The Five to Fifteen Minutes Thread.

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deer of the dawn
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Post by deer of the dawn »

I am glad to see our protagonista has set boundaries.

Will he try to break them, I wonder?

Or will he break down?
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. -Philo of Alexandria

ahhhh... if only all our creativity in wickedness could be fixed by "Corrupt a Wish." - Linna Heartlistener
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Post by Sorus »

Now, you've been busy. Nice.

I've been busy too, but nothing I can post. (Mostly because it would lack context.)

Oh, a change is coming, feel these doors now closing
Is there no world for tomorrow, if we wait for today?


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Linna Heartbooger
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Post by Linna Heartbooger »

You guys!
How is it that y'all - my writing group - know where my story is going when I don't?
I didn't even think my story was going anywhere - I thought it was done!
(which is irrational given that huge focus on the mom stashing the kids at neighbor's houses. And that I NEVER used that. and I guess the word "boundaries" was big-time foreshadowing early on. deer.)

Sorus- Thank you for the encouragement!
I saw that you'd been doin' writing, and I am glad.
Having enough context is HUGE, so okay, I guess I have to agree with that assessment.
(tho I selfishly wish to see your work.)

Back to my writing.
What came just before:
I came back and turned on the outdoor light.
And I opened the door, just as wide as the security chain would let me.
When dawn came, it would be a cold light, blue-white through the leaves of the trees across the alley.
But now we had the electric light, making noise from some bug stuck in it or something.

And I cut the cupcake in half and squeaked the halves through, each on their own paper plate, eyes down, focused on the things I was handling.
Cars. It had Lightning McQueen on it. Dang. He'd recognize re-used kid's birthday party fare. If he noticed.
And his hands took them.
And he ate.
"Thank you," he said.
And he looked up, looked at me through the 4-inch opening of the door.
"And I'm sorry."

I looked back at him.
"I second that sentiment. Sorry, too."


And now:
Image

Can I see the kids now?" he asked.

I thought I was done. Wasn't my work done? Why couldn't I be done?
I'd held my peace, I'd hung in there, I'd fed my enemy when he was hungry.
You take that step forward, and then you get redemption, right? Redemption in a birthday cupcake. With oily frosting and rainbow sprinkles, right? Close that chapter in a book and turn the page, right?
So why this, now?

I wanted so badly to close my eyes, sit down on the carpet, and lean back against the wall, even if it was by the door.
But it was my turn, so I spoke:
"No."
"Why not? They're my kids, aren't they?"
"It's 3am on a weeknight and they need their sleep."
"Yeah, but they need their dad."
"Yes, they do. You are right about that."
I just wish you'd remember that on the weekends that are yours.
"You're not going to let me in, are you?" he asked.
"Yes, yes. You're right about that, too."

He took a deep breath, put his face right by the opening to the door.
I could see the golden security chain hanging down right in front of his eyes.
And then bellowed. "Michael! Annie! Chelsea! Ty!"
I acted more panicked than I was, and hissed, "Stanley! Shhh!"
And I flapped my hands around, as if I cared about placating him just now.
"Sheerrr-iie! I need my kids. I'm not around enough, and it sets me back in my relationship with them."
I pulled myself up to my full height and looked him straight in the eye: "You know it would set you back even more if..."
But then I trailed off.
If they saw you drunk like this.
I didn't say it, though. Probably for the better.
Just looked at him.
One eye glaring through the space between the door and the jamb.
One eye glaring at another two.

He turned away.
"I know I shouldn't be like this, but what am I supposed to do?"
I just waited a long moment. A long awkward silence.
"Come on, you know."
"What?"
"You can't stay here."
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Go home."
"Go home to your family."
He shrugged sheepishly, then turned and started shuffling away.
Aww, no.
I called after him. "Wait!"
"What?"
"Wait just a minute!"
I closed the front door, rushed to the back, opened it, and was greeted by a rush of cold - no coat, just my sweater.
Then I zipped around to the front of the apartments, where he was parked.
I was going to be fine; the storm had passed.
"You're not well enough to drive back yet, are you?"
"Well, it's not a great idea. No, it's not."
He needs to sleep this off now. Now what?


