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| AUTUMN: GYPSY/CIRCUS/CORPSE ADC ACTIVITY/ PROBLEM POSTING when your turn? --- email TEFF at once! | | by: | This item requires reviews with ratings.
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| Item Size: 9 Additions
Created: 8:03am on 10-21-2009
Modified: 11:03am on 11-18-2009 | |
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[Introduction]
ATTENTION: IF campfire story tellers encounter any problems posting after they receive a YOUR TURN email, please contact me at once. These campfires can be a little tricky sometimes.
AND PLEASE, take your turns. You only claim 32 hours to do so.
Original INTRO -- for this writing exercise:
Gaining a stronghold on penning fiction is the theme of this bitem.
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
1.FOLLOW PLOT AS PRESENTED by all writers entering this campfire.
2.Absolutley ---> No edits of other writers segments.
3.Think of this as an ongoing serial.
4.Goal: To stretch your imagination/ create major & minor characters.
5.Add to plot twists & turns.
6.IMPRESS an audience which can include: Writing.com, Inkspot, facebook.com * Twitter ... because WDC lingers there-on.
7.PLEASE try to avoid or don't use perfect tenses. (If there seems only one way to say it with a predicate, please try to work around have & had. Thank you.)
8.Behaviorial Objective --- Use daring vocab, walk the walk, talk the talk for:
Setting, action, purpose .. plot.
9.Don't worry, open to all levels of authorship. Yet, rules shall not be stifling. Nobody's work shall be edited.
10.NO EROTICA, no apologies.
11.Follow genre of comedy, mystery, regional ...
12. Create new characters anytime. Including circus goers. Whatever ...
Okay, still in the opening phase.
BASICALLY? IMPRESS an INTERNET AUDIENCE!!!!
Seven kind authors plunge into the storyteller circuit & signup. Fasten your seatbelts, folks ... we're in for a pretty wild ride.
Campfire note: To communicate with fellow collaborators one may post at "RIDING THE WRITERS' WAVE FORUM"  or form a fast group. Email Paula LaRue ![View teffom's Portfolio. [Offline / Private]](http://imgs.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/costumicons/ps-icon-regular-10.gif "View teffom's Portfolio. [Offline / Private]") ![Email User: teffom [Offline / Private]](http://imgs.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/mail-off.gif "Email User: teffom [Offline / Private]") for writer's pennames.
OKAY!!! INTERNET please stay tuned.
Each author's work belongs solely to them.
No edits. Please try to avoid using pefect tenses --- in other words we cut down on had & have (whenever possible.) Rules may bend/ authors enjoy full reign.
WELCOME, my dears. WELCOME AUTHORS!!!
An ADC Activity. Brought to you by:
"AUTHORS DISCUSSION CLUB"
"ELIXER IN A BOTTLE"
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 About addition #1: By: Paula LaRue Added: Thu, 10/22/2009 @ 7:20amSize: 1,194 Characters
(same as intro, slight rewrite)
Cookie Crenshaw, a gypsy by default, appears bemused by an invitation to "touch base" with current ringleader of the circus on the morning of Oct. 20.
October air beckons as she steps from her quaint purple & gold caravan. Fixing campfire coffee, a brew as strong as a local construction worker, she plans her wardrobe for an upcoming encounter with another myopic circus boss. Wondering what this is all about, she cinches her strapless floor length gown, dons a multi-colored woolen shawl, pulls on tight ballerina slippers.
Heading for the ringmaster's office, Cookie spies him sitting beside an open window with a makeshift board, where many interviews indubitably occur as seasons change.
Crenshaw's path opens upon a clear day, crisp chilly air. A bevy of pompous white clouds reveal a cunning osprey soaring above the Big Top. Cookie heeds this as an omen for no reason whatsoever. She pulls her woolens closer, stopping to admire sunburst views courtesy of Autumn's glint. Hilltops portray rainbow foliage. Below in the distance lies ..........
About addition #2: By: Fallser Added: Thu, 10/22/2009 @ 1:10pmSize: 2,145 Characters
"How ya doing Cooks," Bantram's perky voice makes her shudder and she sips her coffee to strengthen herself against his inquiry.
"Bantram, dear, it's early." Cooking went back to her task of meeting the ringmaster. Bantram had seen her gaze at the house and picked up that possiblity.
"Crazy old place ain't it." He stank to her of the animals he kept in the cars at the end of the train. Bantram's red hair was untamed and his coat soiled with animal matter. She stepped away, and kept her shawl as close to her shoulders as she could.
"Indeed." More coffee.
