Chuck Wendig, terribleminds.com
Go to Your Favorite Music Player. Dig out your digital music collection.
Maybe this is iTunes or Spotify, or use Pandora if you’d rather go that way.
Hit SHUFFLE, then “Play.”
Translation: pull up a random song.
The title to this song is the title to your story.
Use the song for inspiration, too, if you feel so inclined
Shamelessly stealing from a writer friend, who snagged it from the fellow quoted, I think. The story text will be a different color to separate it from my rambling. 🙂 You’re welcome.
Perhaps the lies had finally caught up to her, or maybe it was the strangeness that was jumping out to ambush her. After so long with eyes closed-willfilly shut. Ignoring the strange and odd around her. Ignoring all of it, very intentionally. She didn’t start fires, people couldn’t do that. She couldn’t tap the energy of a crowd at a club or a party, that didn’t happen. Normal people didn’t do that Right? The wind caught her hair then, the downsides of sitting outside. It broke the train of her thoughts, pulled her out of macabre thoughts for just a moment.
Long enough to see that a man had claimed the seat across from her, he wasn’t staring in a way that was creepy, though something in him did trip a bit of an alarm system. There was something odd here, and this she couldn’t run from. Not now. Mouth opening-to say what? She didn’t know, it was probably better for them both that he made a gesture that stilled her urge to speak and broke the silence himself. “You don’t remember.” Statement, not a question. Her gaze tracked a moment on his braid, his bearing.
“No.” A lie.
His chin tucked a bit, and he looked through her. “Don’t lie, that doesn’t help anyone.”
“Am not!” The denial was habit more than anything,
He laughed- a crazy sound. “Are so, I’m a Reader, I see things. It’s not something I can turn off, and you just lied. Stop it.”
Eyebrows furrowed then, head tilting. She eyed him with curiosity right under the surface. “Reader?”
He nodded, leaned forward and drew a symbol on the table they shared. It glowed for a split second, long enough to be plainly visible. She blinked. “I see energy, I read people, see who they are under all the lies they tell themselves. Well, mostly. You’re one of the few I couldn’t get through right away. Too many layers. We got past most of those, it’s a shame to see so much of it back.” He spoke like he knew her.
She leaned back, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you.” But she didn’t leave, not yet. Something was telling her rather firmly not to go yet.
He dug in his pocket a moment, pulling out a cloth-wrapped bundle, setting it down and unwrapping it. A deck of cards, just nothing she’d seen before. He split it into thirds. Then flipped each stack face up. Left to right, Strength, Moon, Sun. He gestured to them with his other hand. “You.”
She remembered for a moment, those cards laid out differently-her beside him, not across. Another time, another place.Too long ago.
Suddenly sensation flooded her, her blood boiling, burning. Core lost, the reality around them peeled away. Left them standing in nothing, surrounded by a storm of raw power that glowed the rainbow. He reached out, fingers encircling her wrist. The image of a tree flooded her mind, the feeling she was broken eased, retreated. Internal hurts healed, started healing. She could breathe. “Control it.” Eyes closed, she found the niche.
“One, one, two, three, five, eight.” The energy slowed, steadied. Stopped.
She remembered.
Ramblings of a Loony 