(Sowwy, folks - probably violating the 10-15 min rule... this was probably AT LEAST 30 mins. I wrote it on the train last week, w/ no internet, but plenty of distractions present.)
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Linna Heartbooger
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Post by Linna Heartbooger »

Ummm, so now I actually wrote the ending to that last story - "Like Leaven that a Wise Woman Hid."
But there's probably 2 parts where I need to go back and put something major in.
If you want to read the ending, PM me!

Here's a totally different story fragment:
She leapt on me with a force and a ferocity that would have been unimaginable. "I want a harvest, I want a harvest!" she was crying for the depths of her soul. It was like she was ready to claw me like a cat.
"No!" shouted our mother.
Samuel peeled her hands off me and then I held her arms down by her sides. They were trembling arms.
I just stared into her dark eyes while mother continued, "You will be dark, dark like the shade, if you work in your brothers' vineyards. No man will look on you."
Now she turned on mother, and cried, "We're one family! We keep one vineyard. We should be able to labor side-by-side. You must let me GO!"
I held her arms down. Her teeth were grinding against one another.
Milk-white teeth. She would have suitors if we could just let go of this childish notion.
Now mother rose, and was stalking across the room at her.
A hundred flames of fire were rising up in our mothers' eyes, and her sharp finger rose and berated Joelle as she spoke:
"You! If I had known what this would become, I would NEVER have gratified your childish fancy. Chasing after dreams! You'll swallow the wind, and never taste the apples and raisins you were meant to live on."
"I will live on wind! There is more life in wind than--"
Here she broke off, as danger rose on mother's visage like a rising thunderstorm.
"I will work in the fields for my brothers, I will work in the fields for my brothers!" mother mimicked.
She was in Joelle's face now, and Samuel and I hovered around, circling, tensed and ready.
"You would eat the wind, and starve. Look at you, now, girl - look at you!"
And indeed, Joelle's kinky black hair looked sodden, and her garment torn and no better than a rough brown cloth a waif would wrap herself in.

"Your brothers love you," said our father's voice.
We all jumped, then turned. He was in the open doorway, the light of the morn embracing his form on either side. We hadn't heard him come in.
Mother turned back to Joelle, and to our horror, continued speaking in just the same way as before: "It is not the right time. You were young once, and you could occupy yourself with childish fancies, but now is not the right time."
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Post by Sorus »

I like that. Very visual.

Oh, a change is coming, feel these doors now closing
Is there no world for tomorrow, if we wait for today?


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Shuram Gudatetris
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Post by Shuram Gudatetris »

They were huddled together behind the counter. The children were whimpering and Adelle wanted to curse them for it.

I don't want to die because you can't be quiet!

In a deep corner of her mind, she hated herself for the thought, but she was quickly losing touch with that part of herself. She was entrapped within the demonic aura of fear which the Pis Ruh emanated. She had been able to resist the panic until now, even when she and Yozou had looked directly at the Pis Ruh and his demonic entourage. But the trepidous emanations were suffocating her, squeezing the life from her, and she knew her Death was approaching. There was no hope, only terror, and the fearless daughter of the Gozaar was cowering under a counter, waiting to die.

A loud thump shook the building, rattling the pictures on the wall and making a glass tumble of the counter. Adelle's heart quailed with dismay as the glass shattered on the floor in front of her. Evil and fear thickened the air like fog, and now even Adelle was whimpering for breath.

The door burst open, sending fragments of wood crashing against the other side of the counter. Adelle flinched away from the impact, and began crawling through the splinters of glass spread on the floor. But her instinct to run betrayed her. The beast at the door stood over seven feet tall, providing its head with high a enough vantage to glimpse the top of Adelle's head behind the bar. The power of his gaze was paralysis.

She was frozen in place. Glass splinters sunk slowly into the flesh of her hands and knees. She no longer struggled for air because her lungs were immobilized. Even her heart stopped beating.

--------------------
I can't stop!
--------------------

It's just an illusion! Yozou's voice filled her head. RUN! Get out of there!

She knew Yozou was long gone. Das Urach understood Yozou's importance and forced him to flee. The voice in her head was madness. There was no running. There was only Death, and It was going to be awful.

"Yes, it's you," growled the Pis Ruh. Adelle felt herself lifting into the air, as if floating upward in water. She was dripping blood from her abrasions. "I can feel that xenactar's touch upon you." The beast snorted loudly. "I smell his stink!"

