Laura's Literary Link-Up

I have always enjoyed writing. When I was younger I wrote lots of stories and silly little poems. I always wanted to write a book, just for fun, but could never really think of a concept.  Well, a little while ago I stumbled across a random word generator, and I thought what fun it would be to write a book based purely on the words it gave me! This especially appealed to me because I do rather like things that are random!  I decided I would use the first 5 words it gave me and create a story using them, here is what it came out with;

Lump

Union

Circus

Fire

Earwax

Yep, it was a challenge! Want to see what I came up with? Ok, but prepare yourself, it is rather odd! If you enjoy writing, or want to give it a go, you can see how you can get involved in my Literary Link up at the end of this post!

The Story of Mr Jumpkin

   It was the first day of Spring and Mr Jimmy Jumpkin was going for his daily walk along the meadow and out across the bumble bridge, when he came across a rather large lump in the ground. This lump was roughly the size of a fully grown Rhinoscerous. He supposed it would be better defined as a grassy knoll, but the lump had never been there before. Luckily, Mr Jumpkin was carrying his faithful walking stick to steady himself, otherwise he surely would have tripped over and gone flying! As it was, Mr Jumpkin was ruffled, but not hurt, and since he realised no harm had been done he became intrigued as to what this unnatural lump in the usually flat meadow was doing there. He gathered himself and walked right over the top of it. Once he was the other side he noticed that the lump had a doorway!
   "Well, this has never been here before!" declared Mr Jumpkin. He could hear some rather strange noises coming from inside the lump. Could it be the sound of hushed voices? Thought Mr Jumpkin.    
   Then a rather lound and abrupt "TOOT" came from the lump, the sort of toot a bicycle horn might make. This really startled Mr Jumpkin, and, throwing his hands upwards to protect himself from the invisible toot maker, he accidentally hit himself full in the face with the bulbous top of his walking stick. Unfortunately, Mr Jumpkin had a sensitive nose, which then began bleeding profusely.
   At that moment a man wearing what appeared to be a curly, orange wig burst through the door in the lump, cast a sideways glance at the bleeding Mr Jumpkin, and stormed off angrily in the opposite direction to which Mr Jumpkin had come from. The lump door was now open, and he could see inside a motley crew of strangely dressed people sitting around a table.

   The people within the lump all stared at Mr Jumpkin. Feeling that he may now be intruding on a private matter, Mr Jumpkin decided the best course of action would be to introduce himself.
   "Goodmorning, my name is Mr Jumpkin, I am sorry to interfere but what exactly are you doing in this strange little mound?" he said through a tissue, which he had balled up around his nose to try to slow the bleeding.
   "Well, this my dear fellow is a Union meeting" said a very smart man in a red jacket and black top hat.
   "Oh, I see" said Mr Jumpkin, as if that explained everything.
   "Mr Jumpkin" said a petite girl in a leotard "My name is Naomi, and it is very nice to meet you, but you appear to be bleeding!" Naomi quickly stood up, took Mr Jumpkin by the arm and pulled him into a corner so that she could inspect the damage.  "What happened Mr Jumpkin?" said Naomi. She was clearly not English, from her accent Mr Jumpkin thought she might be Russian.
   "Something made me jump and I hit myself in the nose" admitted Mr Jumpkin.
   "Here, sit down and tilt your head back" prompted Naomi, pulling out a chair. Mr Jumpkin dutifully did as Naomi had asked, and as he titled his head back he noticed above him that the roof was made of nothing more than soil, and here and there he could see worms wiggling their way through. In fact, just as he noticed this, one of them took a Kamikazee dive, landing straight into the cup of tea of the man in the red jacket.
   "Oh fiddlesticks!" Said the red jacketed man "That's the third one today!"
   "Forgive me for asking" said a muffled Mr Jumpkin "but why are you holding a Union meeting in a lump in the ground? Surely you can find somewhere more convenient, and how did you ever manage to make the lump in the first place?" At this point a very short man made himself visible, before this he was evidently hidden under the table, sheltering himself from falling worms.
   "This is the very question I have been asking Mr Jumpkin! What ridiculous nonsense to be sitting in a dirty hole with worms falling all about us!"
   Noticing how small this man was, and realising they were a rather strange bunch,  Mr Jumpkin asked "What kind of union meeting is this anyway?".
   "Well a circus one of course!" Replied the man in the red jacket. "The reason we are having it here" he continued, staring directly at the short man "As YOU well know, is because it is a secret union meeting, and we do not want anyone to know we are here. I am afraid there was an accident at the circus and we are trying to decide upon the best course of action."
   "I am sorry to hear that" said Mr Jumpkin. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
   "Probably not" said the red coated man, "not unless you are able to turn back time".

