News From Poughkeepsie – How Shrunken Giant Monsters Cope

News From Poughkeepsie returns!  All-New, All Different! Well, kinda different. I’m keeping the logo.

Why the changes, you may ask? Quite simply, I felt that NFP was failing in its original mission. Beyond my difficulty in getting a daily post up M-F, I was putting far to much of my own style and idiosyncrasies into the prompts.

NFP prompts are supposed to inspire, and to that end, future posts will be in the clipped, sparse style approved by newspapers worldwide.  Just the facts, and I’ll leave the details to you. Also, instead of daily posts, there will be just one post on Friday, containing anywhere from three to seven fictional news snippets to start your weekend writing off right.

Of course, if you have your own NFP-style prompt, you can still leave it in the comments. All of the ones left in the comments will be posted at the end of the month in a special entry. And, as always, if you write a complete story using one of the NFP prompts, you get a free T-shirt.

And now, bask in the difference:

#164 – Designer Releases New Living Clothes Into The Wild
A prominent fashion designer’s new line of live plant clothing is making headlines all over the world. The clothes are a specially genetic-engineered form of plant life, able to mimic the contours of the body and survive by siphoning off the sweat and dead skin cells of the wearer. “It’s the latest in green fashion,” the designer said, adding that in addition to green, the clothes can be grown in blue, yellow and fushia. The designer dismissed the claims that the plants would gain sentience and kill the wearer to better feed off of its essence as “unlikely.”

#165 – Generational Ship Reaches Destination, Colonists Confused, Frightened
The Captain of the generational ship Nebuchadnezzar is unsure about what do next, now that they have reached their destination. “I’ve lived my whole life on a spaceship. As did my parents, and their parents,” the Captain said. “And now we have to farm? We’re just not prepared for this.” The Captain blamed the lack of preparedness on a holodeck malfunction 123 years ago, and “that time everyone went crazy and burned all the books.”

#166 – Giant Monster Shrunk To Human Size, Works Minimum Wage Job
Titanasaur, formerly the monster than destroyed most of the Eastern Seaboard, now works the very docks he once demolished. Shrunk his from impressive 50 feet to a mere 5ft 10in, Titanasaur now struggles to lead a normal life among the longshoremen. “There’s still a lot of hatred, I can feel that,” Titanasaur says. “I can understand that. But I’m trying to give back.” Titanasaur who once strode the planet like a god made flesh, now spends his days unloading ships and spending time with his girlfriend and her two children. “I’m not the monster I was,” Titanasaur says. “I had a lot of anger back then.”