Nancy Hodgins

Nancy grew up thinking she was crazy, that the voices in her head were a result of the schizophrenia that ran rampant in her family. She learned to keep her head down, hide behind her mousy brown hair and pretend she didn’t hear anything at all.

When the sky turned red, the voices told her when to run, where to hide, and she survived. After the danger ended, men with golden badges found her. They asked her if she heard voices, and for once it was all right when she said yes.

And they told her she was a Listener.

Kyle Messenger

Kyle was his parents’ pride and joy, a dark-haired, blue-eyed ball of energy. From chess to go, from coloring books to blueprints of gothic cathedrals, he was always desperate to learn something new. His teachers called him precocious, gifted. He knew the truth of what he was: afraid. Of the voices in his head, singing softly to him at night. Of the Hebrew letters that glimmered on the walls and doors everywhere he went. Of the chords he played on his harp that made the statue of the Holy Mother weep tears of blood when Asrael came calling.

Higo

The air was cool and crisp upon the flight deck. Even as the subtle, sweet taste of ozone numbed Higo’s lips - his form held true. The heavy, military-issue cargo hakama billowed under the steady breeze, but popped and snapped loudly as he moved surgically through his kata. The large pockets muffled the sound of loose, brass-jacketed shells within. Higo’s black long-rifle moved seamlessly with his body. While the old rifle was a relic in this age of airships and magnetic rail cannons, it was tradition that all Kurokaze pilots understand the intricacies to wielding one.

(98 words)

Marshall Harris

Marsh Harris was a miniature mobster, all pinstripes and fedoras, black-and-white wingtips and packs of cards, rolling dice. He was light blue eyes and glossy, floppy brown hair, quick slender hands and an even quicker smile. On the edge of the school-yard, he ran three-card monty and craps, twenty-one and poker. In the back of the classroom, he murmured quietly to himself about chances, odds, and fates, cross-roads and choices. When other students tapped with their pencils or doodled in the margins of notebooks, he sketched Hebrew letters on his desk with his fingertips.

Henry

Henry was all angles. From his bony elbows and knees to the sharp angle of his chin. Tall, was what people called him when they were being polite. Fire red hair stood up all over his head in cowlicks and swirls, his bangs falling into his bright blue eyes. His deep quiet voice seemed to rumble up from the earth, or from the general vicinity of his size 18 shoes.

His movements were always slow and studied, as if he were afraid he would break something. And he felt awkward, as if he never quite fit.

Always out of place.

Dale

Screams echoed in his head. Screams from battles past, and not so past. Screams of the innocent as well as the guilty, of those he had killed and of those that he had simply stood aside and let die. Voices that lingered, reverberating inside his head, rising and falling with the rush of blood through his veins. They were as much a part of him as his own heart beat.

Dale pressed one slender hand to the side of his head, as if willing the voices to silence by sheer force alone. And when he opened his eyes, they were fathomless black.

Elise Chantrell

Elise was a shadow in the corner of the café, pale face hidden by white-blonde hair that was baby-fine. She smelled of cigarettes and had tobacco stains and guitar calluses on her fingers. When she peered out from behind her hair she had wide, bottle-green eyes that made her look like a little girl. Her knuckles were bruised from when she punched like a man, and the soles of her sneakers were worn thin from shimmying atop a bar in a miniskirt and a Rammstein t-shirt. On underground radio, they called her the fallen angel of music.

(100)

Lean

(Since I spent most of my night trying to figure out how to make Google stop displaying greek, I'll just post my oneword from the 30th and leave it at that for now.)

Word of the Day: “Lean”

"Lean forward," he said. The kitchen froze under the cold, wintery tone of his authoritative voice. The hiss of aerated water streaming from the faucet and into the stainless sink roared louder than Niagra Falls in that moment of final, quiet defiance. Her hand slowly withdrew from the cookie jar and the porcelain vessel clinked like a victorious, yappy dog. She flattened her hands upon the granite countertop, fingers tainted with the scent of chocolate chip and oatmeal.

She was caught, and red-handed.

Beth

Her skin was almost translucently pale; her hands thin and spidery, and she shivered in the stiff January wind that blew off of the ocean. 'Time's getting short,' she thought, and it wasn't just the sinking sun that crossed her mind. Eyes, the same color as the waves stared off into the distance; watching waves merge into horizon.

Beth wrapped her arms around herself and pulled her stocking cap closer about her bare head, the wind seemed to cut right through her as if she wasn't even there. Pretty soon she wouldn't be.

