Bladder is Really Really Full

  • by jenwhere your imagination goes
  • took up napkin folding
  • and that is not what I do at all
  • but that’s only true if you’re cold
  • as big as golfballs

Tune in next time part 633      Click Here for Earlier Installments

When your bladder is really really full, but you can’t relax enough to pee because there’s a crazed woman lurking behind you with a puppet, it’s amazing the places where your imagination goes. The last time it happened to me, back at the Academy, my mind took up napkin folding. Creating intricate origami animals out of linen squares is very complicated, and that is not what I do at all in my day-to-day life, but in that instance it worked to distract me from my angry bathroom companion and I was able to attain the relief I sought. Hildegard’s enraged panting was too intrusive for that trick to work for me today, though.

“I’m having a little trouble here,” I told her. “Please give me a minute of privacy.”

“A little trouble?” She looked at my crotch. “Shrinkage? But that’s only true if you’re cold. And anyway, they’re as big as golfballs and a seven iron right now. I’d hate to see them when they weren’t giving you a little trouble.” She smirked. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t *hate* it.”

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The Plot Rainbow is Like The London Tube Map

One of the techniques we rely on heavily for our pre-writing process is the rainbow. It gives us a map to follow. Each row uses a color to represent a character, and the columns reflect the passage of time. Because our stories tend to be large and complex, our rainbows can get pretty unwieldy, taking up the entire hallway, and, more recently, forcing us to use both sides of our ginormous whiteboard.

The power of this tool is that it helps us visualize the flow of the story, to spot characters who are underutilized and debug the timing of events. It’s proven itself to be well worth the hassle. But, keep in mind that the rainbow isn’t a calendar. The objective is to focus on the important beats, which means the columns’ durations are all likely to be different. The rainbow distorts time in a manner reminiscent of how the map of the London Underground distorts space.

london tube map
The iconic London Tube Map designed by Harry Beck.

By discarding concern for geographic accuracy, the London Tube Map becomes more meaningful by showing more stations. Riders need to know which stations are on each line, and in what order. That’s enough for them to use the system to get where they’re going. Do the people riding the tube sometimes need more spatially rigorous information about these places? Surely. That’s just not the job of this particular map. Likewise, writers do sometimes need specific dates. Fortunately, we have calendars for that.

That the columns of the rainbow grid aren’t fixed units of time is not a bug. It’s a feature. But like any other part of the process, having an extra pair of eyes will definitely come in handy to make sure everything’s lining up. A writing partner is someone to help you keep all your stations on the proper lines.

“The Show Was Called…”

  • by Kentlike to eat in the nude
  • applied his forefinger to his forehead
  • “You’re not going anywhere!”
  • open shirt and hairy chest
  • how big and bulgy

Tune in next time part 632      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“The show was called Bouillabaisse Cowabunga,” Hildegard said, “officially. But the kids all called it Bullabunga, so by the third season that became the title.”

I had faint recollections of a ‘Bullabunga scandal’ in which someone was quoted as saying “I like to eat in the nude.” I assumed it was the old sea captain. As these misty memories returned, I had an image of someone frowning through a painted-on smile as he applied his forefinger to his forehead with his thumb jutting out to complete the capital L.

“But that wasn’t a doll,” I said. “It was an actual, live clown.”

“It was German!” Hildegard shrieked. “It had no soul!”

“Okay,” I said with a wince. I gestured to the toilet. “Sorry, but I’m still trying to go.”

“You’re not going anywhere!” She stood panting, the latex puppet waving uselessly beside her right ear, staring at my open shirt and hairy chest as if unsure what they were.

I turned my back on her, trying to capitalize on her distraction in order to empty my straining bladder. Trying to relax, and think of anything other than her manic face, and how big and bulgy her eyes had become.

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I Didn’t Like the Way Hildegard Kept Insisting We were Married

  • by jenattempting to impose a sense of order and restraint on what is inherently an indulgent act
  • I was in a very famous TV show
  • a clown doll that sings
  • took them to a houseboat
  • complicated and bizarre

Tune in next time part 631      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I didn’t like the way Hildegard kept insisting we were married, but I liked even less how she kept trying to help me pee. She assured me she was merely attempting to impose a sense of order and restraint on what is inherently an indulgent act. I disagreed that solo urination was indulgent at all. If we were, in fact, legally married, this was proof that it would never work.

“Tell me about yourself,” I said, hoping she’d get distracted and I’d be able to pee in peace.

“When I was a child I was in a very famous TV show here in Bumpengrynd. My costars were a clown doll that sings German folk songs, and a little old sea captain. The sea captain collected orphans, including myself and the singing clown doll, and took them to a houseboat in the lagoon where he made us all wear wooden shoes while he cooked spaghetti, wrote sinister poems, and painted imaginary landscapes.”

“It sounds complicated and bizarre.” I said. “What was it called?”

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Two Sides to Every Story

Book 4 of the Ghost Series keeps expanding. Regular readers of the blog know that there are so many characters we had to modify our plot rainbow to accommodate them all. And since these characters insist on interacting with one another, having so many of them causes an exponential increase in the number of plot events. In practically no time we outgrew the acreage on the front of our new whiteboard. Lucky for us, the back is also magnetic.

Act 3 of the novel now lives on the back of the board, where it has plenty of space to stretch its legs. We thought this was the perfect solution, and it is pretty great. The problem is, no matter which side of the board we’re looking at we want to reference something on the other side. This entails a lot of flipping the board back and forth. And back and forth. And back and forth. Jen keeps joking about buying a second enormous whiteboard, and Kent keeps hoping that she really is joking. “But just imagine,” she says, “how complicated a plot we could devise if we had twice as much space to work!”

A writing partner is someone who will go along with some — but not all — of your mad schemes.

“Oh, Everybody Knows Jim”

  • by Kentmutually fantasizing over me
  • the little cups they use
  • baroque and hallucinatory
  • arcane hieroglyphs which can be read only by
  • specifically placed crystals

Tune in next time part 630      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Oh, everybody knows Jim,” Hildegard said. “Isolde and I used to debate who was sexier, him or you.”

I tried to slam the bathroom door, but there was only a bead curtain. My bladder demanded relief, but it was hard to focus past the image of Hildegard and my sister-in-law mutually fantasizing over me, or over my shady brother perhaps. It wasn’t clear how their debate turned out.

I could picture them conversing about us at a sidewalk table at a particular cafe, the Monkey’s Paw. I could picture the little cups they use to serve tea that is hot, baroque and hallucinatory, cups ornamented with arcane hieroglyphs which can be read only by refracting them through specifically placed crystals, which is a waste of time because they merely spell out the cafe’s motto.

None of which helped me pee.

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