So far I’ve only talked about writing. Probably time I post some, yes?
This first piece was something I wrote for a fandom prompt, because yes, Im involved in fandom. I’ll have to write a post on that one of these days because it’s done extraordinary things for my writing. Regardless, the prompt was ‘beginning’, and I wrote it for an original character of mine who is a mage. Not sure how well it translates to non-fandom, but here goes:
Beginning
If people asked what the first manifestation of Alim’s magic was, he would tell them it was fire.
When I was a boy, I would light the wood stove in the mornings while everyone else slept. One morning I discovered that I could make fire appear in my hand.
That’s it? They’d ask.
That’s it.
In fact, that wasn’t it, but Alim’s real story was no more dramatic. One morning while lighting the fire, sparks had floated up to his fingertips; too young to consider the danger, he’d watched as they landed and twinkled against his skin before flickering out. The first manifestation of his magic was a shield.
Why did he lie to people? Expedience. Maybe to avoid the question, why does a child need a shield? The answer to that was something only Jowan and Kinnon knew. Regardless, that wasn’t the important question. The important question was why he lied to himself.
It’s possible it wasn’t a lie, or wasn’t one any more. He might truly have forgotten about the whispers. They had been with him since his youngest sister was born, always shushing away in the background, saying things he could barely make out. They’d grown louder when his mother kicked him out, then quieted altogether once he’d reached the Circle. And maybe that was why he’d put them out of his mind. Here, despite the paradox of the thin veil, they were silent, and it was easy to forget what was silent.
I am absolutely shameless about sharing my writing these days, even ones that aren’t quite there, like the above one, so I read it so some friends while they were captives in a moving car. They liked it, but one suggested it has a few too many questions, so I might go back and rework it a bit.
The next piece is an exercise I did from Steering the Craft, by Ursula K le Guin. It was simply to write a paragraph that is meant to be read aloud, something that feels and sounds nice without using rhyme or meter.
The village below, with small stone houses huddled around the bay, was locked in her mind as the image of an elderly woman hunched over weaving, hitching threads under hands crooked by long years and illness. She stepped down the path slowly and hoped her memories held the truth of what this place was, because she was in need of the warmth and steady patterns, laid down in regular stripes throughout the years, that had marked her youth. Here was the loom that had collected and ordered all her threads. Here was the home that she had wrapped around herself like a blanket when she had left.
Since it’s an exercise, I haven’t edited it and probably won’t unless it becomes part of a bigger piece. I focused on adding lots of ‘h’ and ‘l’ sounds to give it a bit of a sway.
And there we go, actual writing. Now I head back to google docks to do more work on the outline of my book!
Write Some Good 