Soon enough, only the wind would remain.

(100)

Jelly

'How cliche,' she thought and rolled her eyes in self derision; but it was true never the less, that every time he looked at her she felt her legs turn to jelly. It was hard to focus and stand up straight. She hated to think of her reaction if he ever actually touched her. She was certain it would be more like water than jelly.

Jelly

The jelly was cool against her belly, but more important was the sound of a heart beating, faster than she’d ever heard before.

A child. A new life.

“It’s a girl,” the doctor said.

It’s a life, she thought. And she had a choice. Would she tell the father? Would she keep the girl? Or would she give the girl away?

Cody Cohen

Cody looked teddy-bear soft and was ox-strong, but years of holing up with books forced him to forsake athleticism for thick glasses and an impressive command of Hebrew. Cody was starched white Oxford shirts and shiny leather loafers, a tailored wool blazer and rumpled dark hair. He was acerbic sarcasm and hunched shoulders, second son in a family with too much money and not enough affection.

On good days, Cody sat on the front steps of the school with the Torah open on his knees, contemplating life, the universe, everything, the number 42, and the Angel of Death.

(100)

Impassive

Masses of shaggy blond hair obscured bright blue eyes; set in a face that seemed to be cut from stone. Intensely focused on a computer screen, his fingers flew like lightning as rows upon rows of coding filled the monitor, bypassing all of the buildings security. A grim smile flitted across his otherwise impassive face as he initiated his program.

Sirens began wailing as all security protocols were negated and doors began opening. Standing slowly, he calmly packed up his equipment and walked out of the building and into the night; as others more accustomed to confrontation, flooded the building.

Lean

He was lean and tall, almost delicate around the edges, but the shadows in his eyes bespoke something stronger, fiercer. Maybe it was the way he was casually opening and closing a butterfly knife, twirling it the way some girls twirled a lock of hair around their fingers. Maybe it was the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. Maybe it was the corpse shattered at his feet.

Skinny didn’t have to mean weak – sometimes, it meant too fast.

Project #77: New Characters in 100

Dearest Players, the girls are back in town! And we're going to kick off our writing reboot by getting into the heart of things - or people. We encourage our players to use M&M as a playground/training ground/test site for larger projects developed beyond the game as well as a place just to improve our skills. Since it's a new year, I looked at our list of suggested projects and decided to re-up an old one: new characters in 100 words. You have 100 words to give us the heart and soul of a new character...or maybe try to flesh out a character you've toyed with before. Maybe that handful of characters sitting around on the back burner are getting ready to take their place on the main stage, and you need to polish them up before you set them in front of the audience.

If you're new to the game, feel free to check out the original round of this challenge to get a feel for how it's done.

Ready, set...write!

P.S. I will get to pick this week's winner. Remember, the winner isn't just the best writer - it may be the person who gives the best feedback (and "nice" feedback ≠ best feedback).

Reports

Reports were sporadic at best, through crackling static and snowy television screens. No one knew what was going on besides the screams outside and the explosions. When those ended, the silence was worse, and after a while the static and snow became like old friends. No one could decide when it would or wouldn’t be safe to go out, so no one braved the door.

And then, one day, someone knocked.

By then, there was no one left to answer.

Project Assignment Brainstorming

All right, writers, let us bring the game back to life! We need ideas, and we need impetus. Come spill your ideas about project assignments - do old, fun, beloved ones again, try something new, bring in new players...what do you want to do? Let me know! We can keep this alive together.

I like the old system where we write rewards for each other - I think that's a good gig, because good writing habits should definitely be rewarded.

So...we have until Sunday. Throw down your ideas and let's get this party started!

Love,


Your Mod.

ETA:

Here are the suggestions we've had so far. Feel free to add more:

Raise a character (in six days)

Build a world (in six days)

Build a place (six places, one per day)

Song Fics

Picture Fics

Proverb Fics

Epistolary fics

Theme: travel (this is new!)

New day (going from one day to the next)

A year in the life of (either one year per day or one year over six days - we'll decide when we get there)

Secrets

The Last Time (we've done this one decently recently in memory, so we'll move that to the lower end of the list)

New characters in 100 words (one character a day for six days)

News to Share

The nurses who were on third shift at the ER had the distinct pleasure of working with Dr. Carroll. They agreed he was the nicest doctor - he wasn’t stuck up like the others, and he was always polite to the staff, and he had a cute little country drawl that he said he got from his mama, who’d been a wild cowgirl back in her day. But for his lab coat and staff badge, most of the nurses wouldn’t have pegged him for a doctor. They did peg him for the sweetest thing alive the first time they saw him comfort a little girl who’d been injured while playing with her father’s nail gun. Men with children were irresistible, and everyone seemed to know it - but Dr. Carroll. Gina and some of the prettier nurses had tried flirting with him, because he didn’t wear a wedding ring, but he was always politely oblivious to their advances.

