Third Great Purgy Mash-Up

Blondchen said:

Thanks guys! Honestly, its not that much work to put together. I just had to remember my own deadlines and beyond that, lots of cutting and pasting.

I'm so glad you all had a wonderful time. Whoever recommended we do another one deserves all the accolades. Just let me know when you're all ready for Round Four!

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HA! I think that was me, but no way do I deserve anything---except the Most Devious Masher Award!

Thank you SOOO much, Blond! It may sound simple to you, but some of us lack the organizational chops to pull this off. Not naming anyone in particular, mind you (cough, houndrat, cough)

Blondchen said:

Melissa hadn’t meant to hit him in the eye with the champagne cork. It just went crazy all on its own, pinging off her poster, ‘Book signing today!’, and then shooting right at him, her own personal klutz missile. LIke everyone else, love this visual, and how much it tells us about the character. No one else noticed; her friends were too busy devouring the last of the dessert table.

“My god, I’m so sorry, Are you hurt? Can you still see?“ she said, raising her hand toward him and forgetting she still held the champagne bottle. The champagne sloshed on his suit, leaving blotches on what might have been a nice tie. “I’m sorry! Let me..” Oh, cringing for her here, lol....I can totally picture this

“No!” He flinched a tiny bit as she came closer. “It’s okay. I’m fine.” He held up a copy of her book. “If you have anything else you want to fling at me, give me a warning, please. I can always use this as a shield.” Lol, love the humor in the dialogue

Time to sink into the floor. She closed her eyes and then opened them again to look at him, all of him. If she still painted, he would be such a lovely man to paint, his face all perfect angles and lines, with dark brown eyes and lashes that... ha, such a perfect line for a romance..Hey, I didn't know you wrote romance, Melia!


“How do you do?” He held out his hand. “Max Owen. I’m been skimming your book and I have a question I need answered. How did you come up with the detail about the shrunken head in the victim’s mouth?” OMG--where the heck did this come from? Hilarious, and totally unexpected...

Uh oh. Not good, Melissa thought. She really wished he hadn’t asked that particular question.

#

“Very nice to meet you, Max,” she replied. She took his outstretched hand and pumped it in a rigorous shake. It was too hot in the room, too loud and those damn lights felt like a spotlight following her around in this charade of professionalism. Love charade of professionalism---conveys a lot in just three words This isn’t how a real author acts. He pulled his hand away after she held on a few seconds too long. nice--few seconds too long part tells us even more about her state of mind...Melissa nearly dropped the champagne bottle still clutched in her left hand. Elizabeth rescued the bottle and retreated to the dessert table. She cast a quick glance back to Melissa and winked at her.

Melissa rubbed her two hands together, trying to figure out a good answer to the shrunken head question and how to salvage this craptastically bad situation. how can I not love craptastically? A high pitched twitter of laughter escaped from her lips. Be cool, she reminded herself.

“The truth is so silly, really. I’m almost embarrassed to even admit this,” she paused, for dramatic effect, took a step closer to him and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I went on one of those touristy ghost tours down in the French Quarter and met a real live voodoo priestess a few years ago. I think that is what sparked the idea for the shrunken heads, you know all that crazy gris-gris and warding off evil stuff.” The skin around his eye had started to swell up and a large, red lump had formed near his temple. Melissa wanted to press her fingers over it, push the skin back into its perfect place. wow, now we have a new twist--cool!

“It’s just a strange coincidence given the recent murders,” he said. He cocked his head to the side and began to rub at the injured spot.



Fuck.

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I love how Melia started off with this book signing where the MC is all clumsy and awkward, then quickly takes us to this huge shrunken head twist. And Alias really went with it, feeding us the MC's excuse and maintaining her awkwardness, all whiile throwing in her own twist. Nice work!

