Passion is the light
Expelling halos of night.
A Shepherd’s rag-torch
It sends the wolves careening,
Maddened into the shadows.
Rag Torch- Tanka Poetry
Tag Archives: writing
SWC-2: The Watch Human
I looked out the window on the back yard and my heart turned to ice in my chest. The masters were in the back yard where they often took their afternoon bones brookside. Ordinarily it was perfectly safe, our town being accepting of small dogs in spite of the prejudice that ran through our country about them.
The shepherd gang had come into town last night, though, and it was well known they did not like our kind. The masters were surrounded by six large dogs whose fangs were bared. Mercedes our matriarch and alpha had drawn Jacopo and Snug behind her protectively, but I knew they didn’t stand a chance if left to themselves. This is exactly why small dogs purchased attack people.
I sprang to the back door and pulled it open using my opposable thumbs and sprinted out into the midst of the pack. In one hand I wielded my oak club. In the other a sharpened stave.
“Back off!” I hissed.
The Shepherd gang’s alpha circled in front of me twice with ears laid low. Then he spoke to my masters, “Don’t plan on staying long you Maltese scum! This town isn’t big enough for both our breeds. If you’re not gone the next time I come to town, I promise even your watch human won’t be able to protect you from me and my pack.”
As one the pack turned tail and leaping the brook they were gone.
Mercedes was whimpering behind me, “Why can’t they just leave us alone?”
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Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge # 62
So this post is an exercise in response to Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge.
I have been wanting to take up writing challenges like this again, and now I have some time to do it. This challenge involves writing a flash piece (usually under 250 -300 words) inspired by a picture. Here is this week’s photo.
To read all the other submissions click on the underlined link above.
Here is my attempt:
The Bulletin Doorway
For the last week Tom had been drawn to the bulletin board just outside his physics classroom. It started as a tickle in the pit of his stomach on Monday. By Tuesday he was almost forced to stop and gaze at each of the pages stuck helter-skelter across the surface of the board. Wednesday and Thursday the the bulletin board danced through his dreams. With each dream Tom awoke in a cold sweat with the “@” sign strangely burned into his mind’s eye.
Friday came. Tom had all he could do to sit through physics class. When at last the bell rang Tom nearly knocked a girl in a green snow hat over as he barreled through the door to gaze, once again, at the bulletin board. Students jostled him as the mad rush to get to final period came and went.
The last bell rang. The hall grew quiet and then Tom saw the “@” sign stamped at the top of three bulletins tacked to the board. Each bulletin had two words on it. Tom read them aloud in order as he somehow knew he should.
“Now the… Visionary says…Be opened!”
The girl in the green hat whom he had nearly stomped in physics class stood beside him.
“I’ve been waiting for you to figure it out all week. You are the slowest visionary I have ever walked with.” She said.
Then she took his hand and the door opened before them. Without another question Tom stepped through and was gone.
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Well That Was NaNoWriMo 2019
Well NaNoWriMo 2019 has come and gone. That was quick! It was just like a dandelion…blooming one day and gone to seed the next. I thought I would have more time to be posting updates about my progress, but then I do tend to overestimate my abilities.
In spite of that, the month did exactly what it was supposed to. It saw me through another reading of the novel I am working to complete. I chopped about 6,000 words most of which were leading the narrative rather than letting the narrative lead. I also began a debate with myself over at least one chapter and its future in the novel….I haven’t decided which side of me wins this fight yet. DO YOU EVER FIGHT WITH YOURSELF LIKE THAT?
I also wrote about five scenes of backstory some of which will (I think) make it into the novel’s final form. Of course they will need to be rewritten. My first drafts are always….well let’s just say not fit for public consumption. My sister would call them “pieces of Drech.”
What I noticed is that as I worked hard to increase my level of writing productivity, my over all productivity level went up. I started really paying attention to my blog life again. I accomplished a lot more art work than I usually do. My family started a semi regular game night and I got some of the big cleaning projects done which I had been sitting on for a while. If this keeps up my family is going to want every month to be NaNoWriMo.
