Let's face it

I'll admit it. Most of the time, I think my writing sucks, and that no one in their right mind could really like it. I read it. And read it again. And look at the words, little black marks on a big white screen, and say: "Can I ever make it? Will I ever be among the names that people think of as great writers, or will I live on in eternity as the girl who tried but never made it."

It is those moments when I stop and glare stare at the little black marks and want to cry. Hard.

The trick is, to not give up.

 

 

It is so easy to just say it isn't good enough, no one will care, and it will never work. It is simple to let the dream fade and erase the passion of yesterday on today's blank walls (or pages). But I can't. I can't let go.

 

I think this is something we all go through, that feeling of insecurity, of not being good enough, of seeing all that is out there and going: "How can I fit into that?"

 

The thing is, I doubt any of those famous writers ever dreamed they would be the next hit, the star of the century, with fans reading their books centuries after they are dead. Some of them never even got to see their glory. Some of them never witnessed the day when their passion grew to be other's too. But the point is, they didn't give up. They didn't stop. They didn't let the discouragement drag them down.

 

What is your wall? Where do you sit when you can't face the little black marks again, knowing what they are?  Can you ignore the water pooling in your belly that threatens to put out the flame of your passion?

 

 





 

 

The truth is I will all always feel inadequate. I will always feel like a failure. Nobody ever was fully satisfied with anything. That is why we always strive for better, work it again, change it around. The power of words is you can use them over and over and over again ~ the very same ones ~ and they can be varied into a hundred different ways!

 

So the key is to find satisfaction in my craft. It won't be perfect. I can't look at it expecting it to be. I am human. It is my nature to fail and to be flawed.

 



It is time to look at my work and see the beauty of it.

 

 



 

 

I am the worst person for critiquing my own writing. I type it out and then mash it up into tiny bits, analyzing each word, working out every sentence, changing all the nouns around a million times until my poor brain is so frazzled I leave it in an unreadable mass.

 

I groan. I type it again. I die. Then I delete it. I press undo. I change it again. I rearrange the structure, thinking maybe if I start it with a clause, or maybe a interjection, it might be better. I hate it. I write what I started with again.

 

Some day, I'm going to learn to just accept it for what it is. The imperfect ramblings of an imperfect girl. And that day will be glorious.

 

For now, I will weep. Tear my hair out. Trash my novels. Agonize over each little word. Teach myself to breath deeply and not scream. Spend days trying to figure out if I look good in wigs and wondering if it might just be best to delete the whole thing.

 

But the good thing is (am I in my write mind?), so will you.

 

And together, we can learn to let our writing be just that. Our writing. It can be beautiful just the way it is.

 

 



 

 



Writing styles: what style do you want?

First off, we’ve all heard this fancy word. But have we ever stopped to think about what style is? And just how it relates to our writing?

I took the liberty of looking it up and here were four different definitions that popped up.

 

arts distinctive form: a distinctive and identifiable form in an artistic medium such as music, architecture, or literature

·  a facade in the neoclassical style

·  a different style of jazz

 

way of doing something: a way of doing something, especially a way regarded as expressing a particular attitude or typifying a particular period (often used in combination)

·  a hands-on management style

·  old-style politics

·  Confrontation just isn’t his style.

 

way of writing or performing: the way in which something is written or performed as distinct from the content of the writing or performance

 

publishing: publishing conventions: the ways in which written material is presented, usually in a particular publication or by a particular publisher

·  editing text into the publisher’s house style

 

Microsoft® Encarta® Reference Library 2004. © 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation.

 

“What counts as good writing varies from culture to culture and even among groups within cultures.  In some situations, you will need to become familiar with the writing styles – such as direct or indirect, personal or impersonal, plain or embellished – that are valued by the culture or discourse community for which you are writing.” A Writer’s Reference, Diana Hacker; Fourth Edition

 

 



 

 

In my opinion, styles are like accents. You can pick and choose among a million different ones.

