Story: Percival X and the Mysterious Blue Parcel

I know I haven't posted anything for ages and you all probably hate me, especially now that I'm only posting this so I can get your opinion on whether or not I should submit this for my Writing Portfolio assignment. This was one of my Writing For Young People tasks in which I was to write a children's chapter book. As it is part of a chapter book, I have included the introduction and a much later extract. It's a story I'd really like to continue with. Tell me what you think.

Introduction

Percival Xavier Crane, or Percival X as most people knew him, was eleven years old and lived in the eighth floor of an apartment building with his nanny, Mrs McClendon. The reason Percival X lived on the eighth floor with his nanny, Mrs McClendon, was because his parents were lepidopterologists. This meant they were often away, travelling the world, looking for rare species of butterflies. The last time Percival X had heard from them they were hot-air ballooning over the Amazon looking for the Spotted Orange Sundancer.

Percival X’s parents loved butterflies. That’s why they were always running around the world looking for them. Percival X hated butterflies. Even more so, Percival X hated that his parents were always running around the world looking for them. To tell you the truth, Percival X was jealous. He thought that his parents, not Mrs McClendon, should have lived with him in the eighth floor apartment. Better still, he thought that his parents should have taken him with them when they were travelling the world. Percival X would have loved to hot-air balloon over the Amazon, even if it was while looking for the Spotted Orange Sundancer.

Percival X’s parents thought that he was too young to be travelling the world. They thought that a hot-air balloon over the Amazon was no place for an eleven year old boy. They thought that Percival X needed a stable environment; somewhere normal, with normal friends, doing normal things. Thus Percival X stayed at the eighth floor apartment with his nanny, Mrs McClendon. He attended school, he played with friends in the park, he went to movies and he helped out with chores. Percival X lived a normal, stable life.

Percival X didn’t want a normal, stable life. Percival X wanted an adventure. His parents were always off on adventures, whether it was hot-air balloons over the Amazon or something else. Percival X wanted one of his own. It was for this reason he was so excited when he found a parcel on his doorstep early one frosty Saturday morning.

The parcel was odd for a number of reasons. First of all, the mail wasn’t delivered on Saturdays, particularly not early in the morning. Even when the mail was delivered, it wasn’t left on the doorstep. It was put in little mailboxes in the foyer or given to the doorman who then said things like “Ma’am, a parcel came for you this morning.” when you come down stairs. But Percival X’s parcel wasn’t in one of the little mailboxes or with the doorman. Percival X’s parcel was on the doorstep of his eighth floor apartment.

The parcel was a long and flat oblong wrapped in royal blue paper and tied up with pale lacy pink ribbon. In the upper left corner, butterflies had been drawn in silvery ink. There were fifteen stamps taking up the entire right half and scrawled on the left in the same silvery pen as the butterflies were the words:

To Adventurer

Eighth Floor

When Percival X turned the parcel over he did not find the senders name like one usually would with letters and parcels but instead, written in the same scrawl as the words on the front of the parcel was:

Your expedition awaits!

Later Extract

Percival X entered the room with caution. One should never rush into a room gated by a ten foot crimson door that mysteriously creaked open as one happened to be walking by. Percival X placed on hand on the door and the other on the doorframe and peered his head inside, careful to look both left and right to make sure nothing was hiding behind the door ready to jump out and gobble him up.

Once Percival X had diligently checked behind the door he stepped inside and examined the room. His mouth opened into a little ‘o’ and, without meaning to, let out a gasp. At first he thought the floor was carpeted in thick green shag but when he looked closer, Percival X realised he was standing ankle deep in luscious grass. The domed ceiling was painted navy blue, with tiny lights set into it, twinkling like stars. For a moment Percival X thought that he had stepped outside, but the walls proved that that wasn’t the case.

Every wall was lined with glass shelves. They started a foot above the ground and rose all the way to the ceiling. There were no windows in the room so the only place the shelves stopped was across the crimson doorway.

In the centre of the room was a very enormous lounge chair with a very tiny, very old lady perched in it. “Don’t let the door close, dear. It catches.” The very tiny, very old lady said. “And it is awful troublesome to get it open again.”

