Friday 31 October 2014

The Wide

It wasn't always a first step. Sometimes it was a second, or a third or several more. But eventually the stairs disappeared altogether and left me levitating in the air. The vast world would fall away, and in the deep silence that followed a vision would fill my mind.

The gates.

As a slipped down the barren fields turned to sand, across scrubby plains and out of exotic forests, I began to see the spires. Jutting up from the pinnacle of desolation, these alien and curved horns didn't so much crackle as hum. The hair lifted off my arms and every sense I owned tingled, like freefall but on solid ground.

My steps no longer became my own, but rather my will simply propelling my body. The sand slid and shifted underfoot, but my eyes were on the heavens. The spires above.

This time I would make it. This time I would see.

My heart beat faster, the landscape shifting into instability as I clambered and ran across the sands, desperate to capture my one-way ticket. The hum was louder now, the air thick with energy. I gasped in static as much as air and choked on the electricity in my breath, feeling my limbs grow heavy.

So close.

A shiver ran through me. Spiralling from my head and right down through my core. It invigorated me, tricking my extremities into another pulse of action. Nerve endings jerked into motion and I stumbled atop the dune.

My eyes closed and I breathed in chaotic fields of friction. No breath left, no energy of my own.

A life spent dreaming. A dream unfulfilled.



A breeze whipped across my face, filling my lungs and lifting my tear-stained eyes.

To wonder.

Chaos and life surrounded me! The portal now far behind, I watched as another mechanical platform whizzed past me, it's rider one of dozens in the air. I ducked as something hot sprayed against my face and a concussive blast knocked me from my feet. And then I was being pulled up to join the madness in the air. I grabbed on tight, finding my feet and wrapping my hand across another's wrist.

And somehow, I knew. I knew. The soft and strong grip that held my own so tightly should never be let go.

I wouldn't let it go.

Thursday 30 October 2014

Post Snippet; "Just" Words

I'll just throw this up here for posterity. Yes, I do just save my posts sometimes, as they're often better than my actual writing :p

Let me lay out to you, just why words can be impressive.

Words make up your life. They're noted from the first utterance you make, and marked as the last you say. They give you identity and place you in this world, among ancestors that lived and breathed millennia before and descendants that may continue your line long into the future. Words give your life meaning everywhere that you go - they define your freedoms and your rights, and touch everything from that, through your work, study and relationships, down to the food that you consume.

With words alone you can save a life, mend a heart, fill one with hope. With words you can stir fear and awe, and you can shatter it just the same. You can inspire one being to greater heights, a country or, more simply, the world. You can create chaos and confusion, create destruction and hatred, cause torture and death, with the same.

And you don't have to lift a finger.

Words can inspire and lift, warn and educate, throughout all of time. Words can cause death and misery or hope and love for as long as records exist.

Words have shaped the world in its entirety and continue to shape it today. One book, one paragraph, one line or even a word can change your life forever, and change the course of human history.

Words teach us how to live and how to die and everything in between.

Words, I find,







...speak for themselves.

Wednesday 22 October 2014

Little Ramble

I thought the last post has sat up here for long enough. In all fairness...it was a bit whiny :p

Anyway, since Nanowrimo is coming up I guess I ought to talk about my story a little. Writers should write whenever they can, I do agree, but for me Nano really has helped me creep much closer to my dreams and I'm grateful for this insane event. Ultimately it's something that turns a traditionally solo pursuit into something shared, and that's a rare and incredible feat.

So, this year I'm actually going to finish Elemental. Not try, finish. It's a bold undertaking and cuts deep into issues I have with my self, but this is something I utterly want to do, so I should commit to it.

I started this story a few years ago, after my first Nanowrimo story proved to have an epic plot that needed several tomes to unravel. Eschewing that, along with issues with having to rewrite parts of the plot, not to mention an incredible time gap soon after the start, I started "The Mages Tower".

