Gosh, I have a blog!

I really should come by here more often. ;)

Life's going well--my summer classes will be coming to an end soonish, and I have a job prospect, provided things work out. Exciting stuff!

I've been really enjoying my literature class. The book we're using is very interesting, and I keep dipping into it and reading little sections. (It's easier than starting and finishing a book, unfortunately.) My favorite thing lately was a comparison of two versions of the same story. It was fascinating to see what the author changed, and I had fun trying to figure figure out why he edited the things he did.

Interactive Fiction has also been taking up a lot of my time lately. I'm slowly working my way through the manual for Inform 7, which is a language for writing IF. At some point I'd like to start writing my own stories; I have an idea for one, but I'll probably try some simpler things first. There are so many things to consider, it honestly seems more complicated than writing a novel!

I haven't been writing much, but in the past few days I've written some very rough poems on the Locution forums. There's a thread in the Insight subforum called Chaining Poems, and the concept is simple. It starts with five words. A person writes a poem using them, and then posts five more words for another person to write a poem. Repeat! Anyway, here are my contributions so far~

***

geyser
filament
schist
strata
oblique

The geyser erupts
between the closet and our bed.
Somewhere underneath the floor
words collected, letters pushing
serifs tangling corners grinding
until the pressure was too much.
Lexical shrapnel.

When the steam dissipates
there are no words left.
     (You have left as well.)
I pick at the carpet around the crater,
pull up strips and dig into our lives.
Follow the filament of thought
inward and down,
past the strata studded with artifacts.
Chopsticks from dinner last Wednesday,
six of hearts from poker two weeks ago,
the napkin you scrawled 836 3098.

I scrape the dirt, dust off the fragments,
peer at oblique angles,
but cannot see when the schist fractured,
when two planes separated and fell apart

***

beer
origami
nevertheless
bondage
cinnamon

We linger by the beer
behind its glass doors, chilling
and you ask what I'd like for dinner

I tell you I wish I was an origami crane
fold me a thousand times
and I would soar
escape the bondage of gravity
the weight of these limbs
the fog in my mind

You smooth my creases
sharp as they are
and blow breath into me

Nevertheless, you say
we need to eat tonight

I grab a squat jar of cinnamon
a bag of rice, a box of raisins
we will have something
that tastes of farawayland
and later dream of flying

Still alive~

The 750 words experiment was interesting while it lasted. Which wasn't very long, but who cares~

I found it actually wasn't very good for creative writing. For some reason I got stuck writing journal entries. That was different, since I've never been one to write in journals, but it got boring fairly quickly.

While I may have been neglecting this blog, I have been writing some posts for Locution's Blog. We've got a pretty snazzy schedule going, where people post every two weeks. I'm enjoying rambling about things, although I need to stop being so silly and perfectionist~ (What's new, eh?)

Otherwise I haven't been writing much, although I'm currently trying to edit some poems I've got knocking around. It's fun and frustrating at the same time, if that makes sense. ^_^

I wrote this quick thing last Friday night at one in the morning. It was partly prompted by the Locution blog post I wrote that day.

***

I carve the sand with cupped fingers and wait for balls of tar to fill the moat. Not too far away a pelican cannot fly, its feathers heavy while I build the tower higher. I squeeze a wet clump into a spire, a beak pointing at the sky. It crumples under the weight.

Damn sand.

***

I'm not sure what it is. A prose poem, a piece of micro fiction? It's certainly odd, but I kinda like it.

Haizea Inon

More 750 Words. Very rough.

***

That bitch stole my name. Haizea Inon. I can tell you've heard of her. Of course you have. Everyone in this gods-forsaken country has heard of Haizea Inon, the girl mage, scourge of Duke Ochoa, fighter for the people.

Bitch.

When it was my name it was just Haizea Inon. No pretentious titles, no fame, no ballads or stories, no whispered, hopeful rumors. That suited me just fine.

I met the bitch three years ago in a pub called The Marksman. It's far away from here, in the capital. Have you been? Good-- don't bother, Arriol isn't worth the journey. The Marksman was like the rest of that hole, filthy and dank and depressing.

