How did you get on yesterday? Did you write a story?
Remember, set your own rules, and stick to them. If you miss a day, don’t try to catch up. Just keep moving forward!
The Prompt
Write A Story Inspired by A Song Title
You can tell the story of a song or simply use it in the story.
Here are a couple of resources
An A-Z of Song Titles – if you feel the need to pick randomly
Fantasy Song Title Generator – for those of you who like to play fast-and-loose with the rules
Go!
Check back every day for more prompts, and don’t forget to come back and leave a comment to celebrate your writing successes, every day!
September. Day 24
Song Title
I write about a lonely young housewife working in her kitchen and listening to the radio. A song came across the airwaves which triggered a host of memories spanning her life so far.
It’s very much an outline but I can see where I can take it.
I wrote 700 words.
I am sorry this is so long…over 1800 words, but it is a story worth telling….
Song for Zula
Some say love is a burning thing
That it makes a fiery ring
Oh but I know love as a fading thing
Just as fickle as a feather in a stream
See, honey, I saw love,
You see it came to me
It puts its face up to my face so I could see
Yeah then I saw love disfigure me
Into something I am not recognizing
See the cage, it called. I said, come on in
I will not open myself up this way again
Nor lay my face to the soil, nor my teeth to the sand
I will not lay like this for days now upon end
You will not see me fall, nor see me struggle to stand
To be acknowledged by some touch from his gnarled hands
You see the cage it called. I said, come on in
I will not open myself this way again.
Song by Phosphorescent
Zula was the star lion at the zoo, but as time passed he grew old and somewhat infirm to the point he could not maintain his lofty status as King of the Beasts. Other younger males had challenged him, but with each challenge, he grew more and more scarred. Some of the workers talked about moving the aging beast into a separate cage, but he was quite attached to Shasha who bore him many offspring over the years. He enjoyed her company and loved it when she lay in his massive shadow.
“Hey there fella.” Jake would greet him everyday at feeding time. Zula would come sauntering up to the bars of the cage and reach one of his massive paws through the bars, tapping Jake on the hand gently as he passed the meat through the separation in the bars. He would then stand there and watch Zula feast on his daily vitals and then say, “I’ll betcha ya was quite a beast in yawr time, mate.”
Zula’s teeth were wearing out, but he never left a scrap of food in his behemoth feeding bowl. Jake would report on his rounds to make sure not a solitary resident was missed. One morning, Jake made his rounds and noticed that Zula’s dish was not empty and in fact, it had only been half eaten. This alarmed Jake who did a quick check of the grounds that the lion pack occupied on the northern section of the zoo. He counted carefully and found they were all there minus one. Taking the radio from the lapel of his khakis, Jake called, “We got a missing big cat. On Sector 4G. Right-io. It’s Zula.”
Jake took a ride in a Land Rover with the veterinary staff in search of the big cat. Ms Schottenheimer who was in charge of Zula’s case. She was a kindly round woman who had been with the zoo for over twenty years and got to know Zula as a young lion. After reviewing the footage from the seven cameras set up around the compound, Jake saw the shadowy figure of the elderly lion find a foothold on one of the platforms that served as a shelter. One of the trees hung over the wire, appearing quite harmless until Jake watched the lion grab a hold of the low hanging branch and shimmy his way up until he could get his paws on the trunk. After seeing the sequence, he uttered, “Bloody clever.” He said it with admiration. So once Zula had managed to escape the compound, he made his way to one of the exterior gates and with a vicious swipe of his paw the flimsy door buckled instantly and he walked off the grounds of the zoo his tail twitching behind him and Jake swore he was wearing a smile of smug satisfaction as he disappeared from camera range.
The zoo was surrounded by grassland, now dry after a scorching summer, much like the savanna land his mother had come from just before he was born. . This was the land he was born to and now they would have to find him before Zula would attack a small dog in someone’s backyard.
“Where do you think he would go, Jake?” Dr. Schottenheimer asked.
“Dunno, but if I was him, I’d head for the high ground.” He pointed to a couple of rocky ridges on the horizon and without hesitation, she instructed the driver to head for the hills that framed the metropolitan area. Jake loved to go up into the hills where the land was not so developed, closer to nature is the way he liked it as he did when he grew up on his father’s farm in the Outback of Australia.
Turning on the parameter road off the highway, Jake noticed the grade of the surface of the road deteriorate until they were driving on gravel. Out here the roads were rugged and begged for ATV’s like he loved to ride when he came out here.
