@Morganna: That's a lovely haiku and one which begs for a tale to take it further!
@Marc: work is back to being extremely busy again and I'll catch up when I can, but I had to provide a little something now.... ;-)
@Manuelclopez1: thank-you so much for your link and to its rich and edifying content! I'm afraid I didn't really find a blog at the end of it, but rather a sales pitch and at first I was puzzled. Then I realised the point that you wanted to make to us: to be writers we need to look deep inside ourselves and find that which other people want to read. It's not sufficient to just pick a random pen, no matter how nice a fountain pen it may, and make marks on paper. A two-year can do that, and while it necessarily impresses his or her parents, others of us find ways to smile politely, agree that it is an exceptional achievement at such a young age, and then forget about it as quickly as we can roofie ourselves. To be a writer we need to impress our readers, and that means we need to be able to sell our tales to a possibly skeptical audience. I well remember the first time I succeeded in convincing an audience that they ought to buy my writing: my drama teacher was unimpressed that I replaced Hamlet's soliloquy with something as tawdry as "I write good, buying it please!" but it worked, and it has led to me producing the work you find littering (literally) the pages of this blog today. Were I unwilling to sell myself (or sell-out myself as the case may be) I would surely still be languishing in the blue-crayon-on-cheap-paper school of writing and sobbing miserably over work destined to wrap up someone else's fish-and-chips. So thank-you, manuelclopez1, for a timely reminder that writing is just part of the art of the deal, and that Donald Trump should surely be our deity of choice.
Right, I have some time at last, so I can start catching up again! I have no idea what could have inspired this prompt, and I'm not sure where it's going to take us, but let's see what happens when I drop it into the only world I have where this would make sense...
The garden shop "Miss Mangey!" Professor Toadsputum's quavery voice somehow managed to make itself heard above the general hubbub of the class, and immediately the students hushed. There was little respect for the Professor -- he called his classes Herbology or Botanistry, but they all referred to it as 'Garden Shop' -- but anything that Hermione Mangey might be doing was enough to make them all nervous and alert. "Professor?" Her voice was tight, perhaps a little high. There was -- there never was -- any tremor or hint that she might have been doing something wrong. "Miss Mangey, it is a requirement that any student handling Belladonna wears gloves and a hex-apron. You are wearing neither. Please explain yourself." Professor Toadsputum staggered into the middle of the greenhouse where the whole class could see him. He was short, with a hunched back and white hair that splayed out from his head like something had exploded in the middle of his scalp. He used a gnarled walking stick to help him hobble around, and wore dragon-skin boots because a lot of the plants in the syllabus were poisonous, venomous or prone to dissolving things. The boots were dark-brown except in the places where the acid had eaten into them and turned them pink. "I'm not handling Belladonna," said Hermione with a tone of mild amusement. She smiled, and half the students flinched. "I checked the OSHA forms, Professor, and I don't think anyone who isn't a condemned criminal or a laboratory technician should be permitted to handle it. Did you realise that there are over 18,000 deaths a year attributable to it?" "And yet everyone in this classroom is still alive," said Professor Toadsputum. "Had you noticed that, Miss Mangey?" Hermione stepped aside, allowing the class to see Doctor Gilded-toy Frogheart slumped over a desk, a length of Belladonna stem still poking out of his mouth. As the plant rapidly grew inside him he was transforming from a moderately handsome, middle-aged professor into a raven-haired, olive-skinned woman so beautiful that two of the students were already starting to cry. "...did you Imperius him?" asked Professor Toadsputum. He turned to Dean, who was already edging to the door. "Tell the Headmaster that she's killed another Defence against the Dark Arts teacher," he said. "Ask him to send the clean-up committee." "Oh no," said Hermione. She looked shocked. "That would be illegal, Professor! I only obliviated him into forgetting that he wasn't at breakfast." "Does it worry you that Professor Toadsputum said she's killed another teacher?" whispered Harry to Ronnie Weasel. "It worries me that the Headmaster keeps appointing them," whispered Ronnie back. "It's like a hit-list!"
5 comments:
Helping a client
Select pots and plants -- what's that
Sound -- a cry for help?
@Morganna: That's a lovely haiku and one which begs for a tale to take it further!
