Still Hardly Working

So two and a half years ago, I made a post called "Hardly Working" that showed all the random pictures that I drew while I worked at Random Department Store, Inc. Well, here is the sequel, only this time I shall paint you a picture with WORDS.

Oooooooooh.

So, the queues at my current job are completely empty and have been for the past four hours. So, because my supervisors are cool and devious at the same time, they sent us creative writing prompts to keep us busy. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I'll admit, I've actually been having way to much fun with these. Just like Obama & the Kangaroo, I decided to let my mind wander off the beaten path and just do whatever the bleep it wants.


Prompt: Create an advertisement (three to five paragraphs) using this image as your inspiration:

"Allow me to sing you the song of my people."

Now, to me, it looks like these guys are sharing in some particularly hilarious joke. As a result. here is what I spawned:

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Do you ever feel like the Netherworld is just a little too dreary at times? Our home may be riddled with trillions of dead folks, but that doesn't mean we have to act like it! Even Hades needs a chuckle once every few millennia.

As the sole proprietor of "Funderworld," I am here to bring the gift of laughter back into your afterlife. My improv training seminars give you the tools you need to tickle the funny bone of everyone you meet.

Whether you bump into the head of a somber guillotine victim down by the River Styx or a dispirited pioneer who has still not gotten over their death from dysentery on the Oregon Trail, I teach you how to transform any situation into a gold mine of comedic wonder. Along with my fellow humor instructors and the jocular antics of Cerberus, my in-depth classes are sure to make you a veteran member of the Army of the Fundead in as little as 37 years! Transform your eternal afterlife into the Laughterlife by enrolling today.

Contact Komos on the outskirts of the Fields of Asphodel to register for his posthumous and post-humorous training sessions.

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AKA; My life in a nutshell.

Also, shout out to the person in Romania that's actually reading this. "Vă mulțumim!" ;)

All Roads Lead to Murder. . .

This week's prompt, as stated before:  You're in a motel.

Go.

~~~

He comes here every Thursday like clockwork.  He walks in the room, takes off his trench coat, and throws it on the broken armchair.

He thinks no one can see him.

But I do.

From under the bureau I can see him.  I can smell his cologne.

He pushes the rickety bed across the floor with a screech.

Every time.

The trapdoor is exposed.  He opens it and lowers himself down gingerly.  He stays down there for forty-five minutes exactly, a constant thump thump below the floorboards.  He climbs up and moves the bed back to its original position, as if nothing happened.  He lies on the quilt, wiping the sweat off his brow, a serene grin on his face.  He dozes.

He thinks he's alone.

He thinks he's free.

He thinks no more.

~~~

I know, it's really dramatic for a comedy blog, right? Eh, but what're ya gonna do?  Another thing we like to do is Amy (whom I have now dubbed Crown Grandmaster of Writermonies) will show us a picture and we have to write a line or so based on the picture.  I wish I could show them to you, so instead I will describe.

The first week was a picture of a broken window in an old wooden house.  This is my response:

"Hello, again," he whispered with a smirk, his pliers grasped firmly in his weathered hand.

The second week we saw a picture of a white sandy beach with mountains in the background.  Pretty much a screensaver.

The scenery is beautiful here.  Rumbling waves, the green mountains, the sand. . .  The sand that is currently in every annoying crevice of my body as I'm buried up to my neck, completely alone and helpless.  Oh no, my nose itches!

Kinda lame, but whatevs!  And finally, this week's picture prompt was a pair of red loafers placed neatly leaning against a plaster house near some white ropes and some stairs.

Maybe no one would notice that his dark red boating shoes had once been a pristine white.

Soooo I'm sensing a pattern here.

Apparently everything I write has to involve death or murder in some way (with the exception of the sand one.  Well, maybe he dies if the tide comes in.).  I need to stray away from this madness!  Not every story needs murder!  "Only the ones worth telling," says my creeper murderous alter-ego.  "Who doesn't love a good murder?"

Yesssssssssssssss. . . *Insane creepy grin*

Okay so I'm gonna go attempt to work on my play for NaNoWriMo again.  We got 21 days left and I still have 12,500 words left!  Aaack!

