Shadowed Musings

Stuck for a story idea? Let me help! I’ll periodically post a random tidbit that struck me as odd and offer it up to you as the potential seed for a story.

Use it as a starting point for your #FridayFlash. Take an idea from it, twist it and tweak it into something all your own. Share your idea with the rest of us – I’d love to see how many different incarnations everyone can come up with. I may just try my hand at it myself…

What do you say?

Today’s tidbit: This article I read about astronauts returning to earth after long space missions with their vision altered.

“In the past few years, about half of the astronauts aboard the international space station have developed an increasing pressure inside their heads, an intracranial pressure that reshapes their optic nerve, causing a significant shift in the eyesight of male astronauts. Doctors call it papilledema.”

It’s no secret that potential astronauts must go through rigorous testing before and after they travel to space. But apparently after spending a year in space, the nearsighted astronaut no longer needed his glasses to see afar. The bad news? He now needed specs to see up close. Apparently space travel does something to the optic nerve – but only to males. So far, no female astronauts have complained of this affliction.

Obviously, I don’t want to make light of this topic – but I think it also makes a good seed for a sci-fi/horror story. What do you think? Is there a seed of a story in there that you can build upon?

What other effects would you have your characters experience? Where would you take the story, given these bizarre circumstances?

Challenge extended.

I owe many of my musical discoveries to my fellow inkslingers.

My good friend David J Rodger shared this soundrack, done by Underworld, for the live theatre performances of Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein (with Jonny Lee Miller – swoon! and Benedict Cumberpatch)

It starts out dreamlike, ethereal, lovely, melodic but then the clanging of bells add a stark jolt and the soundtrack begins to shift, to decay into something more haunting.

Frankenstein House is the shortest of the tracks but it is lovely and warbling.

One of my main sources for new musical discoveries is fellow dark ambient lover Barry Napier. Barry has introduced me to many new bands, including the wonderfully strange yet melodic Sleep Party People. This song is addictive! And I cannot stop watching those bouncing bunny ears as they really get into the song.

Lastly, I heard about Hecq via the NaNoWriMo forums. Their tracks range from dub step in one of my faves, Sura, to the creepy Dis. I’m not sure why but it reminds me of the film version of The Shining. It is definitely atmospheric, and something that is sure to inspire.

So, what are your latest musical discoveries? Or what are you listening to while writing your next killer story?

At first, I resisted the urge to sign up for Pinterest. I’m already on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and any other number of social networking sites.

But – I kind of already “pin” stuff anyway.

I makes inspiration boards for my stories, either in Photoshop or on a real life corkboard (I know!). It’s a great way for a visual person like me to get inspired, to become more fully immersed in story I’m creating.

It’s no secret that music plays a big part in my writing routine (just like having the ‘right’ pen or setting up in my writing nook), but photos, textures, drawings, clothing, faces, landscapes – all of these add layers and make it easier to truly imagine the place I am creating once I close my eyes.

So, among the fashion finds, decadent recipes, and crafty tutorials, I’ve also started a board for my latest WIP, tentatively titled “Dead Of Night”. Feel free to check it out and follow my board as I continue to add to it throughout the month as I work on it as part of my #write1sub1 goal.

If you’re not on Pinterest and want an invite, let me know and I’ll shoot you one!

So, do you use inspiration boards at all in your life? How? Have a cool one to share? Post it in the comments section!

I actually wrote some articles on how you can use inspiration boards in your writing: one for settings and one for characters. Check them out!

WIPs

• Been doing well in terms of subs for 2012 (5 so far), but those have all been resubs of pieces that have been rejected or that I started in 2011
•  REALLY excited to work on this new story!
•  still plugging away on my Na-novel from 2011 too

A delivery in my mailbox today brought a piece of my childhood back to me.

I’ve mentioned before that my grandmother, Bernadette Rajotte, was also an author.

She wrote many short stories, a number of them appearing in various Canadian school textbooks and children’s magazines, and I recently found a used copy of one of the books online.

Just seeing the cover was like stepping back in time. I remember the illustrations of her story (The Moonlight Dance of the Whooping Cranes) so vividly that it was such a treat to open the book and see her story after all these years.

While I obviously write in a very different style and on very different subject matter than my Grandma, I know that I adopted my love of writing from her, so getting this book and adding it to my collection has me over the moon.

It also has me inspired to get going on the 2nd month of Write1Sub1. It is no surprise that I am way…waaaaay behind on my self-imposed schedule of ALL THE STORIES but as long as I am actually actively writing, I can’t complain or feel guilty about it. All I can do is vow to do better.

Having a bulletin board full of story ideas is all well and good – but over-pre-scheduling is like setting myself up to fail.

So I moved a few of my (lesser anticipated) stories to the backburner and have shuffled my ideas around to make it more manageable.

Okay, so there are still 17 shorts, 2 novels in each of 2 novel-series, 2 novellas and 2 experimental projects that I want to tackle…

So, I’m not sure if I made anything better. But it was fun moving things around on the bulletin board. That counts, right?