I remember
patterns in the sand, dancing
in firelight
beside Grandfather stones.
My fingers stained
with the taste of earth.
Our darkness was haunted
by stars
and the sky was almost
at our feet.
I told stories of monks
and mountain temples
(things I've never seen)
as you meditated on the direction
of smoke
and red-rimmed eyes
(in the morning.)
I remember
shadows in firelight, dancing
on the sand.
i. Don't throw your weight around as though the Nile was yours for the taking and frogs boiled it at your command. There are enough leaders in this world with too much power and too little responsibility for that to ever be on my check list of confidence and poise. Even elephants strut their stuff on tiptoe.
ii. They say everything we do today was done before. Imagination ran dry in Lascaux where movement was traced with chalk. We're just a generation with nothing left to flaunt but boredom and money and too much skin. You say life is worthless and I say that's bullshit.
iii. Being bold and adventurous does not mean throwing yourself from a
i. You mean so much more to me now that your time's run down to seconds ticking off the clock and it makes me feel neglectful. I have memories of picking potato bugs off potato plants or picking strawberries and feeling so small beside your wide-shouldered shadow. Your voice was always gruff, but you smiled through our petty arguments on pronunciation and I always knew we'd still be eating French toast for lunch tomorrow. Your voice is still gruff, but we don't argue: you're too far away and there are other things to talk about. Your hand still curls slightly no matter how wide you spread your fingers and I wonder when your muscles will relax
i. I wish I'd never forgotten to write those letters and braid our threads together as a bridge between continents and youth. There was only a day of flight between us and I let you go. Sometimes, you and there seems like a dream. I suppose I've always enjoyed sleeping.
ii. I wish I'd never given up and let it slide by without another thought. I never have the time, I never make the time and I always have time for something else. I wish I'd learned from all the other times I let you go.
iii. I wish I'd never told myself I could do it later. This may fall into giving up, but I'll only know if I try and walking on my hands will only be possib
i. Geese are flying south for the winter and sometimes I wonder why I'm stuck on two feet, but I don't mind the cold.
ii. I don't want to have to say goodbye.
iii. I need to be working harder at school and getting a job, but procrastination must be a chronic disease I'm succumbing to.
iv. Some tea or hot chocolate would be nice, about now.
v. I've never been patient enough to watch the moon fall from sunset to sunrise, but someday, I'll lay awake all night just to document its journey with my eyes.
vi. If I went blind, life would be hard to live. I'd need someone else to paint my pictures.
vii. One day, I'm just going to disappear and f
i. Offer me food. If I don't know you, don't be creepy, but if I do, throw something edible at me. My reaction time is that much faster if you're wasting a brownie.
ii. Laugh at me if I say something stupid. I'm not immune to mistakes and I like to be reminded, but I've got a heart that's easy to bruise, so pretend you're laughing with me.
iii. Don't ever tell me nothing's wrong. If I see enough to ask, don't brush me aside. I understand privacy and a need to be stoic for all the wrong reasons, but nothing's an awful lot of bullshit.
iv. Hot chocolate does so much good in so little time. If whip cream is available, stinginess will only get
i. Rumours don't start from nothing and religion is a worldwide phenomenon, but I've chosen to believe in the stars and my imagination.
ii. I like to sit in the background of routine and occasionally stick out my foot, even if I understand the troubles of climbing back into everyday.
iii. Loud noises scare me late at night and I'll lie awake wondering why that monster sounded exactly like a motorcycle and why it's waiting outside my window with streetlamp eyes. When I'm half-asleep rationality is impossible.
iv. I believe that being as happy as you can be is not a goal. You can only go down from there. But I was happy for a day, and I've f
How to Create Tension in Fiction by illuminara, literature
Literature
How to Create Tension in Fiction
You've probably heard about tension and know it's a big deal, maybe even the biggest deal in storytelling, but why? What is tension, and why is it so important to storytelling?
What Is Tension?
According to the New Oxford American Dictionary, tension is defined as:
a strained state or condition resulting from forces acting in opposition to each other
Applied to the wonderful world of storytelling, tension is all about one simple question: What will happen next? This uncertainty creates strain or anxiety in your readers, and the only way to relieve it is to keep reading and find out what happens next.
Tension and release is actually a cycle
How to Write a First Draft Without Perfectionism by illuminara, literature
Literature
How to Write a First Draft Without Perfectionism
Maybe you’ve heard that first drafts are supposed to suck, but what does that really mean? What does a sucky first draft look like? How do you allow yourself to suck? Why would you even want to allow yourself to write something that sucks in the first place?
Because otherwise, you’ll most likely be crippled by the writer’s arch nemesis: perfectionism.
Did you just cringe? We all experience it when we sit down to write, arrange everything just so, type a sentence or two (or a bit more if you’re lucky), and then it strikes—your inner editor. It smacks you across the face and demands that you fix that grammar mist
Come, brother. He is slow to answer. He was resting, but there is no time, now, for sleepy thoughts. The moon is sinking, see. The leaves overhead are slick with its death. The moon is sinking and my hatchlings scream for food. My ears bleed. His tail twitches laughter at me. Laughter comes easily to him. He is young yet, and only male. Come, brother. He comes.
There are not so many of us now. Our sisters left when the rains came, drowning the earth. They have not returned. I believe they are dead. Brother believes nothing. It is how he keeps happy and that is no small thing. The hatchlings prefer his company, but they are mine and I do no