@Marc: work is back to being extremely busy again and I'll catch up when I can, but I had to provide a little something now.... ;-)
@Manuelclopez1: thank-you so much for your link and to its rich and edifying content! I'm afraid I didn't really find a blog at the end of it, but rather a sales pitch and at first I was puzzled. Then I realised the point that you wanted to make to us: to be writers we need to look deep inside ourselves and find that which other people want to read. It's not sufficient to just pick a random pen, no matter how nice a fountain pen it may, and make marks on paper. A two-year can do that, and while it necessarily impresses his or her parents, others of us find ways to smile politely, agree that it is an exceptional achievement at such a young age, and then forget about it as quickly as we can roofie ourselves. To be a writer we need to impress our readers, and that means we need to be able to sell our tales to a possibly skeptical audience.
I well remember the first time I succeeded in convincing an audience that they ought to buy my writing: my drama teacher was unimpressed that I replaced Hamlet's soliloquy with something as tawdry as "I write good, buying it please!" but it worked, and it has led to me producing the work you find littering (literally) the pages of this blog today. Were I unwilling to sell myself (or sell-out myself as the case may be) I would surely still be languishing in the blue-crayon-on-cheap-paper school of writing and sobbing miserably over work destined to wrap up someone else's fish-and-chips.
So thank-you, manuelclopez1, for a timely reminder that writing is just part of the art of the deal, and that Donald Trump should surely be our deity of choice.
Right, I have some time at last, so I can start catching up again! I have no idea what could have inspired this prompt, and I'm not sure where it's going to take us, but let's see what happens when I drop it into the only world I have where this would make sense...
The garden shop
"Miss Mangey!" Professor Toadsputum's quavery voice somehow managed to make itself heard above the general hubbub of the class, and immediately the students hushed. There was little respect for the Professor -- he called his classes Herbology or Botanistry, but they all referred to it as 'Garden Shop' -- but anything that Hermione Mangey might be doing was enough to make them all nervous and alert.
"Professor?" Her voice was tight, perhaps a little high. There was -- there never was -- any tremor or hint that she might have been doing something wrong.
"Miss Mangey, it is a requirement that any student handling Belladonna wears gloves and a hex-apron. You are wearing neither. Please explain yourself."
Professor Toadsputum staggered into the middle of the greenhouse where the whole class could see him. He was short, with a hunched back and white hair that splayed out from his head like something had exploded in the middle of his scalp. He used a gnarled walking stick to help him hobble around, and wore dragon-skin boots because a lot of the plants in the syllabus were poisonous, venomous or prone to dissolving things. The boots were dark-brown except in the places where the acid had eaten into them and turned them pink.
"I'm not handling Belladonna," said Hermione with a tone of mild amusement. She smiled, and half the students flinched. "I checked the OSHA forms, Professor, and I don't think anyone who isn't a condemned criminal or a laboratory technician should be permitted to handle it. Did you realise that there are over 18,000 deaths a year attributable to it?"
"And yet everyone in this classroom is still alive," said Professor Toadsputum. "Had you noticed that, Miss Mangey?"
Hermione stepped aside, allowing the class to see Doctor Gilded-toy Frogheart slumped over a desk, a length of Belladonna stem still poking out of his mouth. As the plant rapidly grew inside him he was transforming from a moderately handsome, middle-aged professor into a raven-haired, olive-skinned woman so beautiful that two of the students were already starting to cry.
"...did you Imperius him?" asked Professor Toadsputum. He turned to Dean, who was already edging to the door. "Tell the Headmaster that she's killed another Defence against the Dark Arts teacher," he said. "Ask him to send the clean-up committee."
"Oh no," said Hermione. She looked shocked. "That would be illegal, Professor! I only obliviated him into forgetting that he wasn't at breakfast."
"Does it worry you that Professor Toadsputum said she's killed another teacher?" whispered Harry to Ronnie Weasel.
"It worries me that the Headmaster keeps appointing them," whispered Ronnie back. "It's like a hit-list!"
Morganna - is that connected with the ongoing escape story? Because it definitely could be. And so it totally should be :P
Greg - apologies for deleting the spam comment :P
But know that your response is definitely worthy of being a long lasting part of this blog :D
I don't really recall what inspired the prompt either. I think it might have been a nice spring day?
And yes, this setting suits this prompt just fine :) Is Harry all better then? Or was this before all the... mental issues he was dealing with?
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