I like stories about about something that is deadly to everyone who handles it. Is there a special genre for this type of fiction? It seems there should be. In horror, in general with the paranormal, macabre, misfortune and tragedy associated with something beautiful, precious, luxurious, expensive and for some reason sinister, ominous, or foreboding (another good word).

Recently I read, The Mystery of the Five Hundred Diamonds, by Robert Barr. Its an old story, written over 100 years ago. In France, a diamond necklace is found forgotten in an attic of an old chalet. The man who finds it was working on repairs to the house. He attempts to sneak out over the roof with the necklace. He falls to his death. In this story there are further deaths in the backstory and the ongoing story after it is found.

It would be fun to write a story like that. Coming up with scenarios for a cursed necklace (or something else).

... created by a jeweller who dies in a fire, inherited by his son who is lost in the Amazon jungle, never found. Given to the sister in the family who is murdered by her fiance a week before their wedding. The caterer takes the necklace from her corpse and is hit by a streetcar dying in the hospital two days later. The family are all deceased so the necklace is sold at an auction. The auctioneer who sells the necklace dies after mistakenly eating a poisonous mushroom. A rich businessman buys it for his mistress. He goes bankrupt and disappears before he gives it to her. His wife, trying to handle all that debt and creditors goes crazy and is locked in an asylum the rest of her life. Then there is a time of rest. The diamonds are forgotten in a secret vault, in the mansion of the businessman. The wife didn't know about them and the mistress wasn't given them. Of course, decades later, the house is being demolished by a builder who hopes to find old blueprints for the house, or something valuable in the vault at the house. He does... unfortunately.

You know that can just go on forever. Diamonds, in particular, are not easily destroyed. Plus, human greed alone will keep them from disappearing for long. Of course, I've read this type of story with assorted items: a doll, a car, but jewellry seems to be the most popular. Its not heavy, or bulky, doesn't really need maintenance, and it only becomes more valuable over time.

The thing is, is it cursed or is all this just happening around it? Does greed cause all this misfortune? The necklace is just blameless while horrible things happen to people around it? That's the mystery.

Write your own story about a cursed(?) item.

Writing prompt site: Six Minute Story

Writing a story in six minutes, with a ticking timer and a surprise prompt, is an adrenaline rush.

It will invigorate your mind for the entire day, helping you create more (and more and more) original art.

Which is, as Kurt Vonnegut said, "a way to make your soul grow."

We use a few kinds of prompts to cure writer's block.

Images, start lines, and something of our own concoction: a Hero, a Villain, and a Goal. Use these to jumpstart your imagination, and feel free to follow the inspiration wherever you want.

To be fair to my Mother, no one in my family reads anything I write. So, this shouldn't just be about her. I've sent stories to family and get no feedback, or no acknowledgement really. I think this must happen to writers a lot. But, it doesn't make it feel any better.

Mom has found the Facebook account of Corey, the man who stole from us, continued to trespass here, being an unwanted person as the police called it, and set fires around our house. Corey who returned to steal even more months later, after he was out of jail for breaking a peace bond with the police. Corey who caused over $600 in damages to the garage he lit on fire next to the home we live in. Corey who I stayed up all night in case he came back to set more fires. What a pillar of the community, that Corey.

Corey is a brilliant writer. Mom is enjoying reading his posts on Facebook. Photos he has had taken lately while he recovers in hospital from being hit by a car or something... I don't care enough to have paid attention. Corey, the man who I have phoned the police to remove from our property at least three times. Etc, etc etc.

Mom has been asking me to read brilliant Corey's posts. Over and over this morning since she found them. She went looking for them, and found them, and read them.

She hasn't read mine. Not here. She says the link doesn't work. Not the newsletter which I emailed to her, the full contents of the newsletter in the email. She said it looked good. She didn't read it. None of the sites I have written for online since about 1998 when I began writing for other networks/ sites online. Not stories, poems, fiction or non-fiction which I wrote any time in my life - none that I can remember. Did she ever read something and just not mention it, or have I forgotten an event when she did read something... possibly. It would be nice to think so.

I got some kind of emotional listening to her go on about how I must read Corey's posts. How much I would like them, how Corey writes about so many interesting things.... On and on and on.... I don't know what the emotions I felt were. The longer she went on the more emotion I felt. But, I kept it to myself. When I didn't want to listen any more I did say something about how she doesn't read anything of mine. I left then. No point in saying more. Not worth it. She went outside to her garden and I'm here.

She made an effort to read Corey's posts. She had to find him on another Facebook account, the young man downstairs had/ has him as a friend. She spent time scrolling through Corey's feed, at least an hour I would guess. It takes time to read.

I think she wanted to know that Corey is ok after being hit by a car, or whatever it was. Corey is after all, quite a guy! Mom still talks about him. Months after he did all he has done, and is likely to continue doing. Why not? Police... oh what's the point of writing about all of that again.

I'm not going to send her any more links to anything I write. Am I bitter? Possibly, maybe disappointed but not surprised. Not really surprised at all. I'm sad, I'm letting myself feel that much. Mostly I'm blocking everything I feel out. What does it matter? What is the point of having emotions or caring? Who cares, not even me in the end.

Some times I get creepy ideas that would make a good story but I only have the idea and not enough to tell the story. I could build the story around the idea but its so creepy... I can't think of a starting point for it.

This morning I thought about a man who goes in to identify Jane Doe women. He comes in often enough the police know him. There is, supposedly, a woman he is searching for, a woman who has gone missing. He gives a name at least and it is a missing woman.

At first I was thinking about how hard it would be to see dead women and try to look for evidence, distinguishing marks, to be sure she is (or is not) the woman he knew. Then I thought... what if he likes it? Feeling their skin, touching the little curl in the middle of her bottom lip... and so on. Even if the body is in bad condition, has been decaying, burnt in a fire, mangled by animals (or humans), or just cold and dead. At some point police might begin to think he is showing up too often and taking too much time over the bodies. But, what can they really do, as long as he claims he is looking to identify a real missing woman.

So there is the idea. Creepy. Is there even a real missing woman he is looking for? He could just have picked out the name of a woman who went missing. Or, worse, he could be the one who murdered her and has hidden the body, very sure it will never be found. Is it a good thing that he only killed that one woman and instead goes to fondle others already dead? Not good, but better than being a serial killer?

How does it all start, if you were to write it?

There is a world of difference between having such an idea and writing it, putting your name on it and sending it out to the public, having your family, friends, co-workers, everyone you know or don't know yet, reading it. Horror writers are at least a little brave to put their name on their creations. Maybe not the standard horror stories, typical stories, used over and over in media. But, an unusual idea, had to come from somewhere, some part of the writer's brain. What kind of brain do you have with something like this floating around in it.

Fictish - A storytelling and game platform? I didn't sign up to try it. This seems too much like all the sites who were so kind as to publish writers (without asking for payment) as if they are just doing you (the writer) a great favour. Marketing can produce so much misdirection, like a sleight of hand magic act. Writer beware.

Once in awhile a writer is chosen to win an Amazon gift card for $10. That's nice. How much time do they put in before they might make ten dollars?

The site does have writing prompts, somewhere. I didn't find them when I took a second look at the site today.