Brain dump

I can’t recall if I’ve explained this before, but author Neil Gaiman, in his Masterclass, said that using a brain dump is a good way to see what stories might be floating around in one’s head. He suggests writing….everything you can think of…and seeing what develops. Sort of a literary darkroom…it remind me of watching a photo paper develop in its bath of chemicals and seeing the image rise out of the whiteness.

I’ve been playing around with the idea of a series of children’s books based on my piaggio, some cartoon version of her. I ride and see bits of country wildlife and the inner child in me just giggles…a field full of curly tailed small pigs will just make someone smile, be it at their cuteness or at the bacon anticipation. Otherwise I’ve been giving the animals human qualities….birds along the powerlines are drunken frat boys cat calling passing girls and periodically going on road trips. The turtle slowly crossing the road is the wise one teaching my over eager bike about slow and steady winning the day, but it’s also a matter of picking your time to cross.

Then there are the dogs…my two, a mini aussie shepherd and a basingee that dresses like a min pin. Then the yard behind us is the Shi Tzu called Pickles and his pet kitties Earl and Carmel. Diagonally, there are a pair of toy poodle-like pooches…I imagine them as ‘the twins’ but only because they are the same color not the same breed. From our backyard deck I can watch the conclave of canines….imagining their chat has been fun. Pickle’s cats like to cross over the fence and chase squirrels up our trees That sends my dogs nuts and they chase the cats which sends Pickles into a rage. Then there is the chatter at the dividing fence. Peace negotiations? Or soldiers from different armies creeping up to the line to smoke and drink and bemoan the war they must fight.

Across town, there is an overgrown drive way that, now its fall, will begin to show the bones of the burned out house now that the leaves will soon fall. The land has sold an I’m looking for the owner…I want to shoot pictures in there before it’s all gone. What history lies in the house where Judge Cross and his family lived. Why is there supposedly two headstones in the yard with matching headstones in the local boneyard. If anyplace is haunted in this town….

Wish me luck…..