Gem the word weaver
Weekly Writing Prompt No. 75
Hello lovely people
Thank you for a. opening this email and b. joining me for my weekly writing prompt. For those new to The Writing Shed, the weekly writing prompt is the core of my activity here on Substack. Paid members can also find an archive of courses I’ve created and access all past writing prompts, flash fiction, writing hints and tips, articles and essays in The Index.
I’ve moved the prompt to the beginning so you can have a go before reading my interpretation. So have fun, and enjoy your own reading and writing and if you find my newsletters helpful why not …
The Prompt
I love tales, tall tales, short tales, long tales, all manner of tales and one thing that characterises them is that they all start with a sentence or two. Today, I’d like to share a beginning with you and the challenge is to write the rest of the story without plagiarising. Hopefully, you know the book it’s drawn from, if you don’t follow the footnote link to find out.1
The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
If you feel like sharing your tale please add it as a comment. I’m always curious to read what everyone creates.
Once upon a time in the land of t’Internet there lived a woman called Gem the Word Weaver. Her fame had spread throughout her village for she spun words into gold before the very eyes of those who purchased them.
Customers came to her little shop each day and asked her to spin a word or two for them. Some days she spun everyday words like ‘love’ and ‘cherish’; on other days she was called to spin words that were out of the ordinary like ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’. Her days were filled with the sounds of words and the colour of gold. People went away happy, knowing that she had fulfilled their needs and made life a little easier for them.
But Gem was unhappy with her life. She longed to spin more than just words, for in her heart she was a storyteller longing for the challenge that came with spinning a whole story into gold. But where were the customers who might buy such a product and what would they need it for? Each night Gem climbed into bed and hoped her dreams would provide the answer.
As it happened, it turned out that one of her most loyal customers was her dream come true when he suggested a solution.
“Gem, why are you not spinning your words into stories in the city’s marketplace?” He asked.
“For sure, it’s too far for me to travel and I fear for what my customers would do without their daily golden words” she responded, looking down at her toes and scuffing her feet.
“Why don’t you ask your customers to order their words in advance, surely we all know when we will need them” he replied. “You could spin them through the night and I would be happy to look after your shop for a day or two each week”.
“What a wonderful idea, I’m amazed I hadn’t thought of that before”. Gem was grateful for the suggestion and gladly took him up on his offer.
That night she spent several hours spinning the words she knew that people bought most regularly. and in the morning, although she was tired, she headed to the City’s marketplace to see if she could spin a tale or two.
Sitting upon a little stool, she plied her trade; spending hours spinning stories into gold for the city’s residents. As time passed she drew a larger and larger crowd, each person telling another of the woman who spun stories into gold for a modest fee.
By the time the market finished for the day Gem was surrounded by the coins of those who had bought her stories. It was much more than she had ever seen before and she decided to treat herself to a brand new blue ribbon before heading home for the night.
Giving her loyal customer a proportion of the coins she had gathered, she settled down for another evening’s word spinning.
The next day, she went to the market again and people returned who had bought stories the day before with new customers arriving every hour. Her stories were spun on demand for all who were prepared to pay. And Gem had found a new way to supplement her living.
In time, even the Lords of t’Internet heard about her fame. Even Lord Google came to hear her spin stories into gold, asking for a story he could present to his young daughter on her next birthday.
However, times change and one day Gem noticed there were not as many people crowded around her little stool, and the pile of coins was not as large as it had once been. She suspected something was afoot and decided to investigate. Sure enough, she found a stall a little further along the market selling her old stories to other people; it seemed that purchasers tired of them after a little while and sold them on to recoup a little of the money they had paid Gem.
Once more she was unhappy, once more she climbed into bed each night hoping for a solution; and once again it was her most loyal customer who provided the answer.
“Why don’t you rent your stories instead, that way when people tire of them they can bring them back and exchange them for another?”
It seemed like the perfect solution and Gem put it into practice the next time she was in the marketplace.
Once more her little stool was surrounded and she gathered enormous crowds of customers. This time they stayed, each bringing a friend along to share the experience with them.
The years passed and Gem was running a thriving business, selling words at home and tales in the cities of t’Internet. Each story she spun was sold many times over so she had time to take a holiday now and then, or visit with relatives and friends.
Many years later, when Gem was old and on the verge of death, her most loyal customer asked her what the most valuable lesson she had learned was.
Gem lay back on her cushions and thought for a moment or two before saying.
“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”2
Reflect
I include a reflection opportunity with every writing prompt because our writing always wells up from our inner landscape.
When you think about the future, does it contain anything that might be considered anomalous today? For example, what about Earth being in the way of a new galactic hyper-route, aliens with two heads or even a talking roast dinner? Do you know where these thoughts spring from?
If you’re a writer who wants to manifest your writing hopes and dreams from the practical and pragmatic to the esoteric and spiritual, or who would like to clear any subconscious self-sabotage you may be experiencing, why not work with me? To find out more head over to my website by clicking the button below.