“I received a parcel…” Percival X began, thinking perhaps this lady could help him, but the very tiny, very old lady interrupted him.

“The door, dear.” She prompted.

“Oh. Right.” Percival X turned back just as the door was clicking into place. “Sorry.” He chewed his lip, “I guess I was too slow.”

The woman sighed a loud, drawn out, sigh, “It really is such awful trouble to get back open again.” She pointed Percival X to the glass shelves and told him to have a good look at them. The shelves were cluttered with hundreds and hundreds of tea cups and saucers and, when Percival X stepped closer, he noticed that none of the cups were with their matching saucers.

“Now.” The lady ordered from where she sat in the enormous lounge chair. “Match them up.”

Story: The Shadow

This week in my Writing For Young People class we are doing older reader picture books. This is the text for my picture book, it works fine without pictures so I thought it would be alright to share. Next week is children's chapter books, so expect an extract from that next week.

There’s a shadow inside mummy. You can’t always see it, but I know it’s there. Sometimes I see it under her eyes, a grey and green and black shadow, and I tell it to leave her, but it won’t.

The shadow makes mummy sad.

“She’s just a bit down,” grandma tells me, “feeling a bit blue. That’s all.”

“She’s had a little nervous breakdown.” My aunt says. I don’t know what this means. “It’s nothing to worry about.” She sends me off to play.

I don’t want to play. Not when mummy won’t leave her room. Not when mummy won’t stop sleeping. Not when mummy doesn’t talk to me or daddy or anyone else.

Some nights mummy cries so loud she wakes me. I go to her in her room and cling onto her. Maybe if I hug her hard enough I can squeeze the shadow out of her.

“It’s okay mummy. I’ll save you from it.” I tell her. I’ll fight away the shadow.

Daddy strokes my hair and wraps his arms around mummy’s shoulders. “Mummy’s fine. Go back to bed.” He tells me.

Everyone keeps telling me mummy is fine, but she is not. The shadow has her. It’s dark and heavy and steals away smiles.

One day I’ll make mummy smile again.

Story: Children's Poetry - The Lady

This past week I was to write a picture book for my writing class. I thought about sharing it with you, but decided against it. Because it hasn't been illustrated it reads more like a script than a picture book and it really loses effect. This coming week we are to write childrens poetry so, to make up for not posting something last week, I'm posting my poetry to you guys early.

One day a lady stole our dad.

She was a thin as a newspaper ad.

She was so mean, she was so grumpy,

She flushed mummy done the dunny!

She locked dad in the tallest tower,

Cut off hot water to the shower.

My brothers tried to break him out

An elaborate mission came about.

Danny had weapons skills

While Miles had been trained to kill

They plotted long and hard that night.

I supplied the dynamite.

Clad in black and camo paint

With a tank they broke the gate

The lady stood before the spire

And with a cry we opened fire

She threw her head back, gave a roar,

My dynamite blew in the door

Dad was free, it seemed we won,

But then the lady grabbed a gun.

Dad wrestled her for the rifle

Her last attempt had been stifled

So Miles, who had lost his cool,

He pushed her in a nearby pool.

Danny, with a colossal tug,

Pulled out the gigantic plug.

Swirling through the hole and down

To the sewage works out of town.

To this day we have not seen her.

It’s said she’s in Argentina.

What'd you think? Next week is Older Reader Picture Books, so I'm not sure if you'll get anything that week. We'll see.

Story: Trim the Rat Girl

For this semester I'll be taking a break from writing Story Saturday's but don't worry, you'll still be getting a story once a week. I'm talking a writing class, Writing for Young People, where I have to do a piece of writing once a week and share it with my Tutorial class on Thursdays. Because I have to share my writing with my group 24 hours before class I have it ready on Wednesdays, thus Story Saturday has moved to Wednesdays.
This week we were supposed to be writing a character description so that is what I give you. Tell me what you think and let me know what age group it comes across as being for. I'm not sure it's right.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

There’s a girl who lives in the walls of the subway. People pretend she’s not real, but everyone knows she is. If the platform is empty enough, and it’s late enough in the evening, you can hear her moving about inside the walls when you’re waiting for the train. On the quietest of nights, the nights when you feel as if you’re the only person awake in the entire word, if you have a little food, you can tempt her out of the walls.