 

They may all sound nice, cool even, but you can’t mix and match. You will end up with a manuscript that is painful to read, just like hearing a man switch from Scottish to Russian to Australian to British to French accents within one sentence would be painful to hear ~ and a little confusing. (If you can understand what he said, I’ll give you a star that says genius in big gold letters!)

 

That is why it is important every writer knows right off that you have your individual style. You are native to only one. You have to settle with the one you are most comfortable with, the one that flows out of your blood. It is your own, and no one else’s. It may fall under different categories, systems, or “personalities” of writing. But it is who you are, what you have created, not what you have heard. It is what makes him unlike all other writers.

 

You can learn to write this way or that, but it doesn’t mean it will sound real. If you are painstakingly writing every word, the reader will know it. A good reader can smell out a fake after a first few sentences. Writers talk on and on about making sure the reader falls in love with your protagonist and your story right away. But they forget that the very means to do that is through the way you write it. Your style.

 

So what makes your style anyway?

 

Think about all of the great writers. Dickens. Tolkien. C.S. Lewis. Louisa May Alcott. Writers that everyone can identify. What do you think of when you hear their names? What is it that makes them stand out, different, from anyone else? That is their style, their voice, what makes them who they are. And this is our goal.

 

So maybe it is a certain use of words.      

 

The way you create your dialogue.

 

The personalities of your characters.

 

Or even the varied descriptions or unique analogies.

 

Whatever that part of you is that you bring across to the reader. THAT is your style. And that is what will make you who you are in your writing.

 

The Tempest

 

Today is Write On Edge’s Friday linkup! Their prompt this week is: rain.

 

 

 

 

This selection comes from my historical fiction, Till Dawn Rises, the 3^rd book in The Endless Fire Trilogy.

 

The setting:

A dark alleyway, deep in the heart of ancient Alexandria

Inside conspirators and an ambush

Pouring rain

 



 

Word count: 392
Ó Pure Grace

 

 

Marcellus’s foot slipped with a splash into a puddle and awoke his mind to the street around him. The wind had picked up and his torch sputtered helplessly in his hand, winking the last of its strength away in a feeble attempt to outlive the whirling, devilish wind and rain. The frigid water soaked through the bottom of his sandal and jolted to the bones. Everything was wet, slick, grimy. Rivers of rain cascaded over him, running in jets down his arms and dripping from his hair. He glanced down, watching the water streaming through the street and plink upon the cobblestones as it poured from the sky.

A startled cry from Claudia beside him caused him to whirl. There, the first step had begun. Merci stood, wreathed in torchlight, at the end of the street, like a beckoning angel in the midst of the tempest.

Claudia broke away from his side, slipping in the rain, trying to run, her arms stretched toward Merci. He had to stop her. He couldn’t let this happen. The pieces were falling into place. But not for Gauis.

Aelia gripped his elbow and the electric touch of her cold hand stimulated his senses.

“Nay, Claudia, stop!” he shouted. The rebellious wind blew his words back into his mouth as it struck the rain into his eyes and nose. But it was time he made things right. Before he could think twice, he sprinted after her. There were many things he had done in his lifetime, and he was proud of none of them. They flashed across his mind, pictures, snippets of memory, things he would have liked to have forgotten, blood screaming on his hands. He had to fix it, once and for all.

Dropping the dead torch, he concentrated on the world before him. Claudia raced toward Merci, oblivious of the biting cold and fierce wind. The girl still stood calmly in the shielding alcove, her face emotionless, eyes as old and blank as the first moment he had seen her. Marcellus knew Aulus’s dagger pierced her back, a deadly reminder for her to stay still, to say nothing. And Gauis, the instigator, the monster, lurked in the shadows behind her, waiting to snatch Claudia the moment she reached her wayward Merci, to cart her away and finish her. And it was all his doing.

 

 

 

Once Upon a Time... linkup: Questions

It's time! For the weekly Once Upon a Time... linkup!

