©2022 Michael Raven
I have an urge to create tonight, but not the wherewithal to see it translated into something someone could read (or listen to, or see). It’s one of those “this close” kinds of evenings, one of those close kindred spirits to having something “on the tip of your tongue”. And I can’t make it into something, so I might try vomiting up ideas to see if it triggers something for tomorrow, when I will hopefully be better rested (side note: I was inexplicably “awake” like I’d had a bucket of coffee prior to going to bed last night).
Right now I have something drawing me to a tale of scrimshaw, blood, tattoos, snow and bone (whale, fox, wolf, bear, moose, reindeer, other fetishes of bone from other small creatures and birds), with a hefty hint of the eldritch and weird (both as genre and subject). A smidgen of the half-penny dreadful, maybe a touch of wasteland and the mythic frontier. Perhaps a refined derivation of Blood, an older piece I shared last week.
Bounty? Or revenge? Or an absolute absurdity for events based on mundane reasons? Envisioning: “What could possibly go wrong?” is answered in spades. Absolute fiasco. Tits up situation. A fustercluck. A simple plan gone awry. Maybe both? A(n apparent) simple bounty job gone horribly wrong, mostly because the bounty hunter is revenge-driven and has an itchy finger. Maybe an apprentice or junior partner learning to learn the ropes on collecting bounties? Who dies? I’d have to consider those trope forks and see if there is a good subversion. Make it an uneducated revenge (i.e., the hunter is not fully informed about the target, revenge motive is someone dear to the hunter got offed by the target).
In the end of the opening sequence, some serious spanking occurs for the nominally “good guys”, which are more morally grey than white hat/black hat folks. Everyone has their motives, motives which are well justified from their relative position.
Because it appears I have “magic” on my mind with this, I’d need to develop some kind of plausible, internally consistent logic schema. These “fetishes”, carvings or bones will be the source or the control element of the “magic”, so I’ll have to consider how it works and what rules apply. And not “all-powerful”. There should be some kind of “hitch” or cost to their usage: short-lived, constrained usage, physiomanac cost, something that makes it undesirable to use, or has some kind of gateway associated with use.
Man, am I beat. I’ll be hitting the bed early tonight I think, but this brainstorm on my part will give me good fodder for thought as I get my car serviced in the early day tomorrow.
sceadugenga 
I can see how each poem you write is inching you toward some great story. It’s fun to watch from the sidelines and I’ll be first in line to by the outcome of all this brainstorming.
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Just where it ends up, I couldn’t say. I’m a bit “blocked” these past few days, so I wonder if the dam will break free and the tigers will rule the zoo for a spell. But I’m interested to see if something jumps out after all of this noodling.
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