Noelle - Creativity + Post-Dead Week Ramblings

Hi guys!
For those of you who don't know, I attend an online academy that fondly refers to our exam week as "Mostly Dead but not All Dead Week" (better known as Dead Week).  During this lovely week, there are no classes, only exams and essays and a swamping sea of stress, usually on late Thursday-all day Friday as you realize quite how much school work you put off literally to the last second.  *sigh*

Anyway, but beyond my once-impending doom, I've also been busy creativity wise, doing pretty much everything...except RMS.  Also, a fond note to all who are nagging me about that:  Stop.  I hear you, and I'm still working on it in my head, and having felt the inspiration needed to keep working on it.

Luckily, this is me, Noelle, that we're talking about, the girl with a thousand hobbies, so I haven't been idle.  (Mom in the other room: HAH!)  ...thanks.  Anyway, as most of you know I got Adobe Creative Cloud for Christmas, which is like all the apps anybody could ever want in one package.  I'd suggest it to everybody, but I think it is rather expensive so Idk.  Anyway, I've been getting used to the program and messing around on there pretty much every day:



(also, who's seen Moana?  Anybody?  It was awesome, in my opinion)

I also bought myself one of those "Complete the Story" writing journals.  Not only would I REALLY suggest it for really any kind of writer, but I might even be buying some as birthday gifts for friends.  They're really that awesome.  It really gets my creative juices pumping in a way they haven't pumped in a long time.  YAY INSPIRATION.  (I think I talked about this last week.  Sorry)

Another book from the same publisher was given to me as a Christmas gift from our lovely next door neighbors (they don't read this blog as far as I know but HI NEIGHBORS!)  This one is the smaller version of 500 Drawing Prompts (this one being 300 prompts and purse sized rather than giant whomping weaponized sketchbook sized)  While I'm no where close to finished, I have done 25 drawings and I really like the creativity this book allows for.  Artists everywhere, go to a Barnes 'n' Noble and treat yo self.



Here are some of the better sketches I've done in there (warning, at some point in my dangerous past my sense of humor got waaaay wacked up *dark, evil laughter*)

Me:  Well, there we go, I drew some fat dear antlers!
Brain:  Yes but...
Me:  No, brain, they're finished
Brain:  what if
Brain:  what if they were covered in eyeballs
Me:  ....go on

See?  I have a slightly evil side.  (RMS fans wailing in the distance)  Okay, maybe more than slightly evil.

One of my favorite parts of this journal is combining completely different prompts into something cool.  Wouldn't it make sense for the Grim Reaper to guard the fountain of youth?

Okay, that one wasn't so evil.  How about a sweet, innocent, sugar skull?

Ha...haha...hahahaha.

I'm thinking about doing a video flip through when I finish with the entire thing.  'Course, that'll probably be...*punches some numbers on a calculator*  yikes.   According to the average rate of how many I've been doing per day, I won't finish for another year, plus some.  0.0  Well, maybe not for a while, but I still think it'd be cool.

Oh yeah, one final page that I did that in my opinion is pretty spectacular:

At the moment, this is my favorite page because it includes
A) Man on the Moon: a tiny bit of dark humor as somebody dies slowly screaming into the abyss for help (or jus ta cute astronaut.  Either way, I like it)
B)  Lightning Strike:  my favorite drawing in the entire book, because it took hours of erasing, shading, re-erasing, etc.
C) Goddess:  I think you were supposed to make up a goddess, but Persephone is my favorite goddess so I went ahead and drew her.  I mean, c'mon, she's the flower queen of hell!

Well, I know this has been a long post but last week I did promise that I'd post another short story, so I must follow through.  I don't even really know what this is, but I have a feeling that you'll see a book about it written by a much older Noelle M.  (and like last week, the bolded part is the original prompt.  Credit to the writing journal people)

Enjoy, and have a great week!

The Murder of Mrs. Tibbet

By Noelle M.

Reporters are trained to develop a sixth sense, a nose for when a story smells fishy.  And something about this one wasn’t right.  First of all, it was a murder with no suspect.  After all, Mrs. Tibbet had no enemies - who could be enemies with the wrinkled, tiny old lady who baked cookies for her neighbors almost every week?  She had no past grudges and I, for one, knew that there was something off.

And I was going to be the one that wrote the story as to why.

I bribed and convinced and flirted my way into the crime scene and nearly choked on my morning smoothie when I saw what had happened.

It was a normal sort of old lady house - lace on the tables, floral wall paper, the strange but somewhat soothing smell of lavender and cats.  The living room was pristine and clean, with a few china dishes and glass figurines lined up on dusty shelves.  Yes, it was normal, except for the blood that seemed to have splattered everywhere, including, to my disgust, the ceiling (I wrinkling my nose as I noticed an organ or two sticking to the wall)

“What happened?” I asked a police officer who was standing by.

“No clue.  Never seen anything like it.”

“Any leads?”

“The lady was 90 and had like twenty cats!  That pretty much sums it up, if you ask me.”

I sigh.  This isn’t a story, this is a washed-out side column that’ll end up under a story titled ‘Corgis stay cool in the summer’ on page D9.  “Anything you can tell me, officer?”

“The neighbors reported hearing hissing.”

“Hissing?”

“That’s what I said.”

“A gas leak, maybe?”  I’m not sure how a gas leak could explain this sort of story, but it’s a start.  The police officer echoes my thoughts exactly, and I eventually have to give up my little interrogation as a lost cause.

The man leaves after a while, a sick look on his face, and I can hear him mumbling something about losing his breakfast.  I smirk at this; guts don’t bother me.  They don’t bother any good reporter.

“You’re determined.”

I jump a little and my three-inch heels leave dents in the old lady’s blood-soaked carpet.  I can’t tell where the voice came from, and it’s not like anything I’ve heard before: high, cold, and all-knowing.

“Who’s there?” I demand, whipping out my phone to record it.  It cracks and goes black in my hand.

“Shh, little human, that won’t do you any good.”

The origin of the voice seems to solidify from the shadows.  The pale-skinned man smirks at him with glittering black eyes.  “You want to know what happened here?”  When I nod soundlessly, he doesn’t say a word.  His intense gaze travels up and down my form, around the room, and back to my eyes.  “A basilisk attack.”

“I’m sorry, a what?”

“Basilisk.  One of them escaped.  They love causing this kind of damage,” he pauses again, surveying the guts on the wall with a mildly annoyed expression.  “Do you want to help me track it down?”

“Excuse me?”  My mind, usually going at a mile a minute, seems to have been left with the policeman.

“C’mon, little human,” he says softly.  “It’s not a difficult question.”

I think I’m going crazy.

“Yes.”

The man smirks once more at me and holds out a thin, bony hand.  “Welcome to the real world.”

The End