“He must be gay,” Gina said.

Lila shook her head. “No. He’s mentioned a theoretical girl of his dreams once or twice, but you have to admit - working the third shift doesn’t really make for a great dating life.”

Gina nodded. “Yeah. He’s such a nice guy. Any girl would be lucky to have him.” She hummed thoughtfully and was about to pick another topic of conversation when Sandy, the staff nurse called her name.

“You have a patient in exam room five. Bandage her up and call Dr. Hammond for a consult - patient may have a broken hand.”

Gina nodded and accepted the folder and headed down the hall. Broken hand usually meant some stupid teenaged boy who’d gotten into a dust-up. Gina flipped open the folder at the same time as she yanked open the curtain to exam room five, and she drew up short.

The patient was female, and small, maybe twenty-five at the oldest, and she had a bruise above her eye, a bloody nose, and a split lip. She was cradling her right arm close to her body, and her wrist was hanging at an awkward angle.

Gina blinked, then peered down at the folder. “Miss - Carroll –”

“You don’t have to call the cops. It’s not a DV,” the woman said. “Just bandage me up and give me some ice, all right?”

“Your hand might be broken,” Gina said. “We’ll have to get some x-rays to be sure. Let me page Dr. Hammond.” She stepped back and twitched the curtain shut, reached for the page phone on the wall, and Dr. Carroll came careening around the corner.

“Oh,” Gina said. “I was going to page Dr. Hammond, but if you can consult –”

Dr. Carroll flung the curtain aside. “Ashley! What happened to you?”

“Belt testing, remember? I made high brown,” she said. “Get out of here, Chris. You’re not allowed to treat me. Conflict of interest, remember?”

Gina blinked, confused at the scene. Then she glanced down at the folder, and registered - Ashley Carroll, Dr. Carroll. Doctors weren’t allowed to treat their own family members.

“You made high brown?” Dr. Carroll reached out, brushed a lock of hair back from Ashley’s face. The gesture was familiar, gentle.

Ashley nodded. “Yeah. It was worth every bruise.”

“Congratulations, honey. I wish they didn’t hit so hard.” Dr. Carroll sighed. “How do you feel?”

“Like three black belts tried to knock the seven bells out of me,” Ashley said.

“Right. Look, I can get off shift early –”

“No need, not on my account. I’ll get this x-rayed and then go home and you can take me out for breakfast when you’re done, all right?”

“All right.” Dr. Carroll stood up. “Dr. Hammond’s a good guy. You’ll be fine.”

Ashley smiled. “I know I will. Now go make sure that nurse doesn’t call in a DV or something stupid.”

“Right.” Dr. Carroll twitched the curtain aside, and Gina jumped guiltily, hoping she didn’t look like she’d just been eavesdropping on the biggest news to hit the ER gossip circuit since a nurse was arrested for fraud a year ago.

“Make sure my wife gets excellent care, all right? I have to attend a patient,” Dr. Carroll said, and he strode away.

Gina said, “Yes, Doctor,” automatically, and reached for the page phone. As soon as she was done paging Dr. Hammond, she beckoned for Lila. She had news to share.


(731 words)

Project # - 76 Free Write

I know it may be a bit of a cheat, but this week is free write! I know we are all busy with the holiday season so have a bit of fun and put down anything that you may like to.

Cheers and Merry Christmas to all writers out there!

Overview #75: Supernatural Iconoclast

I had a super-awesome blast with this. Coming up with new weird characters was fun! The fairy bodyguard and the tech support wizard were probably two of my favourites. I got a little behind and had to scramble to catch up, but this was good, an exercise in understanding stereotypes and also breaking them without going overboard, creating Mary Sues, or otherwise falling into writerly traps. Maybe one day I'll take up with some of them again, and it was good times. Half of this was mixing stereotypes, taking one person and stereotyping him or her as something else, like Ranolph the werewolf actor: take away his being a werewolf, and he was a stereotypical drama boy. Same with the soccer witch, the hot surfer boy. I think the fairy bodyguard and the vampire family were probably the most original, and I had oodles of fun with them.

NOTE: no challenge this next week. It's Thanksgiving! Spend it with friends and family.