It didn't remain that way for long. Although I've only won Nano legitimately once, The Mages Tower was spawned through a Camp, I think, and after getting a significant count it struck me that a real title was needed and in a flash of inspiration "Elemental" was born. I know it's not unique, but it could not fit the story better.

Elemental is unique among my ideas, though, that it wasn't dreamed up but rather was created intentionally. I wanted to make something that would be shorter and finishable, and thus Elemental pulled on many parts to cobble a story together. The setting was first, a main character with a spyglass on the other, who was riding hard for the tower. Ultimately that scene was cut in favour of a dream sequence and a more placid grounding, but I felt that fit a little more. It grounded the character better and also meant they weren't shooting off instantly to uncertain dangers and destinations.

In retrospect, that probably wasn't the best of decisions.

I won't lie. This being an "uninspired" idea originally means I've had a lot of problems, and I've had to struggle with a plot that lacks energy, danger and momentum. It also doesn't come very easily to me, and shoved my imagination in a lockstep vise that kept me unable to think up new paths. But latterly it does seem like the end point may actually be in sight, and if that's true, it was all worth it.

For now, though, I struggle with two scenes - a boring town scene that needs reinvigorating and my mid-point climactic scene that needs rewriting. However, if those fail to resolve before the month is out I shall simply shelve them. First and foremost I have to finish my story.

And achieve my dreams.

Wednesday 15 October 2014

Personal Comment + Post Snippet; On Lack of Ideas

Before I record this little reply I made to a thread on the nano forums, I just wanted to say a little aside.

Sometimes I make posts, and sometimes I make very heartfelt posts where I've laid my spirit down on the page for someone to touch, understand, feel and draw strength from. I know I write in a very logical way and my passion doesn't always soar through or illustrate truly how I am in person, but sometimes it really puzzles me the lack of response such posts garner.

No, I'm not whining, but I'm a writer. I write down dreams and ideals and I'm not embarrassed to say that hope shines through me, because I feel it should. But it's precisely because I think I'm a good communicator that I have to wonder. Do the messages I send fall on indifferent ears? Do people remain unmoved by what I say or do they just not care to comment?

To be honest, both of those options really leave me in the dark. I know I seem square, and at times I am, but I am most often fun-loving and in some ways it bothers me that I seem unapproachable if the latter is true. The former is more worrying, and yet not, since being idealistic in this day and age already garners a horde of resistance, and I've long understood that.

A friend has told me that I sometimes say it all, and there's no need for comment. I would like to believe that, and yet, I wouldn't. I can't really learn unless I get to talk about these ideas - even though they may be fairly firm, I still enjoy a good debate if there's disagreement. And if not, I still like to hear people's viewpoints.

I can understand people not commenting on this blog. That's truly fine since it's a semi-personal log/record of many things, and if people read here that in itself is more than I expect (though comments are welcome). But if it's in a thread where someone poses a question and there are answers to that question...yeah, I can't really understand that.

Once again, it's not really a response to me I'm seeking (though I do enjoy that), but rather what evades me is the reason why my more heartfelt posts are met with no comment as often, if not more, than my more casual comments.

I guess it's just on my mind a lot.

----

People write a lot of stories. They write about life experiences, dangers, sadness, laughter, love, hate and everything in between. I'm not going to pretend that there's a limited scope for them.

Having said that, I feel like you should find that place inside where with just the lightest touch, you can unleash your essence in an explosive storm. That thing that makes you feel you are holding on to the energy of creation, and you can feel it crackling between your fingers, bursting within your body and soul.

If you can't find it, find that time when you are at your happiest, but not just happy but alive. That moment when you feel free of everything that confines you, as if you could conquer the world if only you could communicate that feeling. Where you're high as a kite with rocket thrusters and you can't sit still because you just want to scream at the sky from raw joy.