P.S. Next week's prompt is this:

Once, when no one was watching. . .

All roads lead to murder!

The Writers Meeting & NaNoWriMo

Hey everyone!  Sorry it took me three months to write again. . .  I'd come up with excuses, but I seem to do that a lot sooooo I'm just gonna ignore that and act like absolutely no time has passed.

Hooray it's still March!

Anyway, so back in February my friend and fellow writer Amy and I started a weekly get-together that we have dubbed the Writers Meeting (how original!).  She is in the process of writing this wondrously awesome novel (a trilogy, as a matter of fact!) and I am writing a musical set to the songs of the band Ludo!  Whoo!

We started this meeting as a means of sharing ideas and helping each other further our creativity, and it's been great!  Recently we even expanded our group to include Shellie (remember her???) and Amy's roommate Jamie (Amy and Jamie.  Yup.)

Shellie, Amy and I decided to try our hand at participating in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.  You write a novel in an entire month and get help from fellow participants online.  It's technically in November, but they've started something really cool called Camp NaNoWriMo where it takes place during July.  Yay, virtual summer camp full of geeks!  My kind of crowd.  =D

So I'll be focusing all my time and energy on this play because it's been a year in the making and I finally am going to complete it!  Whoo!  =D

I've found a good way to keep up with Midnight Porkchop while simultaneously working on the play!

Recently at our Writers Meetings, we have been using prompts just to get our creative juices flowing.  So I am going to share them with you!  Every Monday night at 5:30, 4:30 central, yo!  (Well, that's when our meetings are.  I'll probably publish them that night sometime.  Oh and also not next week because Amy has to hang out with her fiance instead of us.  What a horrible person.)

But here's a little ditty to hold you guys over for a while!

~~~~~

Prompt:
You're standing in a doorway.

"Don't forget to pack your underwear," she said, lazily leaning against the door frame.  Did she think this was some kind of joke?  Lives are at stake here!

I threw the jackets haphazardly in the corner.  I wouldn't need them where I was going.  I heard a loud rumbling noise above me and I gasped and jumped under the bed.

"It's just an airplane," she scoffed.

I climbed over a pile of boots that I wasn't bringing either.  I looked down at the settings on my ankle cuff.

Fifteen seconds until detonation.

I didn't have time for anything.

I breathed deeply and turned to Robin and grinned.

"Well, you might wanna move quick, or soon we'll both be artwork on the walls."

Her eyes widened.  She looked at my ankle.  I closed my eyes.

Beep.  Beep.  Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

~~~~~

Prompt:

You found out something you weren't supposed to know.

I run.  I run with all my might, leaves and trees a dark blue blur in the cold night.  My breathing is harsh and ragged and there's a stitch in my side, but I have to keep going.

Oh God, I can hear him behind me!  Calling to me, pleading to me in a hauntingly harmonic voice.  He doesn't sound out of breath.

Keep moving!

I gasped and suddenly the ground becomes my sky.  I tripped on a root, or was it a corpse?  I land with an echoing crack on the forest floor and the most excruciating pain enflames my ankle.  My eyes are closed as I will the pain and nauseating dizziness to subside for even the briefest of moments.

Silence.  No noise at all except the cacophonous drum beat of my heart.  Oh, God.

He's here.

 I dare to open my eyes.  I am met with a pale blue moon.  No, two moons.

His eyes.

"Darling," he whispers, like the purr of a lion.  He smiles, a serene, enchanting mask that covers the madman within.

My heart freezes as if I have been doused in ice-cold water.  He seductively caresses the silver of his revolver, a dark substance glittering on his cheek.  His eyes are now black.

"Darling," he coos, "you should have told me you'd be home early."

~~~~~

All right, guys, stay tuned for the next installment!  Maybe I'll even post Shellie's or Amy's excerpts next time, depending if they allow me the honor.

The prompt for next week is:

You're in a motel room.

Why, anything can happen.  ;)

UPDATE: Apparently Google Chrome is trying to tell me that "enflames" is not a word.  Well, in my world it is, so I'm keeping it.  Good riddance!