Writing.

It's what I'm doing. Although surprisingly not as much as I'd anticipated writing once the semester ended.
As if it's so much harder to write now that I'm not avoiding something.
During the semester I would write to escape from class, either while actually in class or sitting somewhere around campus. I'm sure my professor's didn't really appreciate it, which is probably why I failed all of my classes this semester.

I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm a great student, I really am. I won't brag, but let's just say I was doing very well in school.

And then this semester happened and it all went to poop. Evidently this happens to me in the spring. According to my incredibly concerned mother, every year in high school right around March, I became a complete and utter loss as far as school was concerned. Spring fever, legit. Luckily for me, I went to an itsy private school that exercised only the most delicate control over my attendance.  I honestly don't remember that ever happening before, the whole 'gonna-skip-school-cause-its-soo-pretttyyyyy' which is basically exactly what I did this semester.
It stands to reason that I'll only be taking online classes henceforth.

What can I say. I'm a vagrant at heart.

I'm working on a new short story 'cause I'm frustrated by Emmett's story.
It's about a girl who does something crazy and is sent to a loony bin for 6 months, only to be declared legally sane. When she returns to her hometown, she's even more of a pariah than she was before.
I got the idea (though that seems so arrogant to say. I feel like I'm taking all the credit, but it wasn't really me,) last night whilst playing my 883rd game of solitaire on my ipod and generally stewing against the world.
I haven't really been a fan of people lately. I'm still not a fan of people.

Anyways, I heard the first line of the story in my head:
"The only downfall to being declared legally sane is that people ask you to justify your actions."
It's a narration from this girl's p.o.v., and it's actually turning out really weirdly. There's a pastor involved, and its all very strange. It's currently named 'dunno' because I dunno what it is. I guess we'll find out.

In other news, the short I posted a few posts back about rain was casually handed to a published-author-friend for her to take a look at. I'm slightly nervous, but halfway hoping she'll think its so great that she'll hand it to her publisher and say "Here's the next J.K. Rowling," or something similarly fantastic and outlandishly extravagant. I'll make millions of monies and won't have to get a crappy nine-to-five to support my writing habit.
Because that's totally how it happens, yeah? Right, guys? Right.
So we won't know what she thinks until Monday or Tuesday. Bated breath and crossed fingers.

See, that's one part of writing that I really don't like. I start to feel like I'm writing for someone else, like I'm writing for approval. Which, of course, I kinda am if I ever want to be published. (Even though I'm not 100% sure that I do; text is a dying medium imho.) But when I don't get that approval, it shatters my fragile little writer's ego, which is about the size and strength of a premature baby bird. A very very small baby bird.

Sigh. It's a hard thing to have to accept, that my writing does not flow from my fingers perfectly formed and ready for print.

But judging from the track records of greats like Stephen King (who supposedly had to upgrade from a nail a railroad spike to support the huge number of rejection slips he'd acquired by the age of fourteen. showoff.) or J.K. Rowling (who was initially rejected by 12 publishing houses before eventually getting the Sorcerer's Stone published. Love herrrr.) I might as well get used to rejection. Endless, soul-devouring, ego-crushing rejection. *shudders* I can do it...

I think I'll just go read some webcomics until I'm happy again...

Intro-Emmett's Story.

The stone chapel was lit by candlelight alone. The stained glass windows looking down on the pews were so caked with the passing of time that even in the daylight no light shone through, let alone on such a starless night. The old priest standing at the front of the church had never allowed himself to be taken in by any sort of mythology or superstition before.

But on this strange night, when the moon and the stars seemed to have lost their will to shine, he felt the slightest twinge of discomfort, causing him to roll his head to work out the nonexistent kink in his neck, or check over his shoulder to catch a glance of the shadow following him. He tried to shake himself free of what he considered to be a great deal of nonsense, reciting prayers and verses relentlessly. Try as he might, there was no shaking this heaviness that seemed to have crashed upon him.

As he stood in front of his parishioners and looked out at their bowed heads, he gave it up to human condition and vowed to work through it. However, he could not help but think as he walked behind the podium from which he gave his sermons that the candlelight seemed to have cast an ill shadow across the room.

All through his sermon, shadows flickered in the corner of his eye, causing him to stop a few times in his sermon and look to the side. The longer he spoke, the more frustrated he became, not only with the candlelight but with himself. As he led the congregation in a final prayer, he offered up a separate prayer to the Lord, a placatory prayer to deliver him from his own foolishness.  As they spoke the ‘amen’, the aged priest’s eye was drawn to the center of the room. A man was standing at the end of the aisle, watching him. The startled priest wondered if he had been there through the entire sermon. This man was not watching him with intensity or fire. He seemed to be watching him almost absently, his mind in another world. The expression on his face was anguished.