I can barely even begin to comment on the awesomeness of this piece, from both authors. Totally out of my comfort zone, but I was really sucked in. I'm sure my jaw was gaping as I read it. HC gave us something totally original and unexpected, and then Clovia just nailed the follow-up. I re-iterate--Blond, if you send me a Mash-up like this, make sure to include Depends.

Blondchen said:

He came with the snow. He did not remember this. He could not. Memory requires at least one of the senses. But when three inches of snow had fallen over the backyard he was standing in, he realized he could see, which meant from then on, he would be able to remember. wow, what a wild beginning! I'm totally caught up already.

He remembered seeing colors first, or rather, the absence of it. It was black, and then it was not. Droplets of silver fell into the darkness, churning light and shadow. I love that line...so evocative....He would have likened it to a tempest in a gasoline rainbow if he had known what a gasoline rainbow was. He had seen nothing before this moment and the colors washing over him were just that – colors. They had no meaning. Red did not awaken passion. Green was not politically correct. Yellow did not make him smile. But he did know what hues he liked. He had caught a glimpse of a blue-gray ripple bleeding from the tail of an indigo swirl. and again....It became the color of his eyes. He opened them.

Light flooded his irises. It was bright, white, and…he struggled for the word. Cold. It was in that instant he discovered that he could feel. Icy needles pierced the soles of his feet. The wind whipped his pale bare skin. He shivered in the white haze as he ran through the inventory of what he knew so far: he could see, he could feel, he liked certain shades of blue, and he did not like the cold. this line really adds more humanity to the character--cool.

“Hey! You there!”

He turned in the direction of the voice. He added another item to his list: he could hear. He could not decide what the voice sounded like. It was the first thing he had ever heard. He settled on yellow tinged with orange around the edges.


#

“Yeah?” There was a curling blackness at the tips of the sounds, and James was intrigued by it. Wow, Clovia just dove right in with the color thing, and did it sooo well. I love "curling blackness at the tips of the sounds" The way it tumbled down, dragging the red and darkening orange with it. Closer. The cold across his bottom lip bit deeper. If he had put finger to it, he would have found it damp. “You get out of my yard.”

“I’m cold.” James took a step, drawn by the ruddy color bleeding down each joint, then splitting to seek the next. If he didn’t like the cold, the other had to be better. Had to be warm. wow--this idea wouldn't even have occurred to me, but when I read it, it totally fit. Nice.

“I don’t give a—Hey!”

A hazy shape obscured the promising lattice.

“You don’t want that.” The figure was illuminated by vibrations James would have called honey, if he’d ever seen or tasted it. “You don’t know where it’s been. They’re coming, father.”

“I know.”

In this moment James discovered his heartbeat, and added it to his list. Distracted by the quickening flutter,again, awesome--building so perfectly on HC's start... he didn’t notice the thick fabric that wrapped around him, or the hands chafing his arms.

“Poor thing. How did you get so far alone?”

He liked the lift at the end, and the greens rolling through what had to be his favorite shade of blue now.

“Get the hell off my property! I’m cal—“

The blackened red boiling from the window went brittle, frozen, and fell in uncounted shards. Um..wow..

“There we are.” The soothing blue was weighted with a satisfied purple.

blue. “Of course it is, love. It always is.”

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WHOA...just popped in to do a quick check on who continued my mash-up before shuttling the kids to school and was TOTALLY not prepared for the feedback it got. It feels like Christmas morning!! THANK YOU PURGIES!!! You're the BEST.

Clovia - I LOVE how you ran with the piece! Awesome work!

I'll dive back into the thread and come back with comments on all the great writing later!

Blond - THANK YOU for putting this all together. You rock!!

#14 - Delicious!!

Melia, Alias: Adored Melissa's awkwardness, the build-up, and how she was totally dissed in the end! Comic timing was perfect.

Fave lines:

Blondchen said:

It just went crazy all on its own, pinging off her poster, ‘Book signing today!’, and then shooting right at him, her own personal klutz missile.

