This story was inspired by a random image of a frog.
It had been months since I’d written anything: At least five. That is probably the longest period I’ve gone without writing in my life.
As I was winding down with Taljron, numerous ideas were sprouting and i expected to cruise directly into another project. I’d thought about an actual serialized thing on Vella, sprouting off from the Reach for the stars stories. I even started to sketch out a few ideas. But i wasn’t sure if i wanted to jump right to that or something else. There were a few ideas being considered.
I started sketching one. I thought about a couple others. But nothing took off.
I tried poetry and was reminded that i’m not. Thought about blog posts, and they just fizzled.
It was pushing six months since i’d written anything and i began to wonder if writing was a half-century phase that i’d finally gotten past. however, I do like writing. I do enjoy telling stories – even if i just tell the same one, repeatedly. So i decided to use a random prompt and see what came of it: Such as is done at indies unlimited, or, fiction in a flash as examples. So i went to a random image generator and it produced this image of a frog.
My expectations were low and anticipated one-thousand words at most – that was the plan. Another addition to the Terribly Told Tales: Volume 1, which will never be published.
As happens when i start writing and don’t know where i’m going, the mind began to wander. The innocent examination of a frog turned sinister, and the story opened like the path described.
It’s still a short story, but much longer than expected: Nothing ground-breaking. Nothing particularly exhilarating. Just a little story that starts with a frog and ends with a house. In between we meet various characters trying to navigate their worlds.
It’s a story about a murder.
It’s about the prism we see the world through as a child that’s built in our formative years.
Frog Bottom: Sometimes light shines from our greatest challenges.
Sadly, no longer on Vella – other formats remain available.
And then, the sequel that absolutely no one was asking for: Kin – a few years later follow-up to the original story.
I quote and say certain things, ad nauseum. But one i’ve found’s completely on the nose’s the second oboe part. Where there’s a symphony that’s experienced, but that’s all that’s shared. It’s derailed many stories. It’s led to some things written that referenced ideas that were never stated. There’s a huge world around characters and stories that never find their way to the written representation. And it was probably inevitable that this fell out of the bottom.
It was meant to be a brief riff on a picture. It was meant to be a short story – a very short story. A novel contemplation of an image. But that fell off the rails very quickly and the thought it should be a short story stifled many thoughts that carried. It also probably concluded before everything was sorted. The frog ended at a point where some things still felt unsettled.
So i tried to write another thing. It’s an interesting idea that will probably never move beyond the seven sentences it was given – life did not spring from it. Instead, those of the frog kept ticking at the mind, and so we have a second installment.
Kin: Further reflection on how experience molds a person’s outlook, and a consideration on what it means to be a family.
Daniel Endicott 