Suddenly the vehicle stopped and everyone was looking and pointing at a tree and sitting in the tree was a shadow of a familiar figure.
“Zula, ya ol’ scoundrel.” Jake smiled and whistled jumping out of the vehicle walking briskly toward the tree.
“I got the tranquilizer ready.” Lindsay said as he raised the rifle. Lindsay was one of the newer keepers and was skittish watching Zula flick her tail, fearing he would attack Jake at any moment now.
“No wait.” Dr. Schottenheimer reached over and put her hand on the stock.
They all watched as Jake reached the tree where Zula sat on the branches blinking from a nap he had just been taking laying majestically in the branches like God had intended he should. Jake whistled and Zula nodded in recognition, his mane once graying and stiff now seemed to flow as angel wings.
“Look atcha, King of the Beasts and rawghtfully crowned.” Jake folded his arms across his chest. “I’d leave ya here, mate, if I could.”
It nearly broke Jake’s heart to see Zula sitting in his rightful throne, looking like a real king and not some caged beast longing for freedom that would never be granted, the door never opened, the cage forever in place to the delight of the all of the customers that would pass by the compound to see a real lion. Ah, if they could only see him now, in his realm. He swished his tail and bowed his head as Jake stood there admiring this magnificent beast. There was a pop followed by the swish of the dart as it struck Zula in the side.
“Ah, noooo.” Jake fell to his knees in horror as Zula listed to one side and then the other before falling with a heavy thud from his throne in the tree. Rushing over to his side, Jake got down on one knee and put his hand near where the dart was protruding. “I ahm sooo sorry, mate.”
Their eyes met. The others were rushing toward them as Jake pulled his pistol out, put it to his head, and pulled the trigger. There was a muffled pop and then the large cat’s head went back, tongue out as he came to rest in the dust.
“What did you do that for?” One of the technicians asked shocked at what Jake had done.
“He asked me to do it.” Jake put the smoking pistol in his holster adding, “He didna wanna go back an’ after seein’ him like he was, neither did I.”
“You had no right.” The technician snapped as Dr. Schottenheimer knelt beside the fallen beast.
“If he had gone back after this, he would never be the same.” Jake confirmed with a slow shake of his head. “An’ I counddn stand for that.”
He walked over and knelt next to Dr. Schottenheimer. “It was fo’ the best.”
“I know.” She nodded wiping the tears from her eyes knowing that Zula had begged for Jake to do what he did. There was no other outcome.
Song title: “Walk Me Home”
Unbeknownst to her friends and friends deemed to be family, Mavis had been diagnosed with dementia. Unfortunate to not have a secondary disease to kill her quickly, and unwilling to burden others, she made plans and left careful well thought out instructions. In her final note she said, “I have chosen to do this on my own, independent to the end. I need no one to walk me home.” All who knew Mavis knew that she always got her way and why would this time be any different?
I used the song title Under Pressure and then chose the name Daniel for the main character because of the Elton John song. This Daniel was traveling on a train, instead of a plane. He is under pressure both internally and externally and I wrote the story of what happens when there is a sudden release of pressure.
I decided to press ‘random’ on my digital music collection and I got Seal’s rendition of “I Put a Spell on You.” Surprised to come up with a few pages worth (new pen, finished old journal!), applying it to four characters at different points in their lives.
Checking in to say I’m still writing. The story shapes from Making Shapely Fiction have provided a nice constraint to work with. Today I wrote a day-in-the-life story, with the idea being to focus on the odd and particular details of a routine. I set it in an overnight shelter. A bit roughed-in, but this is one I’ll return to.
I’m finding this challenge has been great for establishing a routine. Although I don’t always get to the desk at 8 PM sharp, as I did that first week, I do find that it consistently takes me 2-2.5 hours to exhaust the idea, unless I start really late and am falling asleep at the page (ultimately abandoning what I’m writing). So there’s good motivation to have a little discipline and evidence that making time to write is fruitful.
I’ve written about 500 words around Louis Armstrong’s ‘ When The Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbing Along’. I’m sure it will be about 1200 when it’s finished. Rather obviously it’s a tune which symbolises how a couple met. I’m quite pleased with how it’s going so I will work on this story later as well I think.
Hello Everyone,
I dropped off for a few days, off on a business trip – back again. Trick is can I catch-up. Saturday here already – off to do another writing course – on grammar this time. Watch this space.
I was wondering if Steffie the spy was going to show up this week. She did. http://marianallen.com/2019/05/please-mister-postman-storyadaymay/