Before I say anything more, I want to thank Cait for fixing up my linkup button!! Now you all can get it to really work on your blogs! Hurrah! No more amateur fiddlings here!

So, this week's prompt is: questions.

This should be a fun one, because any number of situations can come from questions. Mix-ups, anger, confusion, explanations....

My excerpt comes from The Last Scribe again.

The setting:

The edge of the vast Woodland of Eradrea.

A knight, a girl, and Breem.

 

 

 

 

Word count: 202
Ó Pure Grace

“Wait!”

Mikailah jerks back, her face blank with surprise. “Why? What is it?”

“We should travel only at night?” I swallow my air, trying to reason with my mind, make myself reasonable, speak what I am thinking.

“Why?” Kiar demands. “We are three nobody travelers. The warriors of Sargon concern themselves with rich.”

That isn’t true. That we are nobody’s. And he knows it. But it also isn’t true the Sargonian warriors only attack rich men. They kill anyone. Anyone. But I can’t tell them how I know. Not without answering a million questions, questions I don’t want them to ask, questions I don’t want to think about, things I don’t want to remember.

“Why Breem?”

I shrug. “It will be safer.”

“But it’s faster to travel in daylight.” Kiar is already stepping out onto the slope, Mikailah at his heels. “And the faster we get into Messeran, the faster we can get an escort to find Mytharal.”

I can’t stop them. I can’t leave them. I glance behind me, into the refuge of the Woodland, where TerRors and fire-breathing alligators make their home, and think of how safe it was. How easy it was to hide. To get away. I felt…protected.

 

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Guest Post by poet Grace

This week's guest post is by my dear friend Grace, from Poems and Ponderings. She has created a beautiful post about inspiration. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.





Inspiration.
 

It’s a silly, wild, elusive little thing, isn’t it? So necessary to art and writing and life, yet so often hard to catch.
 

Catch? Hmmm. No, that’s not quite right...

 

Inspiration may elude or even run from us, but it is not something that can be captured. It was not made to be caught and tamed, put on display and wondered at.

 

Oh, but it certainly is something to be wondered at. It is quite possibly the very life-blood of a writer’s existence.

So why does it seem so hard to come by sometimes? That we can sit and stare at paper or screen for hours and have nothing to say, no words to describe, no ideas to present...

 

Ahhhhh, writer’s block! We moan. We doodle. We daydream. We poke around on Pinterest. But nothing comes...must just be out of inspiration. It must be hiding again...hmmm.
 

Well maybe it’s not quite so rare as we might think.

 

 

 

What if we could open our eyes to see that inspiration really is in and all around us – the people we know and the strangers we don’t, the world we live in and the places in us that we no longer visit? What if I told you that inspiration is all about how you see the world around you and yourself and the things you write or sing or draw about?

 

(Because let’s face it, we’re all artists whether our tools are paint and canvas or pen and paper or keys and computer screen...but you knew that.)

 

Our task is to capture the wonder of people and life and emotion through story and words, to inspire our readers, to find it for ourselves...
 

Wait what? Write to be amazed ourselves? Oh but don’t we? Isn't that the first reason we write – to discover for ourselves the wonder of a beautifully described character, a perfectly conveyed emotion, a scene so clear you can see it, a line of poetry so pure it gives you shivers?

We write ourselves into other lands and other people and other times. We write ourselves in and out of emotions and joy and pain.

 

And inspiration fuels it all.
 

What is inspiration really?
 

I looked it up and one resource defined inspiration as “the act of drawing in.” I like that. It’s so true.

 

When we open our eyes to the little things around us – the way the sun catches the autumn trees, the mischievous grin of your favorite two-year-old, the friendly twinkle in the eye of that old lady in front of you at the grocery store, that song that comes on the radio at just the right time – drawing in all those things that make it worth climbing out from the warm covers into the freezing room in the morning...that’s where inspiration flows freely from the world and into us and then out of our fingers onto paper and screen.