She was sitting at my table. Our table. I told her to move. Ander Bakar, my partner, told me I was being mean to the "poor lass." She did look poor, hair falling out of her braid, dirt on her clothes and smudging her cheeks. She looked lost. I noticed, since my job means I have to notice things, but I didn't like the way Ander said "poor lass," and so we bickered.

At some point I said his name, and he said mine, and there was a gasp. We'd nearly forgotten about her. She looked from me to him and back to me again. "You're Haizea Inon?" she asked.

No one knew my full name. Not even Ander. My family name was my secret, and I hid it to hide my past. My given name I kept close to me as well. In my line of work it doesn't do to be well-known. A famous thief is a thief hanging with a noose around her neck.

If I had been the murdering type I'd have lured her to a back alley and slit her throat. Don't look at me like that. I said "if." I didn't murder. It made things messy, and I'd seen how it complicated jobs.

'Course, the girl didn't know that. So I pulled out my knife, and in that dim corner of The Marksman I held its sharp edge to where her heartbeat fluttered at her throat. Oh, I've wished many nights since then that I'd cut it.

"Never say that name again," I said. Very threatening it was. Her face was pale and she shook on her seat. And Ander took her side, eyes wide.

She was half his age! Ander and I had a past, and yet he sided with this little chit. I left her cowering in the corner and walked out. He was slow to follow, which should have warned me. The bitch already had him.

The day earlier we'd acquired an amulet. Magic, of course. Powerful, too. I wasn't interested in what it could do, though, only how much gold it could get me in the next fiefdom over. Ander wanted to stay longer in Arriol. He said we could use the amulet ourselves, do something about that silly Duke of theirs. It was his home fiefdom, and he had a sentimentality about it.

I'd been considering it. Sooner or later he would get bored, I thought. We could move on to new jobs, and things would stay like they had always been. But now. Now someone knew my name. I didn't know how, but I wanted the hell out of town.

She followed us. I was walking briskly, Ander trailing behind. "We're leaving," I said. He asked what about the Duke, and then she appeared at his elbow.

"You can't leave! You have to fight the Duke!" she said.

Who was she to tell me what I should do? Bitch. Anyway, long story short, I left that night, and Ander stayed with her. It was doomed to failure, and I figured he'd get what he deserved. Figured they both would.

You going to drink that? Thanks. God, this stuff tastes like shit. Barkeep! Where the hell is he...

Anyway, I left. Good riddance, right? But then I heard rumors. People were talking about me. Haizea Inon. There were wanted posters with my name on it. Not my face, though. Her face.

Do you know what it feels like to have your name stolen? I could have been her. I would have stayed.

***

I'm not really sure about this piece. It started off well, or at least different, which I like. Different is good. It loses something in the middle. Ah well.

It's a weird experiment based on a time travel fantasy I wrote a while back. A girl named Maia goes back in time only to find she has to fulfill the role of her hero, Haizea Inon. In the short story there was no original Haizea Inon, but here I started playing around with an idea--that Haizea Inon is a thief who would never have done the things Maia knew her hero to do, and Maia is forced to take her place in history.

So, yeah. Messed around with second person a bit, and trying to inject bitterness into things, as well as unreliable narrator (Haizea would never have stayed.) It didn't go in the same direction as it did when I was writing it in my head, but oh well~

750 Words, and Talking Trees

I've been remiss in my New Years Resolution, but for the past 5 days I've been taking part in 750 Words. I've been mostly treating it like a journal, so it doesn't produce much creative writing, but the statistics aspect is pretty interesting, even if it is a bit unsophisticated.

I was going the writing on my hard drive today and found this. I don't know where I was going with it, but I'm going to see where it takes me now.

***

"Come on, Mandy!" Elise tugged at Mandy's hand as she led her down the path towards the woods. Mandy followed behind obediently, wondering what her little sister's imagination had conjured up this time.

"What are you taking me to see? Are the fairies back?" she asked. Last summer Elise had invented a fairy community in the woods near their village. They had visited it almost every day, trying to catch a glimpse of a delicate wing tip or an acorn hat or a tiny footprint.

"No, silly; those weren't real." Elise stopped and turned around to look up at Mandy. She was frowning, obviously put out that Mandy had not realized this earlier.