"I hear that the old town mill owner lived there, but disappeared a year ago and hasn't been heard from since. Some say he went crazy when he wife left him. Others say a deal went bad." Bantram's short legs brought the top of his head to Cookie's shoulders. He tilted his face toward her for approval of the information. He thought perhaps half of it was true.
Cookie was dubious. Bantram probably had more than once kick to the head from a irked zebra. "I've got to get to the ringmaster." Cooking swept past him and he tipped his head to this regal dove. Ah, beautify in motion. "Ringmaster's in a mood," he threw into his wake. Cookie didn't turn to show that this fact did interest her.
"FIne Bantram. That's just fine."
The coffee bit the back of her throat as she sucked down the liquid and left the coarse grounds in the bottom of the mug. She creaked up the steps and reached for the knob to his door....
About addition #3: By: Oldwarrior - Disabled Veteran ![View oldwarrior's Portfolio. [Offline / Private]](http://imgs.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/costumicons/ps-icon-salute-40.gif "View oldwarrior's Portfolio. [Offline / Private]") Added: Tue, 10/27/2009 @ 6:20pmSize: 1,864 Characters
Taking her hand off the doorknob, Cookie rapped gently with her knuckles on the weathered wood of the door.
There was no answer.
“I’m certain he saw me through the window coming towards his office,” Cookie thought. “Perhaps he didn’t hear my knocking?” She rapped on the door again putting a little extra strength into her effort.
Cookie heard a loud “Enter!” coming from the interior of the room. She gently opened the door and was immediately hit by a blast of super heated air. She was accustomed to keeping her own quarters quite chilly. Not only was heat expensive and her budget limited but heat tended to give her rashes in sensitive areas.
She knew she had to remove the woolen shawl as soon as the door behind her groaned to a sudden click. The heat was oppressive. “Had the Ringmaster turned it up intentionally?” Cookie thought, remembering the lurid stare he had given her a few days ago. “Does he want to see me undress in front of him? Everyone knows I can’t stand hot weather and he’s sure to know all about his employees by now. Word of mouth gets around fast. I’ll bet he saw me coming and turned the heat up high.”
Cookie’s mind was racing as she glanced towards the figure sitting behind a worn metal desk. Word had gotten around that the new Ringmaster was a real “Terminator.” It was said the first thing he did when moving into a new position was fire half a dozen or more employees. It was believed that he used this tactic to cut costs and impress the owners with his rapid assessment of the needs of the company. Money “was” the bottom line, after all!
“Ah…Cookie,” the Ringmaster said, pointing to a seat in front of his desk. “Have a seat, we have some serious business to discuss….
About addition #4: By: Paula LaRue Added: Wed, 10/28/2009 @ 8:51amSize: 2,695 Characters
People are all so different, Cookie thinks. Maybe she's too hard on Bantram. Cookie loves horses, loves to ride. He's been generous, letting her groom to her heart's content.
"Do me a favor, Ringmaster. Say what the hell's your first name anyways? "
Cookie flaunts a laced leg above the step of the last caravan, at the end of the line of the makeshift encampment. "Sorry, hotten hell in here for the likes of moi."
"Mortimer."
"MORTIMER!"
"Mortimer Snodgrass. Yes, I happen to come from a very long line of Snodgrasses. Circus people, everyone of us. Well, except for Townson Snodgrass who is a very successful butcher, Mademoiselle Cookie."
"Listen, Mortimer. Since you called me here to ask me what now?"
The Ringmaster reaches down, shines his boots with a see-saw motion. He flicks a doe skin cloth out like a whip. "Okay, the short version. I'm hoping you'll tell my fortune for me? If you've a moment."
When Mortimer Snodgrass, Ringmaster, tweaks ends of his handle bar mustache, Cookie Crenshaw laughs, jumps from a metal step. The caravan shakes. Taking in nearby mountains painted brilliant by red maples. Surprised by Ringmaster Mortimer Snodgrass leaning his jodhpurs out the door, arms swaying on the doorjamb, a few feet from Cookie's smirk.
When she reads fortunes she may dress as an elderly crone, wear bifocals, gray wigs. By day enjoying nature, a camper at heart.
Cookie steps backward, spins, her skirt flares. "Mort? Morty, in other words you want a freebee. I charge $20 for a private reading. $5 at the box. Let's do this ...." Cookie quips. Crenshaw's an upfront gal, whom speaks her mind. "Jasmine, our trapeze artist plans gathering a picnic hike in a few days. Maybe, then ... we'll see. Now I'm off to pet the horses."
