My goal here was to convey as much as possible in as few words as possible:
Gunshots fill the air.
He crouches down next to me, broad back against the house in Goa, India. I immediately recognize the thick, wet, suffocating air and peril as a dream. One, I don't know the first thing about firearms, yet a submachine gun is in my dirty hands. Two, he's never there in my dreams; he's never even there in reality. We had our association, a small fight, then he's creeping into my dreams.
"Stay on my tail." I still remember his voice through two years. "Watch my six. And the mud."
That's all he says. Run, sight, fire. We're light on our feet through the deep dirt.
He's in uniform, but I'm not, and suddenly, I know why I'm having this dream.
I wanted it.
That's what we fought about, wasn't it? That's why he cut me off. He was to be a soldier, and he wouldn't risk associating with me for my own danger.
"I can't."
How many times did he say that?
It hurts so much as we go, to see his face in a dream but never in reality. It hurts so much, the pain of silence for the past two years. I fight it, to escape the bondage of the dream, to ask him why, to put down my gun, to just tell him I'm sorry. But I can't. Something else, something that would flee from the agony of his presence, clicks in my head.
And I jerk up awake in bed with a cry, tears on my cheeks, my voice floating in my silence.
"...why would you begin a relationship with me when you knew how it would end?!"
Write on!
Clove
P.S. How'd I do? Did you get the feels? ;)
P.P.S. My younger sister is great at conveying much emotion in a few words. Here's the unedited text she wrote when I gave over the keyboard: "Meggyn is cwaaazyright now...poor Joe. poor me. poor Josh. poor Ma and Pappy." x) Love teh siblin's.
P.P.P.S. Have another awesome writing song:
So I was wondering exactly how I should start the outflow of my story and what boundaries I need to put on myself so that I don't go too fast, leave time for me to edit, and can avoid stressing myself out.
Here's the big idea:
Every month, I plan on posting one chapter. In my Table of Contents, I have 30 chapters, which means that, if I'm true to my word, you'll have read all of my story in a time period of two and a half years. I know, I know, it sounds uber long, even to me. ;) Just know that the outflow time is NOT set in stone. If I finish my story somehow by the next half year, you guys will get a chapter, say, every week.
Make sense so far?
All right.
So here's one little catch:
Every month that I post up a new chapter, I'll be taking down an old chapter. If chapter two goes up, chapter one will be taken down; if chapter three goes up, chapter two will be taken down. My dad recommended I do this to avoid exposure, so if, say, Billy Bob from down the slum, decides he wants to make some easy money by stealing my story and publishing it himself, he's going to 1.) wait two and half years and 2.) have a smaller time window.
This mean's I'm making one critical assumption about you all, and it's that you guys...
DON'T PLAGIARIZE.
Pleeeaaase. I beggeth of thee. :D I work hard on my writing, and if there's a phrase or simile or whatever you want to use, send me an email or comment to me! That's toootally okay. Taking without my permission is not, however.
All right.
Enough of the logistics. I'll bore myself to tears if I keep going on about rules. :P
If there are any of you brave enough out there to edit a Warrior of the Red Pen's writing, feel free! And for those of you who aren't brave enough, feel obligated. Thanks to years of sucking it up, I can take some cruel critiques, so go ahead if that's your style.
Like I said, I do plan, Lord willing, on self-publishing my story some grand, grand day. If you help me edit, I might put in a little piece about you in the "Thanks" section. But hurry! This is a limited time offer! ;P
Ummm...what else do I need to say?
I dunno...I can't think of anything else. :) So, without further ado, I hope you guys enjoy this trickling of writing. It will definitely be an adventure. :D
(Disclaimer: This post is highly biased. If you're not fond of or offended by my religion, worldview, or feelings, I'll get back to the actual story writing/updating part of this blog soon enough. That said...)
"Why do you write?"
Oh, how many authors, friends, family members, and faithful fans have asked me this question. Here, I, with an attempted manifesto, will attempt to answer that question with the best of my eloquence. Of course, if you, reader, still have an unanswered question, feel free to email or comment below. A good debate is always healthy. :)
All in all, I write for the glory of God.
Simple as that.
"But how can you do that when your stories don't include Him?"
Here, you're assuming that for a story to glorify God, He, in His full omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient glory, must be present in the story.
That's simply not true.
I do not blatantly shove God into peoples' faces due to my belief that that's not necessary to glorify God nor is it a wise evangelism strategy. Also, if God's glory is such a big deal to you, then 1.) congratulations and 2.) please don't make me short-sell my God by putting Him in words. Never, though I've tried, can I express the love I have to God. I'm not skilled enough - God is too grand - to put in words the joy of surrender and hate in self-reviling.