 

That’s when you realize that all the inspiration you need is right there in your backyard and your house and yourself – like that funny quirk your neighbor has of standing by the mailbox and throwing away half his mail without opening it, or your little brother’s habit of singing while he does the dishes, or the way you turn to writing when you’re trying to figure something out.

 

It’s all right there. We just have to learn how to see...


Grace is the oldest of six crazy kids. She loves Jesus, books, writing, poetry, music, and making treats for her family. In her free time you can most likely find her with her nose in a good book or playing around on her dad’s guitar. Someday she hopes to write bible studies, finish her two novels-in-progress, and publish an anthology of her poetry and prose.

 

 

 

Saturday Quotes

Today is the day for quotes, and I am in the mood for some inspiration!!!!



“Do one thing every day that scares you.”
 Eleanor Roosevelt

 

 

“I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched.”
 Edgar Allan Poe

 

 



 

 

“Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.”

 Rita Mae Brown

 

 

“I am not afraid…I was born to do this.”

 Joan of Arc

 

 

“It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more to stand up to your friends.”

 J. K. Rowling

 

 



 

 

“I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent”

 Thomas Edison

 

 

I really like that quote right there.....

 

 

“To get the truth, you want to get your own heart to pound while you write.”

 Robert McKee

 

 



 

 

“Each moment of our life, we either invoke or destroy our dreams.”

 Stuart Wilde

 

 

“Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creativity."

Bo Bennett quotes



 

 

New

Linking up with Write on Edge today!

This week their prompt is on something new.

Excerpt from The Last Scribe, my fantasy novel.
 

Word count: 300
Ó Pure Grace

Mikailah’s jaw is dropped open. But I am done. I jerk my pack over my shoulders and take off through the prairie grass. She and Kiar scramble around the campsite, shoving the last of our belongings into Kiar’s bag and running after me.

“Breem! Breem, stop!” Mikailah shouts, but I ignore her. It is a new emotion, this anger. I don’t think I like it, but I can’t help it. It courses through my veins like a red-hot iron, changing everything it touches. I am stiff and even my muscles ache. I can’t control it. I feel fake, plastic ~ made.

This is me. Nothing. Nobody. A boy with no identity.

Can I ever change?

They catch me before ten minutes is up, but whether by joined consensus or not, neither of them speak. Maybe they don’t know what to say, or maybe they are just afraid to speak, but I am not going to change their minds. For once, I wish I could. I wish I could say something more, something to change what I said. I have never before been able to speak my mind so clearly, to tell others how I feel. It feels strange to have communicated my heart, wrong, somehow, like I have betrayed something. I can’t make sense of why. So I pretend it is not there and keep walking, back straight, head forward. It won’t matter what happened in a few days anyway. I will be leaving them. And they will be glad. Everyone is always glad when I leave.

Well, let it be so.

But, for the first time, I don’t want that to be true. It is funny, this new longing stirring in my chest, brought on by the anger. I don’t know if I like it or not. I can’t make sense of it. But it makes me wish they want me. It makes me wish they care.

 

 



Dangerous business

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~ LotR, Bilbo


Writing a book is an adventure. But more importantly, it is your adventure. Each and every book in the world holds bits and pieces of its' author. It is the soul, the child, and masterpiece, of all they want to accomplish. Nobody ever started a book for no reason.

Books tell a lot about an author. They define the struggles, the aches and pains, the turmoil, in one person's heart. It glimpses the passions, desires, and longings that surround them. Pictures of rosie sunsets come on days when moods are high with excitement. Thunderstorms roll over the horizon of your world when days are gloomy and tears are hiding behind quivering eyelashes. This is not something a reader can know about. It is something only a fellow writer can feel and explain.

I know one thing is true for me. Every mood I am in sets the course for what I am writing. If I am angry, I write an angry scene. If I am excited, energy all round! If I am in pain, my poor character can expect a wound. This is not something I do just because it relieves me. I do it because, when I am mad, I can make sense of anger. When I am excited, my joy leaps to the skies. When I am hurting, I can describe the pain. Writing what you feel about something is a way to not only make it real, but make it alive.