Reaching down she picks up a Snodgrass gnome, down for the count on the narrow path. Not, Cookie's fault, she's low tolerance for plastic elves ... nor cheapskates who allow a tad of authority to go to their heads. So what her dancing knocked down an elf made in China.
The nerve of this guy. Free fortunes don't pay bills, put food on the table for Cookie and her cats.
"I like to take, Bantram one of these." Cookie holds up a shiny red Winesap. "Bye."
That ringmaster, Snodgrass watches his gypsy run off, thinking about Snow White, poison apples. He promises himself a cool draft of cider before the day is done.
About addition #5: By: Oldwarrior - Disabled Veteran Added: Thu, 11/5/2009 @ 10:35amSize: 1,707 Characters
Mortimer watched from the frosty window as Cookie ambled down the hill towards the animal pens.
“Gypsies,” he said to himself. “Hot blooded, cool headed, sly little devils. Where would the circus be without them?”
Mortimer had not called Cookie in for a fortune telling session, that was a ruse. His sole purpose was to assess her personality to determine if she would fit the bill for a special project he had been assigned to do.
“She’ll do fine,” he thought. “Money, after all, is the heart and soul of all Gypsies. They have no loyalty to any particular country only to other Gypsies.”
Mortimer had been promised a lot of money to move his circus to a small town south of Paris named Orleans, pronounced Or-lee-ahns. Orleans was a hotbed for French upper crust and his employers needed information on which way they were leaning in the political sense. “As goes Orleans, so goes France,” the old saying went. They were the descendents of the old French nobility and still held considerable sway in telling the French peasants which political direction to follow.
His point of contact in Orleans was a Monsieur Jean Claude d’ La Monton, known to be a womanizer and particularly interested in hot blooded Gypsie women. Monton had critical information that Mortimer’s employees needed in order to complete their plans for a successful invasion of France.
However, Monton was being obstinate and demanded certain concessions from his employers before he would part with the crucial information.
“Cookie will do fine,” Mortimer whispered, smiling and glancing again out the window. “She don’t know it but she’s my ticket to power and fortune.”
About addition #6: By: Fallser Added: Sun, 11/8/2009 @ 7:50pmSize: 4,234 Characters
She passed the little gnome from hand to hand. Her inner eye, that sense that made her unique in the trade of fortune tellers, she was right more than she wrong, saw that Mortimer was testing her response. He called her for an interview for a job for which she hadn't applied. In the year's she'd been on the road with the circus she had met all types of people searching for an answer and looking to her, to Cookie's visions, for the answers to their problems. In the few moments with a client, Cookie had developed a sense for those who searched for love or for money. There were the few who searched for ambition. Mortimer, from the way Cookie's silver fillings ached in the two back molars, was one of those where ambition and money collided. Now she needed to figure out what he was after and how she fit into the plan.
Lulu, the matriarch of the Flying Marchinanos, the fine lady of the trapeze, breezed by with Cookie, flexing her angular jaw and muscular body. Petite, Lulu always made Cookie feel as the elephants must feel next to panther, plodding next to lithe. After Cookie predicted the death of Lulu's cousin (thanks to a faulty safety line), Lulu kept her distance even as she exuded the obvious difference in stature and expertise. Lulu was a trained professional and Cookie was just lucky in predictions. The weak safety line could have happened to anyone, Lulu reasoned. That horsey woman couldn't possible have known that was going to happen.
"Is the gnome part of your routine?" Lulu asked in her Mediterranean lilt. "Or Just a new accessory for your tent?"
"I don't do an act," Cookie replied briskly. "It was on the path and I didn't want Mortimer to take a sudden fall."
"How thoughtful." Lulu paused. "I did not realize you had a soft spot for that SOB. Or did you have a vision?"
Why waste time on a non-believer.
"Lulu, I must get back to prepare for my sessions. Do you need something?"
"Oh don't you know? We're leaving." The little woman's nose was as short as her overall height, and strangely pushed against her face. It made Lulu look up at everyone, even her equally-short husband. The tilt of her chin and arched brow gave her a sophisticated air, or a snobby one, depending on your point of view. Cookie did admire the limber body, taught under her purple tights and black tunic. Lulu's black hair was slicked away from her face with an ornate clip securing it on her head. Even with her disdain for Lulu, who could have kept another circus performer's alive, Cookie found Lulu beautiful. "No show in town tonight. I would think of everyone here, you would certainly have seen this turn of events."
"I sense people, not turns of events. Excuse me."
Lulu laughed. "Yes, off to some small town south of Paris named Orleans. I'm sure it'll be one of those places with one stop sight no big spenders." Lulu's voice trailed after Cookie as she quickly got to the door of her car. "Mortimer's got some business there."