"Well, if you don't have a God figure in your story, then at least make an ultimate good and an ultimate bad with good prevailing."
Ugh, please don't tell me what to write. That's like a plumber ordering a chef to include banana, garlic, and...oh...Coke in his crockpot chicken when, really, tomatoes, onions, and pepper would be best. It's not that I know what is best in the end, only that I know what I, personally, would like. x)
Also, I have to say I personally don't like this writing plot because 1.) it's as cliché as the phrase "cut and dried" and 2.) it's a total lie. Most humans are upheld to some extent by God's grace, making them socially "good", and even the most pure of us Christians are tainted with sin, making us socially "bad". To create a perfect character and match him against a ruthless killer it to create a situation wholly impossible to relate with.
"Well, if you can't do THAT, then at least get your protagonists to stop sinning so much!"
Then answer me this: without sin, where is the plot?
Is Edmund didn't betray his siblings to the White Witch, where would the plot be? It wouldn't. If Bilbo had just told Gandalf that he had found the ring instead of lying, where would the Lord of the Rings be? Ding, ding, ding, you guessed it! It wouldn't. :)
All right, enough of the rebuttals.
If the content included in my stories happens to offend anyone...
1.) I'm sorry. My apologia is above.
2.) Never read Twilight. x) And...
3.) Maybe you shouldn't read my story. If it causes you to sin in some way, just don't. I can wait for you to mature spiritually, to get exposed to more sin in the world, to know how to define right and wrong more easily, and you can too.
That being cleared out of the way, let me make it expressly clear:
Glorifying God in my writing comes down to doing what I like to do to the best of my ability. I do also include morals and Biblical undertones that make my story different from adventure/romance/mystery fluff that you can find anywhere today.
I also write to express my emotions. The wings of my written words really do take me places I can't go with my human tongue. Sometimes, I'm just so confused or distraught, I can't get my words out straight. A pen, paper, and five minutes of time will help me express myself so much more clearly. A pen, paper, and a few more minutes than five can also help me express love, gratitude, and respect.
I write to work. If I didn't write, I'd be a very bored creature. ;) Who knows? There may be a little dough involved as well. :P
Don't forget; I write for fun too. I love writing. That's why I take the time to blog here; that's why I put off school for my writing. (Shame, I know.) Words crafted in a story are beautiful things, capable of bestowing wisdom and adrenaline and transporting us to places we'd rather be. They give experience, teach us lessons, and do it all in the crafted package of a story. Ahhh, it just makes me smile to think of how much fun writing is - to see a notebook filled with old scribbles of ideas, the thrill of beginning a new story, the fun of having a stare-eyes contest with a blank page, the characters that start as strangers to you and become your best friend by the final period, the interest of lying in bed and playing story scenes in your head until they are crystal clear, then getting up and writing something down before you forget the words, then realizing you were up until two in the morning, writing.
You out there, across the Interspace, let me tell you a little something-something:
My vision is failing.
The dark living room is blurry, and the golden lamp is a smear of light rays.
Is that because I don't have my glasses or am so tired I can't see straight?
The dishwasher is running.
It's a homey sound. A six-membered family can pretty much fill up a dishwasher after three meals, and Dad normally runs it overnight before he goes to bed. The only time I hear the smooth rumbling is when I've come out late at night for a glass of water or am sick and sleeping on the couch.
But this is different.
I'm neither sick nor up for a drink. I sat on this couch at ten-thirty in full health, hoping to quickly discuss and close a small matter for the story my best friend and I writing. We discussed it, couldn't find a way to close it even after two and a half hours, and it's dwindled, the conversation, to companionable silence.
He's resting against the couch, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling evenly, his big, calloused hand wrapping mine, making me truly feel like his 누나. My head is on his lap, hair tucked beneath a shoulder.
Who's to tell if he hasn't already fallen asleep?
He says he can never get enough anyway.
But not me.
Looming separation is what keeps me from tempting la-la-land, to know he'll be leaving for college next year, and that means I won't see him much after that.
I love him too much for words.
I don't want him to go.
We did too much. Fought too much. Cried too much.
I smile at the thought. They say I used to cry when he was the one getting punished for hurting me. I guess my loyalty for him was always inborn.