Shaking his head as though clearing water from his ears, the priest stepped down from the pulpit for confessionals. The man’s eyes were still upon him, an invisible string fixing his eyes to the priest.  The priest greeted the parishioners distractedly, listening with only half an ear and moving from one to another in mid-sentence, leaving some of the congregation standing in the middle of the church looking rather affronted. The priest did not notice these angered glances following him, but moved to get to the confessional box as quickly as possible, though he was lobbied by his congregation for meaningless conversations concerning his sermon, which he could not seem to remember the content of.

By the time he and his deacons had reached the confessional boxes set into the side of the church, the old priest’s hands were shaking so badly that a deacon had to close the box for him. As he had made his way through the people, he had taken notice of a few things about the strange man in the back. The first thing he had noticed was height. The man was head and shoulders above the rest of the churchgoers, with black hair that had been pulled out of its tie. He was richly dressed, and his clothes and bearing spoke of nobility, if not royalty.

Whoever he was, the priest decided, it did not matter. There was something that was not right about that man, something that shook the normally practical old priest to his bones. Darkness exuded from him, practically seeped from his skin. The priest prayed to God that this man did not come into his confessional box, perhaps that he did not even partake in confessional at all, and the old priest started violently every time the parishioner’s door to the box opened.

The Lord, it seemed, had other ideas for the old priest. The parishioner’s door opened and the priest, doing his best to look at the wall opposite him so he might not know who was on the other side, felt his heartbeat quicken tenfold as the silhouette beside him spoke.

“Father…Father, forgive me, for I have…I have sinned g-greatly, Father.”

The voice that spoke was refined, elegant, one that had no place in a small town of farmers and craftsmen, one that had been educated and practiced, and it was also deeply remorseful and frightened. He stuttered slightly and his voice shook as he spoke.

The old priest took his time to respond, trying to keep his voice even and calm as he prompted,

“Tell me of your sins, my child. Why do you seek forgiveness from the Almighty God?”

He prayed as he spoke the words.

The shadow on the other side took several deep, shaking breaths and began to speak, but buried his face in his hands almost immediately. After several minutes, he began again, this time slowly and softly.

“Father, I… I cannot bring myself to put to words the monstrous things I have done. I cannot speak them, for if I speak them then they are surely truth. T-They cannot be truth. They simply cannot be truth.”

His voice broke on his last word and the old priest could see that he was doubled over, his hands on his head, shaking violently.

The priest drew a deep, silent breath to steady himself.

“The Lord will judge all equally. No sin is too great or too small for His notice. He judges all equally, my son. Not each according to the severity of their crime. Do not be afraid, my child, for the path to redemption begins with repentance, no matter how great your offense.”

The priest took another deep breath when he stopped speaking and smiled a little to himself, rather proud that he had spoken so composedly and so neutrally. Maybe, he thought, this was just a test from the Lord. If so, he seemed to have passed it and he smiled a little more at this thought.

The man spoke slowly, deliberately.

“Yes. Yes, I am repentant, Father. I wish to God that it had not happened. I would give anything to change what I have done. Anything at all. But repentance alone cannot save me, Father. I am surely the wickedest man to have set foot in your chapel; I give you this on my honor, though I have none left. I am no thief, Father, nor am I sexually immoral, and I do not lie. No, my actions have been far more despicable, infinitely more deplorable than what now seems so childish. But God cannot save me from this.”

The young man seemed to gain resolve from his speech, and with a new confidence in his voice he continued.

“God cannot, or perhaps he will not save me from this, Father. There are forces set against me now that are not angels, nor are they devils. Unless God sees fit to snatch me from the hand of justice, of rightful revenge, there is no salvation for me. I am a doomed man, Father, for when in history has God ever stopped a wretch and a murderer from receiving his dues? No, there is no salvation for me.”

With this statement, he moved to leave the box. Upon opening the door, he paused and turned his head back to the priest.

“Though there is no hope for me, Father, I will pray to whoever is still listening to me that you will be blessed for the kindness you have shown me. Live well, Father.”

With these last words he left the box. The shaken priest listened until he heard the rap of heeled boots on stone reach the door, and the creaking of the massive oak door opening and closing before he left the confessional box. The moment he was out of the box, he fell on his knees in prayer and did not cease praying until the deacons made him return to his room hours later.

All works and characters © me. And stuff. 

To post, or not to post.

I mean, that's not really the question. Here I am, after all.

But I am debating whether or not to post the intro to the fondly-named "Big Story," A.K.A. "Emmett's Story".

