Made of Stardust

So I feel like getting back into the swing of things and actually writing.

But I have no inspiration.

Someone give me a prompt or something, anyway, really.

Just a simple writing exercise to get my creative juices flowing again. Basically you take the first line from page 10, 20, 30, etc of a book and write a little something with the character there. So I picked "Away Laughing on a Fast Camel" by Louise Rennison using Shasta.
So here we go~



pg. 10. " 'What kind of party is it going to be?' "

"Costume, duh," I replied, picking up some bright orange streamers from a bag of decorations. I tossed it up to Jazz, who stood on the ceiling. He caught it and taped one end by his feet before letting it slack.

"What're you going as?" he asked, catching a purple streamer I threw up.

"I 'unno. A banana?"

He laughed. "Should Dawn get a gorilla costume?"

"Nope, he just needs to get really hairy and find a mask. He's got the muscles to be a gorilla if he really tried."


pg. 20 "In the loo."

Why do they call it a loo? Then again, why do we call it a restroom? I'm not resting in the least. Maybe a girl's restroom might have a lounge area. That'd be effin' nifty. Well, I'm gay, can I go into the girl's restroom? Would they mind? I wouldn't. Save for all the femmy products lying around. Eeeew.


pg. 30 "He just smiled and said, "I know you are secretly very thrilled, Georgia."

"I am not secretly thrilled that you are going to bring me back presents from Czechoslovakia. And who is Georgia?" I replied, blinking. And why was the man behind me in line STILL talking to me? The line shifts and I switch my weight to the other foot, holding my box. It was full of frozen pest fairies in mayo jars. They'd live, but they wouldn't be happy when my mother got them, that's for sure.

"You are," he said, blinking back confusedly.

"Um...no. For one, I'm Shasta, for two, I'm a guy."

He tilted his head, staring at me carefully. "You look more like a Georgia to me."

"...are you off your meds?"


pg 40 " 'Jas, you live, as I have always said, in the land of the terminally deluded and criminally insane.' "

"I do not!" Jazz replied, a little huffy that my sister was calling him 'Jas'. "I have done nothing criminal at all!"

"Oh really? You stole my underwear all the time when we were kids!"

"What?!" he squawked.

I raised my hand timidly. "That was actually me. Olly Toggerson kept paying me for them. Got five bucks a piece."

My sister became enraged. "MY PANTIES ARE WORTH MORE THAN THAT!"


pg 50 "In the end, they all went off, including Angus, who I actually thought was driving the car at first."

And honestly, anyone who lets that insane familiar drive had never heard of the great reenactment of the suicide Thelma and Louise he attempted during our Grand Canyon vacation.

"Ten bucks he'll be surfing on the hood when they hit the coast," I muttered to Rhian.

"You're on if you throw in that Snickers bar in your pocket."

I blinked. "How the hell did you know I had...?"

He smirked, taking a drag of his cigarette first. "Ninja detective skills."

pg 60 "Dave the Laugh will be there."

"...we need to come up with a better nickname for him," I told Dawn flatly.

"Like what?"

"I dunno. Dave the Laugh sounds so...he is a laugh, a couple laughs even, and possibly a guffaw if drunk..."

"Dave the Guffaw?"

"That sounds like an alien."

"Yes, an alien that leaves you in stitches."

"And not in the bad way."

"....I wonder if all us gay men are really aliens."

"Why say that?"

"I mean...anal probing."

"....Shasta, put down the beer."


pg 70 "There was a lot of tossing and so on until I got a really bad neck cramp."

Dawn studied me for a moment. "Nope, you can't do the hair flick, your hair isn't that long."

I rubbed my neck with a wince.