The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Izzie didn't get invited to the birthday party of the century so instead it was an opportunity to catch up on some tasty Radio National morsels


Brainsssss!

It turns out that the writer of the very freaky tale "The Girl with all the Gifts" had already been out there gathering lots of creepy cordyceps fungi and producing all sorts of amazing mutations worthy of Monsanto.

But all is not lost. There's still kitty litter to play with.

But lest you think that humans are safe from these kinds of brain hijacking, there is emerging evidence to suggest that some humans can have their brains hijacked by a little monocellular organism known as Toxoplasma gondii. This is a little single-celled organism that often exists in cat poop. So this is actually the parasite that doctors warn pregnant women about. So this is why when you are pregnant you are not supposed to change the litter box.

Things have been going sluggish over in Camp Nanoland until yesterday. Using a Steampunk tarot deck as inspiration was just not getting off the ground. It was then that silly Izzie finally remembered a wickedly wonderful selection of very twisted writing prompts which have worked like magic.

I guess it's time to add Consciousness Deficit Hypoactivity Disorder and kitty litter to the list.

The Witching Hour fast approaches.

The serpent has been slinking about dusting off the garish orange pumpkin and black skull beeswax candles in preparation for the big day.

But there are other preparations and rituals to be observed for the witching hour is also the portal to the weird and wonderful world of Nanoland - the crazy insane asylum where the virtual inmates pledge to produce 50,000 word untamed beastly first drafts in a mere month.

In the course of prepping, I thought it would be interesting to see what sort of nano apps are lurking out there in the great Google Play Store in the sky.
Some smart writers have resorted to presenting their prompt books in appy disguise.
It could be a pile of steaming dung but any book with a big black cover and a flaming red pitchfork pencil is going to get this serpent exceedingly interested.
Such an exquisite writing instrument is seriously worthy a visit to the crossroads at midnight in order to acquire it.

Deals with the devil is one of my most favourite themes of all time and indeed this was a serious source of devilish inspiration.

It seems that this Michael Arnzen is not just wicked and twisted in his own right but hangs out with other seriously disturbed and tormented artist sorts.





So along with a stash of scenes on index cards inspired by the strange and spooky Dark Grimoire tarot deck, the pitchfork will be just piling on even more inspiring writing prompts.
There'll be absolutely no excuse whatsoever for writer's block but producing a coherent story with some sort of narrative structure might be a whole lot trickier.

But the main thing is having the safety net. Making sense of all the squiggles is best left for December.