“If you have anything else you want to fling at me, give me a warning, please. I can always use this as a shield.”

How did you come up with the detail about the shrunken head in the victim’s mouth?”

Melissa rubbed her two hands together, trying to figure out a good answer to the shrunken head question and how to salvage this craptastically bad situation.

Melissa wanted to press her fingers over it, push the skin back into its perfect place.

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#15 Part 2: Your words sang to me.

Clovia: The spin you put is INTRIGUING!!! Loved the imagery and the language!

(Trivia: Part 1 is actually the opening of a novel* I trunked - my awkward attempt at YA Paranormal. I know, I know: YA??? Yup, that's why it's trunked and why I don't write YA or paranormal. Oh, and it's a love story.)

*I use the term loooooooosely since the "novel" didn't get much farther than the paragraphs you've just read. I think Clovia wrote more than I did!

Fave lines:

Blondchen said:

There was a curling blackness at the tips of the sounds, and James was intrigued by it. The way it tumbled down, dragging the red and darkening orange with it.

“I’m cold.” James took a step, drawn by the ruddy color bleeding down each joint, then splitting to seek the next. If he didn’t like the cold, the other had to be better. Had to be warm.

Distracted by the quickening flutter, he didn’t notice the thick fabric that wrapped around him, or the hands chafing his arms.

He liked the lift at the end, and the greens rolling through what had to be his favorite shade of blue now.

The blackened red boiling from the window went brittle, frozen, and fell in uncounted shards.

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# 16: Beautiful and disturbing.

Fire, Tas: I'm hooked!!! Very graphic, gritty, and cruel. Brilliant!

Fave lines:

Blondchen said:

The stench almost sent her, reeling, back out into the yard. It was a noxious combination of unwashed humanity and sickness, of urine and she put on her mask and held the lamp up, “Oh, dear God,” she found Stefan in the corner on a makeshift bed of moldy bales of straw covered with a thin, moth-eaten blanket.

She turned to go, her long skirts swirling around her feet like a flock of startled crows.

“So long as it was soon enough. That’s all that matters.”

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#17: Irreverent, unexpected, and soooooo funny!

Sunna, Blond: Your edgy styles complemented each other perfectly! Smart writing! Loved it!

Fave lines:

Blondchen said:

Surrounded by perky fake breasts and perfect noses, plagued by the rustle of Dior and Armani and half blinded by a endless explosion of flashbulbs, she might have welcomed her impending death, if anybody had warned her it was coming.

She sneezed reflexively and filled the air in front of her with a thousand tiny drops of red. Ali Jordan, looking like a boiled salmon in her pink dress, screamed and backed away batting at her face.

A split second later the unmistakable noise of the shot reached her ears.

The world filled with shadows, syrupy and peaceful.

The pain came for her then, suffocating and huge, and it was just as bad as she'd always imagined it to be.

###

Not the kind near-death experience survivors describe on the mid-morning talk shows: a white light in the distance accompanied by celestial harps and the full might of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. This felt more like a fluorescent spotlight, boring a hole right through her eyelids and into her brain, and giving her an ungodly migraine.

"Ungodly." Shit. Poor choice of words.

Max? There was an angel named Max? If this was the afterlife, so far it sucked.

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#18: WOW. The suspense was palpable. Creepy, seamless, and wonderful!!

Jenwriter, Hope: I've always admired people who can write horror/suspense well. I can't do it to save my life. I really enjoyed this.

Fave lines:

Blondchen said:

She knew she shouldn’t dare hope they’d finally gone away. Nothing in this world was that easy anymore. No, either they were up to something or they’d found another living human to focus their endless attack upon. Abby sighed. If that were the case, she doubted she could get to the victim in time.


Then she held the rifle in her right hand while with her left she worked at the bolts. They moved silently this time, courtesy of the lubricating oil she’d located in her dad’s workshop yesterday. Good. A small victory, but she’d take every one she could get.

