Finding a minute to write in the summertime, when all of my children are out of school, has been nearly impossible! The fact that four of the six of us are on antibiotics for strep throat (including me) hasn't helped matters either. I was so excited for this month's topic, too. The lesson I've learned is to start earlier in the month next time. Here is my submission--completely free-written and unedited, but I like how it turned out. Too tired ot write more, unfortunately.
I have one green eye and one blue eye. The green eye sees truth, and the blue eye sees much, much more. I sit outside my misty mountain home and cast my blue eye across the expanse before me. Its sight reaches beyond the miles of olive trees beneath my mountains—a vast forest whose grey-green trees climb hills and fall into valleys and move with the earth, looking more like a swelling sea than anything else. My glance extends past this verdant ocean to the true sea, skipping across the shallows like a smooth stone, and then on, skimming the white tips of the waves. When my sight reaches the shore of an island kingdom, all that I see has an azure tint; and at the edge of my vision, all is lost in deep blue mist.
The palace of the island kingdom is not beyond the limits of my vision, and I can look easily through the stone walls. I see a tall room hung in tapestries and a massive bed decked in fine velvet bedclothes. The room is bustling with the movements of a dozen servant women. Their queen reclines in the bed, beads of perspiration on her brow and a look of relieved joy on her face. In her arms her naked newborn daughter studies her mother’s face.
Just outside the queen’s chamber, a nervous young king is still unaware that his wife has given birth. He stands at a narrow window and gazes on my mountains—if he had an eye like mine he would be staring me in the face.
I have watched the king and queen prepare for the arrival of this little princess. Her parents have such splendid plans for her future that I feel almost sorry to deprive them. But this little one is special, and I have plans of my own.
My sharp claws grate on the craggy ground below me as I ease myself to the edge of the cliff. I stretch my neck out into the abyss before me and let the weight of my head pull me off the mountain. I dive sharply, then open my wings and begin to fly.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
I'm sorry...
I have been so preoccupied this past month(with a new born) that I haven't written any of the prompts. I'm sorry for this and I will do my best to get next months done. I haven't forgotten Erin. I've enjoyed reading the stories that people have posted. Thanks for being patient with me.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Prompt #2: The Secret House
(This was a fun one. Thanks Heather! I don't know about everyone else, but I did complete freewriting...which means this hasn't been edited at all. Hope it makes sense, seeing as how my "20 minutes" was really about an hour that was interspersed with nursing a baby and trying to play with whiny children.)
*****
It was a witchy house: the low-slung roof; that quiet gray paint; those squinting, shuttered windows; and the empty porch rocker that rocked, rocked, rocked day and night. When people passed they unthinkingly spoke in hushed tones, fearful of waking the unknown power that lay over the house, that gave it a sense of constant muted humming, as if plugged into dangerously high voltage. For that same reason, no one ever went near the house, never even dawdling on the sidewalk in front for more than a few moments to wonder about its inhabitants. And that is why it was the perfect hiding place.
I had been tracing the worn pathways of the mysterious house on Amelia Street for over a year. Being unable to sleep, due to my unfortunate condition, I had been forced to find other amusements during the witching hours, ones that catered to solitude. I was wary of wandering the streets, still stinging from my encounter with One-Eyed Bob in the mostly deserted alley behind the mini-mart last summer, and had been anxious to confine my wanderings indoors. The quiet house was precisely what I had been looking for. I had noticed it, of course, in passing during regular daytime hours when everything assumed a sense of normalcy and I greeted neighbors on the street cordially, smiling and laughing gayly at the children racing their bikes down the smooth asphalt on Amelia Street. But I had never felt the same sense of trepidation I was conscious of in others. It had instead seemed to great me warmly, as if it understood my nighttime ailments and its the broken timbers of fence that surrounded it stretched out in embrace to enfold me in its secrets.
A house of secrets-- that's what I found the first time I entered through a side door I found unlocked though had to stubbornly force open. Time seemed to have worn its frame down as an old man, causing it to lean lamely on itself from tiredness and lack of strength. Its dusty interiors calmed my usually heightened senses at night and instead weaved a blanket of serenity over everything, easing my nerves and warming the ache in my mind. Often I would lie on a small cot that sat in one of the upstairs bedrooms, a small but sturdy thing that sighed comfortably with my weight. It was my favorite room in the old house, sparsely decorated with a small washbin in one corner and a large ornate mirror placed above it on the wall. A three-legged table stood next to the cot, its only contents were a pot of plastic yellow flowers and a worn copy of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner which had now kept me company for many nights. I would often lay there, conscious only of the fall wind creaking in the branches outside, wanting the dust of the house to envelope me, too, to encase me as one of its secrets, a mummy of shadow and dust and sleep.