She always materialises out of nothing. One moment there is shadow and the next there she is. She scurried over and snatches the food from you before scurrying into a corner to eat. She scurries everywhere. She gnaws on the food, nibbling at it with her front teeth. She seems more rat than girl.

It’s not just the way she moves and eats, she looks almost like a rat. Her nose is long and thin, and her eyes squinted and startled as if she spent her life hiding in the darkness of the subway tunnels. Then again, she probably had. Her hair was that undefinable almost grey colour that is somewhere between blonde and brown. She looks about eight years old but she’s been living in the walls for as long as anyone can remember.

Her name is Trim. Everyone knows it, no one knows how, they just do. Trim the Rat Girl. Trim the Rat Girl who lives forever. “She can’t be human” people whisper on the rare occasions that they acknowledge her existence.

“What else can she be?”

“I don’t know. Don’t let the children near her.”

And what else can she be, if not human? People have all kinds of stories; that she really is descended from rats, that she’s an otherworldly spirit, a monster, alien, brownie, fairy, some kind of magical being. I think that she is Trim. Not defined by other names. Not catalogued into some group of mythical species. But there is no denying that she is special.

I wonder if she is happy; living such an unusual existence. She has no friends or family, unless the rats of the subway count. The subway patrons certainly don’t count. It’s only ever the really curious and fanciful commuters who ever try and tempt her from the walls and she’s more interested in the food than the person who gave it to her. She doesn’t talk to you, doesn’t answer your questions.

Sometimes you ask a question and she looks up with you with the brightest grey eyes. They’re so inquisitive and intelligent that I wonder if maybe she wants to answer you but she can’t. Perhaps she is mute. Perhaps she never learnt to talk.

She’s a mystery. Sometimes I think she should stay like that. Sometimes I want to know more. I want to know all there is about her. So I try again. I bring butternut cookies, her favourite from my experience, and go down to the subway after the late train is gone and all the commuters have left. I tempt her from the walls again.

Next week is picture book week. Not sure how well I'm going to work the illustrations, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Story Saturday

My friend, Anticipation, is pushing me to start the flash fiction story that I mentioned quickly in my previous post. The idea is that I'll write a story each week using you, my followers as the characters. Some of you know Scott who used to do this on his blog, Ergo, before it got deleted.
If you want to be a character please give me permission to use you in the comments.
I hope to have a story out next Saturday so if you want to be in it please let me know soon. I'm tying to decide on starting with a zombie apolalypse themed story, a horror, or a superhero story. What would you like to see?
A while ago in this blog post these stock-standard horror movie roles were delegated. If I could get these people to participate and fulfil there roles, or if I could get some one to take their places, I'd be very happy:

[Zella] might even be final girl quality.
O'Malley you'll be the hero and save everyone, or, more likely, be the guy who turns evil and dies a horrible and painful death, or the guy who steals from the ancient tomb and dies a horrible and painful death, or the guy who dies first, a horrible and painful death.
Laura, you can go for help and disappear (maybe later we find you dead in a cupboard, it depends how reasonable you are through the movie.) Don't worry though, some of best characters die this way.
Chairman, you either [Be the little nerdy guy who doesn't want to be there and dies right at the end saving the hero and heroine.] like me or [die like] Laura. Or you know, you could be the hero, but it's unlikely.
Scott, you're probably the comic relief guy who dies halfway through. Or you could be the villain if you like. I'm sure you'll be fine with either of those.
L, I giving you the role of police officer or private investigator. You either come rushing in and die or solve the crime without saving anyone but yourself and the final girl.

So please, give me permission!

Story: Belonging

Since I've been so slack at blogging lately and am still being slack I thought I'd just post a short story I wrote. I'm thinking of doing Flash Fiction like Scott used to do where he'd use his followers as characters. That might get me blogging on a regular basis again. Tell me what you think.
This is a story I wrote a year or so back for an English exam based on the quote “Human beings, like plants, grow in the soil of acceptance, not in the atmosphere of rejection.”