Xenactar. Betrayer? Yozou!

A light, a spark, an electric shock of energy surged through her body, and Adelle's heart pulsed once, powerfully, sending a jolt of life coursing through her veins.

Yozou.

Adelle felt the rush of blood within her slowing to a stop, her life blood returning to sludge. But her brain was alive with fire. Yozou, his strong arms around her as they stood upon [Lookout Point], gazing down at the Pis Ruh and his goblin horde. She remembered revulsion and determination, she remembered a fierce desire to stand with Yozou and confront the horde.

The clenching of her fists was another pulse of the heart, and suddenly she knew how to fight back against this Pis Ruh. The realization came to her humorously and humiliatingly, so obvious, she coughed a bark of laughter, forgetting the demon's hold upon her was suffocation. Her daxilic eye was open, and now she gazed casually upon the spell cast upon her.

The spell.

It was nothing more than a stupid spell! Oh, the aura of fear was real, there was no denying that. The Demon radiated emotional compulsion and she had no defense against it. But now she knew it for what it was, she could see the radiation. She could probably even influence it. But the paralysis was nothing more than a simple spell--a fucking freeze for crying out loud!--and she learned that on her first day!

Calmly, deliberately, she gazed upon her own body with her daxilic eye, knowing her body, becoming her body, and she nudged it into normalcy.

Xhulesa, she whispered to herself, knowing, yet not knowing, what she spoke. But the command reverberated through her and she could hear the vibrations of it echoing inside herself, quietly suggesting nearly imperceptible notions of resume, relax, restart, realize, refresh: all these ideas were correct, but none of them were quite right. It was xhulesa, and it meant that she was was herself again, restored and revived.

She was Adaelletlia Cicek, the Gozelle of Emidsuhar Eltrilimis. Real, ready, and motherfucking revved.
Covenant is Linden Frankenstein's monster.

I maxed-out Tetris!
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Post by Skyweir »

Wow great writing Linna and Shuram
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Post by Linna Heartbooger »

me, edited slightly wrote:Mother drew herself up and mimicked shrilly: "I will work in the fields for my brothers, I will work in the fields for my brothers!"
She was in Joelle's face now, and Samuel and I hovered around, circling, tensed and ready.
"You would eat the wind, and starve, my child of my womb. Look at you, now, girl - look at you!"
And indeed, Joelle's kinky black hair looked sodden, and her garment torn and no better than a rough brown cloth a waif would wrap herself in.

"Your brothers love you," said our father's voice.
We all jumped, then turned. He was in the open doorway, the light of the morn embracing his form on either side. We hadn't heard him come in.
Mother turned back to Joelle, and to our utter dismay, continued speaking in just the same way as before: "It is not the right time. You were young once, and you could occupy yourself with childish fancies, but now is not the right time."
"Beloved." he said.
He stepped forward into the brown darkness of our cool home.
If I were coming in from outside, I would only think of the coldness of it - like a shock to the system.
"It's the debt!" cried our mother as he walked up to her and reached to put her arms down.
"The debt is paid. Would you make the children a slave of your desires to pay a debt that's already been paid?"
"You know if she became full of wealth, that would make up for it."
"Would that make it better?"
"You bought me. You BOUGHT me!" she yelled, voice rising in tempo.
"And that is a humiliation to you, yes?"
"You don't know what it's like to be a slave!" she screamed; "You have never been a slave."
And it was an unarguable argument.

Father was standing there, full of strength as always; no one could say he was a slave of another.
But I looked at his face and was seeing something strange.
A thought glittered like a spear just behind my father's brow; I was sure of it. A thought he had long borne, never spoken of.
I looked at his hands and his feet; from as long as I could remember, they were active hands, and moving feet - so full of power.
Yet they just seemed to linger there.

And then his hands fell as he released her. From constraint or embrace.
"You were mine before I bought you. I loved you before I bought you. What is my love to you?"
And Mother looked up at him, eyes like oceans, and made a sound - unintelligible; her throat was thick with tears.
And into her eyes, he spoke: "My dear, you are free."
She leaned to the left and crumpled.

______________________________________________________

This beginning is very ensnaring, Shuram:
Shuram Gudatetris wrote:They were huddled together behind the counter. The children were whimpering and Adelle wanted to curse them for it.