   Mister Jumpkin thought it best not to mention that he had, in fact, been known to turn back time on the odd occasion. He didn't know these people yet, and he had no idea what sort of trouble they had gotten themselves into.  As he had learnt from past experiences,  it was sensible to wait until he knew a little bit more about the situation before he offered his services to strangers!
   Mister Jumpkin looked at the man in the red jacket. "If this is a circus union meeting, what are you doing here? You must be the Ring Master, and surely it is you that is in charge of the circus?"
   "Oh no, not any more." Replied the ring master. "Our families were bought out many years ago. It's the bearded ladies that are in charge now"
   Naomi nodded her head in agreement, "and ever since then we have been treated unfairly" she said, with a scowl.
   "This time they want us to breathe fire!" piped up the extremely short man, who had resumed his place under the table.
   "What do you mean?" Asked Mr Jumpkin.
   The ring master took a sip of his worm riddled tea and began "The circus has really gone down hill since Maud, our bearded lady, took charge. She doesn't care about us, she works us too hard! Many acts have left through exhaustion, and because word has gotten around about what a rotten egg she is, they can never find any replacements. Last week our fire breather ran off in the middle of the night. She has told us that one of us will have to take his place!"
   "Well can any of you breathe fire?" Asked Mr Jumpkin, who was getting a bit dizzy from holding his head back for so long. This was all very unusual!
   "No! Well, not until this morning when Herbert the Clown gave it a go. You may have passed him on your way in.  He did it alright, but he accidentally set fire to Maud's beard! You can imagine what carnage that caused!"
   Mr Jumpkin's jaw dropped in shock. Unfortunately it was at this moment that another worm wriggled free from the mound of soil above, and the unfortunate invertebrate found himself hurtling head first into Mr Jumpkin's gaping mouth.

   I'm afraid to say there was not a chance for the poor little worm. Mr Jumpkin swallowed him quite accidentally upon his arrival. Mr Jumpkin was terribly effected by the event. As a vegetarian he was ever so upset that he had unwittingly ingested an innocent creature, whose name was William, by the way, but fortunately Mr Jumpkin did not know this, as it would have only made matters worse.
   Anyhow, once the madness which followed the occurrence had subsided, Mr Jumpkin was filled in on the full fire breathing incident. It turned out that Herbert the clown, realising he was in trouble, had called the union meeting to try to persuade everyone to go on strike, until such a time as Maude agreed to be reasonable, and not punish him too harshly. Everyone else, being terrified of what Maud would do to them if such a thing should happen, refused to strike, leaving Herbert to fight his own battle. Goodness knew what Maud would do to Herbert once he returned to the circus. By all accounts her beard had been burnt to a crisp, and all that remained of her precious mane was a single hair.
   Whilst the story was being told Mr Jumpkin noticed Naomi turn to face the corner of the room. It was apparent that she was crying. In an attempt to comfort the girl, the short man scurried out from under the table, and went to put his arm around her shoulder. This clearly not being possible due to his height, he settled  for awkwardly putting his arm around her leg instead.
   The short man turned to look at Mr Jumpkin "He's her brother you know, the clown. Maud will strip him of his clown title and poor Herbert will be made a laughing stock" Thats ironic, thought Mr Jumpkin, but decided better of saying it aloud.
   "We just can't help him you see, Maud is a tyrant, she will tear us to pieces unless we obey her to the letter."

   Having developed quite a fondness for the girl, Mr Jumpkin resolved to hastily abandon his earlier resolution. Mr Jumpkin, got up from his chair and walked towards Naomi, who also turned around to meet his gaze, the small man swung haphazardly on her leg as she did so.
   "I have something to tell you which might help. I actually can turn back time. But to do so I am going to need a pound of earwax, and a currant bun. And I shall have to go home to fetch my welly boots." 

I hope you enjoyed that! Now is the part where  you can get involved.  Do you enjoy writing? If you are a blogger yourself then you probably do. But have you ever tried writing something fictional? Perhaps you have had the same problem as me, and couldn't get started through lack of inspiration! Do you want to have fun and a little bit of a giggle, as well as connecting with like minded people? Well, I am going to give you 5 new words, and I would love it if you would write your own story using them!  The words should be quite central to the plot of your story, like mine were above, but your story can be as long or as short as you would like it to be. Perhaps it could even be a poem!

Share the story on your blog, and you can link your post up using Inlinkz below, just click the button and follow the instructions. Or if you don't have a blog, feel free to post your story in the comments section. The link up will run for a month, at the end of which I will post the next chapter in the above story, which I will write using the new chosen words (I have no idea what is going to happen next yet!), as well as featuring some extracts of my favourites which you have linked up (providing that anyone actually does!)

So, are you ready for your words? Here we go;

Trap
Verse
Sponge
Bulldozer
Doughnut

I can't wait to see what you come up with! Don't forget to link up your posts below!

Laura xXx

An InLinkz Link-up