One landed on her lips and at the thought of where it might have just been, she spat it away – a mistake. The movement triggered her gag reflex, and for a long treacherous moment, she fought against bile that stung the back of her throat.

The idea of being pounced on by the werewolves, helpless as a baby as she puked her guts out, got her through.

Her veins hummed with nervous energy.

Until the low growl rumbled behind her.

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Aw, thank you, Happy Camper for doing this. I have to admit that everyone dispersed very quickly after this, and I didn't quite get the comment lurve I was hoping for. (I know we were at it three days, so don't mean to sound like I'm complaining; but rather, grateful that you took the time.) Your specificity is very helpful.

Ah, classic Firedrake...awesome, evocative lines that really paint such vivid pictures in my head. And a great follow-up by Tas, who carried on the story really well with some great imagery of her own..

Blondchen said:

The stench almost sent her, reeling, back out into the yard. It was a noxious combination of unwashed humanity and sickness, of urine and she put on her mask and held the lamp up, “Oh, dear God,” she found Stefan in the corner on a makeshift bed of moldy bales of straw covered with a thin, moth-eaten blanket. A mouse, startled by the light, scurried up into the cobwebby rafters and something larger stirred in a pile of loose straw in the corner, something that Maire did not want to see. creepy imagery..nice She knelt in the filthy straw beside the bed and touched Stefan’s face. It was hard to see in the uncertain light, but his skin was hot and dry to the touch and, even with the rustling and the indignant chatter of disturbed mice, she could hear his labored breathing as his chest rose and fell beneath yet another useless blanket. You know exaclty which adjectives to use to ehance the mood..somethine I really need to work on so I admire a ton...If it wasn’t for the fact that he was still alive she would have happily returned to the farm yard and throttled the farmer’s wife.
###

The prim woman drew herself up stiffly, pulling her shawl around her shoulders as if it would shield her from Maire’s glare. “Is it not proper procedure to notify you of any…impropriety?”

“You hate us. You’ve always hated us.” Maire’s shoulders quivered at the remembered sting of the lash. “We will drive the devil out of you, child!”

Mrs. Davies sniffed. “I am a dutiful citizen. My personal feelings have nothing to do with this.” She turned to go, her long skirts swirling around her feet like a flock of startled crows. cool visual Before she vanished around the barn, she paused. “Whatever you think of me, Maire, I am not a monster.”

Maire could have argued that, but right now Stefan needed her more.

Linton gave her an unreadable look as she bent to help lift the young man. Even as wasted and abused as he was, Stefan was still a good head taller than either of them, and they struggled to get his lanky form into the wagon. I got a great image from this as well..Only once did he rouse, moaning and tossing his head feverishly.


She clucked the horses into a trot. nice “So long as it was soon enough. That’s all that matters.”

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this one cracked me up! Love, love how Sunna managed to show us right away how the MC felt about all the Hollwywood crap...and then it quickly morphed into high drama. Then Blond just rolled with it, with her awesome humor and some amazing imagery. Really nice match-up!

Blondchen said:

In the last hour of her life, Calyx McMaster was bored out of her skull.

Surrounded by perky fake breasts and perfect noses, plagued by the rustle of Dior and Armani and half blinded by a endless explosion of flashbulbs, she might have welcomed her impending death, if anybody had warned her it was coming. Wow--you've packed so much info into that first sentence in such a seamless way--amazing! Jackie's sequin-covered arm swept up in a dramatic point. Calyx, still elbowing through the crowd, shoved fellow star-sitter Don Allen aside, stumbled into talk show czar Jon Borgman, and was at that moment struck between the shoulders by what felt like the fist of god. love, love fist of god--and coincidentally, this is th phrase that really made me more certain it was you! She sneezed reflexively and filled the air in front of her with a thousand tiny drops of red. ick--but great imagery Ali Jordan, looking like a boiled salmon in her pink dress, lol screamed and backed away batting at her face.