I don't want to die because you can't be quiet!

In a deep corner of her mind, she hated herself for the thought, but she was quickly losing touch with that part of herself...
Y'know, I can't think of many examples of children being present in world-shattering SF/F confrontations.
There should be.
(I think of people leading children to safety in the midst of a war. And people having sort of... "being-chased" dreams sometimes get stuck with a group of in-dream children to lead/protect.)
Shuram wrote:...There was no hope, only terror, and the fearless daughter of the Gozaar was cowering under a counter, waiting to die...

...and suddenly she knew how to fight back against this Pis Ruh. The realization came to her humorously and humiliatingly, so obvious...
I like these two... one from the beginning, one from near the end.

Sorus- Thank you - hadn't thought about how visual it was!
It's been just this year that I have finally admitted to myself that I have a love for the dramatic.
And after I wrote it, I thought in amusement, "Everything in it is a symbol, especially the people!"
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Post by samrw3 »

Rally beautiful passage Linna. I especially liked this part

[quote="Linna Heartlistener"] A thought glittered like a spear just behind my father's brow; I was sure of it. A thought he had long borne, never spoken of.

Which includes some great foreshadowing to this piece:

"You were mine before I bought you. I loved you before I bought you. What is my love to you?"
And Mother looked up at him, eyes like oceans, and made a sound - unintelligible; her throat was thick with tears.
And into her eyes, he spoke: "My dear, you are free."
She leaned to the left and crumpled.[/i]
______________________________________________________
I don't know how to describe your writing so I will just use the first word that pops into my head - enchanting - like I am immersed into the story.
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Post by Skyweir »

oooh yeah sam that is a beautiful prose ..

Welll described Linna. You have quite a talent :D
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Post by samrw3 »

Been toying around with this story see if it goes anywhere..

The Break-Up
Karah was driving to Alan's pond. She didn't want to go. Not in the least bit did she want to go. Alan had a crush on her forever. She knew it and she knew everyone else knew it. But she had no interest in Alan.

No this was a clearly a case of being too nice for your good type of thing. She had once told some boys to stop picking on Alan. But Alan was one of those impossibly tall gangly type guys the bigger guys just couldn't resist tormenting. That is all it took for Alan to notice her to make her stick out.

He would clumsily try to talk to her. She could see the frustration in him every time he tried. But she had a thing for the broad shouldered football players. Sometimes she wished she could make her heart stop going loopy for them - but she couldn't and that was all there was to it.

Her thoughts veered back to the road. It was one of those long winding curved roads. It was filled with small rolling green hills and nice trees peeking along the edges. It had its mandatory broken down barns scattered here and there. But the main thing that bothered her was that it was so blasted quiet. Karah cursed at herself again for agreeing to come.

But Alan had pleaded with her. In his squeaky voice and hesitations he pleaded. Truly she thought it was almost pathetic. She didn't want to think what she was thinking but she couldn't control all of her thoughts nice or not. Besides she told herself maybe she could find some way somehow to tell Alan that he was just becoming a little too much. Coming by here house with hastily grabbed flowers was embarrassing and awkward by itself. However, when he approached her at a group outing and tripped on a tree root to awkwardly say "h...i... Kar,,,ah..." and mortify her in front of her friends well she was losing control of her emotions.

Curses - she swore to herself - am I really this cruel? But how could she fight a feeling she had in every part of her being? to deny those thoughts came to her head would just be flat out lying. She didn't have to like every guy that came along just under the front of "being nice" did she?

She sighed to herself and shook the ice in her cup. A nice rattling sound that distracted herself long enough from getting too upset. Oh no she did not want to go at all. Every mile that stretched she had to control her impulse to stop the car and turn around. She cursed to herself again and shook the ice until it practically flew out of the cup.


Ok that was bout 15 minutes
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Post by samrw3 »

The Break Up - continued
Karah was quickly approaching the turnoff for the pond. Every swear word she could think of bounced around in her head. Almost too quickly she swerved into the narrow dirt road kicking up dirt behind her car. She was traveling too quickly but she just didn't care any longer. About anything.

Karah stopped abruptly at the end of the circle. She left her hands clenched on the steering wheel staring blindly trying not to focus. She knew she could not sit there forever. But she just didn't care. Her heart was racing and she needed to find some way to center herself.

