He wanted it to be a memorable sermon, one that would get the attention of the people who hadn't done more than run through a mental chore and grocery list in their mind during church for the last ten years. He figured that would require some props. And somewhere along the line, it became a pretty elaborate scheme involving a chicken suit, some sparkly red undergarments that were large enough to go over the chicken suit, and--well, suffice it to say that he ended up needing a truck to haul all his supplies to the church. Sure enough, as soon as he popped out wearing the chicken suit, he had everyone's undivided attention! The sermon went over pretty well, too, with everyone laughing in the right places and some people looking thoughtful for the first time that he'd seen them. He figured it was remotely possible that he might even be called back to preach at that church again, though you never know what the outcome's going to be when you wear lingerie on the outside while giving a sermon. He thought he might get some phone calls complaining, or maybe some phone calls complimenting his humorous approach. He didn't expect to get many phone calls talking about miracles and blessing him and--sure, maybe he'd always tried to believe that it was possible a single sermon could do so much, but he'd realistically settled down and hoped for the small change that matters most--the ability to change a sinner's heart and set them on the right path, or the ability to strengthen a believer in a time of trial.


Inspiration: Looking for Mondegreens in "Dragostea Din Tei" by O-zone -> Googling "razor sledding dancing" -> this: http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/a_small_favor.php
Story potential: medium
Notes: And now he'll be stuck with his chicken suit, poor pastor.

Anansi thought werewolves were not so bright. They were definitely more driven by their instincts than ordinary humans, who were dumb enough, and their instincts were not so smart as those of coyotes. Coyotes he could respect, and he understood why his Trickster cousin loved them so. He looked around the room, seeing the half-drunk, loud men, constantly hitting on the women who were not properly modest, easily making friends with each other until bar-closing and then never seeing each other again or fighting. That was not so different. But Anansi's acquaintance, the hand-shaking man, would have harvested the whole bar before they knew what was going on. A busty brunette wearing dull black, even if it was shiny and too tight, her hair undone and hanging down uncared-for, strode into the bar. Anansi saw the sword hilt protruding between her shoulder blades and sighed. Another one.


Inspiration: Can't recall. Found a post-it sitting on my desk with the basic idea.
Story potential: High.
Notes: Culture clash time in urban fantasyland! Woo! Take bog-standard urban fantasy tropes and throw in an alternate mythology (African?). Stir and watch culture clash do interesting things. Could do in small, but might try to be a novel.

Leah down at the diner is a cow-half-full sort of person. Bill is a cow-half-empty sort of person. Me, I'm a holy-hell-what-happened-to-that-cow!? sort of person. I guess you could call it a regional variation on the glass half-empty question, but somehow I think putting it on my dating profile wouldn't lead to interest of the right kind. See, either I'd scare the girls off because they thought I was a kook, or I'd attract one of those UFO kooks myself, and that is absolutely the last thing I want. If they're like that now, what would they be like after they had to deal with those bug-eyed suckers (not literally--well, mostly not literally, we only had a chupacabra once) on a personal level? I know what you're thinking. "Men in Black," right? Nope. I wish. It's more of a test case, for the aliens. Our prosperous little town is located in a valley between interstates. It's kinda off the beaten path, but we're self-sustaining. Even have our own community college! And so the aliens decided that we'd make a good test case.


Inspiration: There was this icon of a man milking the white out of a cow.

Story Potential: High.
Notes: Could be fun. The aliens need a test case to practice integrating into humanity, you see. And it fails in all sorts of fun ways. More of a setting for an anthology of stories than a novel.

The uncanny wail echoed through the space station, followed by a skirl of bagpipe music. Captain Amos buried his face in his hands. "Haunts." "Haunts," confirmed his first executive officer. "We are a scientific ship, we do not believe in haunts," the Captain reminded him. His exec shrugged. "Neither do they. They say they stumbled across an impressionable protoplasmic race that made an art form of taking certain kinds of images from the psyches of others and performing those images. Apparently they find our entire race to be full of wondrous muses. The ship left as soon as they figured out they weren't going insane, or at least not in a contagious way. They thought all was well until they found themselves still being haunted. They hoped it was a stowaway. It wasn't. And since our official policy says that we are welcome to all species--"


Inspiration: "Euchari" by Garmarna
Story Potential: High. Okay, fine, medium-high.
Notes: Oh, c'mon, could be lots of fun! Gets filed under "that episodic space station thing." Also under "that IN SPAAAAAACE" thing.

Say you get an android housekeeper, top of the line, but it keeps burning the toast and putting the dishes in the laundry machine? What do you do? I mean *after* you thank the deity of your choice that you decided not to go with the nanny droid. Well, even if you got it used, you're protected by the lemon law. So you go back to the dealer and say the droid's a lemon, and you bring it back in. The dealer processes all the paperwork, accepts the return, and is now forbidden by law from selling the droid without a "good-faith" repair. You know droids. That repair's going to cost a third as much as the droid did originally, probably three-quarters as much as the dealer paid for it, and he can't just add that cost to the droid price. Nobody'll pay it. Plus he has to disclose that repair had to be made after a lemon return, so probably nobody would buy it anyway, and he'd be out all that money. But he can't just junk the droid. It's still sentient enough, and functional, and burnt toast and smashed dishes can hardly be framed as a danger to society. That's when he sends it here.


