Gowanus Writer's Guild

1. Imagine a character – a superhero – who has lost all of his or her powers. How does this character discover the loss? How does he/she cope? Choose one of the following superpowers:
   • Plant manipulation
   • Teleportation
   • Superhuman intelligence
   • Omnilinguism
   • Pheromone manipulation
   • Sonic scream
   • Body part substitution
   • Echolocation
   • Gravity manipulation
   • Resurrection
2. Imagine a teenage character who has been raised by robots. This character has just been found by humans and is being studied by scientists. They allow this character to go to high school in order to study the teenager’s reaction. You are this teenager’s  guidance counsler, teacher, best friend, coach, or mentor. Describe a day in the life of both of you.

1. Imagine a character much like one of your parents. This character has recently experienced something that drives them to do things inappropriate for their age or soioeconomic status. Write about what this character is doing. You can try using one of the following settings: monastery, gutter, train station, swimming pool, church, cabana, department store dressing room, potluck, hardware store
2. Imagine a character who just woke from a 10 year coma. Using the words below, orient them to their new reality
   • Canote
   • lorine
   • Factulus
   • Ronderis
   • Jonky
   • Fergy
   • Vickle
   • Debose
   • Mackle
   • Pecent
   • Quonce
   • Holglic
3. Picture Prompt - in honor of father's day, pictures of dads:
   

Sources: Old-timey Serious Dad, Vintage Dad, Rich Dad Poor Dad, Daytona Dad, Star Wars Dad  

Flowers, bushels of them everywhere. I was leaping in massive soaring bounds, not flying, better than flying. Bees the size of mantics were courting a field of jayseeds in their coy darting fashion, and the air was full of hypoallergenic pollen as I breathed deep and full. Not a hint of headache. I took another joyous leap high into the air and landed in a heap of purple petals the size of my head.

Zzzzzt. Zzzzzt. Zzzzzt. the gentle buzzing of the clangbot intruded for a moment into my dream before becoming incorporated as the rhythmic hum of the mantic-sized bee chorus. Nope. I couldn’t maintain the illusion of sleep for much longer after that. Grumpy. And hot. That was about the size of it. A day of info excavation and all its tedium stretched out before me as I lay there, in bed, disgustingly awake for five am and sweating from the combination of stale air and bright sun. Even so, I drew the roffle tighter against the harsh light as the clangbot activated the shades. I took one look outside and drew back with a start. The crocuses were clustered at the window, sending out tendrils in search of a way in. I knew just opening the window even a crack would be a quick and painful death. And I didn’t even have a pantact to protect me.

Info excavation isn’t as easy as it used to be. There was a time when computing devices used to help humans, before they grew beyond our simple means of control and became the full-blown computers of today. It seems almost sacrilegious to think that those simple computing devices were actually called computers back then. The whole computer revolution finally proved that information can be turned quickly and completely against us, so humans have finally learned to give in to their fears and control the flow of information to a gentle trickle. That’s where I come in. Info excavation is an art, which is why you need to be certified before they’ll even let you near the twages.

I know excavation isn’t exactly the best word for it, but I’ve never been that good with words. I just do the job and get out, knowing that I’ve done my bit to keep the human race going in the face of odds that overwhelmingly favor the crocuses. And barring them, the computers.

1. Button
   Find a loose button. If you have a collection of extra buttons, pick one that interests you. Look at its shape, color, size. Where did this button come from? What purpose did it serve? Was it functional? What did it hold together?
2. Person, Place, Object, Emotion
   To prep for this prompt you will need a piece of paper. Make four separate lists of 10 items each: 10 people (by profession or notable characteristic), 10 places, 10 objects, 10 emotions. Keeping each list separate, cut them up so each list's 10 items are on their own piece of paper. Put each set of 10 items in separate cups — one cup per list — and mix them up. Without looking, draw one item from each cup and write a story using the person, place, object and emotion you've chosen. After you're finished with that set, yu might want to draw out several groups of 4 and record the combinations. Use them the next time you need some inspiration for a character.
3. Picture Prompt
   The pictures this week included sad robots, bad art, cyberpunk babies. Try one of the images below, or use google image search to find an image that piques your interest.

