Tagged!

I've been tagged by Simmone Howell, author of Notes from the Teenage Underground. If you haven't read this book, get hold of it - it's a great young adult story with an interesting mixture of pop art and film-making.

So here's the meme:

simmone said...
found ya! and now I'm gonna tag ya:Turn to page 123 in your work-in-progress. (If you haven’t gotten to page 123 yet, then turn to page 23. If you haven’t gotten there yet, then get busy and write page 23.) Count down four sentences and then give us the next paragraph.


Craig draws me closer to him, and smiles. ‘And how did that make you feel?’

Okay so I'm in the middle of a dialogue scene so the paragraph isn't very long. And Craig's name is now Zach, so I better do a quick find and replace. And out of context I'll leave you wondering exactly what 'that' refers to... And it ain't sex!

If I turn to page 123 in the lulu.com printed version, I get:

'Well, thanks for your support, Nicky. It's appreciated.'

More dialogue. What can I say?

So if you are a writer reading this and have a long work in progress: consider yourself tagged. Leave a note in the comments linking to your meme, and I'll drop by.

While you're blogging about works in progress, mangle some prose in the Bonsai Story Generator. It'll give your writing a whole new perspective.

Bonsai Story Generator

Nanowrimo can lead you to some interesting places on the net. Yesterday it took me to the Bonsai Story Generator, a website that will mangle your story in only a couple of seconds, but somehow retain some (and I emphasise some) sense.

So I decided to stick my Cinderella story into the generator and see what it spat out.

Here are some of the resulting sentences:

Her life was no dictator.

(but I bet hubby is!)

He had a post-it note, and the kingdom.

(useful!)

Snow married her fairy godmother, but Cindy often felt the blood rush to her husband that she would only so much He shook a napkin out of rehab to beat her palm.

(well, that's where one would usually get a napkin, isn't it?)

A ménage a problem.

(usually turns into a problem the morning after)

An erotic fantasy of colourful footwear.

(many women's fantasy)

The slipper had a genetic right to have a velvet lined, gold encrusted shoe box.

(of course!)

Dirty socks on a short red silk cocktail dress, and fame made.

(I think this one has Monica Lewinsky undertones)

This program appears to try and keep verbs and nouns in order to make some kind of sense, but it's interesting the odd combination of words. Enough to set off another bout of creativity. Hmm, I don't remember Snow White marrying the fairy godmother!

The Perfect Man - Carribean Women's Blue T-shirt

Speaking of creativity, the folks at Cafepress have added a heap of new t-shirt styles and colours and I've added them to the existing designs at the Chickollage shop. We now have women's shirts in carribean blue, red, violet along with light colours, white and dark v-necks and much more.

New Beginnings - Women's Violet T-shirt

Drop into the shop and have a browse!

Legendary Punk Poet T-shirt