"Oh," said Mandy, at a loss. At fourteen she knew there were no such things as fairies, but Elise had believed in them so she had always played along. When had Elise shed that illusion?

"Well, what have you found now?"

Elise grinned, pulling her hand free. She ran to the trees, shouting back, "You'll see!"

Mandy caught up with her just as the path became littered with leaves. She took her cue from Elise, and they both proceeded cautiously into the cool shade. Their tip-toeing feet made little noise on the tamped down earth, and the birds were quiet. The stillness struck her as odd and unease prickled up Mandy's spine, but she shook it off.

The path wound between the trees, taking them further into the dimness. A breeze began to blow through the canopy, and the rustling of the leaves reminded Mandy of people whispering. She was startled when Elise spoke, echoing her thoughts.

"The trees are talking," she said, her voice hushed.

"What are they saying?"

Elise paused, then stepped off the path. She strode up to the nearest tree, a beech, and stopped before it. She reached around the trunk as if she were hugging it, and Mandy had to stifle a laugh; Elise's arms didn't even make it halfway around its girth. Elise glanced back reproachfully and put her finger up to her lips before resuming her position, one ear against the smooth bark.

At first, nothing happened. Mandy stood watching, and Elise stood listening, and the branches swept back and forth above them. After a minute or so, however, there was a change, and the gentle swishing of the tree tops became louder as the wind grew stronger. The roar swelled not unlike the sound of waves crashing on the beach; it rose then fell, only to rise again. Unnerved, Mandy picked her way through the scrub to Elise’s side. The young girl's face was scrunched up in concentration, eyes screwed shut.

"Elise. I think we should go," Mandy said, raising her voice over the roar.

Elise opened her eyes. "But they're talking!" She went to put her head back against the trunk, but Mandy grabbed her arm.

"Not now, Elise! There must be a storm coming; we have to get home!"

"But—"

"Not now!" Her heart thumping in her chest, Mandy pulled Elise away from the tree and back to the path. Twigs reached for their clothes and Mandy stumbled on a root.

Elise twisted in her grip, digging her heels into the earth. "Mandy, no!" Above them tree limbs whipped into a fury, and a branch crashed to the ground a few feet from them. Trees groaned as they leaned in the wind, and it felt as if Mandy's breath was being stolen from her lungs.

Pushing and pulling, Mandy dragged Elise along the path a few feet at a time, her sister flailing, yelling. Tears ran down the girl's face, and Mandy looked away, fear clawing at her throat. Leaves rained down on them, so thick Mandy couldn't see the sky. She batted at them with her hand, nearly at the edge of the wood—

And Elise yanked her arm free.

The screaming wind stopped at once. Mandy stood gasping as the final leaves fluttered to the ground around her. Her ears rang in the silence. "Elise? Elise, where are you?" She stumbled in a circle, the tree trunks a blur.

"Elise!"

Mandy ran back into the trees, her shuddering breaths loud in her ears. She reached the beech in less than a minute, but no one was there. "Elise?"

A great sigh rustled the boughs of the trees, and Mandy froze. In between the roots of the tree, where Elise had been standing with her ear to the bark, was a sapling. Its leaves waved in the breeze before falling still.

***

Bleh. I hate it when I have an ending in mind, but I don't manage to do it justice. Guess that's what editing is for, right?

Taking a Stab at Poetry

First up is the prose-with-line-breaks-masquerading-as-poetry I wrote for a contest on Locution to do with clichés.

***

Love is Blind

Cupid needs glasses.
He must, for he always
passes over me.

His aim is /not/ true--
it's a wonder his arrows
flew straight before now.

I don't really mind,
but if he can't seem to
find me sitting here,

how is he to hit
his real targets? It's a
bit suspect, I think.

I should say something.
Oi, mister Roman god!
Ring up an optician!

No? It's not so bad.
I survived the visit I
had sometime last year.

Oh well, it's your loss.
No running to me when
cross lovers complain.

It's not like I mind,
but love is so very blind.

***

I started something else before writing "Love is Blind." It felt a bit more like poetry, but the imagery/direction seemed muddled. Here goes trying to make something of it:

***

Climbing up the Walls

You've got me climbing up the walls,
still remembering yesterday's fall when
you failed to take up the slack--
I might as well be bouldering.

