Update on last week:

Last week’s story was a difficult one. I didn’t feel I had a grasp on it until Friday after work, at which point I just threw an opening line onto my screen and wrote from there. That is often the process that works best for me: write up a first sentence, and then see what happens. That’s what worked with my 2005 NaNoWriMo novel, Fred Again, which ended up being retitled The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster. It may not have been my best novel, but in some ways it was my most successful.

Last week’s story ended up being about 1,500 words, and started out sort of cyberpunk/high fantasy and ended up with a Quixote sort of feel. It featured a character, Sir Reynauld, that I have written about twice before: “Sir Reynould Fights Another Ogre”, and “Sir Reynould Fights the King of Oblivion”. This one, titled “The Wizard and the Fool”, is not the best… but as always, it has potential.

This week’s prompt:

 Here’s this week’s prompt:

A philanthropist wants to get revenge with a broken shrine but they will bear the scars for all to see.

I’m not at all sure what to make of this prompt, but that happens a lot. It suggests horror or dark fantasy, but that’s not the route I want to go. I think I want to go with comic fantasy, along the lines of Gardner or Pratchett. I hope I can pull it off. We’ll see what happens.

Generally, once I get a prompt from The Story Engine, I end up starting a story with a title then move on from there. This time, no title has come to me. But the week is young.

This week’s recommendation:

One of my favorite singers is Marian Call; I met her on JoCoCruise II (which I think was 2015, but I’m not going to swear to that), and she was delightful. She took a lovely picture of me, seen here:

Yes, that’s me wearing a fez. Because why not? But anyway, here’s an album of hers, Something Fierce, which you can listen to and buy from Bandcamp:

I think it’s marvelous. And you will too.

As always, have a great week, all! Be safe and be kind.