Finally Fever Free for Fall

This month has not been kind to me in terms of writing. That may seem sort of calm-before-the-storm, as next month will challenge my commitment and time constraints to their limits, but really there's no correlation. I got sick; I've been busy with plenty of people; la-ti-da. Not that my month has been poor; not by any stretch is this so (although, on second thought, the sickness hasn't been ideal). Mostly, life threw writing out the window, and in-flew-enza (okay, I didn't really get the flu - but the old joke poem opportunity was too convenient)
So Matthew asked today what my NaNo was even going to be about. Well... I have no clue. I had a stable beginning to a story, but nowhere for it to go. I've considered a couple of options thus far: make stuff up - I mean, this is what writing, and NaNo specifically, is all about anyway, right? Option #2: pick a story I've already invested more time into, and built a plot or setting on. The problem with this strategy is, I don't want to waste any good stories on the junk that will appear over this following month. Option #3: invest a day or two, sneaky-like, and really really prepare for this new story. Do I have time for this option? It goes well with option 1 if I fail to find the time. This is the most likely candidate at the moment. Option #4: take it a lot easier and hold less high standards. I've considered lowering the 50k lower limit on the story, and simply writing for the heck of it. Sure, it wouldn't be a novel perhaps, but a novella still fits the acronym fine, and I'd be doing the writing that I enjoy. I've also considered, as option #5: not doing nano. This option makes me sad. I could just read a book a day for 30 days, each of 50k words or more. I could write a poem each day for 30 days. I could try to learn something completely new, perhaps even something *ahem* novel, during the month of november, and simply use the month as a means of motivation.
But really, nothing entices me as much as the original intent of a completed novel. I'm going to have to figure this out.
In other news, I'm almost better! It's been about a week, so... about freaking time. The fall has been a little slow in coming, but the colors are filling up, and we're adding golds, browns, yellows, crimson, and scarlet colors to the countryside palette. I'm enjoying it, when I get out of bed and out of doors. Please send this cough and feverishness away for good.

Sandburg Autumn - Crying over beautiful things

I'm working, already, on a story for nano. Though I'm uncertain about that actual plot line (generic, poor at the moment), it is character driven, which is something I've not done for a longer story yet - though perhaps the thriller was just a really lousy execution of something intended to be character driven. And perhaps I'm a bit bummed about the plot currently because I've only just started working on character, and it seems I'm stuck as to where the story will take these people. But I'm still working on a pattern to spice things up.




I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. 

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper
   sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds. 

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, 
   new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, 
   and the old things go, not one lasts. 
- Carl Sandburg

I think it is near enough that we can pretend fall has arrived. The weather is confused about the switch, but nighttime recovers from daytime's misled summer heat. I'll miss the sun, I'll cry over its absence, but I know the fall will be wonderful as well, in its own way.

Life Garden thoughts

There is a game called race for the galaxy, a card game, where every turn is a gambit and a sacrifice. While I've only played this game a few times, I suspect it offers a keen insight into my every daily decision. Every day, I have choices, many, and in order to realize these opportunities, other sacrifices must be made. If I want to spend ten hours drawing, I cannot also spend ten hours playing guitar. If I sacrifice time going out with friends, I cannot read all I wished to read.
Sacrifice makes it sound somehow morbid, or a horrific truth. Like I'm shivving myself and stepping over lost opportunities as the paving stones to preferred ones. But you can't walk in every door, and explore every room - the manse of life is vast. Still, the perfectionist in me, the Christian in me, the sage and philosopher, the fighter and lover, the finder and the seeker, the sower and the reaper in me all ask whether the path I've chosen is the best path, the most right path, the most Christ-like path. It is a utilitarian internalization that is asking if this will bring the greatest good for the greatest quantity.
So while I sit munching on the harvest of my deeds, wondering what might have been if, instead of swiss chard, I'd sown rhubarb, instead of squash, pumpkin, instead of tomatoes, peppers.

Did I have time to plant more seeds? Did I water them each enough, or are these stunted plants? Harvesting life is none so clear, sometimes.
Should I probably be writing NaNo instead of this? Yes.

