Per my resolution to make writing fun and not work (or to work at having more fun... whichever) I'm going to try something new with Week Eight's prompt, which is to use the idea behind it to inform a character or scene from a larger work.
A larger work? Doesn't he find the shorter works difficult enough...?
Well, faithful readers, the goal has long been to write a fantasy/sci-fi series of some kind, but I've always felt too overwhelmed by the scope of such a thing. And of course that's still the case, but a few broad strokes have started to fall into place and I'm approaching something not unlike an outline. With very, very general characters.
And here's where Week Eight's prompt comes in: I want to use the concept to flesh out and explore one of the series' major characters. This may or may not become part of the larger work, but for now I'm just interested in the kind of exploratory writing that prolific writers (those mythical, dignified beings for whom writing is never a struggle) do on a daily basis.
I don't know much about this character. I think she's a she, kind of a capable rogue type, a Gypsy-like person (or has been traveling with them for awhile)... quick to use humor as a defense mechanism, pretends that she is pragmatic and crass but deep down she's disappointed by how things have turned out for her. Her careless actions are contrary to who she wants to be, but in line with the kind of person she thinks she is.
Hey-oh! Week Eight's theme. Wham.
I still don't know how fantasy this fantasy world is, the names of the continents or kingdoms or if there even are kingdoms. I don't even know her name. All I know is that she's made a niche for herself in a merchant caravan of some kind, but she came from a very different life...