I've been in a bit of a slump lately. I don't know if it' because of the end of the school semester and the arrival of grades and reality (probably,) or just the place in the story I'm at, but I've had a hard time writing.

I'm at 36,000 words and just over a hundred pages, and just introduced my female lead, who, by the way, is kick-***.

Sigh. I'm going to have to re-think my next plot move.

On a separate note, I've had the strangest weekend. All day Friday was spent doing random family things for my brother's graduation. 'Kay, so here's a note about me: I don't like crowds. I don't like crowded places. I don't like large, extremely crowded places.
So after taking pictures for the family, I spent most of the graduation ceremony sitting outside (it was awesome weather for it,) reading The Hunger Games for the third time. While I was outside, these two groups of guys were on either side of me. Here's my crappy paint rendition.

I kinda felt like I was sitting in the passage of time from youth to age.

Then, later that night, BFFA came over.
Here's the thing about me and bffA. We're both extremely curious people, to the point of ridiculousness. BffA is also a very scientific person.
So when we're chilling in my room and spy the unopened pepper spray I got for my nighttime runs, well....
We opened it, and I sprayed the teensiest bit onto the tip of my finger. Nothing happened. So, I, eager beaver that I am, grabbed a bunch of paper on the floor next to me. "Spray this!!" I said, and she did.
At first, nothing happened.

 

A split second later, pain beyond belief ensued. Turns out that sitting in a small, enclosed space and spraying pepper spray is a really, really bad idea. We know that now. For those of you who haven't experienced the effects of pepper spray first hand, I'm not going to describe it for you, mostly because I don't have any words to explain the horror. Lemme just say that it's like bathing in jalapenos. Like every orifice of your body has been stuffed with the things. BffA and I both agree that we would never wish a face full of that on anyone. 

The next morning BffA and I left with my family for the beach. I really don't do well with early hours, but I do even worse with being in a crowded car listening to loud country music at 6 a.m., after two hours of sleep.

 Plus, I'm a bit of a control freak with driving. I don't like it when I'm in a car and not driving it. Dunno, I'm twitchy sometimes. So six hours later, (I spent three of them sleeping while BffA jammed out on her Zune beside me,) we get to teensy, beloved beach town on the Gulf. Teensy Beach Town is strangely lopsided as far as development goes. Half of it is hugely overbuilt and overdeveloped, while the other half of it is crumbling with age and poverty. It's sad. Anyways, every time I go to the beach I'm reminded of how much I love being there. Beach bums are my kin. 

 [Picture from the beach we go to. I have a painting of this exact spot hanging in my bathroom.]

So, short story even shorter, spent the night in a hotel room with BffA and Brother's Girlfriend, who turned out to be pretty chill. They've been dating for forever, but we've never really made an effort to spend time together until we were forced to. It was interesting spending more time with her and being social.

I lost my train of thought.

I'm tired and crave chocolate soymilk. I'm gonna go ahead and post the intro up either tonight or in the next few days.

<3

Screw it.

You heard me. Screw it. I'mma post Thing the Second. I kinda... sorta cleaned up the ending. I took out a sentence and created paragraphs. I'm not sure if or how that counts as 'cleaned up'. But let's not worry about that just yet.
Hope you enjoy! leave feedback :O

Rain, like royalty, is announced before it arrives.

A carpet of thick blue clouds is rolled across the sky, marking the path that the celestial celebrity will tread. Next, the thunder begins to roll and rumble, a drumbeat heralding the arrival of rain with a quickening in pace and intensity. Soon come the brilliant, breath-taking light displays across the sky; a show of finery and splendor before the coming of a long-awaited guest.

But in contrast with the grand display put on to announce its presence, the rain never falls with a bang. Instead, it begins shyly and quietly, just a few drops at first; a polite knock before coming in an open door.

Today, like many other days, those drops slowly but steadily gave way to thick waves of water falling relentlessly from the clouds. There is something special that happens in between those first few drops of rain and the downpour that follows. In that in-between time, if you listen closely, you will hear the rush of falling rain headed toward you as it sweeps, unhindered by any creation of ours, across the land. That singular, thrilling moment is something that most people don’t care to hear.

Some people will wait until the rain is pounding into their grass to rush outside and grab the scattered toys that their children left on the lawn, brightly colored remnants of a sunny day. They will run out of the open front door at a hasty, though not panicked speed, barefoot as they tromp through the lawn, which has been cleverly disguised as a giant mud puddle. They grab up as much as they can with one armful and rush into the open garage, pulling the door down behind them. Their wives hand them towels and make them stand on the floor mat to drip-dry before coming inside (because running faster won’t help you avoid the rain), shaking their heads (and smiling, secretly) at the muddy, grassy cuffs of their husband’s pants.  The toys, tossed negligently onto the dirty garage floor, are left to dry alone in a sad heap, and the kids will sit inside watching Spongebob, any hint of disappointment caused by the rain quickly forgotten. 

