Weekend Writing Warriors March 3, 2013

Week 5: "When abzions fly..."

Whew, March already! And in my neck of the woods, spring is not far away.  Never enough time...

Welcome gr8ters! Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog-hop. Each week, participants sign up HERE at Weekend Writing Warriors, then post 8 sentences of their work, published or unpublished, to go live between 12:00 noon Saturday, and 9:00 AM Sunday EST.  Then we visit each other, read, comment, critique, encourage--all those great things that do a solitary writer's heart good.

Give it a try--we're a pretty nice bunch of people.  :-)

This week, returning to my WIP, ATNS, and using the random scrolling method (I give Kate Warren complete credit for coining the term for that method) I've landed about one quarter of the way through the story.

The young King, Rissa and his guard are visiting a world under Rialtan  Empire control. It's a mostly rural world with a few larger cities and many small villages. Cuylrh and group are in one of the small villages,  They all, with the exception of Abraxum, drank too much, and a few have displayed poor judgement. It's the middle of the night and Cuylrh has just been roused from his sleep by his first guard, Abraxum, and informed that Dhurstan, in a drunken state has just spent the better part of the night with the wife of a local.  Dhurstan is now standing in the street with sword drawn, ready to take on the husband over an affront to his honor.

*note: Abzions are  four legged, flightless predators.  Chade translated is roughly equivalent to Earth English "bitch"

Cuylrh, shirtless and barefoot in his haste, is now standing in the dirt street between  the two angry men:

"A corroborating onlooker barked, “She steal’t off and left the poor man and all the little ones at home, sound asleep. Took him hours to find her.”

In a tone meant to mollify, Cuylrh said, “The dishonor in this appears to be with your woman.  Perhaps my friend, here,” as he narrowed his eyes at Dhurstan, “didn’t even know she had a mate.”

“When abzions fly, he didn’t know!  With the Giver as my witness, we all sat together at our meal this day, and the cheating, stealing, chade-monger even asked us about our children!”

Kicking in serious diplomacy instilled by years of being groomed to rule, Cuylrh asked, “What is your name--  I didn’t catch it?” 

Foolishly flouting-- quite a risk even in this situation, the man sneered at the young King then gave a terse reply, “Bickmard.”  

That Dhurstan!  Endless trouble with that man. :-)  Aren't the bad boys fun to write ?

That's it.  What jumps out at you, good or bad. I'd love to hear it.  Thank you so much for visiting!

And please visit the other participants. :-)

Wordless Wednesday

In spite of the "wordless", please leave some words. :-)

My Five Favorites

Oh my! My wonderful and marvelously talented author friend--and online buddy, Jay, of Jay Squire's Septuagenarian Journey 's fame, has dared me to bare my soul on these pages. Oh, perhaps it's worse even, than that. He's dared me to choose my favorite child.  Goodness, I jest. But, it feels like I'm trying to choose a favorite child.  What he has challenged me to do is to choose my five favorite books.

It's a baffling, confusing, and daunting task; I have so many favorites.  But, I'll try. They might not be high on your list. Some you've probably not read. Okay, not some.  Most you've probably not read. But for some reason, these books have spoken to my very soul.  I know their characters. Really, I do. I think they still pop up occasionally, and join the other voices in my head--the fictional voices of my own creation.

That tells me that the authors did something right, something incredible.  They brought fictional characters-- and their stories, to life on the pages of a book.  And they did it so well that these stories struck a chord with me,  and it still resonates.


Without further ado, I give you my five:

Sword At Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff, published in 1963. Hands down, my all-time favorite book. Ever. As stuff of  Arthurian legends and myths go, this book stands out. It's based on years of research into the legend of one king who united all of Britain after the Romans withdrew. Artos the Bear came to life on Sutcliff's pages. A man who was denied an upbringing by his father, trained to fight by the Romans, committed the "sin" and fathered a son--which led to his demise.  Sutcliff eschewed many of the romantic elements included in most Arthurian stories, including the round table (it's not in this book) and the French invention-- Sir Lancelot--also has no place in this book. Artos was a hero, a good leader, a fair and honest man, but his vulnerability was love, and it led to his tragic downfall.

Nobody's Son by Sean Stewart copyright 1993.  Fantasy, coming of age tale. A journey, a challenge, a lesson in what happiness is, and that you can't erase the past by what you do today. It will always be there, and in many, many ways, it is what makes us who we are today. The right thing to do is to accept the past, learn from it, and embrace today.  Beautifully written--

Dancing With Eternity by John Patrick Lowrie, copyright 2011. I know. I know...but it's so new!  Still, I'm sure this one will pass my test of time.  This fantasy/scifi tale looks deceptively like just an interesting tale of space intrigue.  Read and absorb.  When the big picture hits you, it's profound.  The way Lowrie tackles the question of immortality and lets the implications slowly unravel to a beautiful and bittersweet ending is magnificent. It couldn't have ended any other way...  Lowrie certainly has some skills. I keep hoping to see something new from him.

