It's that time of year again, the leaves change and fall off the trees, the weather turns cold and there is snow outside on the ground, and here I sit hunkered down at the computer getting ready to spend the next thirty days chasing down plot points and story lines. National Novel Writing Month, the IronMan of writing competitions, 50,000+ words in 30 days, write an entire novel in a month. This is what separates the novelists from everyone else and where you find out who your true friends really are; they're the ones who are still willing to speak to you after being ignored for a month.
This year is my fifth NaNo, and I am once again embarking on the quest to write an entire novel from start to finish with the hopes of maybe one day getting published. This year I'm going to do things a little bit different from past years. One of the things I've struggled with in the past is the inability to get my brain in gear. I reach points in my novel where I loose the plot, literally, and I can't seem to form a complete sentence to save my life.
This time, when I get to that point, I'm going to take advantage of some of the tools NaNoLand offers by taking a moment here and there to work on random writing prompts to try to jump start my writing when it stalls. Then my thought is to post some of those random prompts here for feed back, entertainment, and just because I can.
So, to start off... I have my first writing prompt based off just one word... ballet. It's an absurd short story about the end of the world and why guys should always listen to their girlfriends (it just works out better for them in the long run).
Oh, and one more note... please ignore the inevitable typos, spelling and grammatical errors. These are quick little prompts that are meant to exercise the brain and to have a little fun along the way.
“Remind me, why are you dragging me to this thing tonight?” Simon moaned as he wrestled with his tie.
“Its not a thing, its the ballet,” Sarah admonished.
“Its gay, thats what it is.”
“The ballet is not gay, its cultured.”
“Guys prancing around in tights, how is that not gay?”
Sarah sighed and rolled her eyes, “Its no more gay than watching football players go around slapping each other on the ass.”
“At least football is a sport, those are real athletes out there on the field.”
“Yeah, real athletes that need pounds and pounds of padding in order to keep from getting hurt. You have no idea the physical skill it takes to dance ballet, I can guarantee you that most of the dancers tonight will be dancing on broken toes and stress fractures and you wont see them whining and complaining about getting hurt.”
Simon snorted in a huff, yanking the knot of his tie up to his Adams apple. “Whatever,” he muttered under his breath.
“Come on Simon, I go with you to all your various sporting events even though I hate sitting out in the cold, freezing my butt off, drinking bad beer and bored out of my mind. You promised that tonight we’d go and do something I wanted for a change.”
“Football isn’t boring,” Simon protested.
“Sure, fine… whatever.”
Sarah glared at Simon through the mirror as she finished applying her mascara. Simon recognized the look on her face, there was no way he was going to get out of having to go to the ballet. “Look, I’m sorry babe,” he said soothingly. “You’re right, I did promise to go to the ballet with you. I was just bummed because Norm got these amazing tickets to tonights game and he was wanting me to go with him.”
Sarah’s face fell, “Oh…”
“But a promise is a promise… I’ll text Norm and tell him that we can’t go tonight.” Simon smiled reassuringly to Sarah as he reached into his pocket pulling out his cell phone. “He got club house tickets, I’m sure he wont have any trouble finding someone to tag along.”
“Club house? Wow… fancy…”
“Apparently he got them as a gift from a client at work.”
“Nice gift.”
“Sure… I guess,” Simon replied, stoically running his thumbs over the keypad.
Sarah sighed, “Lets just go to the game.”
Simon looked up surprised, “What? Really? What about the ballet?”
“The show is going on a couple more weeks, we can go another time. It seems like these tickets are kind of a big deal.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah… I mean they're good tickets, and the club house is indoors so it will be comfortable.”
Simon reached down and swooped Sarah up into his arms. “You are the best babe!” he exclaimed kissing her. “Tomorrow night, I promise, we’ll go to the ballet.”
“I should probably change,” Sarah commented looking down at the black cocktail dress she had just purchased for their date.
“Sure babe,” Simon replied. “I’ll text Norm and tell him we’ll meet him at the stadium.”
He caught a glance at his reflection in the mirror as Sarah left the room, and grinned. The scene worked out just as Norm predicted it would, all he had to do is down play how badly he wanted to go to the game and make her feel guilty for making him miss out.
“Tonight is going to be awesome!” he thought as he quickly yanked off the tie and changed out of the uncomfortable dressy clothes. He was careful not to seem too smug when Sarah came back twenty minutes later, her sexy black dress replaced with a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.
“All set babe?” he asked.
“Sure. Lets go see some football,” she replied with forced enthusiasm.
Outside the stadium, Norman glanced impatiently at his watch. Pulling out his iPhone he sent a message to Simon, “10 minutes to kick off, where are you?”
“Waiting for Sarah to get ready,” Simon replied. “We’ll be there in a few.”
Ten minutes later, still no sign of Simon or Sarah, Norman texted Simon again. “Seriously dude, I’ve been waiting out here forever, where are you?”
