I took this photo at Westonbirt Arboretum‘s Winter Wonderland. What an exquisite display of light and shadow. To me it resembles the moment in a movie or sci-fi show when the characters spy something unearthly in the woods.
What might be happening here? Could it be an alien encounter, or something far more inexplicable?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
I encountered this rather exceptional Atlas Moth in the Butterfly House at the National Botanic Garden of Wales. It’s not only his snakehead markings on each wing that are impressive. This beauty is the female, with a wingspan of more than 25cm (9.8in).
I asked a horticulturalist what they eat, and he told me they don’t. After metamorphosis they’re re-born without mouthparts, with their only motivator the drive to mate and reproduce in their five-day lifespan.
January seems the perfect time for a metamorphic tale. This week imagine your protagonist has been a joyful glutton, feasting their way through their youth until strange urge to tuck up and sleep takes them over. After a series of strange and painful dreams they wake to find themselves transformed, sans mouth and an overwhelming desire to fly, seduce and procreate.
Not a bad premise for a Kafka-esque nightmare!
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
I have a minor obsession with photographing park benches. I love imagining the people who might pause there for a moment to rest their legs or admire the view.
These three frosted seats intrigue me all the more for being winterly frosted up. Who might take a moment to clear the ice crystals so they can sit more comfortably? How might three very different people on these three benches interact? How could this develop into a narrative?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
One of the many things I love about living in Bristol is the random ways people choose to brighten our surroundings. This vivid starburst of plastic yellow pipes appeared on an otherwise serious statue a few weeks ago.
The equestrian statue of William III stands in the middle of Queen Square and is, quite frankly, wonderfully improved by this act of irreverence. Who might have done this, and why? What could it possibly mean? Or is the meaninglessness the very point of it all?
Make this the starting point of a story, and see where it leads you.
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
Grandmas Footsteps by Angela Lizon
This eerie oil painting is Grandma’s Footsteps by Angela Lizon, and is one of my favourite artworks on show as part of the RWA exhibition Strange Worlds: The Vision of Angela Carter.
Resembling a black and white photo, it shows an obedient little girl apparently gazing at the camera with a worried expression on her face. And no wonder, because a vast grizzly bear lurks just behind her.
To me it encapsulates our parents’ and society’s expectations that we smile for the camera, regardless of what may be breathing down our neck.
This week, consider a situation where someone may be expected to act against their instincts. How might they respond? What might the outcome of their actions be?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
The journey has long been a staple of storytelling. You give a character a mission, send them off on their way, stick a few obstacles in their path and see what happens.
In a recent story, The Daughters, I sent two sisters off on a journey I’d taken myself, into the rural reaches of Spain’s Basque Country. The setting gave me a backdrop for two very different women to come to terms with their relationship, while tasking them with solving the riddle of how to reach a particular beach from the clifftops they were walking along.
That area is on the fringe of the Camino de Santiago, making it ideal for a fictional pilgrimage. You can read the story at www.litro.co.uk/2016/12/the-daughters/
Think of a journey you could send your own characters on and how it might change them, however subtly.
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
Some of my eeriest and most surreal works of fiction have been prompted by the almost but not quite seen, when the over-imaginative mind fills in the information your eyes failed to provide.
Peer through the corridors into the room at the end. What’s down there? What casts those shadows? Is there a figure in there? Are they looking back at you?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
I spied this fisherman on the beach at Pendine near Laugharne. At least, I assume he’s a fisherman, although I never saw him make any visible attempt to catch a fish.
As the tide swept in, he backed away from the waves. In fact, it was almost as though he was only pretending to fish, while surreptitiously awaiting the start of some momentous sea-borne event.
What do you think might be happening here?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
The politics of recent times has made many people dream of escape. This photo taken in Prague some years back shows a tram, taxi, cars and people crossing a bridge, which all seems suitably symbolic.
Imagine a scenario (there are plenty of real ones to draw from) where people leave a place en masse.
What might they be fleeing? Where will they go? And what will they find when they arrive?
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.
With Halloween almost upon us, it’s got me thinking about ghost stories and what makes them work. In my opinion, a large part of this is the setting you choose, whether that’s a cemetery, a cave, a toyshop (a la Angela Carter), a ship… There are so many options, each of which can be mined for their own particular creepiness.
Last night I read a scary tale at Redcliffe Caves, as part of Bristol Festival of Literature’s Writers in the Caves event. My ghost story is set in the caves themselves. I read it surrounded by flickering by candlelight, in the darkness of the man-made caverns.
And then on Saturday, I’m excited to be heading to Brunel’s ss Great Britain, a beautiful ship built more than 170 years ago, and now set in a dry dock on Bristol’s harbourside. In association with Bristol Old Vic, actors will brings the ship’s history to life (or, rather, underneath), in the manner of a haunted house. Eeeps!
This week, I urge you to consider an intriguing or unsettling location and use that as the starting point of an eerie tale.
If you write or create something prompted by this, please send an email to Judy(at)socket creative.com to let me know. With your permission, I’ll publish it on SkyLightRain.com.