Glen grips my elbow, leading me away from the fire to some place cooler, quieter. Gail is in front of me, looking back at my face, her forehead wrinkled with concern. Gracie runs over in a partial panic, leaving Gareth confused and with empty arms back at the tree they’d been sitting under.

“What’s wrong? What happened” Gracie’s words hurry from her mouth with more urgency than I find necessary.

“She feels sick”

“Did you drink anything?” Gail cuts Glen off to interrogate me. I’m hot, God I’m hot. I think I’m going to throw up. I wish I could just throw up.

“No, I’ve only had the one can of soft drink all night. I brought it myself. I haven’t let it out of my sight.” My palms are so sweaty. I feel so sick. I can’t breath, that’s what’s wrong. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. Oh God, I can’t breathe.

Gracie sighs with relief and glances back at Gareth. I haven’t been drugged, it’s not an emergency, she can return to her boyfriend.

Gail’s not so quick to let it go. “Did you eat anything funny?”

Just leave me be. Leave me alone. I don’t want to be here. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. “Only those chips I brought.” Gareth is trying to catch Gracie’s attention; I can see him over Gail’s shoulder.

“Is it your asthma?” Gail just won’t give up. Why can’t she leave me alone?

Glen has led me to a wire fence and I slump down with my back resting against it. Glen does too. “Gracie, I’m fine” I tell her, “Gareth wants you.” She smiles gratefully at me and ducks off towards her boyfriend. He put his arm around her. I want to cry. I want to-

I’m crying. Oh God. I’m already crying. Damp cheeks. Eyes swollen. No wonder they think I must be sick, what other explanation? It’s a fun party, I shouldn’t be crying.

Gail sits down next to me and the words “distract me” escape from my mouth as another wave of nausea hits.

Gail begins to talk straight away, as if she’s been dying to tell me something this whole time. “Do you know what Gillian just tried to pull?” Oh, God. Yes. Yes, I know what Gillian tried. Why else am I in this state? “She and Grant just tried to set me up with Gabe!” Inside I howl in pain. Argh, I feel so pathetic. Gail continues, “As if! He so… I mean, it would never happen. Never.”

Is she trying to make me feel worse? I feel stupid, what’s wrong with me? How could I be in love with this guy my friend is too good for?

I admitted it. There. I admitted it.

I’m in love with Gabe Glover.

“God, Gillian’s just getting ridiculous.” I eventually reply after fractionally calming. “She should deal with her own problematic love-life before messing with others” and screwing up mine.

“Exactly!” Gail jumps to her feet. “I’ve gotta go talk to Gracie” she says, dusting of the back of her jeans, “will you be alright?”

“I’ll be fine.” I tell her.

“Yeah, I’ll stay with her.” Glen says. Gail smiles and walks off. We watch her for a while before Glen turns to me. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I’m just a little sick, that’s all.” Just a little sick, yeah right. I want to find that hole everyone’s always talking about, in which I can crawl up in and die.

“Just a little sick, yeah right,” Glen says, “something has upset you.” Glen is as intuitive as always, to bad that is the last thing I want. I don’t want anyone to know. These are just pathetic emotions I need to overcome. I wish my head would stop telling me I’m in love with him. Stupid head, it’s supposed to be logical. Leave this silly stuff to the heart, I never listen to it.

“I’m fine, Glen, nothing is wrong.”

“Com’on Phoebe, something is up, you can talk to me about it, you know you can.” Garg. Why does he have to care? Why can’t he leave me be? When I don’t speak he continues, “I’m your friend, Phoebe, one of your best friends, you can trust me, okay?”

He cares. I know he does. But I can’t tell him, I just… can’t. I need to try to handle this myself first. “Glen, I just… I don’t want to talk about it now, okay?”

He nods, “okay”.

“I just need time.” He asks me if I want him to leave. He’s being so good. I’ve calmed down now. I can breathe. I don’t make him leave. Without saying anything he offers comforting company.

