Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

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Tuesday prompt

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How about a miracle?  What if Sally just found herself knee deep in an overflowing toilet while the dog is barking crazily at something and is on the verge of being winded.  In ten minutes a young couple will be coming by to see her house, which she needs to sell in record time. What miracle would save her?  When she answers the door, she finds the young couple waiting, the husband dressed in a local plumbing company’s uniform.  That’s a miracle, but what is that dog still barking about?

Jump off from this scenario or imagine your own troubles a-coming and the character needs a miracle setup.   Then come up with the miraculous happening that is going to fix the immediate problem but still leave the character with other things to take care of.

Those darn book trailers

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I have been working on making a book trailer for my novel In Times Passed. This has not been an easy process. I have pretty much everything I need to produce one except a clear idea of how to put across just the right amount of information to create interest in buying the book and understanding of what the novel is about. I have received some feedback from other writers/readers/trailer viewers/etc. at Goodreads, and this has been helpful.  But again it comes down to me making the necessary changes. I posted my first version on YouTube, at Smashwords on my book page, at Goodreads on my author page and for a short time on this blog.

After considering editing my trailer, I sat down and wrote out the book’s plot in the simplest terms. I thought that this would help me get an idea of what is essential and what I need to leave out. Definitely helped to use the most basic of tools: the plot line.


So I ended up with this brief draft:  
It’s the year 2275 and Brent Garrett has been living off privilege for more than 24 years; however, recently it’s been leaving him dissatisfied.  But it is hard to complain.  

Raised at Meredith Complex, he knows he is expected to add to his orderly and secluded society.  He has yet to contribute anything.  Then he receives a prototype Nerg box and modifies it on a whim with startling results.  Now he has a time machine.  With a means to leave his frustrations behind (or is it ahead of him?), he travels back in time to 1979, part impulse and part destiny.  He meets Miranda Jenkins who offers him a new life, one he’ll have to work for. And it’s satisfying.  

Living the life of the common man has its benefits and its flaws.  Some flaws can shred a heart. For a man with time at his fingertips, running away is a tempting option.  

So that is where I am now. I think I have the text.  Next I have to work on the video.

Tuesday fiction prompt

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Write in first person about the beginning of history for a species.  Find the voice of the tribe’s oral historian and have him or her share the tribe’s beginnings to either a formal or informal audience. Focus on establishing a voice for the speaker and putting across the mythology the group reveres.

When I can’t sleep, I read. When I read, I can sleep.

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I love to read.  I can do it anywhere.  Long ago,when my parents would get into an argument, I would pick up a book and start reading. The sound of them would just disappear.  I would dive into the story, think about the characters and what was happening to them, or read a really great line over and over, twisting it about with thought-filled hands to examine it from all angles.  Hours would pass, and I would close the book to find I was so hungry I was nauseous. I had left the place behind while I read, a transcendentalist, my body snugged into a chair that looked out over my neighbor’s driveway, my mind in some other space.

Reading was essential. In many ways, it is still the same kind of essential it was when I was a child and later a teenager.  If I cannot sleep, which happens fairly often, all I need do is pick up a book.  Maybe I can’t sleep because I am thinking too much, lesson planning or planning a field trip or going over a conversation that just won’t quit my mind. Whatever it is that is keeping me awake disappears when I read.  It is as if my mind narrows to just this one thing, the story I am reading.  It fills the space between my ears.  Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes later, I can turn off my Sony reader, roll over and shortly I am asleep. When I read, I throw everything out and leave room only for the story.  I don’t actively examine the details; I take them in, spread  them out for reflection.  It is a leisurely flow of reading and understanding, putting things together without effort.  When I put the book down, that meditative flow stays and rolls me right into sleep.

If I didn’t read, I would remain awake for hours.