All the noise in the hall took on a hysterical tone that peaked, then slowed into a surreal drone as the checkered black carpet rose up to meet her. A thicket of Louboutin spikes stampeded past her nose. Calyx blinked groggily, coughed copper, (awesome) and tried to push herself up, if only to protect her face from those deadly heels.

The world filled with shadows, syrupy and peaceful. (another great line) Over the screams filling the hall there was an inexplicable throbbing hum that raised the hair on her arms.


###

Then with a thundering that reminded her of a 747 roaring off the Tarmac, darkness rolled over her. And all was silent.

_________

There was a bright light, of that Calyx was sure. Not the kind near-death experience survivors describe on the mid-morning talk shows: a white light in the distance accompanied by celestial harps and the full might of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I loved this whole line--the funny mid-morning talk show part, and then the follow-up with the harps and choir. This felt more like a fluorescent spotlight, boring a hole right through her eyelids and into her brain, and giving her an ungodly migraine.

"Ungodly." Shit. Poor choice of words. Calyx wondered if whoever was in charge could read her mind because she was pretty sure that was going to piss someone off. lol--too funny!


Through the veil of eyelashes, Calyx could just make out the source of the offending light: a large stainless steel lamp – the kind you're assaulted with in the dentist's chair – hung just inches from her face. more great imagery--I could totally picture it!
A blurred figure leaned over her, silhouetted above the lamp. "She's waking up. You'd better get Max."

Max? There was an angel named Max? If this was the afterlife, so far it sucked.classic! [/QUOTE]

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Great tension and suspense in this piece--from both JenWriter and Hope. I love how you both played it serious here. Jen, are you going to post your continuation? I'm curious to know where you went with it--I'm assuming it was paranormal also?

Blondchen said:

The incessant moaning suddenly ceased. Abby’s head jerked up from where she’d been studying her carefully drawn map. Her light eyes focused on the now soundless walls on either side of the iron-bound door up the stairs to her left.another one of those people that knows just which adjective to pick so it's not wasted--dang. Who's going to teach me?

“This is new,” she muttered to herself. She’d taken to grumbling phrases at the empty basement in the seemingly endless days of solitude. love the touch of humor that doesn't break the tension of the scene


Her hands barely trembled as she crept toward the bottom stair. As soon as she placed one foot up, she knew the stairs’ dilapidated wood would alert the intruders upstairs with a resounding creak. It had always been an annoyance before, and she’d tried to get her dad to fix it for months.
At the thought of her father, she swallowed hard and gripped the shotgun tighter. Now wasn’t the time to go strolling down memory lane. ooh, great tension in this whole para--and I want to know what happened to daddy!

#

No, now was for mounting a possible rescue mission, or failing that, replenishing her food supply.

When a half-minute passed without any evidence she’d been overheart, she eased up the next stair, and then another, Hope--great way to separate the climbing out to convey caution.....until at last she stood in front of the door. Then she held the rifle in her right hand while with her left she worked at the bolts. They moved silently this time, courtesy of the lubricating oil she’d located in her dad’s workshop yesterday. Good. A small victory, but she’d take every one she could get.

Now came the hard part. No matter how much she prepared, she never felt ready for this.

She reminded herself to breathe through her nose, firmed her grip on the rifle, and used its muzzle to push the door outward a few feet.

That was enough to see the rust-coloured handprints on the wall opposite.great visual touch And to agitate the flies, so that when she slipped into the hallway, her first view of the kitchen was obscured by a buzzing snowstorm of black. more awesome imagery They whirled around the room, crawled over the three sets of human remains that still rested on the linoleum, and whizzed past her ears.

