Help with 500 words

Ms. Haiku

I'm starting to switch writing with another staff where I work. We decided to each bring a 500 word piece to the table next Tuesday. I've been working on it in my brain for about a couple weeks, and I don't have a word. I like to be inspired by photographs, paintings, blah blah blah. I'm just so NON-inspired - any help? What does 500 words look like anyway, that's like 2 double spaced pages, isn't it? What what what . . . someone just give me an outline, please, or a photograph, or something to grab on to inspirationally.

FinsburyParkCarrots

I'm also a bit uninspired at the moment. A bang on the head, the loss of my budgie and a load of work will do that.

Here, this is an old exercise I set, with a 600 word limit. This might help.

Here is a selection of some of the most popular buzzwords of the past hundred years, as compiled by Susie Dent in her recent book Larpers and Shroomers: The Language Report (Oxford University Press).

1904 hip
1905 whizzo
1906 teddy bear
1907 egghead
1908 realpolitik
1909 tiddly-om-pom-pom
1910 sacred cow
1911 gene
1912 blues
1913 celeb
1914 cheerio
1915 civvy street
1916 U-boat
1917 tailspin
1918 ceasefire
1919 ad-lib
1920 demob
1921 pop
1922 wizard
1923 hem-line
1924 lumpenproletariat
1925 avant garde
1926 kitsch
1927 sudden death
1928 Big Apple
1930 drive-in
1931 Mickey Mouse
1932 bagel
1933 dumb down
1934 pesticide
1937 dunk
1938 cheeseburger
1942 buzz
1944 DNA
1945 mobile phone
1946 megabucks
1947 Wonderbra
1948 cool
1949 Big Brother
1950 brainwashing
1951 fast food
1952 Generation X
1953 hippy
1954 non-U
1955 boogie
1957 psychedelic
1958 beatnik
1959 cruise missile
1960 cyborg
1961 awesome
1962 bossa nova
1963 peacenik
1964 byte
1965 miniskirt
1968 It-girl
1969 microchip
1970 hypermarket
1971 green
1972 Watergate
1974 punk
1975 detox
1976 Trekkie
1977 naff all
1978 trainers
1979 karaoke
1980 power dressing
1982 hip-hop
1983 beatbox
1984 double-click
1985 OK yah
1986 mobile
1987 virtual reality
1988 gangsta
1989 latte
1990 applet
1991 hot-desking
1992 URL
1993 having it large
1994 Botox
1995 kitten heels
1996 ghetto fabulous
1997 dot-commer
1998 text message
2000 bling bling
2004 chav

I'd like you to consult your dictionaries if you need help with definitions for these words. Then, please write a short story in not more than 600 words, using all of the above buzzwords!

FinsburyParkCarrots

This is what I wrote:

Upstairs at Brainwashing HQ, Professor William "Whizzo" McTavish was in the lab explaining to his boss his latest invention, while carefully disguising a microchip in the miniskirt hem-line of his latest It-girl cyborg. "This chip activates a signal when the girl walks down the high street in a crowd: the signal bounces into a nearby person's mobile phone and emits microwaves into their brains at the rate of one byte a nanosecond, powerful enough to see Big Brother-like into their thought processes," he explained to the Minister For Hush-Hush Operations. "We'll know the consumer interests of every bling bling would-be gangsta chav from the lumpenproletariat having it large in their hip-hop trainers and driving in their motors with the bossa nova beatbox, sending a text message on their mobile while munching on a cheeseburger down the highstreet, and we'll send this buzz back to them telling them to buy our latest products. How's that for reforming the rabble, eh?" The Minister commended him. "Ah, when I was in the army, when I was targeting the odd U-boat before the old ceasefire and demob, we dreamed of such operations to control civvy street so masterfully, so discreetly! Maybe one day you'll be able to develop a 'dumb down' gene that we can install in the blighters from birth to keep them buying fast food from their local drive-in, watching those Karaoke Idol pop shows on the telly and following the latest pop celeb kitsch rather than any Watergate type scandal we here at HQ might find ourselves in!"

"Oh, I've been working on that! I like to be avant-garde, you know!"

"Awesome! You're quite an egghead, you know! That last idea of mine was really just an ad-lib, actually, and you've started on the job already! No wonder you've all your rivals in the sudden-death pesticide botox manufacturing plant jealous!"

"Oh yes, I intend to retire to the Big Apple with megabucks, and live out my last days strolling to the latest virtual reality cafe to dunk a bagel into my first latte of the morning and contemplate my contribution to society: I didn't discover DNA but my work isn't Mickey Mouse either: I brainwashed every green-issue toting Trekkie peacenik and psychedelic hippy in Generation X with a penchant for pop and blues; I confounded every ghetto fabulous punk in kitten heels! I turned them into work machines! They're all power dressing in suits from our hypermarket, on detox programs and talking on the squash courts after hot-desking at work in our office about the URL to our dot-commer business venture! Ah yes, they're not interested in campaigning against the cruise missile or any cool sacred cow of the hip boogie people!"

"Retirement? That's so non-U, for you!" The Minister interjected. "You'd never cut the mustard hanging out with naff-all to do! Couldn't you build a wonderful cyborg with a double-click Wonderbra that picks up radio signals underground, in reservoirs and sewers where underground resistance movements might be hiding?"