Some people think that writing is just writing. Is just communication. They're right, and yet it's so much more. It's the ability to take someone as high as you could possibly fly, and then throw them higher, just so they can see how your dream looks, how awe-inspiring life is when you behold that view. It's about taking someone so low that their souls shiver and weep, as sadness bleeds from them, and they realise that yes, it's okay to be in the depths of hell because you've been there too, and that the sun was still shining at the end of that tunnel of darkness. It's about bringing people into your world and, as you teach them all the things you know, help them with all the things you've passed, showing them a part of yourself it would take them a lifetime to understand otherwise.

What's the relevance of this post? It's just this, find that message that defines your soul and being, that thing that with all your heart you want to say. That feeling that you can't quite communicate unless you write a fallen angel, a defiant warrior, a lost soul, a ship's captain, a fool falling in love, a suffering student, a wrecked dream, lost hope, the beauty of the night, the hardship of life, or just a future filled with dreams. Find what you want to say, know yourself enough to understand what's closest to your heart, and then it doesn't matter if you're writing a moose god flying through space or a broken man trying to find the feet he no longer has, the story will hold it's arm out to you.

Just reach out and take it.

Friday 3 October 2014

Might Imagine

The door swung on its hinges and then stuck. Teryn sighed as he put his foot against it and shoved it closed, giving it a kick for good measure. One day he would tweak the hinges. One day he would do a lot of things.

The hall was dry and musty as he made his way to the elevator. Not old, just full of the old man's belongings as his family slowly moved his stuff out. Teryn peered through the open door, hoping to catch a glimpse of red hair, and then instantly loathed himself for doing so. The old man was dead, and all he thought of was seeing his grandaughter one more time. He turned his eyes away and turned the corner, almost crashing into her as he did so.

"Whoops!" Jeanie said, comically tilting sideways.
"Sorry." Teryn muttered, looking down slightly. "I wasn't looking..."
"No worries." Jeanie said, shaking her head.

Teryn shrugged slightly and continued passed, then stopped a moment and turned slowly. She was still there, sorting through a handful of letters and making faces at them. "Jean." Teryn began, his mind counting over the days. In two weeks they had passed each other numerable times, and he had helped out on several occasions.

"Yes?" Jeanie asked, looking up.

"How long do you think it will take?" He asked.

Jean tilted her head from side to side. "A few more days, maybe." She smiled. "Don't worry, I'll be out of your hair soon."

"Oh it's no bother." Teryn said. He frowned and put his hand to the wall to steady himself. Did the floor shake? Nerves. He shook his head. "Do you might imagine we might go out for dinner sometime?" How many times did he say 'might'? And dinner? He meant coffee!

Jean blinked a few times as though trying to process the request, her hand clutching a bundle and half extended to a pile of letters. She frowned and then placed the bundle on top of the pile, turning back to him.

For some reason her eyes held his, and he blushed momentarily.

"Was that evil?" She asked finally, her lips drawn into a teasing smile.

"If you only knew." Teryn replied, letting go the breath he had been holding.

"Now?" Jeanie asked, her smile turned just a tad nervous.

Teryn opened his mouth and closed it again. "Just...just give me half an hour to run and do this thing."

"Half an hour? Really?" Jeanie blew at her hair. "I can't do anything in a half hour. At least give me some time to clean up."

Teryn raised an eyebrow and in the suavest tone he could muster, delivered the line of a master. "It gets better than this?"

Jeanie blushed and bit at her lower lip. "You didn't just do that."

"Apparently, I did." Teryn chuckled in embarrassment.

Jeanie covered her mouth with a hand and pointed at the door with the other. "Shoo!" She said, making flipping motions.

Teryn bowed his head ever so slightly, turned smoothly, and tried not to prance as he swept out of the door and into the elevator area. Deciding he was too giddy, he elected to take the stairs instead, and three stories passed like the wind as his feet barely touched the ground. He patted his messenger bag as he entered the foyer. Mind to task.

Mind to task.