We sit awkwardly in silence for a while as Gabe spins around and around in my head. Eventually Glen stands. “Ready to head back to the fire?” he holds a hand out to me and I nod. “Smile, now” he tells me, and I do. “Whenever you’re ready for that deep and meaningful,” he says, “I’ll be there.” And I know he will.

I put my arm across Glen’s shoulders and grin clumsily. “Thank you.”

Boring Examples of Literary Techniques

I haven't blog properly in ages and, rather than make it up to you with something fantastic, I'm just going to give you a quick update and leave you with this a boring exercise.

University is keeping me busy and I'll be more busy next month when I do NaNoWriMo again. The plan is to write a fantasy-western but since I've never written fantasy or western before, nor read any western and hardly read fantasy, I can't hope for much.
It's basically the story of a young, mood-based shapeshifter who goes on a quest to find his parents fighting in a war on the Frontier. Once I'm finished planning my plot I'll hopefully upload it and you can give me ideas for a title.

Now for the boring exercise:

Of the top of your head, give me examples of these literary techniques:

Alliteration: Ridiculous remixed rap (because the girl in the room opposite is playing obnoxiously loud, bad, music)

Irony: A hippy getting eaten by the animal it is trying to save

Metaphor: The lights were deafening

Oxymoron: fun-run

Paradox: 21 days since this sign was changed

Simile: Like starving wolves counting sheep we close our eyes, pretending to sleep. (Listening to the Alkaline Trio)

Storytelling

Alright! So my idea for writing a story together with my fellow bloggers got an amazing eight responses. Since yesterday when I came up with the idea I've got the blog set up.

Our genre has been set: suspense thriller set in a dystopian sci-fi world with escapist fantasy undertones (thank you, Zella)

A forum for discussion has be created (thank you, Chairman): http://s4.zetaboards.com/Penguins_Group_Story/index/

And of course the blog has been created and the first post has been written: http://blogwritersstory.blogspot.com/

Also, to be an author I need your email address so I can add you. If you don't want to write it in the comments here you can message it to me through the discussion board or if you are on twitter you can direct message me at Penguins_quack.

Who wants to write a story?

Okay. I just had this idea. I haven't really thought it through properly yet but I'm just going to jump in. 'Cause that's how I roll.

Did you ever do those stories either with your friends or in school where you write one part, another person writes the next and so on until it comes back to you?

Well that's my plan.

I've done it several times before with my friends with varied results but now I want to try it online with you guys. I pretty sure that everyone on here loves writing (otherwise why have a blog?) and I know you all rock at it.

If you'd like to be a part of it let me know in the comments and if I get enough volunteers I'll set up a blog and figure out how to make those who want to take part "authors" so they can add directly to the story.

In the comments also suggest genre and basic rules because I haven't thought this through properly yet.

Balls of a King

Okay, because Script Frenzy and physio (and maybe a little bit of manga) are all that's on my mind at the moment, and because there's pretty much nothing interesting about physio, I've decided to blog my songs from Xerxmania and have you guys tell me what you think.

So here's the song I mentioned in my previous post, the Balls of a King. This song is sung by Darius on Xerxes wedding day.

It takes balls to be king!
It takes balls to be emperor!
And what proves you have balls
Is how many wives you can tether!

A king with one wife
Goes the way of Macbeth
A sap ground down
And whipped to his death

The ballsy king tames her
Then ropes him a second
It’s a ménage à trois
For the well hung husband

What's better still?
Aim for the forgy
Buckle up three wives
And it gets so much more sexy

(What about four, sire?)
High five to ya, son!

(And another, sire?)
Almost half a dozen!

(And that many, sire?)
A fucking stallion!

Xerxes is on his way!
Now he has another wife at the tether
He has the Balls of a King
The Balls of an Emperor

The balls to tackle Greece!

When they burned Sardis they disturbed my peace
And after Marathon my anger increased
With balls too big for any codpiece
We'll crush them and finally my vengeance will cease

(Yes!)

