Roll the Dice

M. Kate McCulloch

September 12, 2012

We went to the Wizard's Chest the other day so Brian could buy L5R cards. All good gamer geeks out there know what that means. If you are not such an individual, there are myriad search engines out there to facilitate your further understanding. While he was speaking with the associate on hand I was looking at stuff.

I have a tendency to wander around stores and just look at stuff. Must be from years of falling within the category of the have-not's. I do this in the grocery store, too. We'll go shopping and I will stop in an aisle and look at the panoramic display of barbeque sauce, or the fifty-seven types of bacon.

I found something I wanted while I was looking. Typically, when I find something I want, a quick cost-benefit analysis runs. Most of the time, I pass by the object, reasoning that I don't need it, it costs too much, or maybe that I don't have the money myself and I would have to impose on my fiance to obtain said object on my behalf. This time the benefit out won the cost and the imposition of appropriating the funding. I told Brian, "I gotta get these!"

These are a dice game, if you will, called Rory’s Story Cubes(r). These cubes are cool. These cubes are a writers tool for overcoming brain block. As a game, one should pick a theme, roll the dice, and make up a story. As a writer, I am going to use them to get my groove back. They also have a use as a device for school age kids, like my own school age boys, to generate story ideas or complete them, as the case may be.

I rolled the dice. There is a face cube with a sheepish expression, a dragon, a Tepee, a magnifying glass, a crescent moon, an arrow pointer, a talk bubble, a pyramid and a fish, a striped fish that looks like a tiger-Nemo.

My task is to compose a story, and not necessarily a narrative as there is a talk bubble die. But i find that the stories [prompted by the roll of the dice only reminds me of other stories by other authors. To tell a story that's already been told, or at least a story I know, to re-tell iit, seems disingenuous.

I know there are only so many plot lines and so many variations on a theme. many of the TV shows and movies I watch are predictable, as I'm certain is the case for many an audience before me. But it feels wrong, regardless of how obscure or unknown a piece may be, and most of my examples are neither, to change the names to protect someone's copyright.

But if I had to, think the Never-Ending Story...

See what I mean? Back to the drawring board...