a little help needed

[shadowdance.livejournal.com]

Hi

I'm suddenly starting to feel a real need to write again, but need a little inspiration.
I was basically wondering if someone could give me a slight head start and give me a topic to write about, to ponder and see what my mind comes up with.


Thank you in advance

Comments

Here you go...

[maleghast.livejournal.com]

"...and with that she was gone."

Where did she go? Who was she, and who is speaking?

Go wild...

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

Themes for short stories / poems

• A conspiracy of women
  
• What does unconditional mean?
  
• Interruptions
  
• Like father, like son
  
• A fairy tale re-interpreting an old story in a new way
  
• Misunderstandings based on one person’s idea of humour
  
• A person with one incredible feature
  
• Coming of age
  
• Offending heaven
  
• The continuation of ideas/practices through spoken tradition, and their adaptation through time
  

Titles

• The Fire Pirates and the Tears of the Moon
  
• The Linden Tree
  
• The World’s Most…
  
• Eloise and the Striped Cat
  
• My First Real Summer
  
• Darkness
  
• Billy One
  
• Of Sarcophagi and Saints
  
• My Skirt-related Disaster
  

Extra points if you manage to get more than one of the above into whatever you write.

Garbled Digression During Lecture About 20th Century Novelists

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

" . . . one of the most striking elements is still, of course, her apparently effortless use of imagery to create a feeling of sinister unease. In my opinion it has yet to be equalled, and never surpassed. In The Fire Pirates and the Tears of the Moon for example, her only "official" children's novel, the description of the Fire Pirates with:

"their rusted-iron face-plates, grasping hooks and dreadful, hissing kettle-voices, whispering over and over the only words they knew - the boiling temperature's of various liquids including sweat, milk, tears and of course blood"

has chilled young and old alike for over fifty years. The haunting shadows of the moon Lulu visits has been cited by Tim Burton as an early inspiration for his Nightmare Before Christmas animated movie, and it is easy to see why.

"It is for her adult fiction, however, that she is perhaps best known. In her first novel, Billy One we see her develop the themes she will return to time and again; the conspiracies that women create among themselves to exclude and include, the inevitable inheritance of manly traits from the father, the intrusion of (often well hidden) fairy-tale elements into the real world (this is the first appearance of "Unky Wilf" for example, and establishes his relationship with Billy's never-seen, but oft-mentioned, maternal grandmother) and a central character with a unique talent - Billy's ability to hurt angels, for example, prefigures Genevieve's power to kill the dead in Of Sarcophagi and Saints.

"In later novels - especially the critically acclaimed "The Linden Tree" this dark fantasy-world, and the familiar people who inhabit it, is further explored. It is never explained (either in "The Linden Tree" or elsewhere) if this is a pure fantasy, a metaphor, an allegory, or simply what it appears to be - a semi-autobiographical account of a woman growing up on the fringes of the "real world" and what unconditional love (and hate, and most especially longing) actually mean.

"Yet it is to her final work that any critic must turn at last, much known but rarely actually read. Darkness is a difficult novel for many, which is why it has not been included on the course syllabus. But I urge you to read it, if you can. The final cummuppance of "Unky Wilf" at the hands of the Green-Eyed Confessor, for example, is particularly notable for it's stark prose, for it's refusal to allow the reader to "look away" at any point. Likewise, the conversation between Lydia and her mother through the curtains in the Summer House has been imitated many times, but never quite surpassed, and it's shameful beauty stays with most readers for quite a while."

"Some critics say that her tragic disappearance at such a young age denied the twentieth-century one of it's greatest chroniclers; I would disagree, and say that with the body of work she left behind that dismal century saw it's crown."

"Perhaps it would be best to close with a couplet from My Skirt-related Disaster, the final poem in Eloise and the Striped Cat, her only known collection of poetry:

"If you want me, come and find me, where Real Summer lingers still/If you find me, only want me, tell my story, drink your fill"

Re: Garbled Digression During Lecture About 20th Century Novelists

[nyarbaggytep.livejournal.com]

*standing ovation*
You do realise you now have to write the rest of the fire pirates one, you can't leave me with that snippet.

Re: Garbled Digression During Lecture About 20th Century Novelists

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

They sort of look a bit like nutcrackers, sort of. I think. That's all I know.