We really didn't think anything unusual was happening that Halloween until we say jack-o'-lanterns taking to the air and flying off. That's what it looked like at first, you know, since we could actually see the jack-o'-lanterns because of the light inside. Except for the electric ones, of course--those got the cord pulled out of them first and were generally dropped to smash in the street a minute later when the carriers realized what they’d grabbed. We live in a more crowded, urban area of town, so there weren't that many pumpkins outside to grab--nobody likes cleaning up smashed pumpkin, you know! But there were enough. Enough that a couple of the news choppers out doing some sort of novelty eye-in-the-sky Halloween thing got a few really good video feeds of the flying jack-o'-lanterns. enough that we realized that something really, really freaking weird was going on. Then the eyewitness reports started to come in (and believe me, by that time we had flipped on the local news to see if anybody had an explanation about why this was happening), and we were informed that a swarm of unusually large bats were behind the jack-o'-lantern thefts. Still just something worth laughing about and remembering to tell people about--


Inspiration: LJ's Halloween theme, with bats carrying off jack-o'-lanterns.
Story potential: High.
Notes: Forgot jack-o'-lantern was hyphenated. Huh. Also, ritual magic invoking the essence of Halloween! Bumping this one from medium potential to high simply because of the holiday connection.

The greeting card street has expanded past control, which is a bit of a problem in the rest of book-town. Sure, it's all in response to market demand, and the tourists love it, they just absolutely love being able to wander a street filled with houses built of cards, and being able to see the card characters pouring each other tea and telling each other that they don't know what they'd do without close friends like you, and then the tourists go and buy the card to take home with them, maybe to put in an album, maybe to show their friends as a "you won't believe what I saw," or maybe to actually send as a card to their friends and family, as appropriate. The problem is that the whole town was designed to respond to demand, although with a few reserves in case of genres going extinct and being unable to reproduce once conditions improve. New genres rise up all the time and expand into deserted neighborhoods--you don't want to visit the urban fantasy section, that's all I'm saying. We insist that the tourists take someone with them from the police procedural section (and *not* one of the villains!) if they go to visit there. It’s almost as bad as the serial killer non-fiction, truth tho tell, at least in terms of minor characters (like the tourists) getting damaged without any warning or foreshadowing that can be easily detected and avoided by our experienced guides. But where was I? Oh, yes, greeting cards.


Inspiration: Googling "greetings to the great king" -> greeting cards in Great Portland Street
Story potential: Low.
Notes: Eh. Fforde does it better.

When the bay turned crystal-clear and inviting, and the sun shone bright, and the colors of all the buildings along the shore-front seemed to dance with color and brilliance, that was the time when all the old fishermen would suck their teeth and refuse to go out to fish. It was also the time when the tourists exited their hotels in droves and wandered through the city streets exclaiming over this and that and the other quaint shop or hidden alley or rustic street. The fishermen watched them go, and sucked their teeth, and refused to leave the stoop of their houses. The fishermen's old wives (who were of course about as old as the fishermen, or older in some case, the marital career of a fishermen's wife being what it might be) accused the fishermen of being lazy old men who just wanted to watch the young tourist girls in their short shorts and immodest skirts and long bronzed legs. The old men sucked their teeth at this, too, but if one of their wives started mentioning trips to market or errands, on those days, those days the old men mustered up some semblance of their youth and flirted their wives back into flustered indoor cleaning. When the bay turned crystal-clear and inviting, the police chief of the small town (who was young, and besides, did not have the luxury of sucking his teeth in his doorway) grimly called in all his deputies and prepared to send out search parties for the ones who did not return. There were always ones who did not return. He posted many, many signs warning that swimming in the bay was not allowed, but people could not resist dangling their feet. The children, at least, had their mothers to keep them away--their mothers who listened to old wives' tales, or in this case, old fishermen's tales--


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unicorn81/9412195349/
Story potential: Medium
Notes: Eh. Mostly setting. Nice to see it somewhere a little different.

When you sign up for a baking adventure, in my experience, what you usually expect to get is some name-brand chef who gives you a recipe, maybe even has all of you make it together, and walks around schmoozing and handing out advice and wine while one of his underlings passes out the savory hors d'oeuvres to keep everyone going until after the baking is done and you get to eat some of what you made, and wrap some of it up as a gift, or whatever it is you choose to do with such things. I thought this one was particularly pricey, but at my age, with my money, and with my utter (*boredom* with the things that everyday life offers, I thought it was worth going to. I had some fun imagining with my grandson what might make the baking adventure worth that amount of money. I thought that they would encrust the cookies in real gold leaf. He thought they would fly me to Mexico and have me learn to bake in a village there, or some other exotic destination. Like Disneyland (my grandson is only five, what can I say). Turns out he was closer to what actually happened, though it wasn’t Mexico (or Disneyland) at all. It was a bit weirder, a good bit stranger, and a whole lot less likely than that. I think my first sign that this would not be your ordinary baking adventure came when the guest chef looked me up and down, sniffed, and commented that I might have no stamina, and where was the good in that--only to be hastily shushed by--


Inspiration: "A Baking Adventure for All" - Banner Ad
Story potential: Medium
Notes: Like having an older protag. And she's being whisked away to something that is either related to the Gingerbread Man or the witch with the gingerbread house in Hansel and Gretel. Fairytale-based.

