kid lit nanowrimo discussion and support
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PROMPT ONE
The fire was out of control and the goldfish was of no help whatsoever!Fire! There was a fire in the house! Again! Curly, who was trying to boil water for mac n cheese, caught his oven mitt on fire. He shook it off of his hand and sent it flying into the trash can. The trash can burst into flames. I tried to blow it out with the blow end of the vacuum but it was too big! Instead, it flared up and I blew a flaming napkin across the room and it landed on the kitchen curtain! I grabbed a big pot and filled it with water to throw on the curtain. It worked! Roscoe and Lou were busy working on the trash can. They plopped a pizza pan over the top and snuffed it out. Louie stomped out the spillover and finally, we opened the windows to clear the air. Throughout this whole ordeal the goldfish was no help whatsoever. It just swam around with those fat little lips opening and closing, waiting for someone to feed him. Hmff. Some pet. Completely useless.
This wasn’t the first fire and it wasn’t the first time the goldfish was completely useless.
Have no idea where to go from her but I did get the action part in
I'm enjoying reading the rest of them. I think it will help a lot to see what others come up with to expand my options -
I'll post the prompts the day before
Thanks everyone for sharing so far! I'd be interested to hear what everyone's process is when writing!
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As the heat grew inside the house, Bastilion the third, the useless goldfish, lay back enjoying the warmth. He smiled as he enjoyed the cozy heat inside his fish tank.
Ahhh that’s, niiiiiiiiiiiii- he was going to say nice, but nice turned into iiiiiiiiooowwww ouch that’s getting hot.
Bastilion the third the useless goldfish, wasn’t entirely useless. He was a fantastic inventor.
He was always so busy, happily inventing and daydreaming, spending all his time in his imagination, he never actually made any of his inventions.
But now as the heat from the fire caused the water in the fish tank to sting his scales, Bastilion had no choice. He grabbed a shell, bit off some oxygenating plant, tied the top of the plant he’d bitten off to the tip of his fish tank castle, threw it over the side of the tank, held his breath and absailed down the outside of the tank, holding the shell full of water. When he got to the bottom, he stuck his head inside the water in the shell and took some big deep breaths.
He was about to have a quick snooze and dream about inventing a flying machine for goldfish, then he remembered the house was on fire.
He quickly folded an envelope into the shape of a flying fish aeroplane complete with fins scales and a paper face. Then using a rubber band, launched himself toward the sink. He landed in the water in the sink. He then piled cups up high, towards the tap, and turned on the tap full blast. The water squirted out in all directions but down. He adjusted cups until water sprayed towards the fire. It wasn’t enough to put the fire out, but it was keeping him safe. He drifted off into a daydream again about making a fire truck that looked just like a lobster he knew called Barrington. He’d known Barrinton since that time when...... aaaargh A bright hot orange spark from the flame landed right next to Bastilion the third. It was time to invent again.
He made his barrington lobster fire truck from drinks bottles and straws and bottle caps for wheels. He filled it with water while he added more details to the face, tail and claws, which were completely useless for fighting a fire urgently but they sort of looked good, in fact he messed up on one of the claws.
Annoyed about the claw, he sped off towards the fire in Barrington the lobster fire truck. As he fired the tiny jet of water from Barringtons left nostril. A splodge of water arrived from over his head. He looked round and up at the firefighter who had burst in and put out the flames. The firefighter looked down. Bastilion the useless goldfish heard him say ‘no one is going to believe this’.
Two weeks later an important package arrived on the fire chiefs desk. It was the blue print and model prototype for the new style of city fire trucks, shaped like Barrington the lobster, they fired water from their left nostrils. -
Writing is a bit of a new big scary world for me so I'm starting small & planning on just short plot outlines for each prompt. I'm hoping to improve as the month goes on and come out with one or two I'd like to work on further - thank you @Braden-Hallett for the advice and tips! I need them
Day one:
An old goldfish lives on the coconut shy at the fair. He is never picked as a prize but that's ok, he's fine living here with his friends the coconuts, even though they're a little nutty (haha) from repeatedly being hit in the head. One day the fair catches fire - goldfish and coconut make it out but now they have to fend for themselves. What will they do!? Where will they go!? hilarity ensues & eventually they end up at the beach where the wild coconuts live and goldfish has a view of the sea.
Nicola Schofield
Twitter: twitter.com/NSchofieldArt
Instagram: instagram.com/NicolaSchofieldArt/ -
Hilarious! Particularly this bit
@peteolczyk said in kid lit nanowrimo discussion and support:
a fire truck that looked just like a lobster he knew called Barrington. He’d known Barrinton since that time when...... aaaargh
Nicola Schofield
Twitter: twitter.com/NSchofieldArt
Instagram: instagram.com/NicolaSchofieldArt/ -
@neschof cheers Nicola if it made you chuckle, that’s made my day
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@Braden-Hallett I’m very new to this, I’m not really sure what sort of process if any, is happening yet. It’s more like I’m stumbling in the dark. I would love to hear about other writers processes though.