Your own books are not the only ones that will speak to what you feel and write. The kind of books you read, the kind of books you like, are going to define your writing. They will shape and influence your style. And they will master the ideas and adventures that fly through your imagination.

I don't think anyone can claim to be a writer and not love to read books, to sit with them, to loose yourself inside them. Books are the end work of all we are trying to accomplish. If you cannot appreciate what another writer has completed, how can you except to find others to value yours.

I think it is good to surround yourself with an eclectic mixture of books, both for the development of your mind and your writing.

Find books with great plot structure. Find books with solid, flesh and blood characters. Find books with great dialogue, intriguing twists, and fantastic adventures. Find books that are different, books that are touching, books that are creative. Don't just read fantasy. Don't just read historical. Don't just read point-of-fact, news, or inspirational. Take every book for its own merit.

This was a bit of a rambling post, but I think it more or less spilled out what I wanted to say. *_*



Once Upon a Time... linkup: Memories

Still plugging along at this!!! It's fun, I must say, even if I am only doing it myself most weeks. The challenge of thinking up an original prompt and then seeing if even I have any snippets to post is so exciting I can't help but feeling like Wednesday is one of my favorite days to blog post.

This week, the prompt is: memories.

Memories are important. They mean something to all of us, good or bad. They shape us, for the better or the worse. But, no matter what, no matter who we are, we have them.

And that includes our characters.

This week I am doing something new. There will be several selections from my dark fantasy, The Last Scribe.

The setting:
A journey through a vast Woodland.

A knight and a girl.

Conversation of home.

 

Word count: 122
Ó Pure Grace

“No, there are no siblings.” I know that was awkward and made no sense. I already said that. But I could think of nothing else to say. I have never had a taste of a sibling relationship. There was no laughing around my table at night. Just glaring and fear. Always fear.

“Ah, yes,” she shrugs and walks on. Silence fills the forest now. I don’t know why, but I think I have killed the conversation, or maybe they are both so wrapped up in their memories they don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t like remembering. I don’t like thinking of the past. I don’t even want to remember. The past hurts.

Memories are only fear coming back to haunt you.

The setting:

The same Woodland.
New plans.

Word count: 175
Ó Pure Grace

The trees are huge pillars in the forest that support a green dome of leaves. Sunlight trickles through in streams, dancing on the forest floor. Kiar leads with a surety of step that eases me. The stress slides away from my shoulders. Maybe I am turning careless, to relax so soon, but I can’t help it. I am pleased with the way things have turned out. Once I get back into Messeran, I will enlist knights to help Mikailah and I will return home. To my own village. Things can go back to the way it was before Zealeth came.

I hope. A picture a Zealeth looms in my mind. It is black and stretched and despairing, broken. Like I failed. I smash it in my mind and stomp on. The memories will never go. I admit it. But they will soon fade. They don’t matter. All that matters is getting home. Why? I ask myself.

I have no answer so I shrug it away. It doesn’t matter why, it just matters that I do.

 

The setting:

The edge of a vast plain.

Fear, choking fear.
Confusion and pain.

Word count: 251
Ó Pure Grace

I shiver when I think of the last time I was in broad daylight in Sargon. I have to tell Kiar and Mikailah that the knights will be looking for me. Even if I am not who they think I am, they are still going to be scouring the countryside for me. Now we have slipped past the Stronghold unnoticed, the Woodland is the safest place for me. But we cannot get into Messeran ~ more importantly, to the tents of Rowan ~ without walking out of its protecting comfort and into the world. I dread that moment. More than anything else.

Mikailah kicks a lump of dirt out of her path and it bounces away. “Tell me more of your mother, Breem.”

Well, almost anything else.