Candle

candle

match struck, then a burst of flame, 

will this candle chase why away? 

a riddle at night, now 

a morning mystery, 

I see how this ends

in week disarray. 

when you are west, east is far; 

moving north, the south I'm missing 

disappears. winter: warmth removes, 

summer sun's no closer. 

flicker, please, vanilla star -
wish this distance near.

dreams just tiny highways

ideas our little cars

drive with me awhile.
wind rustles your beautiful 

hair, touches your lovely

grey-sky eyes I'll never see

voice your love

songs, the radio plays 

hand me your heart-

felt emotions. I'll listen, listen

as we are one

distant dream.

NaNoWriMo

Entrance the Doctor

“Doctor!”

The doctor was not sleeping; he never slept these days. But waking? That was another trial entirely, and he felt his days. And his nights were plagued with dreams.

“Doctor!” the voice shouted again, banging loudly against the front door.

                Who could it be at this hour of the morning? The doctor grumbled and rolled into a sitting position. And where was his butler?

                “Who’s there?”

                “Simon Temple,” the voice called. “There’s an emergency at the central dome. You’ve been summoned!”

                Simon Temple? Who was that? That new guy in town, was it? What was he being summoned for – how could he help in an emergency? What time was it?

                “I’ll be right down,” the doctor called, groaning and rubbing at his eyes. He picked up a slice of the tree-fruit he’d left at his bedside, cure for aching limbs. Though his limbs did not ache, he felt they should, and took the necessary precautions. Age thrived more in his head than his flesh.

                If they needed a doctor, then the prophetic utterance had held true. A murder then, two.  

                Lighting a candle in the saucer near his bedside, the doctor slipped on his slippers. Shadows danced against the wall in the flickering flame, turning ghoulish simple shapes, and inane items into nightmares.

A perfect garden with a poisoned pool; an unblemished faun dying, suddenly, from some uncaught sickness; an eternal lush field, flower-full and yellow-green with luxurious grasses, suddenly bursting into flame, a volcanic maw opening and gorging on the meadow.

The stuff of dreams danced along the walls in sinister shadows, and the doctor sat motionless as a mouse struck by the screeching owl, muscles deaf to motion.

“Doctor? Are you coming?”

                “I’ll be there shortly. Run on ahead and let them know I’ll be coming. I need to collect a few things first.”

                The doctor rummaged through his closet, picking out his whites and surgeon’s mask. 

This is actually a passage that I'm not writing. So it won't actually be in the story. 

Inspector

What so false as truth is,

False to thee?

Where the serpent's tooth is

Shun the tree---

Where the apple reddens

Never pry---

Lest we lose our Edens,

Eve and I.

~Robert Browning - A Woman's Last Word

The city bled an efflorescence, golden on the blur of night - a phoenix death, embers until the resurrection of morn, where new creation begins, and begins again. It was a strange thing, a death in undying lands, and the city's edenic appearance burned with a burr of color, a drop of poison dye in crystal water.

The inspector rolled into the city on a stagecoach hearse-black in the funereal palette of night. A land of shadows, everything flickering in surreal beauty: even in darkness the city emit an elegance, a face of perfection.  But the inspector was locked deep in thought, irregular in his introspective ignorance of the passing scene: dewy, white limestone streets; glass and rose-chalcedony architecture, purple saffron exuding a metallic honey scent. 

What were his thoughts, then, the dark-clad man in the long cloak and navy wool scarf, bundled, despite the balmy morning – what were his thoughts? He took a deep drag on a thin-brown cigarette, a relic of the distant past, and considered.

I haven't written a story for some weeks, and certainly not a longer story for some time. I'm excited to get back into the swing of things. I just finished the last of the Sylvia Plath I was given: Ariel. She's quite astounding, and I truly wish I could write half so well - a third so well. I started and finished one of Mary Oliver's poetry books, and wow! She's amazing, too! I guess there's a reason she won the pulitzer, huh? Maybe if I live to be as old, I could write such fascinating things. 