Still...recently, I've seen a change. For most of the years in the past, I had felt like our maturity levels were close, despite the fact that he's two years older than I am. It used to be that anything he could do, I could do too, but now...I keep coming back to him for wisdom, how to study for the PSAT, how to format papers MLA style, how to interact with other males. I'm watching the silent, gradual rift grow too, the way he leads meetings so efficiently and smoothly, the way he has an indomitable smile, his polite and respectful mannerisms. Is this the silly, nerdy, mischievous boy I used to know? I ask myself at times.
And the answer is always no.
No, he's not. This is a newborn human, being sanctified in ways I can't imagine. He has become so tactful with humans; he's mastered empathetic listening; he can always make me laugh, even when tears are streaming down my cheeks.
This is not the boy I used to know.
And I don't want him to go... I don't want him to go.
I want him to STAY.
He's my older brother!
He can't go off to college yet - he still has to teach me; he still has to be there. Who's going to lead?! Who's going to find things to do?! Who else is going to take the first step? He's always been the first one, the first child, the first in High School, the first to drive; he's always made the example, and I've always followed, and maybe I just like it that way.
But when he goes...
...it'll just be me...
...with two younger siblings who know like I do that I can never be as good, as wise, as honest and loving, as Biblically-rooted, as mature, or as fun as him.
When I hear the dishwasher's purr, I get sad. There will be five sets of dishes in there soon.
I'll miss him...
My 오빠, my older brother.
Write on!
Clove
P.S. I. is. definitely. sad. I cried and stopped crying three times while trying to write this...ugh. )`:
-His eyes were rich blue like a nighttime ocean.
-He looked like his soul had been ripped from his body.
-She sighed like she was giving up her final breath.
-Bruises mottled his skin like an artist had sprayed on dark yellow, green, and purple paints.
-She nodded as he paced off into the crowd, feeling like a shield of protection had somehow slipped away with his presence.
-The cement foundation was covered with scratched, peeling linoleum like the ground itself was trying to escape.
-They were all working with numb hands and shaking like leaves in their sleep.
-He looked bored like he had never been at play since the day he was born.
-Boot heels thudded on the wood like death drums.
-Patrya shook like one of the lifeless brown leaves scuttling across the asphalt.
The funny thing is...I never sat around and thought really hard for any of these. They all just came.
Anyway, I'll do a post on similes later. Want a quick writing challenge?
This one will be easy; I promise.
In whatever your current story is--the genre, voice, and characters matter not--include the simile, "Like a zombie."
Why?
Well...
What's not to like about zombies???
Write on!
Clove
P.S. My favorite zombie joke - "The zombie came looking for brains...and passed right by you." *giggle* =^.^=
Recently, I've had to do a lot of boring writing assignments for school.
Sad sadness.
Normally, the phrase "sad sadness" and "writing assignments" don't ever come within fifty words of each other, but unfortunately, that rule of thumb isn't the case in my current life. This is a blog devoted to my writing, so let it be known that I love, love, love to write. Getting a boring writing assignment is like when a teacher is reading her favorite student's Homeric simile, and I'm talking about the student who always brings her the shiniest, reddest apple, and then an evil Communist lord takes the Homeric simile and burns the page in front of the teacher's face for sheer cruelty's pleasure.
It's horrrrrrrrible.
I'm a sophomore now.
(Where is the second 'o' in sophomore? >.<)
In Greek, the word is 'sophizesthai', which means, ‘devise' or 'become wise.’
Become wise by being bored?
I won't go into details, but some of my assignments that I'm doing in Grade 10, I was doing in Grade 1.
And I skipped Kindergarden, guys.
Do you get what this meeeaaans??? I'M DOING KINDERGARDEN WORK.
(McDonald's theme plays - ba dah ba ba baaah, I'm luvin' it.)
But as sad sadness as it is and as much as I hate to say this, the title of this post applies to me and to you, reader, whenever we get suckishly easy writing assignments.
If you don't like it, then do it.
One of the reasons why I love writing so much is because I often overlook its hard work despite the fact that hard work does exist in the life of any author. Unfortunately, like with all things, practice is necessary. There are some areas, like written story analyses, where I need to do more reps until I'm can do them in half a minute instead of a minute; you get where I'm coming from?
...
Aggghhh...this isn't helping.
Let's just put this down to a Clove-is-being-geeky-again-because-she'stired-of-getting-her-week's-Literature-homework-done-in-half-an-hour case.
...
