Nowhere Fast

Everybody's going nowhere slowly
They're only fighting for the chance to be last
There's nothing wrong with going nowhere, baby
But we should be going nowhere fast
It's so much better going nowhere fast
    - Nowhere Fast, Streets of Fire OST

When I first started outlining my current WIP, I pulled a half-dozen cards from my Storymatic deck, just to get some unpredictable elements in the story. One of the cards said 'steal a wreck of a car'. OK, no idea how that's going to fit in... I filed it under 'See how things work out'.

David's new ride

This isn't the first time I've used the Storymatic deck; it's a handy tool for getting past annoying 'stuck' moments - those times when you know something should happen, but have no idea what.  The deck is a big box of cards, each with some kind of writing prompt.  Gold ones have descriptions of people ('Aging Clown'), red ones have events ('Disturbance at the Bus Station').  Usually I can find a way to use whatever comes up, but this one was tricky.

About the 25k word mark, I ran across this picture of a beat-up car driving into Vegas and thought, "Damn, that's got a lot of story to it". Second thought: that's the car David has to steal. Still no idea why, how or when.

At 50k, I still had no idea, but watching a Lego version of the Blues Brothers shopping mall chase on YouTube, I found my answer: they'll be on a mission from Crom.

Yesterday I hit 60k and the car scene is turning out to be a hoot to write. They didn't have to steal the car, but they went in prepared to, so I'm counting that as using the card.

Next time you're staring at a page, hoping for inspiration and going nowhere fast, pick a card. 

Any card.

Storymatic Classic on Amazon

Just for grins, I'm also sharing my favorite bit from yesterday's work:

It was two feet long, with a heavy, square point on the end. It was the business end of a Roman pilum, and it was old…about two thousand years old, if I was right. I took the key ring off the triangular piece of wood and slid the narrow end into the base of the spear tip. It fit, nice and solid, and the bolt holes lined up perfectly.

Boudreaux fished in a soup can and came up with two bolts that looked workable. I fastened the bolts finger-tight and held up the spear point. In the light, it was easy to see the dark, red-brown stain running the length of the iron shaft. “We need the rest of those wooden pieces.”

Rose cocked her head to the side. “I don’t smell anything special. Are you sure this is what we need?”

“It is a stabby-stabby kind of thing,” Boo said. “But, yeah, what is it?”

“It’s the Spear of Longinus. The real one. The spear that pierced the side of Jesus.” I held it against my chest as though stabbed from below. “Damn… That would punch a half-inch wide hole clear through the heart. This was what killed him. This spear had the power to kill the son of God, and it still has it.”

“Crom’s beard,” Nadia whispered. “Um, try not to poke anyone with it, OK?”

“So now you got it,” Boo said. “What are you going to do with it?”

I turned the spear, running the light along the length of it. “Kill a demon bitch suffering from delusions of grandeur, thereby bringing an end to centuries of civil war between the dark elves of a parallel world and destroying a cult preying on the homeless children of Las Vegas.”

He nodded. “Guess we better get the car running, then.”