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I wrote this yesterday but had a few computer issues and I also wanted to add some colour, which I just finished up. I would really like to add colour to each however I am also drawing people so. What I can do, I will do. Now I got to get to today's lols. Click on it to place it on it's own page because you can't see white on white. Thanks,
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@peteolczyk Wow! Very imaginative! It's so fun to see what people coem up with
Marsha Ottum Owen
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@neschof said in kid lit nanowrimo discussion and support:
so I'm starting small & planning on just short plot outlines for each prompt
That's a great way to do it!
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@peteolczyk said in kid lit nanowrimo discussion and support:
It’s more like I’m stumbling in the dark
I think everyone feels that way
Much in the way that sometimes coming up with illustrations can feel like stumbling in the dark.Brainstorming helps. Spitballing. Mindmapping. Just gettin' words and things that relate to the prompt down as fast as you can and kinda seeing where it goes.
Writing a the simple sentence 'This is a story about a _____ who ____'. can help.
For myself I asked 'why would the fish be any help at all?' and I got a bit of an idea. I then just wrote down stuff that came to mind
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So we have a trip to the local firestation, an inventor goldfish, a goldfish coconut duo, a group of fish that put out a fire, and I wrote a quick story about a sister that tricks her little brother into believing his fish grants wishes.
Quite the spread
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my little goldfish is unlucky and brings 'accidents' upon his owners so he ends up being disposed of each time until a little boy finds him and gives him the home he deserves. After all, the goldfish can't help it that things catch fire...
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Dear rooster, the spaceship laboratory just isn’t the same with out you. When I look out of the window over the the crater pitted landscape I think about the days when we would play, ‘ Let the giant alien monsters escape, then try and catch them again’.
Oh how I miss seeing your flailing wattle atop your head, wobble with energy as you ran along screaming, stumbling from crater to rock, while the Hairy Fourteen Eyed Filbert from the fifteenth moon of the sixteenth planet, chased you back. His seventeen tiny legs running like crazy to carry his huge hulking body at speed.
How beautiful it was when the Hyujumungous Vnoop from the hairy desert of planet Venus decided she liked the taste of your feathers. She looked at you like you were an odd shaped bar of chocolate and chased you whilst licking her lips, into the cave of pointy purple spikes.
You played chase so well too, with the Giant Worm of Moon City, even after he swallowed you whole. Oh how we laughed as we watched the silhouette of your frantic, chicken shaped figure, running around inside his translucent skin.
I still don’t understand why you refused to play for a whole space week.
And how could we forget the Crackled Crannock Crator Cronk from planet Crunk. You couldn’t catch him either. In fact he ran off with you under one of his million armpits, your little chicken feet flailing about wildly, in confusion. Who could have known that’s where it’s mouth was. You certainly can’t blame us for laughing uncontrollably and not helping you in the slightest. You were a great sport, even when you emerged again some days later covered in Crator Cronk saliva, after having spent all that time being licked by its armpit tongue. There wasn’t a single feather left on your pink rooster body. Oh how we still laugh at the time when you promised to take revenge on us all. We know the electronic rooster translator wasn’t working properly and none of it was true. Even when you stormed out into the crater filled landscape we laughed so hard at the thought of you rounding up all of the giant alien monsters and coming back with them to ‘get’ us. It’s just so impossible. How by the many moons of planet Zoupquonk could a bald pink rooster possibly......just wait, one second what’s that noise, and strange giant alien smell. Is something unscrewing the roof of the space lab? It can’t be? Thats so strange, no one would believe this, it looks the shadow of the enormous Blam from the Flam dimension. But he went missing months ago. Aaaargh not the ..... don’t pick me up, I’m a scientist, don’t put me in there, I’m just not suited to being a human pea in a giant game of alien pea shooting. Especially one that’s umpired by a bald pink ROOOOOSTEERRRRRRRRRRR. -
@Braden-Hallett cheers Braden, stupid question, is spitballing, mindmapping and brainstorming the same thing?
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@Marsha-Kay-Ottum-Owen thanks Marsha, it was fun to write, thank you for persevering with it
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@peteolczyk Do you plan these out first or just start writing and go with the flow of whatever happens?
Nicola Schofield
Twitter: twitter.com/NSchofieldArt
Instagram: instagram.com/NicolaSchofieldArt/ -
@neschof I’m just writing as it plays out in my head.
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I have to say, these prompts made me think of stories I would never come up by myself.
Yesterday's story was very unexpected, but kind of sweet. I ended up with a story idea about chasing a seeminly impossible dream, about friendship, and different perspectives. (The writing is really rough, like a barely readable thumbnail :-).Today, my story idea gets weird, and a bit mean. I wrote the first paragraph, and realized what the story was about. I acutally got uncomfortable with my own thought. The story idea is a letter written by a school kid to a bully boy (the rooster) after he moved away. The whole letter is describing how nice the school has became without the bully rooster boy. The letter ends with a thank you note to the bully's mom, for taking him away from the school. I am having a problem with the moral of the story, so I had to stop.
Here is the googleDoc I will put all the stories from this momth.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fbO3zseYKkad9cmlRO3EvQ1vdIr1-7kBOIODBkN1Ngk/edit?usp=sharing -
Story 2
I want to write so the first story had a cover image like the front of a book, the following will not. Thank you,
