Cyberia - The City of Ladies

EXCERCISE: LUNCH BOX SPY
http://www.dailywriting.net/LunchSpy.htm

I used this exercise to work on a character sketch for a Werewolf Story I’m working on. I love any activity that focuses on dialog and this exercise can be used in to do exactly that. Of course you could follow the directions or you could play with it like I did.
So here’s my Lunch Box Interview with Al Dente
Werewolf.
Over the lips
passed the tongue
watch out stomach
here it comes.
-Lunch Time Prayer uttered by Students all over the world

Tell me about your lunches.
“They talk too much. ‘ Don’t eat me…eeekkk, help’ Stuff like that. Same old same old day after day. Its not exactly stimulating conversation.”

What can you tell me about the lunches you eat?
” After awhile they all taste like chicken.”

What do you remember about your school lunches?
” Oh, the good old days. Back then I use to love the hunt. Chase ‘em down and chow them raw. Now the arthritis is setting in. Plus, there’s nothing sadder then a Werewolf with bad eyes trying to catch its lunch. Especially when you trip and your lunch laughs…”

Were there any family jokes about what you liked to eat?

“I went through the alphabet…like all my lunch’s names had to start with the letter ” A”. After awhile my family started to call me Alphabetti Humanetti. Anyway, the villagers got wise to me and started to number their kids instead of naming them. I almost starved to death”

Who made your lunch?
“Uh…are you kidding? What did you skip biology class? Like you really don’t you know where babies come from?”

Were you ever able to buy a lunch?
“This Ogre named Calvin use to sell lunches. He was a nice guy. But the lunches were caged and they tasted funny. Real gamy. They must’ve been bottom feeders.”

What did they stock in the school canteen?
“Most of the time it was Damsels in Distress and Dragon Slaying Knights. By the end of the week they’d stew whatever was left over. It was BORING.”

Did you ever slip across the street with your mates to the fish and chip shop?
“Yes, of course we did! And after we ate the cooks and patrons we use to dump the fish back into the Bay.”

Did any one in your class have a better lunch than you? What did they have? Were you ever able to swap with them?
“I use to swap Werewolf Hunters for Vampire Hunters with my friend Carl. The Vampire Hunters were my favorite cause they’d try this Kung Fu fighting stuff on me.It was so funny. Sort of like dinner theatre. But the best part were these bow and arrow things some of them carried around. I’d use the arrows for a little something I invented called Hunter Kabobs.
Hunters on a Stick. Gosh I loved those…especially with catsup.

Where did you eat your lunch? Who ate their lunch with you? Did you eat alone?
“Werewolves are social animals you know and we don’t like to eat alone. So I eat my friends and family. Oh no wait…I mean I eat WITH my friends and family”

What do you have for lunch now? Do you still own a lunchbox? Do you make your lunch or buy it?
“I skip lunch now and I eat healthier then I use to. I’ve gone back to my old ways and the Village I live in now has very clean living livestock. And yes I do have a lunchbox. It’s that big box behind you with the little gold handles. Very good, it’s a coffin. Thank you for noticing.”

Who makes the best lunches?
“Those Villagers down the road…. they’re really into physical fitness and they really work on things like running. Wow and let me tell you they can do that darn fast.I mean, no matter how big or small young or old you should see those little legs work!”

Do you eat the same thing every day?
“Of course I do…nature of the beast you know.”

Is there a lunch that still haunts you?
“They all do my friend…they all do.”

What is the worst lunch you have ever eaten?
“Bob.”

What is your favorite place to buy lunch?
“Noses and Toeses On The Pier”

Would you buy from a school canteen?
“Sure I would, especially if they serve Students on Rye.”

THE PROBLEM IS THAT THERE ARE TOO MANY STUPID PEOPLE IN THE WORLD AND NO ONE TO EAT THEM- CARLOS MENCIA

Based on the Soul Food Cafe Exercise:

Muse Hymn Box

http://www.dailywriting.net/MuseHymnBox.htm

I liked this exercise because in the past I never really thought about my “ Muse” or where that sense of joy comes from when I finish a story.

It felt good, that’s all I cared about.

How shallow is that?

After I completed this exercise I re-discovered and remembered my Grandfather’s wonderful way of explaining the world to us.

His stories convinced me the ‘other world’ was as real as this one…and in the end, despite the fact that world was full of ghosts and demons and witches and spirits and cannibals I wasn’t afraid of it

Which is a good deal considering what I write about now

Amm

I wanted to write a story about a Witch- a no holds barred story about a Witch that plagues a town and drives it’s citizens to mind numbing distraction (which takes some doing because it turns out the residents of this town are Werewolves). https://anita64.wordpress.com/2006/06/18/the-witch-of-white-ash-mountain/

Where oh where to start looking…

I needed inspiration, I needed a face and in the end I found her and named her Calisaya Stoneroot. If you want to know the truth, even though I put Calisaya in a weird little town that’s suppose to exist here in Washington State she was actually born in the Sugar Cane Fields on the Big Island of Hawaii.

When I was a kid my Grandfather, Cypriano use to tell me about a demon-lady that hid in water and made a sound like a crying baby and when you leaned over the water or got close to help the baby she would reach up and snatch you down and drown you.

I could never really recall the entire story and when I checked into folklore discovered that my Grandfather (who was a storyteller himself) had probably combined two legends and created his own tale.

In part I discovered he had based his demon-lady on   La Llorona    “ The Crying Woman” According to legend The Crying Woman drowns her children after she is spurned by her children’s father.

If you see or hear the Crying Woman you are cursed and you will die.

I’m not sure how my Grandfather heard of the Crying Woman or why he changed her story. He kept certain elements intact, the children, the water, and the woman who is waiting to take you to your death.

However, the feeling I got when I heard the story was that he was warning us about something…or someone and to this day I don’t go near the water at night.

Even though how the Crying Woman came into my Grandfather’s life is still a mystery to me the theme of angry spirits living in the water is not.

These spirits that wait in the water so that they can hurt you may have worked their way into my Grandfather’s tales because in 1946 the worst Tsunami in Hawaii’s history struck the Waipio Valley and my Mother’s Family was living on the bluffs above the “ Valley of the Kings” when this happened.

Since then the locals shunned the valley as being cursed and no one except for maybe a few dozen families live down there now.

I have the impression that tourists and the outside world thought that the ‘simple field workers ‘ that settled above the valley in Honokaa had no idea that they were sitting on top of a potential money maker.

Actually we knew full well what was down there…and we still do.

So there it is, my Muse…it turned out to be my Grandfather Cypriano Guzman. The funny thing is no matter how dark or morbid or down right odd my stories are, when I write I can see him smiling and I can hear him laughing.

And I know he’s proud.

 AMM