For the last stream’s exercise, we tried out a new exercise: using the Japanese book “Unfortunate Animals” for inspiration.
“Unfortunate Animals” is the name of a book series that’s popular in Japan, where every page has an “unfortunate” fact about animals. For example, most firelies can’t light up, or eels are only black because they’re sunburned, or rhinos’ horns are actually warts.
For the exercise, we opened up to three random pages, translated the “unfortunate” fact, and then chat picked which one we’d write about. They voted on this one: Cows produce 180 liters of drool per day.
Here’s what we came up with:
Watch a quick video of us coming up with
the topic and writing/reading the story here.
Did you know that cows only produce about twelve liters of milk per day? And yet they produce over 180 liters of drool, straight out of their mouths. They drool so much to keep the alkaline balance from going crazy in their four stomachs. Something about all the fermentation of the plants and whatnot. Anyway, the details aren’t really important, what matters is that twelve liter to 180 liter ratio is terrible – all that waste product for such little white gold.
Until I found out how I could turn that drool into a profit.
We’d been having the worst drought in Kentucky history. No rain for the past month straight plus abnormally high temperatures meant that my corn crop was right on the edge of turning to a crisp. The water company was charging us ten times the normal rate, so even if I sold my whole harvest at full price, which I certainly wouldn’t get in its nearly-popcorn condition, I’d still be in the hole.
I was in the cow shed swearing my head off at my predicament when it hit me. The cows were hooked up to their milking machines, drooling themselves silly into their troughs like usual, and then I realized I wasting a golden opportunity. Instead of just siphoning the drool to the dirt outside the barn, I could collect it and water my fields!
I gathered every bucket on the property and ran to the general store and picked up a quick hundred more. I attached some spigots to the drool-trough and set a bucket in front of each. Each of them was over two gallons, and they filled up in no time thanks to my mooing drooling girls. I called my workers, had them load up the buckets on tractors, and then ride out in the fields to water the crop the old fashioned way: bucket dumping. Grandpappy would be proud.
We spent all day drizzling cow saliva over the fields. I wasn’t even sure if it would work, until the next morning when the corn looked like it was finally recovering from its hangover. It was standing up straighter, tighter, and facing the sun like it had a fresh lease on life and was ready to turn over a new leaf.
I couldn’t help but grin over the next week as we kept watering the crops with cow drool and they got healthier and healthier, until they were back to their normal, happy selves. It felt like I was cheating the system. My water bill came, and for the first time I laughed for joy at how little it was. I only wish I’d thought of doing this sooner!
A month later the corn was bright yellow and brimming, ready for harvest. We picked every last ear, and when the distributors came to buy it, they were in shock at the quality and quantity. I had the best corn in the county. They asked what my secret was; I just said I didn’t skimp on watering.
A week later, they were back, eager for more. The feedback from the consumers was already in: my corn was phenomenal! They couldn’t get enough. It was just so juicy and had a thick, rich sweetness to it that other corn was lacking.
As I sold them another truck-full, they asked again what my secret was. I just grinned, dumped another bucket of cow-drool on the stalks, and told them it was all in the quality of the water.
We learned a lot from this exercise! Not only did we get a lot of great animal facts, but it was fun to try and figure out how to write a story about the one we chose. Should we write from the cow’s point of view? The drool’s? The possibilities were endless.
I think our story came together nicely in the end, and it’s all thanks to the “unfortunate” animal fact we opened to. I’m looking forward to doing this exercise again!
After that we did a writing prompt and chat voted for this one submitted by debatesmith: Due to outrage over the upcoming trade wars, France has decided to activate it’s oldest sleeper agent in the US. The Statue of Liberty.
Chat was absolutely on fire with suggestions for this story. Should we have the Statue of Liberty come alive like a steampunk robot? Should there be French sleeper agents hiding in there, having lived in there for generations like Trojan Horse soldiers, waiting for when their motherland would call on them for help?
Nope. In the end we went with something even crazier.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 7:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch Rubbish to Published, the writing exercises, or the writing prompts on YouTube, or watch the full stream reruns until Twitch deletes them.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming November 2018.
Featured image: Pakutaso