Shell
Still the ships passing, seas overhead
Here I hear no waves
Whine of whales, clamp of clams
Sunlight bleeds the deep sea red
Swim near, rescue me
I'm a man, not an oyster
Believe.
Bolstered are my emotions when
Strange though it seemed
Divers dove down closer
Rescue, rescue me!
I'm in truth a man, you see.
Their gentle hands brushed the sands
Lifting me from the deeps
Oh, you've come, I'm saved, I'm saved!
But lifting me from the sea,
they pried my mouth I'd clammed up tight
wresting, divesting my pride
lobbed me back into the deeps
I don't mind, though
my soul they keep
As long as they left
my humanity.

Story Writing Mode = Less Blogging I Suppose

Well, what is there? Again and again they ask questions of time, and I've no response. Time is slippery as shadows, as sure as blood in water - stop it, slow, if you may, you'll only gain bloodied hands. And you? Share your heart and I'll shed mine. Emotions, doctor, is it cancer then, this fire within? Only burning sin, killing your insides out. May it never continue so, but on I go, on I go, my breadbin into hell. What gains he who sells his very soul for a pittance of fool's gold? Nothing.
Please, distance as wind to wind, opposite walls of solitary prison. I can hear you think but not breathe, love but not sing, dream but not speak. If we shed these skins and skim the sky, fly not so high, dear, we're on Icarus wings. If must we fly so high, take me, and let's fall as one. How, how such wide eyes, Eckleburg? Green, then? Green as the american dream? Or dollars? Or icy green, on pine tree leaves, frozen in the frost of morning?

I cheated today. I finished some of my first chapter of NaNoWriMo. I didn't want the restriction of NaNoWriMo, but wanted the motivation. I longed to write a story, but not within the exclusive bounds of November, and I got a bit overexcited for the beginning of this one. This one is also different in that I'm co-authoring the endeavor. I'm already feeling the strain on my other writing and reading. It can't be helped, can it? Time to return to story writing mode...

NaNoWriMo

I love testing my mettle, or, indeed, my mental metal. I used to despise games without competitors, for where was the comparison? Where was the proof that my motivation and dedication might succede beyond that of my fellows? Truly, I say fellows, and not opposition, or opponents, or "the enemy players", for that is what I intend. Only recently have I discovered the greatest opponent I have is myself. How can I become a better follower of Christ? With Christ's help against myself. How will my writing improve? Practice against my apathy or busyness. How can I be, in my day-to-day, a better person? I must model and remodel myself in the likeness of Yeshua.

It is these battles which captivate me, for they are timed. And I either lose, or I must set rules that allow victory. Consider an instance. Let's say you are addicted to a drug - morphine or something. As part of the scenario, you must carry a quantity of the drug with you at all times, and it must be accessible at any juncture for immediate use. How long can you pit yourself against that, when everything within rages to utilize that resource? This is an extreme example, but the idea is simple enough: if the ability to fail is consistently tempting you, like cookies you are not supposed to eat, sitting on your desk all day, how long can you hold out? These are the trials of the self. Motivation to avoid lying, to avoid pride, to avoid anger, and bitterness and cynicism and perniciousness. These tools lay at your disposal all the time. Motivating the self to not only avoid them, but actively seek good things - reading scripture, growing in faith, praying, loving, honesty. It is a titanic battle waged within. 

Then there are external battles as well. Motivation regarding writing and journaling and maintaining a social life throughout all these things when November comes around. This is my current skirmish. I know I'm about to disappear from the social sphere. I won't have as much time for journaling, for blogging, for writing poetry, for reading everything, for friends, for anything except novel writing and the extra writing I've assigned myself. It's a bit intimidating. It's time.

I'm frightened, sitting in the middle of perfect possibility

~Jane Kenyon

My spirit battles storming waves

drifting long at sea

Aqua eyes the catalyst

On a night smelling of jasmine tea

and snowflakes

Warmth in blankets, lamps alight

Pens inked and prepped
I write

This next month is going to pick up steam. I'm fighting the balancing act of novel writing, poetry writing, reading, friends, and work. Let the games begin.