Hee hee hee. And the audience is always starving.

Congratulations on the invite, by the way! Have you written about clowns before? Any idea why they sought you out for this anthology?

Could one of the clowns be one of those creepy European style Harlequins? That's a Clown of the Apocalypse.

The wife of one of the editors is a fantasy writer, and she pinged me; her husband is a little taken aback by the male-centric collection he's got, and would like a woman writer, so presto et voila, my invite. I'm awaiting guidelines for length, etc, so we shall see. I may suck at this.

Deb, have you ever seen Pinkman?

Woot! Yes, indeed, but I didn't know that was his name. I always think of him as One Wheel Guy. He's totally brilliant, and completely Berkeley.

Could one of the clowns be one of those creepy European style Harlequins?

Ooooh, a sort of Punchinello commedia della arte guy? Crankypants, aka Lorenzo, representing....

Hmmm. This is really wanting to have some dark edges in my head, I think because clowns generally horrify me.

I love this conversation. That is all I can add at the moment, all creative braincells having been sucked out of my head while standing in a school cafeteria lunch line in a futile and depressing attempt to get a container of peach yogurt.

Maybe Sulky got pushed around a lot in school lunch lines. I'm telling you, I'm torn between the desire to put on a big red nose and the desire to end the world, and I don't even do that every day.

shudder

This is really wanting to have some dark edges in my head, I think because clowns generally horrify me.

I think one of them definitely has to be Pennywise-ish, tempting Doug to embrace his apocalyptic ways. On second thought, all of my ideas are basically ripping off basic tropes, and I don't know if you want to go for something totally original.

Perhaps it should turn out that Doug has been waiting tables at Balloonville Bar n'Grill while waiting for his big break out of the clown business? Please do go for the dark edges, Deb. I'm among those who are creepified by clowns. After all, I don't know what's really under the makeup, do I?

Well, the thing about clowns is that they're a sort of a horrific fantasy figure, an attempt to personify animas, which may well be why only little kids tend to find them funny, and childlike adults. OK, that's a broad generalisation, but I think not really too far out of line.

I'm wondering about telling it from the first person POV. Doug, who occasionally goes and terrifies people for fun just because he resents being forced to do it at some deity's whim and on their schedule, gets word of the impending apocalypse. Huh.

I should probably shut up about it, and let it percolate.

I should send you "The Clown Song" by Where Are My Pants? for inspiration.

P-C, I actually think any musical inspiration is going to come from Peter Gabriel's Family Snapshot. But thanks.

Personally, I'm all about Punchinello.

And, go DEB!!!