Karah released the steering wheel and unbuckled her seat belt. She still could not face looking in any particular direction. She was too afraid to see him. she could not face that right now. The time would come soon enough. She puffed out a huge sigh of exasperation and opened her door. She stepped out of her car and smoothed her shirt and pants. She was purposely focusing on her shirt and pants trying to gain focus and composure.

Karah finally took her first real look outwards. She started with the pond. It was beautiful day and the sun was sparkling in the water. She could make out the waves softly brushing against the edges. Finally, her eyes went to the dock she suspected Alan would be there. She had seen him there before and knew it was his favorite place. She saw that Alan was there just sitting at the edge of the deck. Karah was grateful for one thing at least - Alan had not starting running towards her in greeting.

Karah made her first step forward and almost acted on her instinct to rush back to her car, jump in and take off. That thought made her giggle inside. Then the next second Karah swore to herself - you are here get it over with. What seemed like eternity she made another step forward.


Ok another 15 minutes
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Post by samrw3 »

The Break-Up continued

Alan
Alan casually walked over to the pond where he was going to meet Karah. It was a nice sunny day with just a few clouds hovering the skies.

He chose this spot because it was his place to reflect. It was a nice quiet pond. There were just a few small trees near the shoreline. But what he loved most was how the cool water swam between his toes. In some ways it was the one place he felt most safe and secure. He needed that today above all other.

Alan sat on the edge of the deck and dangled his legs down into the water. Already he was feeling calmer. As he lazily drifted his feet and legs he reflected on what brought him here. He felt he needed to talk to someone and never felt too close to anyone. Most kids either ignored him or the bigger guys enjoyed bullying him. Alan had noticed Karah before but when he saw the fire in her eyes and tight cheeks as she shouted at them - well that reminded him of his fights with his sister Becca.

Ah Becca! Her tight blonde curls bouncing, her dimpled face. Everyone he knew thought Becca was the most adorable creature on earth. But to Alan, Becca was the little sister worthy of tormenting. Alan enjoyed stealing her phone, throwing plastic spiders in her room (oh she hated spiders! and most of all hiding her precious slippers. Becca loved her slippers. He remembered the day he placed ketchup packs on her slipper and her not paying the right kind of attention...Ah! all heck broke loose! Becca's face contorted in a fiery rage and screamed at him in a shrill voice. Remembering it back now though brought on too many emotions. He kicked hard at the water and shouted "DAMN!" to the skies.

Alan stretched back his arms to lean back, closing his eyes against the sun. He sat back upright to try to find the knot in the wood. He placed his finger down in the knot feeling the wood scrape against his finger. His memories shifted back to Karah and trying to find Karah to talk to her. He felt he needed to tell her, to talk to her, to...well he was not positive. Somehow Karah represented the pain he needed to confront. His mind flashed back to the day he approached Karah with a group of friends. Alan clenched the bottom of the deck with his finger through the knot as the memory flashed in his mind. He now knew he was foolish to try to talk to Karah with that many people around but his eagerness overcame his reason. He remembered seeing Karah trying to deflect Tom's over active hands. He remembered seeing the flame in Karah's eyes and hearing her shrill voice shouting. At that moment Alan's thoughts went to Becca. Even though Alan loved tormenting Becca he could not imagine anyone else even looking at her cross-eyed. At that moment of in some repaying Karah he had taken the only course of action he could think of - he purposely tripped near the group. The reaction was immediate - laughter and insults and the group jostling him as they began to leave. But what caused the most pain was the look in Karah's eyes when he stumbled "hi Kar..ah". The pain was now more like an axe to his heart.

Alan twisted his legs through the water. Alan cursed at himself and scraped his finger in the know twisting it too tightly. But Alan didn't mind the small pain pulsating through his finger. The pain gave him something to distract his thoughts. The pain centered him and reminded him why he was here. Alan supposed he could try to find someway to get through the day but he was tired. tired of life. Tired of pain. Tired of not trying. This time he had to try. Maybe he would regret it. He didn't care. He twisted his finger in the knot again and splashed the water hard with his feet. A nice splash of water echoed around his leg.