"OK Yah," McTavish droned with smidgeons of Orkney evidencing through the veneer of his fake Chelsea drawl. "I suppose you're right. I'll build something better! I had an idea for a hypnotic teddy bear, you know... It plays a nice tune, you, know, a pleasant tiddly-om-pom-pom, but it's really saying subliminally 'You will devote your lives to us, to Big Brother!': How's that?"

"I call that cool realpolitik for our glorious nation! Cheerio!"

EvilToasterElf

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

This is what I wrote:

Upstairs at Brainwashing HQ, Professor William "Whizzo" McTavish was in the lab explaining to his boss his latest invention, while carefully disguising a microchip in the miniskirt hem-line of his latest It-girl cyborg. "This chip activates a signal when the girl walks down the high street in a crowd: the signal bounces into a nearby person's mobile phone and emits microwaves into their brains at the rate of one byte a nanosecond, powerful enough to see Big Brother-like into their thought processes," he explained to the Minister For Hush-Hush Operations. "We'll know the consumer interests of every bling bling would-be gangsta chav from the lumpenproletariat having it large in their hip-hop trainers and driving in their motors with the bossa nova beatbox, sending a text message on their mobile while munching on a cheeseburger down the highstreet, and we'll send this buzz back to them telling them to buy our latest products. How's that for reforming the rabble, eh?" The Minister commended him. "Ah, when I was in the army, when I was targeting the odd U-boat before the old ceasefire and demob, we dreamed of such operations to control civvy street so masterfully, so discreetly! Maybe one day you'll be able to develop a 'dumb down' gene that we can install in the blighters from birth to keep them buying fast food from their local drive-in, watching those Karaoke Idol pop shows on the telly and following the latest pop celeb kitsch rather than any Watergate type scandal we here at HQ might find ourselves in!"

"Oh, I've been working on that! I like to be avant-garde, you know!"

"Awesome! You're quite an egghead, you know! That last idea of mine was really just an ad-lib, actually, and you've started on the job already! No wonder you've all your rivals in the sudden-death pesticide botox manufacturing plant jealous!"

"Oh yes, I intend to retire to the Big Apple with megabucks, and live out my last days strolling to the latest virtual reality cafe to dunk a bagel into my first latte of the morning and contemplate my contribution to society: I didn't discover DNA but my work isn't Mickey Mouse either: I brainwashed every green-issue toting Trekkie peacenik and psychedelic hippy in Generation X with a penchant for pop and blues; I confounded every ghetto fabulous punk in kitten heels! I turned them into work machines! They're all power dressing in suits from our hypermarket, on detox programs and talking on the squash courts after hot-desking at work in our office about the URL to our dot-commer business venture! Ah yes, they're not interested in campaigning against the cruise missile or any cool sacred cow of the hip boogie people!"

"Retirement? That's so non-U, for you!" The Minister interjected. "You'd never cut the mustard hanging out with naff-all to do! Couldn't you build a wonderful cyborg with a double-click Wonderbra that picks up radio signals underground, in reservoirs and sewers where underground resistance movements might be hiding?"

"OK Yah," McTavish droned with smidgeons of Orkney evidencing through the veneer of his fake Chelsea drawl. "I suppose you're right. I'll build something better! I had an idea for a hypnotic teddy bear, you know... It plays a nice tune, you, know, a pleasant tiddly-om-pom-pom, but it's really saying subliminally 'You will devote your lives to us, to Big Brother!': How's that?"

"I call that cool realpolitik for our glorious nation! Cheerio!"

Ok, that was pretty god damn impressive

Ms. Haiku

Very interesting, Fins! I think I'll make a list of 100 words that Bibliobella would use in trying to foil the evil man, and take it from there. It's time to resurrect her again, I think. She has such spunk, you know.

Ms. Haiku

I just got the CD Omara Portuondo, and I've decided that Bibliobella and definitely knows how to rumba. Story to follow once I put it to paper.

Ms. Haiku

From Fin's suggestion I wrote on a piece of graph paper the numbers 1-100, and then I started to describe phrases about Bibliobella in Macrina Bakery, and a little about her family, and how she is the superhero of the Library of Congress. This piece won't focus on how she escaped the Inquisition gracias a Paolo. I foresee a fun time writing this weekend, listening to rumba music

Since writing the first Bibliobella poem in 2004 I bought a book about the Library of Congress. This new piece of 500 words may start in a painting hanging in the Macrina Bakery in Seattle, but the Tinkerbell taxi will quickly flash them to the Library of Congress where there's a panel at the south entrance of "Written Lore." It is a sculptured door with panels of truth and research. Truth has a mirror, and research has a snake. Why would research have a snake? I didn't read up on it, just the caption. Any ideas? I couldn't think of any.

Ms. Haiku

I've decided to focus on food writing. If you ever used real vanilla bean for a cake, you'll know how inspiring/magical food can be. Bibliobella definitely knows how to bake, but then again so do I

I remember a Jacob Lawrence painting, one of the first ones to inspire me to write poetry, is a woman looking at an almost empty plate. It would be interesting to bake bread, let the smell and the time to make it fill my apartment, and then look at that painting. I'll probably get passionate poetry out of it. Probably some of my most political/spiritual poetry is created with food in front of me.