I don’t know what to tell. There is not much I remember. The little I do is in a foggy blur, snippets of memories, half stories I was told by Aunt Deara, half things I recall from my childhood. There is one thing I remember about her. She was always soft. Soft-spoken, soft feeling, soft-hearted. I don’t understand how she could be. It is a hard world, and our village is the hardest one in it. But how can I describe that? How can I tell them she was the most important thing to me before she died? How can I say that I broke when I was left alone? Can I express the pain inside me, even now, when I think about it?

Join the Once Upon a Time... linkup:

Post a selection from your current WIP no larger than 500 words to your blog.

If there is a prompt, make sure your section fits the requirements.

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Connect your link using the linkup button on Wednesdays (they will always be held on Wednesdays)!

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Guest Post by author Charley Robson

This week's guest post is by Charley Robson, from The Leaning Tower of Plot. I hope you all enjoy her awesome work!!!

 



Writing for your Audience

 

If J.K. Rowling ever won some fictional writing-based Oscars, I like to think she’d open her speech with “I’d like to thank my mum, my cat, and my readership”.

As far as planning a book goes, knowing who you write for is right up there with all the fundamentals: perspective, length, ratio of ninjas to pirates. Your audience will affect not only what you write, but how you write it. I know I’d have a hard time marketing my twisted, psychological dystopian to a group of five-to-seven year olds – they’d never sit through all that boring dialogue, and would probably get all the characters’ names mixed up.

But how do you know who you write for? And, if you’re not sure, how can you work out an appropriate age range for your book?

I’m going to use a shameless bit of self-promotion here: this year, my lovely co-author and I wrote a mystery story, set in a girl’s boarding school. We called it St Mallory’s Forever! and the title features a bright bold font, a lacrosse stick, and a school kilt whose pattern sends my brain whizzing off down Nostalgia Avenue faster than you can say “prep time”.

Officially, we haven’t decided on an age range for the book, but to me, the target audience is kids who are just starting secondary school. As all of our narrators are girls, and the setting is almost exclusively female, I think it is also safe to assume that most of our readers – parents and enthusiastic friends aside – will also be female.

We’ve also kept the tone of the book fairly light-hearted, with plenty of hi-jinx and mischief and fun pop-culture references – more St Trinians than Sherlock Holmes in the mystery style. So, it would probably be suitable for slightly younger readers too.

From this, I can guess that our target audience is mostly female, from the ages of about 10 upwards. I can’t put a top limit on it – it’s hard to do that on any book that isn’t The Very Hungry Caterpillar – but that’s not really necessary. All I need to know is, write it as if my ten year old cousin were to read it. This means quick pace, maximum action, and plenty of entertainment value. Oh, and no murder, drugs or hacking into MI6.

However, as important as checking out your target audience is, it’s not the end of the world. I’m pretty sure Tolkein didn’t expect enthusiastic fourteen-year-olds to be curled up under their beds reading The Silmarillion, and Cornelia Funke would probably laugh herself into stitches if she knew that the seventeen-year-old Oxford hopeful still keeps a very battered copy of Dragon Rider and The Thief Lord on her shelf.

Those examples are completely random and not anecdotal in any way, just so you know.

That’s the joy of books, you see. It doesn’t matter how old you are – what matters is what you find in them. Sure, if you’re writing a kids’ book you may want to avoid adding that scene where the cat decorates the doorstep with fifteen dead blackbirds. Unless that was the point of your story, of course – in which case I want to know what sort of sugar you put in your cereal this morning, and can I have some?

So, to finish, here’s my list of things that will help you pick out the target audience for your burgeoning literary masterpiece. Bearing in mind that these are my personal selections, and depending on the type of book you’re writing they may vary in degrees of importance or relevance.

1 – Length.

2 – Plot complexity.

3 – Age of the protagonists.

4 – Possibly wobbly content (coarse language, “mature” content, things that might upset your granny over her tea and biscuits).