Alan swayed back and forth on the dock. He looked across the sunlight pond. He tumbled the water through his toes and felt every cool swish of water caress his toes. He closed his eyes again and listened to his heartbeat. No, he was glad he tried - Damn it all if it was right or not. It was the right thing for him now. Silently he waited.


Ok WAY over 15 minutes - but I did a MAJOR re-write. This is important later on because this is NOT the version Linna comments on later. I am not positive I am 100% happy with this version either but can't think of how to re-write and still make my ending work...so it will have to do.
Last edited by samrw3 on Wed Apr 04, 2018 8:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Linna Heartbooger »

I thought if I started wearing a cross, that would be, you know, a holy thing. I mean, it's a symbol, right? But no, it's always the skull tattoo that gets these kinds of conversations going. Sometimes I really wish it was the cross necklace. Like, "Hey, Tamara, why don't you-- wait, you're wearing a cross?" And then I would know it was time to tell people about Gospel and about Jesus. But no. The skull tattoo.

It is on my neck and right near the clavicle, so when people think about it for two seconds, they know "WOW, that must have hurt to have it done." And it did. And so then the topic of pain is kind of in the air, right then and there. And without thinking, I just say something that connects to my old life, like "I've always had a kind of strange relationship to death," and after that I know if they want to have a serious conversation or not. Like really fast. If someone laughs and cracks the kind of joke to lighten things up and avoid the topic, I let them go. But if not, well, yeah, we plunge into just how much of a mess the world is. (I would have put it differently before - but I don't know; I have this friend Maureen, and she's my Bible study leader and even when Mo isn't there I don't want to talk in a way that I wouldn't talk in front of her. I don't know; it was easier to express what a thousand-mile-an-hour disaster hurtling through space this old earth is back then. I'm not sure what I should do. But hey, I've always said, "I'm gonna be the same person in front of any of my friends as I am at home, and the same person I am at home as I am in the silence of my own mind." So, it cuts both ways, I guess.)



Now, on to sam's work!
samrw3 wrote:...She had once told some boys to stop picking on Alan. But Alan was one of those impossibly tall gangly type guys the bigger guys just couldn't resist tormenting. That is all it took for Alan to notice her to make her stick out.

He would clumsily try to talk to her. She could see the frustration in him every time he tried. But she had a thing for the broad shouldered football players. Sometimes she wished she could make her heart stop going loopy for them - but she couldn't and that was all there was to it.
I like this!!!
"But Alan was one of those impossibly tall gangly type guys the bigger guys just couldn't resist tormenting."
"He WOULD clumsily try to talk to her."
Her thoughts veered back to the road. It was one of those long winding curved roads. It was filled with small rolling green hills and nice trees peeking along the edges. It had its mandatory broken down barns scattered here and there...
I like how her thoughts veered back to the road, and her CAR is veering also as it follows the winding road.
actions in real life acting as metaphor for what's going on in the life of the mind.
"Mandatory broken down barns" ...yesss!
She sighed to herself and shook the ice in her cup. A nice rattling sound that distracted herself long enough from getting too upset. Oh no she did not want to go at all. Every mile that stretched she had to control her impulse to stop the car and turn around. She cursed to herself again and shook the ice until it practically flew out of the cup.
like this. actions telegraphing emotions.
sam wrote:Almost too quickly she swerved into the narrow dirt road kicking up dirt behind her car.
I love the visual on this. Very teenager. I grew up in a rural place.
I totally remember the guy who would go swervy back-and-forth, back-and-forth on a dirt road when there's no other car else in sight. With friends in said car!

Alright... now, on your most recent post, I -LOVE- what you planned for what was REALLY going on when he tripped over the root.
I love it! The guy is resourceful and virtuous.
But I think your storytelling impact would be stronger if you allowed it to be revealed it in some other way or a little later... nonetheless, if you don't gots an idea for a way to re-do it, you can just keep moving forward.
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Post by samrw3 »

[quote="Linna Heartlistener"]
It is on my neck and right near the clavicle, so when people think about it for two seconds, they know "WOW, that must have hurt to have it done." And it did. And so then the topic of pain is kind of in the air, right then and there. And without thinking, I just say something that connects to my old life, like "I've always had a kind of strange relationship to death," and after that I know if they want to have a serious conversation or not.

This part was very interesting - [well the whole thing was interesting - just saying to me this part was very interesting - lol] Wanted to get to understand this person more in depth.