The stairs to his left and to his right wound in graceful curves down to the parlor floor, upon which the people stood, champagne flutes in hand, nibbling at tiny bits of food.  He leaned against the balcony where the stairs met, looking out over this well-dressed crowd, these genteel members of a high society which had taken him months to properly infiltrate. A fragment of a poem occurred to him then, as he watched and waited for the hour which had been appointed.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves

By each let this be heard

Did he love them, these people he was here to kill? Wilde would further postulate that a coward killed with a kiss, a brave man with a sword. What then to make of the man who lines the walls and floor of his host's extravagant home with C4? The highly explosive gel wanted only the slightest of currents to bring hell to this place that once housed heaven, and he would unleash that current soon enough. In the meantime, he watched. Did he love them?

He had been sent here by men who craved those things which the people below him had. They did not love the crowd, not as individual men and women, but they loved this life that had been denied to them. They loved it with such a fierce and burning passion that in their desire for it they had mistaken the emotion for hate, or rage. They were driven then to exterminate this very thing which they loved so much, and when it was gone, would they mourn it? Would they despair in the knowledge that by their own actions they had only put it forever beyond their reach?

Why is there a man in the DJ booth tied up and in bondage gear?  The Dj's hands don't look right.  She's not a DJ, she's not even a she, I'm pretty sure that that's amanda lepore, who is a she, but didn't used to be.  She's not a DJ though.  The tied up guy might be, but he looks like a bear.  I never really thought of bears as having public personas outside of gay pride parades.  Are there bear bars?  Just bear nights at gay bars?  what about towns with only one gay bar, or a bar that's only gay on tuesday nights.  Is the third wednesday of each month bear night?  does the pta sometimes forget and schedule their meetings for the third wednesday instead of the fourth?  Do they walk in to a bunch of men in leather and aviators?  do some of the members try and stay, stake out a corner and hold the meeting anyway?   What do you do when you realize that the pta president is in leather at the other side of the bar?  Choose not to acknowledge him?  Does he come over and lead the meeting anyway?  What kind of pta business can you get done in a bar anyway?  Bad hot wings don't exactly foster discussions on what the curriculum should be for third grade science?  I suppose they could, talks on the chemical changes in the meat might lead naturally into whether or not third graders are ready for evolution, or if you should just focus on dinosaurs.  I guess in a bar full of bears you've already scared away the fundamentalist member, so at least she won't be arguing for creationism, and a new text book for the third graders that talks about how dinosaur bones were put there by god to test your belief in him and like the earth are only 6000 years old.

There is something to be said for the idea that the earth is only as long as recorded history.  If we couldn't write and communicate, did we really exist?  Were we really the same?  Probably.  Everything was just a lot smaller.  Even the Egyptians didn't know when something happened in europe.  Maybe they did, but not for years, and then as a story third or fourth hand from someone who had traveled two years to get near enough to talk to someone who even knew the existence of these other places.

Why wouldn't you just move the meeting to the coffee shop down the road.  I know the kids who serve coffee there hate it when you ask them to turn the music down, but they sell beers in bottles and the fundamentalist is probably there right now composing a strongly worded letter to the penny saver about how Christians were shut out of the decision making process for third grade science due to a nasty trick by the pta president who accidentally scheduled the meeting in a temporary den of filth.  

You don't touch both turntables at once, it's just not how it's done.  I wonder if they clean the glasses extra on bear night.  All that chest hair and man sweat in the air.  What do the regular bartenders think?  Are they okay with this?  I mean they have to be for their job, but do they like the switch to techno from classic rock?  Does it give them something to talk to their friends about?  Or do they grit their teeth, get stoned, and try and get big tips by wearing tight pants?

You're supposed to wear the headphones too.

You can check here for the previous week's prompts. Please post your writing as often as you would like.