5 – Content of characters’ jokes and references (I know I’d certainly be left rather confused by jokes referring to figures who died before I was out of nappies).

Thanks very much for reading – and special thanks to our lovely host for letting me come by and bother you all with my waffling. Happy writing!

~ Charley R

 

Charley R is a young author from the UK. Her first co-authored novel, St Mallory's Forever! is due to be published sometime in the near future by Mark Williams International. When not buried deep within the recesses of her favourite books, Charley likes to entertain herself by acting, hiking, attempting poetry, and perfecting the art of procrastination. She is also an avid fan of all things Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Avengers or Tolkein related, and may or may not be a professional troll hunter in her spare time. Charley's misadventures - as well as almost everything else - can be found on her blog: The Leaning Tower of Plot.

 

 

P.S. This week's Once Upon a Time... linkup will be on: memories. Have fun and see you all tomorrow!!!

 

Saturday Quotes

Today is the day to celebrate quotes, one of my favorite things in the world!!!!

And what better way to do it than by picking a topic of two of the best things in the world:  writing and books!!!

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."
Benjamin Franklin

 

"You fail only if you stop writing."

Ray Bradbury

 

I think quotes are important. They remind us of things best not forgotten and refine truths that should always stay with us. Quotes brings simplicity to the profound.

"How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live."

Henry David Thoreau

 

 

"I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotinos."

James A Michener

 

 

 



Some quotes smash me in the face and others gently worm their way at my conscious, but either way, quotes touch the heart. They are the golden lines, the things worth remembering, worth reconsidering, worth the extra pain and anguish to find.

 

"A book is a gift you can open again and again."

Garrison Keillor

 

 

"There is no friend as loyal as a book."

Ernest Hemingway

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Books that help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way to learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep feighted with truth and beauty."

Pablo Neruda

 

 

"Books, pocket-sized jewels, open up like doors to worlds you never knew existed."

Antonio D'alfonso

 

 









 

You sit there for hours and...type?

This was a question put to me not long ago. I smiled, gave a little nod, and responded, "Oh yes."

I'm sure my interrogator had no clue what she was really asking. What was behind that simple reply. Who can really know the depth of that question. It's more than just laying the fingers to the keypad. It's more than compiling a massive word count. It is more than a steady plotline and unpredictable characters.

It is the hours, the agonies, the moments of hair wrenching and feeling like you want to hurl the computer across the room. It is the soul, the passion, the unloosing of emotion and heart. That is what it is all about. Letting go.

Anyone can write a good story.

Only those whose very souls are bound to what they write can create a masterpiece that will change the world.


This week, Write On Edge did a prompt for music. I have 350 words to share inspired by a specific song.

This week, I have been listening to a huge variety of songs: soundtracks, classical, pop, Christian contemporary...

But I can say without a doubt there is one song that has influenced a huge section of my book, The Last Scribe.

The words to this song, specifically the first verse, seem to echo Breem's thoughts entirely.

The setting:

The Woodland of Eradrea, home of the unknown TerRors

Bitter darkness

 

 

 

 

Word count: 194
Ó Pure Grace

 

I stay awake late into the night, watching the fire burn into nothing but embers. Kiar’s even breathing is enviable, but I can’t sleep. I keep thinking of Mikailah, curled up next to her far away fire, and the king, Mytharel, a lost boy somewhere out in the world, and of the journey I have to make to get back home.

And just what is home? I ask myself. What calls me back out of this wilderness?

There is nothing.

The thought is discomforting and I turn on my side, face away from the red and orange coals, and look out into the silvery night. Huge trees stand as silent sentinels through the inky blackness, guarding some ancient mystery that will never be solved. Their branches stand still, leaves rustling with the slight wind. The three moons make their upward trek across the sky, searching for the sun, a little desperate, very blue and sad. Stars shine around them, illuminating the violet night sky with their tiny pinpoints of light. How many nights have I slept beneath this same night sky and yet tonight it looks different. It looks wild, and hopeless, and broken.