Inspiration: Googled "moss," skipped 10, and found a consumer law center.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Always important to remember that the technology of the future will still break down! I like this as a setting idea; it's got lots of potential for wacky hijinks/horrible things.

One more drink, before we all have to die. One for the house! I'm buying. Not that it matters, since we'll all be dead long before that credit check bounces--what? Oh, no, I didn't say anything. Sure, absolutely it will clear. Just waiting for that next account uplink from Earth. That's it. No, nothing to worry about. Make mine Rum. The best stuff you got. Naw, don't worry about mixing it with anything. It's not like we have time to spare. What? No, I didn't say you were leaving work. We're all right here, after all. Us and all the alcohol. Maybe we can burn them. Or maybe we can stay just tipsy enough to keep from getting invaded. Makes it easier for critical mistakes to happen, though.


Inspiration: "The Sunk'n Norwegian" - Alestorm
Story Potential: High
Notes: Hee! Probably too silly for me to end up writing, but could be fun. Hard to tell how much of the appeal is the first-person narrator, though.

When the darkness comes, I always maintain that the best way to meet it is with a good hat and a pair of overalls that can stand up to some mess, because when the darkness sweeps out of the cornfield, there's going to be blood and guts and possibly even some stranger fluids like gasoline or booze or weird chemical concoctions, depending on what the town caught. A good pair of overalls that can keep those things from getting to your skin is great. I knew a guy who used a hazmat suit for the same purpose, but I think that's too much of a risk for being drawn into a "you caused this" paradigm. A good pair of overalls and even if you get drawn in, most likely they're going to put you down as the eccentric farmer who warned them, or as the possibly useful local--especially if you've got a good hat and a nice colorful shirt on underneath the overalls. Eccentric is good.


Inspiration: A combination of this photo and the dramatic photo titled "When Darkness Comes"
Story Potential: Medium
Notes: Could be fun, would be best if possible to avoid cliches while still parodying them, which could be tough.

The cards predicted a grim Thanksgiving dinner. There was Death, The Hanged Man, and the Mother. All of which were entirely predictable, given her relatives. The six of cups made her wonder if Uncle Tom would show up drunk again. But really, it was just the family. But her family was a bit different from most, and their alignment made all the difference in the world to the outcome for the person chosen as Reader and Guest, which this year was her boyfriend Mark, and so she had some hopes of figuring out which cards would attend and--she gave up there. People had tried to arrange the seating and the attendants differently before, but it only ended up with a freak tornado that deposited Aunt Bessie on top of the table and swapped three other relatives. When you were a living tarot deck, it didn't do to try and thwart the reading. They'd tried not gathering, the first year that the curse had been upon them, and that hadn't worked either. Between a bank robbery, a kidnapping, a work emergency, a freak flash flood, and a case of mistaken identity, the requisite number of family members had attended. Now they all tried to attend, and things tended to arrange themselves--


Inspiration: Bits from a discussion on my writing group's boards about writing prompts. One person linked to his writing prompt card deck, and another mentioned Norman Rockwell -> cards + Thanksgiving.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: This would take some thinking and working out, but it could be fun, and I haven't seen it done before. Also, LOTS of potential for ridiculous coincidences and mishaps a la Janet Evanovich.

The moon was made of green cheese. That should have been my first warning that things had gone very, very strange overnight. Of course, I didn't know it was cheese--I just knew that the moon had taken on a very bilious tinge, visible even during the day. I went about my business after a brief, "Huh, I'll have to check the news once I'm at work." I was running late, so I didn't turn on the TV or grab a paper. I just pulled on black slacks, black boots, a white blouse, a glitzy fashion belt that I'd gotten as a freebie at the last event I photographed, and my new red cape-style winter coat. That red cape nearly got me killed. Good thing the boots were flat heeled enough to let me run.


Inspiration: I dunno--I've been re-reading the Foreigner series, so maybe that got me thinking of the moon.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Not original, but could be a lot of fun, playing with shifts of fairytales becoming real. Lots of fun to be had. Again, not super original, but I bet I could sell them.

Getting the right type, and getting them trained right, for the standard evil oppressor/boot to the door-type goons is actually rather challenging. It wouldn't do for them to be actually evil. Nope, what you want is the just-a-paycheck, not-too-bright, poor-sense-of-humor-type guys. And gals, of course, but it's a bit harder finding the right type. Because here's the thing. You don't want ambition, or not more ambition than can be satisfied by a pay raise. You don't want enough evil that the populace decides it's worth any sacrifice to revolt. Nope. What you want are petty types that, if they had a few more brain cells, would be the type of person who quite enjoyed being a petty little bureaucrat whose sole job was making other people's lives more difficult--

Inspiration: A dream I had the other night, of aliens training militias into the "right" kind of goon.
Story Potential: Highish? I find the voice entertaining.
Notes: And the next line, of course, is, "So that's what we made ourselves look like."