“Getting close, traffics a bitch right now. If you want, leave the tickets at Will Call and we’ll meet you in the club house.”
“Fine, the tickets will be at the Will Call office under your name. See you when you finally arrive.”
The game was in full swing by the time Simon and Sarah walked into the suite. The home team was winning by several points and the fans were going crazy below, screaming and hollering, cheering on the players.
“Norm!” Simon called, slapping Norman on the back. “Its a total madhouse out there!”
“Hey Simon, took you long enough to get here.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, I had to talk Sarah into coming. She had it in her head that we were going to go to the ballet tonight.”
Norman had to bite his tongue to keep from asking why they didn’t just go to the ballet. Sarah seemed like a nice enough girl, very attractive and sexy, but every time Norman hung out with the two of them, she always seemed quiet and distant as though she had better things to do than go to the game with her boyfriend and his best friend.
“How are you doing Sarah?” Norman asked, struggling to keep his tone neutral and friendly.
“I’m doing good Norman,” she replied pleasantly. “How are you?”
“Not too bad.”
“This is a pretty impressive set up,” she commented gesturing at their surroundings.
“Yeah, I just finished a big project for one of my company’s biggest clients and they gave me the tickets.”
“This set up is epic!” Simon exclaimed. “You can see everything! Plus the TV screens, this is sweet!”
“Not too shabby,” Norman agreed. “Theres food and beer in the mini bar, help yourself to whatever. All courtesy of my big time client.”
“Are we the only ones here tonight?” Simon asked, helping himself to a beer.
“I invited a few people, so far you and Sarah are the first to show up. Everyone else seems to be running really late or are just going to flake entirely.”
“It was kind of crazy getting here,” Simon admitted.
“Either way, if they show up they show, if not then we have the suite to ourselves.”
“Right on man!” Simon raised his beer in salute. Norman raised his bottle and the two friends clinked the bottle necks and took a drink.
“Come on man, lets watch the game!” Norman ushered Simon to one of the seats overlooking the field.
Sarah sat and watched the game dispassionately while Simon and Norman hooted and hollered at the players. Soon she grew bored and opening her purse, she grabbed a magazine and started flipping through the pages.
After a while, the noise out on the field seemed to rise to a fever pitch. It didn’t sound so much like cheering as just screaming in general.
“Whats going on?” Simon wondered allowed, frowning as he peered out the window.
“I don’t know,” Norman replied. “Something doesn’t look right.”
Sarah glanced up from the magazine to see what the two men were talking about, but she didn’t see anything too out of the ordinary.
“Whoa!” Norman cried, “What was that? Is that a person running on the field?”
“Yeah, it is! It looks like he chasing one of the players. That dude is crazy!”
“Something is going on down there, but I can’t tell what.”
“Turn on the T.V.” Simon suggested.
“Good idea,” Norman walked over to the giant flat screen mounted on one of the walls and turned it on. Instantly, they knew that something really wrong was happening in the stadium.
“It’s pandemonium!” cried one of the announcers. “I haven’t seen chaos like this since… I’ve never seen chaos like this.”
“You’ve got that right John,” the other announcer agreed. “People are attacking each other right and left!”
“Not just attacking Bob, I’m getting reports that people are being bitten!”
Norman and Simon gaped at the screen, their mouths open in shock, as the camera panned along the stadium tiers showing people biting and clawing at one another.
Sarah looked up from her magazine and screamed. Just outside the windows to the suite, people were hacking and tearing at each other. “Oh my God!” she cried “What’s going on!”
“Well folks it’s official,” John the announcer declared soberly. “The zombie apocalypse has begun. There is no word of how it started, all of the reporters on the field are either dead or thirsting after human flesh. This is it, the event we all feared would happen has finally come to pass. I don’t know how much longer before the zombies finish off the people in the stadium and spread out into the city. If you are in a position to leave, get out, if not… well, find yourself a weapon, hug your loved ones, and hunker down because the world is going to hell in a hand basket.”
Somewhere off camera there was a loud crash then suddenly the screen went to static.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Sarah cried. “What do we do!”
“We gotta get out of here,” Norman shouted rushing for the door to the suit.
“I don’t think that we’re going to be going anywhere,” Simon commented. “Look!”
He pointed out at the windows. Sarah and Norman slowly turned, their eyes following the direction Simon was pointing to.
“Holly crap!” Norman shouted.
Lining the windows were hundreds of faces, eyes red and ferocious, staring at them with ravenous lust. Slowly backing away from the windows, Simon grabbed Sarah’s hand, squeezing her fingers painfully. The zombies plastered against the glass started scratching and banging at the window.
Norman reached the door exiting the suite first, but just as he reached out to grab the handle the three heard the ominous sounds of even more zombies on the other side of the door.
In the last second before the glass broke and gave way, Simon could help thinking that perhaps spending an evening at the ballet wouldn’t have been so bad after all.
Good luck!