IF YOU PARTICIPATED IN NANOWRIMO OF NANOPOBLANO, WHAT WERE SOME OF THE BENEFITS YOU REALIZED?
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Merry Thanksadventing
Merry Thanksadventing
Merry Thanksadventing
— Read on notesfromthevicarage.com/2019/12/02/merry-thanksadventing/
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The Romans 12 Cycle: Encourager
I sing the summer boys
Home. The clamoring crowds
With strong drink letter
Affirmations that at last
The series is in the bag.
I’ll never say die.
Even when my heroes fall.
I’ll scale the mountains.
I’ll take the skies of midnight
Home in buckets made of clay.
Shovel the neighbor’s
Drive. Speaking life to the
Winter wind. In the
Dark journey the truth now brings
A needle’s golden thread.
I call forth the Spring.
A three-strand string binds the shards
Of broken mirrors.
It makes sense of the damaged homes in
Reality’s tapestry.
I am not a year
Nor a season, month or day
I am but minutes,
An eye for the thread leading
To the finished work, God’s hand.
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The Romans 12 Cycle: Teacher
In the lavender
By the lake I write the
Stories. Very few will ever read. Too busy
With the summer sun to learn.
Autumn annotates
The footnotes of falling leaves.
The mountains are my
Tablet. I write with the ink
Bottled in the midnight skies.
I sip hot coffee
By the fire, a book in hand.
I thread the needle
With my tinder thoughts in the
Winter land’s cold hard facts.
Speak forth the gentle
Green of reason threaded through
The broken mirrors.
Pieces make sense reflected in
Reality’s tapestry.
I am not the year
Nor a season, month or day.
I am but minutes
Unmasking the threads
To the finished work, God’s hand
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The Romans 12 Cycle: Servant
I stir lemonade,
Sigh and wipe my weary brow.
I wax thankful then
As summer solicits for
The seasons’ warrant.
Rake the leaves. I’ll burn
This body to dust, if that
Is what it takes. I’ll
Do it gladly. My heart is
Woven in the mountain skies.
I am winter’s snow.
You will find me in the work.
No matter how dark it
Gets, I will be the finger
Which pulls the thread no one sees.
In Secret Spring’s green
I snip the weak threads. I break
The mirror. I sweep
The pieces into place. Glimpse
Reality’s tapestry.
I am not the year
Nor a season, month or day.
I am but minutes
Who work the threads leading
To the finished work, God’s hand.
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The Romans 12 Cycle: Prophet
A hot summer day,
Once again I read someone
Else’s mail. Sipping
Lemonade as I crochet
Edges of reality.
The leaves fall. As I
Count the dry bones, I breathe forth
The silence of death
Woven from mountains and skies
Which hem in the Beloved.
My breath twines with snow
Yet to come. They rebuke me
For seeing the dark,
But what choice was I given?
The winter is my needle.
Spring’s my thread of green.
New like the shards of broken
Mirrors. Pieces placed
Like manifold wisdom, glimpse
Reality’s tapestry
I am not the year
Nor a season, month or day.
I am but minutes
Who count the threads leading
To the finished work, God’s hand.
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NaNoWriMo 2019: I Don’t Believe In Fate Except In…
I am sitting here in my new home office (which is the same as my old home office just with less junk). I have been poring over story details and thinking about my writing process this afternoon. For those of you who are theologians I am a Wesleyan Armenian not a Calvinist which in layman’s terms just means, if I am asked to choose between the idea of fate and free will I am going to lean towards free will every time. I am not a big believer in the idea that you cannot escape your fate. I am a big believer in the idea that you get to play a part in your destiny.
That said when it comes to the writing process, as I put pen to paper it feels more like I am just uncovering a story that is already written, not creating something new. The story is new to me, but I feel like it has been floating around in the spirit realm somewhere just waiting for someone to stumble upon it and give it form. I almost feel fated to write this thing….and so you see my problem.
Does anyone else feel this way as they put their own pens to their own pieces of paper? I anxiously await your input.
Lillie-Put 