Missing in Action
This new section of the weekly newsletter is dedicated to all the words removed from dictionaries and language over the years. Words that define and describe our world, but which are deemed no longer necessary.
This edition is dedicated to the word Brabble.
The Weekly Soulshine
Something to relax with…
The Weekly Writing Competition
This week I’d like to introduce you to the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction. The theme is ‘The Unspoken’. Submissions don’t open until the 15th of July and closes on the 22nd of September. It’s open to published and unpublished writers and aims to find and share the best examples of the short fiction form. You can find out more, including an outline of the theme here: https://commapress.co.uk/news/dinesh-allirajah-prize-for-short-fiction-2025.
Join Me
17th - 20th October - Join Me for a Life Writing Retreat at Othona West Dorset
With love, light, and laughter
Linda
x
(Image by Holger Schué from Pixabay)
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“In the beginning there was a beginning in which the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” The crowd fell silent around the story-teller. They looked at one another with puzzled expressions. To be fair, a lot of their puzzling was because they were trying to read the expressions on the faces around them.
The rabbits weren’t so good at beetle-facial-recognition. The stoats were sure the rabbits weren’t angry – except when they (stoat-folk) got into the warren – but that wasn’t existential anger…well, probably it was…but only on a very personal level. It’s hard to tell an oak expression, because of how slowly it passes over its trunk, but that particular shiver of leaves sounded more like confusion. Birds chittered, asking each other about it. Spiders spun their own version of the tale.
None of them could come to a version of events that made them think the universe was a bad idea. Silence resumed. Everyone looked at the story-teller.
The story-teller sat down. Then he jumped up again, asked holly’s forgiveness, moved her spiky bits carefully aside and sat again. He was dejected. He came from the city. He knew people…city people…were angry. They told him all the time. He was used to starting his stories by stirring up the latent anger and following it where it led. He didn’t much like where it led, but it paid well, so he kept doing it.
Then…well…then one day it led to his abrupt departure from the city. Under cover of darkness, crowds, carts, whatever was available, until he found himself somewhere not-city. It smelt different. It felt different. “A new market,” he thought to himself…and let the word be known, that tales would be told in the wood. No charge, no fee, but any kindness gratefully appreciated.
It was not going well. He didn’t get it. Not even two sentences in, and he knows he has lost them already. Not his usual crowd. Mostly not even human – though he was sure there were a few green-clad villagers lurking…or loitering…or maybe just skiving off a shift, but listening anyway. They didn’t seem any less confused.
Without his anger, and the way it led him down all the known paths, all the things there were to be angry about, he was lost. Empty. People wanted the anger. They wanted the drama. They wanted the misery. They wanted the fear. They fed it and fed off it, and that was the power that turned the world.
It didn’t work here.
As there didn’t seem to be any more entertainment, the woodland collective shrugged its shoulders and wandered off to do their normal job of living their lives. Except for oak. Oak wasn’t known for wandering about much. He shook a branch and dropped an acorn on the young man’s head. It didn’t achieve anything – other than a lost young man cursing a non-existent squirrel.
This mattered though. Oak knew how much it mattered. Oak knew what happened when too much anger pervaded the world, he’d lived long and seen enough of it. He was worried enough to reach deep into the earth and wiggle a toe.
The root shifted, holly toppled a little, but she was used to oak’s moods and valued his shelter enough not to take offense. The root shifted, the story-teller fell off. “Oi! he angered, briefly. Only briefly, because he landed looking up through the beautiful twisting branches of oak, to the blue sky beyond. He landed in bed of soft moss. He thought he heard a rabbit giggle as it came to nuzzle and make sure he was ok. A moth flew surveillance. The spiders went back to spinning.
“Oh!” he thought. “It’s all very calm and peaceful and beautiful.”
“Mostly,” said the stoat. “We have to eat,” said the owl.
“But so do we, and we’re no angry about it,” said a chorus of smaller creatures. “Sad, when it’s us, when we’re not quick or clever enough…grateful when a trick works…but we’re not angry.”
He looked at the wood. It had its misery. It had its drama. It hurt and had bad times, got wounded deeply in the big storms. And then it healed as best it could. Those were the stories it told. The healing stories. Those were the stories the young creatures gathered to hear. They didn’t want to dwell in the misery of others. They felt there was enough hardship in a life without generating more of it.
If our wandering minstrel was going to make a living in the wood, he would have to learn a new repertoire…and when he had learned all the old stories from all the small villages and farms he passed through…and gathered everything the oak and holly and rabbit, stoat, spider and beetle could teach him…he would have completed his true apprenticeship. Then maybe, just maybe, he would venture back to the city and write a whole new raft of tales. Create a whole new way of talking about the beginning. In the beginning, there was a beginning, and everything that walked and swam and crawled and flew saw that it was good.
Ach...I got it wrong. It sounded like Terry Pratchett - but Douglas Adams! Brothers-in-arms (or at least in pens). :)