I don't mind the headless riders so much. At least you know where you are with them. It's the ghosts that pretend to be real, that seem real in every way, but then disappear mysteriously and let you find out that there was a legend about them from however many years ago that I don't like. Do you know how much time I spent looking for vanishing girls in white before I figured that out? Sure, I moved here because I liked a challenge, and the hauntedest city in the West seemed like a good fit, not to mention the bonus hazard pay didn't hurt, but it still took me a while to get my feet under me and check the ghost database. Hell, it took me a while to figure out that there even was a database for ghosts. I think it was a "haze the new guy" deal. So figuring out that somebody real was really missing wasn't as easy as you might think, especially since she left such a light impression on life that she might as well have really been the ghost that we all assumed she was.


Inspiration: Danny Elfman - Sleepy Hollow film score
Story potential: High.
Notes: This feels like it could be really quite good.

Dancing on snowflakes is not as easy as you might think to look at the snow fairies. They don't usually share statistics, but I know for a fact that a good third of would-be snow fairies die in the training process. Some even die after they are officially accepted. Those breathtaking plunges you see sometimes in the middle of a blizzard? Yeah. Dead at the end. The others usually come after them and clean up the tiny broken bodies before you see. It's that important to preserve the wonder and magic of the snow fairies. Without that, they wouldn't have any power or creds. It's a harder life than it looks like to the outside tourists, though. Fairies in general have it pretty hard, since they've got those lovely wings and we expect to see them do things like flying--which is, I've been told, frankly impossible unless the fairy genera in question has built up a hefty belief balance. And it's hard to build up a belief balance unless you can fly, if you're a fairy. Catch-22. Of course, the hiding in the woods and shyly peeking out from behind things is a traditional path, too.


Inspiration: I have no clue.
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: Setting, really.

"Say it with flowers" was a lovely slogan, but did they have to be so damn thorough? Kyla stared at the bouquet of nightshade, lily of the valley, and calla lilies. "You will die" came through quite clearly, and since nightshade was not carried by a standard florist, that meant it came from the Otherside, which in turn meant that there were any number of nasty and permanent ways they could live up to the promise of the flowers. The yellow roses she hadn't quite figured out. "We will be good friends, and then you will die?" "You will die, but I'm a necromancer so that will only be the beginning of our relationship, but don't worry, I'm not attracted to you that way?" Kyla drew in a deep breath and huffed it out through her nose. Step 1: Secure the perimeter as much as possible. Step 2: Talk to the damn florist, while loaded for bear.


Inspiration: A flower icon in the livejournal shop.
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: Maybe it's a job interview at the florist? Or maybe it is what it seems to be. Either way, not enough there to bump it up to high for me. Standard urban fantasy makings.

The fence out in the middle of the park, miles and miles away from anything, nowhere near any hunting-licensed land or residential-licensed land, was a puzzle. It was stuck all over with trespassers will be prosecuted! and trespassers will be electrocuted! and trespassers will be shot! signs, which seemed a bit overkill, until they stumbled across the sign that said trespassers will be hanged! and then, then it really was overkill, and more than a little creepy, besides. She was all for turning back at that point, but the other two pointed out that they'd already covered three sides of the fence, and didn't she know that the fourth side would be the most interesting? Imagine what signs they'd see! Besides, they weren't planning on trespassing, just walking around the perimeter. She really didn't want to be alone in the woods--


Inspiration: A Flickr photo of a gate in the woods.
Story Potential: Low. Nothing new here.
Notes: There is no gate.

"The cost is prohibitive," the treasurer explained to the irate oldsters gathered around his office, waving signs saying, "Don't take our lucky pennies!" and brandishing the coins in question. "Perhaps you could try lucky nickels, or lucky quarters."

The oldest of the lot scowled. "Humph. Everybody knows only wooden nickels are lucky, and you stopped making those ages ago." He leaned his face in close. "Luck's the only thing that's kept us going this long! What do you think will happen when there are no more pennies?"

The treasurer patted the air with his hands, attempting to calm people down. "Now, now, it won't be instantaneous. There will still be pennies lying around--"


Inspiration: Canada stopping the minting of pennies. http://boingboing.net/2012/03/30/canada-to-stop-issuing-pennies.html
Story Potential: High?
Notes: This has the potential to be a really good story, if-and-only-if I figure out how to execute well the importance of the penny and tie it in to some universal human truth or other.

We're going to be sinking soon, or so all the oracles insist. The apartment oracles, that is, old Mrs. McGill with her chicken livers (she makes a delicious pate afterward--nothing's wasted!) and the blind voodoo woman who sometimes starts dancing through the apartments with the surefooted grace of the loa riding her, but always needs somebody to guide her back home afterward. Loa aren't very considerate, I guess. So I believe them. Something's going to happen, sometime, and the apartments will sink. None of us will get hurt if we're careful, though, or so they claim. Mrs. McGill keeps her chickens in carry cages now, instead of letting them loose around the apartment. The voodoo woman has started paying a neighbor child to always be nearby in case she needs a guide in a hurry. Me, I've packed up my odds and ends into my suitcases.


Inspiration: Norah Jones' "Sinkin' Soon" and this Flickr photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/delphine-lb/6984448181/
Story Potential: High
Notes: This has a whimsical feel that appeals to me.