Others will watch the first dark clouds with sharp-eyed distrust, rolling up the hose and packing away the gardening tools. They lock down completely when the thunder begins to roll, windows shuttered and cars snug in the garage, away from any potential danger. The only thing that remains open is the back door, swung wide to reveal the single-pane glass door behind, locked and bolted. When the rain begins to fall they will stand side by side at the glass door, bald pate leaning gently against graying curls. They watch the rain in silence with their arms around each other’s waists, each remembering a rainy day long past.

Yet others will drop the game controllers in their hands and jump off the couch in panic at the sound of thunder. They, too, will run outside, though these are only rushed long enough to breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of the dry ground and lazily walk to the ancient, rusted car in the driveway. With a sigh, they will yank open the driver’s side door and plop down onto the seat as they slowly roll the window up. Then, with the same slow walk, they return to the darkened room in the house, forcefully slamming the door and turning the deadbolt. They will take no more notice of the rain or the storm past a brief moment of noticing the sound of the rain on the rooftop.

But once all the hatches are battened down and all the windows shuttered and locked, once the tools and the toys are safely within the confines of shelter, something unusual occurs.

If you are brave enough to chance the rain and storm, you can walk down the middle of a street and get a tingle down the back of your spine at the sight of closed-up houses with blank faces. Somewhere inside, you start to wonder what happens when nobody is watching.

The opportunities for the unusual or impossible have become infinite.

Right now, right where you are standing, anything could happen.

Anything that you have dreamed during a similar rainy day while locked inside, or while staring blankly at the pages of a textbook, is suddenly possible, even probable.

Things that seem mad when slid underneath the dissecting microscope of someone else’s eyes can be reality, when those eyes are turned away, driven inward by the threat of storms and wrapped in a cocoon of warmth and safety.

[Okay, in retrospect, there really isn't an ending. Please forgive me. I'll post a revised version later.]
[All works and characters © me. <3]

Light.Dark.

I've got a few short stories to post up here. Well, they're not really stories so much as they are the strange thoughts and possibilities that run through my mind on a regular basis.
My mind is a fun place to be on most days. Today, not so much. But eh.
Anyways, here's Thing the First. Thing the Second needs some editing before posting.
The ending on the other one was basically:
"WriteWriteWriteAGH LAPTOP IS DYING, QUICK, MAKE UP AN ENDING AND SAAAAAAAVE!"
So there's that.
But here's this.
Enjoy, and leave feedback.

[just a random thought i had while driving around at twilight. hope y'all enjoy.]
The sun slowly sinks beneath the horizon and the glowing colors of the day are replaced with the cold, forbidding colors of night fall.

The shadows stretch longer and longer; growing until they shroud and swallow the world.

 But out of the massive darkness of the night come shining beacons standing out like bonfires on high hills, neon lights and glowing fluorescence penetrating the darkness.

We are creatures of the sun by birth, by right; the daytime is ours to conquer and walk with confidence, assured of our surroundings and that we are the sovereign master of the terrain.

When the sun begins to sink, we retreat wearily to our well-lit caves to wait out the long dark of the night, our fires stoked to edge the darkness away.

We, like moths, drift from brightness to brightness, the driving desire to immolate our bodies in the fleeting, violent beauty of a flame replaced with the need to flourish and grow beneath the comforting hand of light.

The promise of light is the promise of safety, of shelter. The brightness puts up a flimsy shield against the evil that lurks just out of sight in the darkness.

We fear the darkness. Maybe we fear the dark because we fear the unknown, the nameless, shapeless thing prowling on the edge of our awareness carrying the scent of danger. Or maybe we fear it simply because we fear that cold, crippling feeling of aloneness that grips your chest when you walk through a stretch of darkness.

And maybe we're right to fear the dark. Maybe something with razor sharp teeth and glowing red eyes will swoop out of the darkness on oversized wings and tear our flesh to shreds if we stray too far from the protection of light.

Yet there are worse demons that lurk in the darkness that exists within our own minds, those that feed not on flesh but on fear.  We, flimsy, soft creatures of the sun, are so easily destroyed by darkness within and darkness without.

[all works and characters © me, y'all.]

Just the Beginning.

So here's my grand plan: while I'm working on my large-ish, long-ish story, (also known as the BIG story,) I wanna post additional stuff like character bios, sketches, etc. I also wanna post the AWESOME map I drew in paint, and the real one that we made. Anyways, that's my not-so-grand-in-retrospect plan. So. Yeah.