It takes balls to be king!
(Xerxes has balls!)
It takes balls to be emperor!
(Like your balls, sire!)
And what proves you have balls
(Like a fucking stallion!)
Is how many wives you can tether!

Tell me what you think. Tomorrow I might follow it up with I Won't See You. A love song sung by the second wife.

Twitter and Xerxmania

Just thought I should tell you all that penguins_quack is now on Twitter.
I got sick of suscribing to peoples tweets using RSS feeds.
But now that I think about it penguins_tweet may have been an appropriate play on words for my user name. Oh well. Penguins_quack it is.

~

In other news, Script Frenzy started yesterday and I'm already hating Xerxmania. All because Darius sings a perverted song that starts:

"It takes balls to be king

"It takes balls to be emperor

"And what proves you have balls

"is how many wives you can tether."

~

And it all goes down hill from there.

Xerxmania

So it's March and, because I have nothing else to do, that means planning my Script Frenzy for April. Do you remember me telling you about National Novel Writers Month back in November? Yeah, well similar thing, but you write a script.

30 days. 100 pages. April. Are you in?

Well, I'll be writing the script to Xerxmania: Xerxes the Musical, it's the play my Ancient history class planned while procrastinating instead of studying.

Xerxmania is the untold story of Xerxes second wife who petitions for divorce because she's not his favourite wife. The play was based of the idea that only the king's mother and favourite wife could sit at his table.
Anyways, here's me encouraging you to get involved in Script Frenzy this year. Now I'm going to run (well the crutch-using equivalent) off and procrastinate elsewhere.

NaNoWriMo Winner and Very Mild Super Powers

YES!!50 000 words have now been written and Scott, I have finally joined you!

All month people have been asking my why I was crazy enough to try and write 50 000 words in a month and, well, this feeling I have now is what made it totally worth it. Who would have thought that 50 000 words of pure torture would wind up being the worlds best drug? What can I say? I'm a masochist.

Although, even though I have now finished NaNoWriMo the stupid book is no where near finished. But don't worry, once I'm done and have edited it it would probably have been cut back down to something like 20 000.

Even so, after a full month of writing I think I'll be concentrating on other things for a while. I want to read more Skip Beat and One Piece and there are thousands of novels I want to read. I've finally started to read Lord of the Flies. And my friends have been bugging me to write the second issue of my comic, "Very Mild Super Powers".

I wrote the first one for an English assignment about belonging so the characters are all based on my friends and me. My character is Lorizzle (that's my brother's nickname for me) and my very mild super power is the ability to tell when someone is lying. Unfortunatly I don't understand sarcasm and am pretty much the dumb one in the group. Well we and Little Willy. He can secrete moisturiser from his pours.

The other characters include Ben Boy, who can shoot C-grade lazers out of his eyes, Pieman, who knows how things work, Bookman can read books through osmosis, Riksta, who can talk her way out of things, Kon, who can turn invisible when no one is looking, Confusious, who can confuse anyone, Court, who can turn hot things cold and is the only member of the tean who can swim, and Davetron who can sharpen objects with his mind.

I'm thinking of posting the first issue of the comic but I'm not sure how well it would work out.

Anyway, I'm really just rambling now so, Good day. I plan on going and buying Rise Against tickets for February.

NaNoWriMo

Well. I only have one exam left. Extension History. Its been tough. Expectially when the clock stopped during my Modern history exam. But so far I've made it through, and I don't really care what happens to me afterwards. As long as I'm surviving, I'm okay.

You may have noticed my banner to the left: "NaNoWriMo participant"

Well, this November (so right now) I'm participating in the National Novel Writers Month where I have to write a 50 000 word novel by the end of November. I'm not really able to start until after my exams end on the sixth but I'm still attempting it. It's good motivation to finish something I write for once.

I might post some of it here, or start another blog for it, where you can read it. I enjoy constructive criticism and all that nonsense.

...I just lost my tissue and I have hayfever...

Alright, that's better. I'm feeling really positive about NaNo so I'm hoping to convince some people to join, even if its a bit late. But there's always next year!

Anyway, that's the end of this. Let's Write!