Once under control, she headed down the hallway, keeping her back tight to the wall. Up ahead was the doorway to the living room. If there were any survivors, that’s where she’d find them. Hopefully without a furry guard standing watch. nice touch of humor

Her ears strained for any sound beyond the buzzing of the flies. And she found nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Until the low growl rumbled behind her.these last few lines build great tension--also love the way you shortened the sentences here to really grab our attention! [/QUOTE]

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I couldn't get on AW last night, it was running way too slow. So here's the scene in full. As you can see, Tas did a bloody good job of taking it forward.

Thanks to all for your comments. I'm well chuffed to be in the company of some incredible writers.

[FONT=&quot] [/FONT] The stench almost sent her, reeling, back out into the yard. It was a noxious combination of unwashed humanity and sickness, of urine and she put on her mask and held the lamp up, “Oh, dear God,” she found Stefan in the corner on a makeshift bed of moldy bales of straw covered with a thin, moth-eaten blanket. A mouse, startled by the light, scurried up into the cobwebby rafters and something larger stirred in a pile of loose straw in the corner, something that Maire did not want to see. She knelt in the filthy straw beside the bed and touched Stefan’s face. It was hard to see in the uncertain light, but his skin was hot and dry to the touch and, even with the rustling and the indignant chatter of disturbed mice, she could hear his labored breathing as his chest rose and fell beneath yet another useless blanket. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was still alive she would have happily returned to the farm yard and throttled the farmer’s wife. Instead, she called for Linton who nearly retched when he found her, “Help me carry him to the cart, please.” She flung the blanket back and threw it into the corner where the rustling came from, and regarded Mrs. Davies coldly, “Why did you come to me?” she asked.

“I know about you and him,” she replied, “I know that you’ve been keeping him fed.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen you and him, in the evenings, talking. Mr. Davies had me follow him. So I know.”

“And what purpose does knowing this serve, Mrs. Davies?”

“We was just curious, Miss. That’s why I came to you for help, because I know that you would look after him.”

“I will do my best, Mrs. Davies. But what of your husband, what will he do when he finds out what you have done?”

“Dunno, Miss. I don’t particularly care, I just wanted the soldier gone from here, I can’t look after him because my husband won’t let me, and I can’t just stand aside and do nothing.”

“It looks like you’ve done a good job of doing precisely that,” Maire slid her hands under Stefan’s shoulders as Linton grabbed his legs, “I really hope, for your sake, that he does not die.”

“I’m sorry, Miss. I know it don’t look like it, but I was worried about him.”

“Not worried enough.” Maire gasped as she wrestled with the dead weight and she could see that Linton was struggling, “Perhaps you would do us one kindness and help us get Private Lowe into the cart.”

“I haven’t got a mask, Miss.”

“Too bad, if you have been in here in the past few days, chances are you have already been exposed anyway. I have enough charity left in me to hope that you don’t get this, Mrs. Davies. As for your husband, however…”

Fire, Maire's indignity on behalf of the soldier comes through loud and clear. Love that last line. You do this period so well.

Fire, wonderful with a nice, biting last line. What's this from?

Anyone else going to post the actual continuation from theirs?

ink wench said:

Fire, wonderful with a nice, biting last line. What's this from?

Anyone else going to post the actual continuation from theirs?

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Thanks, ladies.

Ink, it's from a temporarily shelved novel. It falls in between my WW1 book and the WW2 book, and is the story of the adoptive parents of the MC from the WW2 book. Stefan is a German POW (WW1). During the war there were severe labor shortages on farms because so many young men were cannon fodder off fighting the war. Stefan has the Spanish Influenza.

I don't have a continuation from mine--I'm working on character charts and research right now.

Nice work, Fire. The dialogue sounds just right for the time period.

I don't have a continuation of mine. I wrote it for the mashup, because I wanted to try something new. (And I wanted to see if I could mislead anyone.)

I wrote mine especially for the mash-up too, but it caught hold. (Mine is the Sleeping Beauty one). There's a character who just walked on stage that I've fallen in love with, and I'm reluctant to post it here because she's gold. If anyone's dying to see the next bit, just PM me and I'll send it to you.