I feel like I'm at the end
of my rope (even though I'm not),
and all I can see is red
tape marking the route's holds.

***

I can't get any further with it. Somehow I'm unable to crystallize the premise--comparing a fight with rock climbing. It was supposed to tie in the idea of a person climbing in anger, to let off steam, but it just doesn't gel properly. I like individual lines, but not the poem itself, unfinished though it may be.

DMV

Prompt: write about something boring.
The something boring: standing in line.

***

Derek was glad his phone had Tetris, because otherwise he might have killed a few people out of boredom already. He briefly imagined a game of Tetris played with contorted human corpses as he slotted a square into place before realizing the thought was probably morbid. His roommate Brian was a a psych major, and he was always going on about Derek's supposedly morbid outlook on life. Said it wasn't healthy, or whatever.

He felt a bit justified at the moment, though. Standing in line at the DMV had the atmosphere of a funeral combined with a shipwreck. Desperation and the consuming urge to get the fuck out while there were still lifeboats left tempered with the heavy, paralyzing weight of inevitability you feel when faced with the cruel fact of mortality.

Yeah... better to focus on the Tetris game. Derek mashed the buttons, trying to find a place for an L-shaped block. Damn thing was the wrong type of L. He ran out of time and swore as it plopped down ungracefully, leaving several spaces empty but inaccessible.

Many, many people into the distance, someone called, "Next!" The murmur of the crowd rose slightly as a wave of shuffling moved from the front to the back of the line. A space opened up in front of Derek in his peripheral vision, and he moved forward without taking his eyes off the little screen. He was never going to fix those empty spaces now; the higher the pile got, the harder it was to maneuver.

GAME OVER. Derek sighed and glanced at his watch before starting a new game. Twelve twenty--he had class in an hour, and this line was taking forever. Maybe he could grab a sandwich on the way back to campus. Which was more likely to get him in trouble with Professor Miles, he wondered. Falling asleep from hunger, or trying to eat a sandwich sneakily. Sounded like a no-win situation, really.

Why didn't they have more people at the desks, anyway? It was lunchtime, the time when people ran out of their cubicles and classrooms to do all the things they couldn't do while working. If the DMV people had any sense, they'd have more people working during lunch hours. Which, come to think of it, explained why they didn't.

Derek frowned at his cell phone and wished that all the people there were gone. Then at least he could grab something to eat before trying to wrap his head around derivatives that afternoon.

Another space opened up in front, and Derek stepped forward, still preoccupied with Tetris. No back appeared in his vision, so he kept going. Finally, people were actually moving--about time.

He didn't realize how far he'd walked until he bumped right into the counter. Letting out a grunt of surprise, he finally looked up from his game. Turning around, he took in the cramped office space. There was no one there. No old man arguing with a harried worker about the results of his eye test, no spotty teenager getting his pictures taken, no woman talking loudly into her bluetooth headset.

"What the fuck?"

***

Bad ending. Well, it doesn't have an ending. Hm...

Apparently strange things occur to me when I'm really tired and should be falling asleep. (contorted corpse Tetris game? O.o)

Tycos

Harriet's calves burned as she plodded up the dune. Why the hell was she here? Even on paper Tycos looked inhospitable. Absolutely freezing at the poles, made of nothing but rock and sand in the so-called temperate zones--it was a wonder anything at all could live on this god-forsaken planet. But no, she just had to jump at the first extraterrestrial opportunity that came along.

A momentary lapse of concentration and Harriet's foot slipped out from underneath her. She swore. Damn dunes. They got increasingly unstable the more tired you were just to spite you. Jerome might laugh, but she knew they did.

Reaching the top, she at last caught sight of the base. Harriet half-ran, half-skidded down the slope, an avalanche of sand following her. At the bottom she looked back at the trail she'd carved in the dune, knowing she'd get teased for her inelegance if anyone had been watching. Oh well. At least she no longer somersaulted down the things.

The base sat in an ancient, dried-up lake bed, its small metal pods connected by enclosed walkways clustering around their ship. As she trekked closer, Harriet could see that sanddrifts were already forming on the wind-ward sides of the pods. Someone would have to clear that soon, or they'd be completely buried during the next storm.