Yeah I have been struggling with this story - actually the ending in my mind has changed a half dozen times - lol. So at first I was just going to tell the story from Karah's perspective. But the recent ending I have in my mind needed Alan's perspective. I was trying to rush how I wrote out that section to make close to the fifteen minute mark so I was not totally satisfied with it either. I will have to re-read my sections and probably tweak Alan's section. But at the moment I am reasonably happy enough to let it lay for a few days.

OK for those that are interested I performed major re-write of Alan's section as I commented there - Linna's comments above do not reflect this latest version. I am not positive I am 1000% happy with this version but I think it is improved and adds to the ending I hope to write.
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Post by samrw3 »

The Break-UP continued

Karah approached Alan as if she was determined. But truthfully her emotions ravaged inside of her. Her eyes were focused on Alan as she walked trying to focus on him to get some sort of sense of reaction. But Alan continued to sit on the deck almost as if she was not there. For some reason that irritated Karah. She came all this way and so far no acknowledgement. At the same time Karah was grateful - she was not sure how she would handle him approaching her.

Karah gritted her teeth and walked quicker nearby to where Alan sat. She stood over him and noticed his arms and hands stiffly framed against the deck. His eyes seemed focused on the surrounding waters. He finally spoke without looking at her "Beautiful day isn't it?"
Karah looked at the sun rippling through the ways "yes, yes it is".

There was a period of awkward silence as Karah continued to stand uncertain what to do next. Alan shifted "I'm glad you came Karah. Would you like to sit down?" Karah did not know what to make of any of this. Alan seemed so distant and so composed. To Karah it seemed like Alan could be talking to the deck. Karah stretched her back and looked out at the water again. The hell with it, she thought. She reached down and took off her shoes and sit nearby Alan as she placed her feet in the water. It was a nice cool refreshing feeling. She drifted her legs through the water and glanced over at Alan wondering what was taking him so long to say anything.

Alan shifted his body so that his whole upper body was flexed forward"I love coming here. I find peace."

Karah noticed that Alan seemed to be talking towards the lake and seeming to choose every word carefully. Karah slowly moved here leg backwards feeling the water brush against her leg. "Alan?" is all she could think of saying.

Alan finally shifted his gaze to Karah. "Thank you for coming Karah, I....I needed someone to talk to"

Karah noticed a sense of determination. However she felt behind that determination was a force about to break. Karah could not maintain the gaze any longer and looked out at the pond. "What's going on?"

Karah noticed that his gaze shifted back to the pond as well. "I used to come here with her you know?"

Karah rattled "With wh..." But noticed Alan was not done. She felt he needed her to listen. She cursed to herself - what the hell? But she resigned to herself to listen.

Ok another 15 minutes
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Post by Sorus »

Don't stop now!

Oh, a change is coming, feel these doors now closing
Is there no world for tomorrow, if we wait for today?


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Post by samrw3 »

Points his finger at Linna - she's the one the one to make the five to fifteen minute rule :P . Nah just kidding. I will write another section in a couple days. It will definitely be a long break like before because work caught up with me then I had a bunch of false starts because I would start typing and erase what I typed. This story has been grueling for me - because I keep changing my mind how to end it ...lol.
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Post by Sorus »

I never know how I'm going to end a story. I'm not sure any of my stories have endings. I should try to actually finish something one of these days. I just tend to throw characters somewhere into the middle and fill in some backstory and have something ominous waiting in the future. But even if they deal with the ominous whatever, I never feel like I'm done with them.

Oh, a change is coming, feel these doors now closing
Is there no world for tomorrow, if we wait for today?


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Post by samrw3 »

Sorus, that is true for me as well. The hardest parts for me are the beginning and the endings. The beginning because I think I am starting off too slow and the ending because I never know when to end the story arc. Although in this current story I do have a definite ending in mind - I just don't have a precise ending in mind I have two strong possibilities with one ending leaning as more as the "right" one.

Of course in theory after my ending someone could take it and write more about the characters - I will certainly leave enough wiggle room for that. However I will be done with the story because I will have satisfactorily ended what I want to do with them.

PS Still looking for a Sorus story in here or two minute thread - get cracking! :P

Just kidding although I would like to read one of yours one of these days I understand how these things go.
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