Ideas I Probably Shouldn't Tell Anyone About... (Like Shape-Shifting Dolphin Pirate Male Ballerina Heroes)
...but am going to anyway for the sake of amusement.
I have a very active imagination that never fails to provide me with more ideas than I could possibly use. Some of those ideas become books almost immediately. Others are pushed to the back of my mind, where they ripen until they're ready to be realized as fully-fledged stories. And still others.... Well, I contemplate them for a few moments for my own amusement and then forget about them.
Except sometimes when I don't... Like times when I think it would be funny to mention a silly story idea on my blog. And then I think - 'Hey, a little paragraph or two from this non-existant story would really add to that post!' And then before I know it I've, uh, written the beginning of a story about a would-be male ballerina who's a monstrously fearsome pirate who - oh yeah! - is cursed for his cruelty and shape-shifts into a porpoise at night.
Well, I don't really know what else to say. And I can't not post the beginning of that story after putting all that time and work (which surely could have been better spent) into it, can I? So here you go...
The wafting notes of a mellifluous tune drifted across the waves to where Captian Daniel Dorsal watched the foreign ship in secrecy. The melody would have -- should have -- assaulted his sensibilities, had he been himself. He did not enjoy such music. He prefered a rough, manly tune played on a rusty accordion by a scurvied sailor or nothing. As a young woman appeared on the strange ship's deck, his resolve wavered. With a squeaky sigh that sprayed mist through his blowhole, he gave in and let the music wash over him.
The girl danced beautifuly. No, more than beautifully -- perfectly. Daniel watched, rapt, and felt the blood tingle in his veins in response. As she twirled gracefully over the deck, the single sentinel who played the flute her only audience besides himself, he felt as if his heart might burst. The tingling in his veins became liquid flame, and at last he could stand it no longer. He rocketed up and out of the water, spinning through the night air in a porpoise's approximation of a pirouette.
Unable to resist a second leap, he moved with a grace that mocked his usual form -- his human form. As a porpoise, he could leap three times as high as the waves that rolled around him. But he could never manage such dancing feats as Captain Daniel Dorsal, commander of the Starfish and terror of the seven seas. There was a part of his pirate self that would rather die than do so. And then there was his peg leg.
Perhaps things would have been different if he'd never left London as a boy. Perhaps if he'd spurned the siren's call of the sea and stayed in the city, he could have found a happier existance. He could have taken up an apprenticeship to a blacksmith or perhaps a leather-worker to disguise his true ambitions from his misunderstanding peers. And then, whenever he could steal a moment, he could have returned to that blessed crack in the wall of Madame Bessette's ballet school. Perhaps one day he would have even worked up the courage to enter, to take his first tentative step toward the future he'd craved since he'd seen his first cabriole at age five. He'd never wanted to be anything other than a male ballerina. Out of cowardice, he'd flung himself in the opposite direction, becoming a sea-faring criminal so brutal that he'd quickly surpassed the man's man image he'd sought and become something more -- a monster. And he'd paid -- he'd been cursed for it. Ironically, it was in this animal form that he felt most comfortable.
As he mourned what might have been, a shiver of awareness started in his dorsal fin and raced down his spine, all the way to his tail. He'd been seen. Someone was watching him bob among the waves, had seen, no doubt, his leaps. He turned slowly, already knowing it was the ballerina who watched him.
....I made myself stop at this point.
I have a very active imagination that never fails to provide me with more ideas than I could possibly use. Some of those ideas become books almost immediately. Others are pushed to the back of my mind, where they ripen until they're ready to be realized as fully-fledged stories. And still others.... Well, I contemplate them for a few moments for my own amusement and then forget about them.
Except sometimes when I don't... Like times when I think it would be funny to mention a silly story idea on my blog. And then I think - 'Hey, a little paragraph or two from this non-existant story would really add to that post!' And then before I know it I've, uh, written the beginning of a story about a would-be male ballerina who's a monstrously fearsome pirate who - oh yeah! - is cursed for his cruelty and shape-shifts into a porpoise at night.
Well, I don't really know what else to say. And I can't not post the beginning of that story after putting all that time and work (which surely could have been better spent) into it, can I? So here you go...
The wafting notes of a mellifluous tune drifted across the waves to where Captian Daniel Dorsal watched the foreign ship in secrecy. The melody would have -- should have -- assaulted his sensibilities, had he been himself. He did not enjoy such music. He prefered a rough, manly tune played on a rusty accordion by a scurvied sailor or nothing. As a young woman appeared on the strange ship's deck, his resolve wavered. With a squeaky sigh that sprayed mist through his blowhole, he gave in and let the music wash over him.
The girl danced beautifuly. No, more than beautifully -- perfectly. Daniel watched, rapt, and felt the blood tingle in his veins in response. As she twirled gracefully over the deck, the single sentinel who played the flute her only audience besides himself, he felt as if his heart might burst. The tingling in his veins became liquid flame, and at last he could stand it no longer. He rocketed up and out of the water, spinning through the night air in a porpoise's approximation of a pirouette.
Unable to resist a second leap, he moved with a grace that mocked his usual form -- his human form. As a porpoise, he could leap three times as high as the waves that rolled around him. But he could never manage such dancing feats as Captain Daniel Dorsal, commander of the Starfish and terror of the seven seas. There was a part of his pirate self that would rather die than do so. And then there was his peg leg.
Perhaps things would have been different if he'd never left London as a boy. Perhaps if he'd spurned the siren's call of the sea and stayed in the city, he could have found a happier existance. He could have taken up an apprenticeship to a blacksmith or perhaps a leather-worker to disguise his true ambitions from his misunderstanding peers. And then, whenever he could steal a moment, he could have returned to that blessed crack in the wall of Madame Bessette's ballet school. Perhaps one day he would have even worked up the courage to enter, to take his first tentative step toward the future he'd craved since he'd seen his first cabriole at age five. He'd never wanted to be anything other than a male ballerina. Out of cowardice, he'd flung himself in the opposite direction, becoming a sea-faring criminal so brutal that he'd quickly surpassed the man's man image he'd sought and become something more -- a monster. And he'd paid -- he'd been cursed for it. Ironically, it was in this animal form that he felt most comfortable.
As he mourned what might have been, a shiver of awareness started in his dorsal fin and raced down his spine, all the way to his tail. He'd been seen. Someone was watching him bob among the waves, had seen, no doubt, his leaps. He turned slowly, already knowing it was the ballerina who watched him.
....I made myself stop at this point.
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