*sighs dramatically*
As I myself write onwards with insanely sad assignments, I challenge you, fellow author, to pick up hard (*coughBORINGcough*) writing assignments, may it be description paragraphs, smooth dialogue, or poetry. (*coughcough* Yes, you know who you are. ;))
And as that sports company says:
One of the best things about writing a story is that, in your head as your write it, it sort of evolves into a movie. For me, if my book ever became a movie--yeah, yeah, have your laugh--I'd know exactly what my characters' actors would have to look like, specifically how they'd have to act, and precisely the genre of music I'd want to go with each scene. ^.^ It makes me happy just thinking about it.
As it is, my book isn't even finished, nonetheless published or famous enough to be made into a movie.
Wishful thinking. ;)
However, as I've been writing, I guess I've been unconsciously gathering a list of songs that fit for my story/movie. I decided I'd compile them, then decided I'd post them, so...
(Just so you don't have to go back to my outline and look up every scene and its context, I've provided the song title, then a brief description. :P)
Here they are:
Doomsday by Globus
I featured this song in an earlier post, but I'm posting it here again because it works very well.
Basically, what happened is Hyn, an assassin who is a friend of Patrya, took a duel challenge. The rules were - if he won the duel, he would have claim to an army of mercenaries which he would utilize for Patrya's sake. (She needs the army to take revenge on Syne, the main antagonist.) If he lost, he'd be dead.
Well.
Big epic fight, then he dies moments before his dueling partner dies of blood-loss.
After many tears are shed by the people he left behind, Hyn is later chemically resurrected and goes back to take claim of his army of mercenaries with my three main protagonists (Patrya, Pleibea, and Millis). This is that scene - it's supposed to be powerful and glorious.
Fight Inside by Red
If you're not a fan of rock, my apologies.
So this is Millis' song. It's just his song. Red wrote it (absolutely) just for him. x) If you remember, Millis is a chemically-altered human. He has the ability to utilize extra adrenaline and, at his assassins' school, has been taught to properly function under hyped adrenaline. Of course, there is also the risk of him overkilling on adrenaline and turning into a bloody war machine, which tends to happen when he's emotionally distraught. Thus...
"And it finds me
The fight inside is coursing through my veins
And it's raging
The fight inside is breaking me again."
Reconnect by Aura Dione
This song is for Patrya to Hyn. They're lovebirds, those two, and since Patrya is the one who asks Hyn to take up the duel, when he dies, she carries the full guilt (in her mind) and continually hates herself for killing the male she loved. When he's resurrected, he has to teach her the idea of "unconditional love", tying that also into the theme that "not even the grave can hold back 'true love'".
"We reconnect, we’re resurrected
Healing’s on the way
We’re almost home
It still hurts, but it ain’t over
We re-collide, and somehow I feel
We might be here to stay
This is a lost love ready for come back
We reconnect."
White Owl by Josh Garrels (ft. Mason Jar)
Pleibea, a main protagonist and the slave girl, with some of her friends and her brother, eventually decides to risk escaping her slave camp (through a series of events that differs from what I wrote in the outline). As they escape, one her mentors, an older male who played father for her (as she doesn't have one), is killed. This is his song to her.
I chose this one because it holds a lot of natural elements (owls, serpents, doves, wolves, moons, forgotten paths), which is basically her life as she escapes the safety of her slave camp and enters the mutated wildlife.
(On another note, any Christians out there? Go here. Listen to Rise and be encouraged! ;))
Here to Stay by Lenka
Let's just all be clear - I listened to Lenka BEFORE the Disney commercial ever came out, okay? (If you know what I'm talking about, you do. If you don't, you don't. :P)
This is another of Patrya's songs. Syne, my malicious malefactor, basically takes her parents' lives and her home, forcing her to run from him to another country. This song is towards the end of the story when she comes back with Hyn's army, defeats said antagonist, and is just...well, there to stay. ;)
The Howling by Within Temptation
And finally, there's the group anthem. x) This is the good-guy smirking at bad-guy song, and it works for any adventure novel, but I'm using it for mine.
So there. :D
"We've been seeing what you wanted, got us cornered right now
Fallen asleep from our vanity, might cost us our lives
I hear they're getting closer
Their howls are sending chills down my spine
And time is running out now
They're coming down the hills from behind
When we start killing
It's all coming down right now
From the nightmare we've created,
I want to be awakened somehow."
Write on! ...and listen too... :)
Clove
P.S. Did anyone notice I accidentally named Patrya "Patrya Starr"? As in Patrick Star from Spongebob? Ughhh...I have no idea how that got in my head. x) I won't be changing her first name, just her last. But do you all have any new last name ideas?
P.P.S. I don't own any of these songs. They all belong to their proper producers and artists, and let's just say I posted them for promotional purposes. Buy them. They're good songs. :P
