Fluff and Snuggle

 

In the heart of a whimsical forest lived a furry monster named Fluff. He lived in a tiny little house visible only to himself. Despite his fearsome appearance, Fluff had a heart as soft as cotton candy.

Every night Fluff would retreat to his hut among the fir trees. There was only one room in the hut with a big cozy bed and a tiny table. Fluff had a big cup of hot cocoa and then he curled up with his most cherished possession - a tattered old teddy bear named Snuggle.

Snuggle had been Fluff's faithful companion since he was just a little monster, and together they had shared countless adventures. From climbing mountains made of candy to sailing across seas of dreams, Fluff and Snuggle were inseparable.

And so Fluff wrapped his arms around Snuggle and drifted off into a peaceful slumber. And in those quiet moments, surrounded by the warmth of friendship and love, even he could find solace and contentment.

Henny the Proud Hen

Once upon a time there was a hen called Henny leading a very normal hen's life. She lived together with her fellow hens and a beautiful rooster. Unfortunately the rooster preferred hens which liked to be dominated by him, and she definitely was not that type of hen. After all, she produced the eggs which the humans needed! 

So she went her ways, picking here and there. (They could go outside if they wanted). Suddenly something shimmering caught her eye. Obviously one of the female humans had lost a necklace. It was a very nice necklace. Henny picked at it. The colours would fit her feathers very nicely. She picked at it again, caught it in her beak and threw it into the air. Could she throw it over her head? She tried it once and failed. She tried it twice and failed. She tried it a third time - and it worked! She was carrying a necklace! There was a small pond outside the chicken coop, and she went there very fast, because she was wanted to know how she looked like with that necklace on. Well, it looked not too bad. She saw the rooster running at her. "Stop it", she said, "I am the queen of hens! And I tell you whether I want you or not!"

Well, that is the story so far. I felt inspired to write it after looking at this AI image created with Nightcafe Studio more than one year ago...
 

Welcome to fantasyland!

 

Here is Cyrus, the mighty red dragon. Well, he might not be so mighty, but he is red, and he really looks a wee bit frightening. He looks like defending something - the forest, or a dragon's nest, or whatever. 

Dragons usually have a bad reputation - they eat young inncocent maiden for breakfast, they are violent, they are evil. But: maybe they are just creatures of the wilderness and trying to defend nature against men who come into the forest and cut the wood down?

Dwarfs usually have a good reputation. They are workoholics, getting minerals out of the earth all day long, working with big hammers on metals. They usually come in groups (like the seven dwarfs). However, there might be a dwarf who is a bit special.

This one here seems to be quite young, and from the look of his clothes is not so much working in a mine, but seems to be living in the woods. And have a look at the look on his face! He looks very determined. It could be that he has discovered the red dragon and is very much determined not to give way. On the other hand he's got no weapons. Maybe he and the dragon find a way to get along with each other. Maybe he tells the dragon that he wants to defend nature as well, and so they are both on the same side.

Looking for an illustration style

 After having published my first Short Story for children on Issuu and Gumroad. I am thinking about the next one. Again there will be images going with the story. The story will be about a polar bear cub and a young seal, so I am trying to generate some images to serve as illustrations on Nightcafe Studio. I don't want the images to be in a Pixar style (too cute!), so I tried out the modern comic book preset for DALL-E2 and Stablediffusion.

 Here's one of the images I had created:

I like that kind of style, and think that I will stick to it. 

So now it is time to go back to writing. I tried Scribus - the free alternative to Indesign - and Canva. I love Canva, but it is not meant for writing longer texts which wrap around images. It is possible to do it, but it is quite time consuming. Then I watched a video on Youtube which showed me how to have text wrapped around images with - Google docs! I tried it and since then I have been working on my new story with Google docs. Sometimes, the simple ways of doing something do not come easily...

First Short Story published on Issuu and Gumroad

 I always liked to write. At school we had a school magazine, and I was one of the editors and of course wrote articles. I even wanted to become a journalist, but then I went for teacher training. At university we had to write scientific papers - and that was not the kind of stuff I wanted to write. I had to, though. Much later, when I was already working at the Berlin University of the Arts I had a friend who also liked to write - and we loved to exchange our stories. Then I discovered my passion for art. I was still working then, and I knew, that I had only time for one thing, so I decided to paint and draw, mostly traditionally, with brush and pencil. 

In 2019 I retired, and had more time for creative activities. I still focussed on art. 

In winter 2022 somebody mentioned Nightcafe to me - a AI generating platform. Since then I have been generating lots of images, and some of them made me think of stories behind these images. Suddenly I had the impression that I could unite art and writing in a special way: I looked at the image of a sad looking Easter Bunny and thought: why did he look so sad? I sat down and jotted down the story. The next step was to look for additional pictures to go with the story, and I managed to create some. In a third step I went over the story again, with the new pictures in mind. I had written the story in English - which is not my first language. So I passed it on to dear friends who live in the states. I got some wonderful appreciating comments and a few hints on grammar mistakes I had made. Okay. Now it was finished. I had written my first story and illustrated it myself. I had done some research about Gumroad and Issuu. And then, yesterday, I bit the bullet and published the one page Short Story called "Joe - the Sad Easterbunny" on both platforms.

Here are the links:
1. Issuu: https://issuu.com/ullahennig/docs/easterbunny

2. Gumroad: https://ullahennig.gumroad.com/l/dxcpkg