The only other thing in the small room was a large trunk sitting below a lace curtain-framed window. The trunk was probably large enough to fit two grown men inside. Its main body had been covered in a dark ebony leather, with two iron bands running around each end, like giant rubberbands holding the lid in place. Although I had spent most of my time in this tomb of a room I had never once opened the secret trunk. Not wanting to know more about the tenants of my private cave, not wanting to disturb the fantasy I had created for my midnight wanderings, I cringed at the thought of what I might discover inside. I liked that about this room, that there was a secret I didn't know.
*****
It was a witchy house: the low-slung roof; that quiet gray paint; those squinting, shuttered windows; and the empty porch rocker that rocked, rocked, rocked day and night. When people passed they unthinkingly spoke in hushed tones, fearful of waking the unknown power that lay over the house, that gave it a sense of constant muted humming, as if plugged into dangerously high voltage. For that same reason, no one ever went near the house, never even dawdling on the sidewalk in front for more than a few moments to wonder about its inhabitants. And that is why it was the perfect hiding place.
I had been tracing the worn pathways of the mysterious house on Amelia Street for over a year. Being unable to sleep, due to my unfortunate condition, I had been forced to find other amusements during the witching hours, ones that catered to solitude. I was wary of wandering the streets, still stinging from my encounter with One-Eyed Bob in the mostly deserted alley behind the mini-mart last summer, and had been anxious to confine my wanderings indoors. The quiet house was precisely what I had been looking for. I had noticed it, of course, in passing during regular daytime hours when everything assumed a sense of normalcy and I greeted neighbors on the street cordially, smiling and laughing gayly at the children racing their bikes down the smooth asphalt on Amelia Street. But I had never felt the same sense of trepidation I was conscious of in others. It had instead seemed to great me warmly, as if it understood my nighttime ailments and its the broken timbers of fence that surrounded it stretched out in embrace to enfold me in its secrets.
A house of secrets-- that's what I found the first time I entered through a side door I found unlocked though had to stubbornly force open. Time seemed to have worn its frame down as an old man, causing it to lean lamely on itself from tiredness and lack of strength. Its dusty interiors calmed my usually heightened senses at night and instead weaved a blanket of serenity over everything, easing my nerves and warming the ache in my mind. Often I would lie on a small cot that sat in one of the upstairs bedrooms, a small but sturdy thing that sighed comfortably with my weight. It was my favorite room in the old house, sparsely decorated with a small washbin in one corner and a large ornate mirror placed above it on the wall. A three-legged table stood next to the cot, its only contents were a pot of plastic yellow flowers and a worn copy of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner which had now kept me company for many nights. I would often lay there, conscious only of the fall wind creaking in the branches outside, wanting the dust of the house to envelope me, too, to encase me as one of its secrets, a mummy of shadow and dust and sleep.
The only other thing in the small room was a large trunk sitting below a lace curtain-framed window. The trunk was probably large enough to fit two grown men inside. Its main body had been covered in a dark ebony leather, with two iron bands running around each end, like giant rubberbands holding the lid in place. Although I had spent most of my time in this tomb of a room I had never once opened the secret trunk. Not wanting to know more about the tenants of my private cave, not wanting to disturb the fantasy I had created for my midnight wanderings, I cringed at the thought of what I might discover inside. I liked that about this room, that there was a secret I didn't know.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Reminder--2 days left!
Just wanted to post a reminder to all (including myself) that there are two days left for this month's writing prompt. I know summer is a crazy time, but I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with in twenty minutes of freewriting.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Writing Post #2
I don't know if the rest of you are Stephenie Meyer fans like me, but I just finished reading her new novel, The Host, and I am itching for some more good fantasy writing. One of my favorite fantasy authors is Gail Carson Levine who wrote Ella Enchanted. This prompt comes from her book on writing (Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly).
Pick one of the following introductory sentences and free write for twenty minutes. You are welcome to change the sentences in any way that you like. After twenty minutes you can keep going, revise what you wrote, or try a new prompt if you feel like it. Anything goes--but try to keep the length of your submission to not much longer than 1000 words. Deadline is June 25.
1. I have one green eye and one brown eye. The green eye sees truth, but the brown eye sees much, much more.
2. The ghost was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
3. "Be nice," my father said. "After all, he's your brother."
4. I am the most famous twelve-year-old in the United States.
5. Jason had never felt so foolish before, and he hoped he'd never feel so foolish again.
6. If somebody didn't do something soon, they were going to have a catastrophe on their hands.
7. Alison was the runt of the family, born small and ill-favored, and by the time she was fourteen, she was still small and ill-favored.
8. It was a witchy house: the low-slung roof; that quiet gray paint; those squinting, shuttered windows; and the empty porch rocker that rocked, rocked, rocked day and night.
9. The first time I saw Stephen, he painted a hex sign on my right arm and I couldn't move my fingers for three hours.
10. Ms. Fleming's wig had gone missing.
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