Harriet sighed. Just another perk of being stationed on Tycos.

What She Missed the Most

She missed waking up next to him the most. Cocooned in a warm pocket under the duvet, limbs tangled, drool on the pillow. They'd occupied that in-between place, where you're left with only fleeting images of dreams but have yet to remember the plates in the sink or the report due at work. It was that small space of time she missed, the moments before he had rolled over and whispered, "Fancy a quick one?" in her ear, or rolled the other way and got out of bed to slip on his jeans, or she threw back the covers to let the shock of cold air wake her.

It wasn't that she hadn't enjoyed the quickies, the way she felt hurrying into the office a little late, a smile tugging at her lips. The comfortable silence as she watched him dress, shooting a smile over his shoulder as he walked out the door, well, she had liked that, too. Even his protests on those mornings she had shucked the duvet were familiar, and therefore missed.

She didn't know why she missed the waking up the most, although she imagined it had something to do with that pang she felt each morning when she moved her arm and found the other side of the bed was empty.

***

Sometimes you just have to write something clichéd.

Waiting Room

Continued from previous post.

***

It was like those numbers taken by people waiting to be served at the the local butcher's. Ben had one too, he realized. He opened his fist and examined the crinkled paper. Had he always had it?

The number on the ticket was really long. The numerals were small, and they seemed to be flickering. That was strange. Squinting, Ben brought it closer to his face and realized they were wriggling around, switching places. They refused to stay in one place and be read.

"You won't be able to read it." The boy sat across from him, flipping through a sports magazine without looking up. "I haven't figured out mine yet."

"I don't understand--do you know why we're here?"

The old woman next to Ben started snoring softly; her head nodded onto his shoulder.

The kid shrugged and turned a page. "Nope. Doesn't matter."

"Where are your parents?"

"Dunno."

"Don't you care?"

He shrugged again. "They're around here somewhere."

Ben ran his hand through his hair and sighed--

And woke up. He propped himself up on an elbow and blinked in the morning light.

"Weird." Ben dragged himself out of bed and made his way to the kitchen, wondering if he had any toffees. Maybe if he met the old woman again she'd offer him one.

He paused in the middle of measuring out his ground coffee. Not that he'd meet her again, because that had just been a dream. Ben shook his head and laughed softly to himself.

***

I'm bored with this already... Writing ADD?

2010

Oh, look, a new year!

I finished my creative writing class, obviously. In the end my revisions for the portfolio went well, despite my stressing. I'm still not quite happy with the story and the poem, but my professor liked them, so I suppose that suffices.

(She suggested I submit the poem to journals for publication, which was a bit of a shock. I don't think it's up to that, but I may do so anyway--never too early to start racking up rejection slips. ^_^)

I've joined meri in a new years resolution, to post at least 200 words at least 4 times a week to a thread in Locution. Mine is here, and meri's is here. I think I'll co-post here, just to keep things in one place...

***

Ben found himself in a waiting room suddenly, in that strange, scene-hopping way that dreams change. One minute he was fishing with his dad in a lake of lava and the next he was sitting in a plastic chair under fluorescent lights.

"Would you like a toffee, young man?"

Ben stared down at the candy in confusion. It shook in the old woman's hands, the red wrapper bright against her skin, and she smiled at him.

"Um, no thanks."

"Ah well, suit yourself." She unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth, sucking noisily. "I shouldn't, really, but if you can't indulge when you're old, when can you?"

"Yeah..." The lake was fading, and then it was gone. Ben couldn't remember how he got here, or what he was waiting for. He said so to the old woman.

"Oh, don't you worry about that, dearie. I expect someone will be along in a bit to sort it all out." She patted his knee twice and settled back into her seat.

"Wait, don't you know why you're here?" Ben asked.

She frowned, puzzled. "Now that you mention it, no. My memory must not be what it used to be. Maybe I wrote it down." She patted her trouser's pocket and drew out a slip of paper. "Oh, look, my number. Perhaps they'll call it soon."

It was like those numbers taken by people waiting to be served at the the local butcher's.

***

It's a story idea I came up with over Christmas break, while vacationing in the swamp. I'll see where it goes~