Cookie turned. Lulu had walked off without any other information. The interview and this move were clearly connected. Cookie didn't yet see how. She jerked open the aged knob to her trailer and hoped to get a sense of solid ground even as the circus roadies started the trains wavy motion to the next town, Orleans.
About addition #7: By: Earl Added: Sun, 11/8/2009 @ 10:57pmSize: 521 Characters
"People love to fool around!" She thinks of it every time she had a dream. It's only Agnes her orphan friend understands her. Agnes comes from a far away village of beggars.
About addition #8: By: Oldwarrior - Disabled Veteran Added: Mon, 11/16/2009 @ 2:20pmSize: 2,918 Characters
She was enjoying a cup of hot refreshing tea. The engineer had been kind to her and allowed her to siphon off a small pot of hot water from the engine valve. Although the water had a bit of a metal taste to it, it was boiling hot but the strong tea she preferred hid the minute metal flavor.
They had traveled all night on the Gare de’Nord, then switched over to the Gare de’Sud at the Australitz station just outside of Paris. God! It would have been wonderful to have stayed in Paris. Cookie loved that great city.
They were nearing their destination of Orleans about ninety kilometers south of Paris. Cookie had never been to Orleans but had heard that it was a fairly good-sized place. Her knowledge of history told her that this was the home of Joan de’ Arc, the famous saint who became a warrior. It was located on the Loire River, a river famous for its great chateau’s, good white wine and excellent cheeses.
Cookie loved cheese… any kind of cheese and she was looking forward to a fresh hot baguette filled with camembert or gruyere. Just the thought sent pangs of hunger racing through her. All she had had this morning was some stale biscuits and some left over pate, goose pate at that, which she didn’t particularly care for.
It was unusual to have a compartment of her own but the train was at least half-empty. The growing rumors of another war with the Germans was keeping people close to home. She didn’t exactly have the compartment all to herself, her friend Agnes was supposed to share it with her. Agnes however, had decided to spend the night with her paramour, Marcele, one of the most successful clowns in the circus. Cookie didn’t particularly care for Marcele, he was arrogant, stuck up, and thought entirely too much of himself. Besides, he had often tried to get Cookie beneath the covers, or into the hay, or even on the table and she knew that was all he had to offer. Wham! Bam! Thank you mam! No, no thank you from Marcele. That would be too much caring on his part.
The breaks started screeching and the cars began to do the bumpety bump, a sure sign that they were entering the station at Orleans. Cookie threw the dregs of her tea out the open window and stood up to start her putting her small wardrobe into her overused and slightly ragged valise. She had brought only what she needed for the night and the remainder of her belongings were still in her wagon loaded onto the cargo carriers of the train. She still hadn’t figured out why the Ringmaster had rented space on a train for the entire circus. It was very unusual. They normally plodded from place to place on the bumpy but well kept roads. “He must be in one God awful hurry to get to Orleans,” Cookie mused.
About addition #9: By: Fallser Added: Wed, 11/18/2009 @ 11:03amSize: 2,852 Characters
Three cars up Mortimer also peered out the dirty train window to see if Orleans was as he remembered it. The rivers combining to shape a city under siege during the 1400s and later used by the Germans as a transportation base in their march to defeat the Allies. The history made the city beautiful, even to the cynical eye of Mortimer, who looked at each face, each corner, each place as an opportunity for him to gain fame, money, status. Of course, he had been young when he first came to Orleans, transfixed by young Daphne who was following the trail of Jeanne d'Arc for her graduate thesis. Mortimer, with only his charm and wits as his education, had provided to be a practical travel companion, and eventually lover, to Daphne, who's mind was firmly grounded not in the 1970s France, but in 1400 France, when France and England were at odds. He leaned back and thought of those days, when happiness did seem possible. Compared to know, happiness, love, Daphne's slight body leaned into his as they looked over the Loire on a spring day, her lips brushing against his.
No, he wouldn't find her here now. He was here for a different purpose not to find a lost love. A love that he lost because he wouldn't give up on the quick path to fortunate, maybe even fame, and lost Daphne in the streets of Orleans. He had no time for these sentimental memories when he needed to be sharp. He could meet Andre at any moment. He hadn't come here to find Daphne, but to finish things with Andre. And he needed Cookie to find this recluse before the recluse found Mortimer.
© Copyright 2009 Paula LaRue, Fallser, Oldwarrior - Disabled Veteran, Earl, (known as GROUP). All rights
reserved. GROUP has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates
and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
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