 Bountiful Creek by Steven B Weissman. Historical fiction/romance. Published in 2012.  I know ~gasp~ even newer! This is a legendary love story.  You know, the stuff legends are made of.  :-)  Set during the stirrings of the civil war, it's the story of an 18 year old woman and her ill-fated attempt to secure enough money to buy a small farm for her and her fiance.  Weissman's debut novel is a vocabulary workout.  The bittersweet nature of the "legendary" aspect can initially blind the reader to the literary genius of the story.  That makes it an excellent second read.

One more??  Oh, this is agony! Do I choose Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor 1955--A Pulitzer Prize winning novel set during the civil war, or do I choose The Thornbirds by Colleen McCullough 1977 -my daughter's name came from this book.  Or, do I go with something much newer that thoroughly resonated with me-- Girl Under Glass by Monica Enderle Pierce?? Yikes! A Thousand Splendid Suns, This Much I Know is True,  I Robot,  Contact ,  A Tale of Two Cities,  Foreigner,  Cold Allies,  Tuesdays With Morrie,  The Webster Dictionary copyright 1900  :-)

Yep. It's out of control. I can't pick just one more.  A daunting task, indeed ... 
 
 And I still have to choose some lovely people to pass this challenge on to.

Here goes:

Dana at Idiots and Earthquakes: A Writer's Blog 

Monica at Stalking Fiction

Veronica at Veronica Scott: paranormal and SF romance author

Tanya at Life's Like That 

C. Amrhein at  History Sleuth's Deductions

Marcia at Letter Go

I look forward to reading about your favorite books--and I'm curious what has inspired you. If you don't have time--I know how busy life gets, that's fine :-) 

If you do want to do this, please leave me a comment anywhere on this blog after your post is up. I want to read it!  

Weekend Writing Warriors February 24, 2013

 Week 4 "Endless and Hopeless"

Welcome to another #8sunday post.  Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly bloghop you can visit and sign up at by clicking here wewriwa.com.

The idea is simple. Sign the list which is posted by 10:00 AM EST on Mondays.  Then post 8 sentences of your writing on your own blog so other writers can visit, read and comment, crit, encourage, and get to know you, and vice versa :-)  It's for beginners and published pros alike.

My #8sunday post for this week:

Returning to my WIP, ATNS, and making the selection for today's 8 sentences using the random scrolling method, I've landed fairly early in the story.

Rissa, the main character, has had a bad evening, that included a run in with Cuylrh.  She's misses her son back on Earth, and she's homesick.  She's walked away from camp and is now sitting beside a small lake. 

"Starlight danced, bobbing up and down on ripples as the cool, night breeze stirred the dark water. Goosebumps prickled Rissa’s arms and legs as she looked from the lake, up to the heavens at the blackness of forever.

The endless sky—it used to hold all the wonder, all the mystery and magic of existence… proof there was something more.  Yeah, there was always something beyond what the eye could see. And that had brought with it the simple knowledge that even if today was best left forgotten, something else was waiting, tomorrow. 

 

Until now.  Home was somewhere in the endless, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that to search the endless… was hopeless."

That's it.  What jumps out at you, good or bad. I'd love to hear it.  Thank you so much for visiting!

Visit the other "great eight" posters by clicking  HERE.  

Spring: Can You Feel It Coming?

Humans are such funny creatures.  As far as we've evolved, we still sense the lengthening of daylight after the winter solstice. It's not just the longer days we sense, but perhaps even more, a change in the quality of light.  With the darkest days of the year behind us, we come out of our virtual caves where we've been holed up all winter.


Something innate, instinctive, some primitive part of our brain tells us that winter can't last forever, and the makings of its demise are already in motion. Perhaps, risking blasphemy, we are all Pagans at heart, emerging to worship the returning sun.


When I was eighteen, I wouldn't have noticed the subtle changes, would not have sensed the slight shifts. I hadn't learned to observe, to tune into the little notices that nature was posting all around my world. It took a rare sixty degree in February day to pretty much hit me over the head before I sensed that there was change on the horizon.

But, thirty plus years later, I'm discovering some glorious gifts that have come with age. One of which is how much more easily I recognize what that primitive part of my brain is telling me. Glorious, indeed, to pick up on the approach of spring, to grasp tiny cues that give hope to my winter-weary heart.

Things like feral cats-- rather than  hiding somewhere protected from the weather, in February come out and curl up in the  sunshine.

For the last week, the birds have been singing spring songs in the mornings.

The alder trees have pushed out their catkins, and I saw a newly emerging skunk cabbage in a swampy area along the community trail.

Tree buds have begun to swell, and the tops of maple trees are tinged pink with new growth.

And standing on the back porch, looking out over Rough Run hollow illuminated by a waxing moon, I shiver, but remain, knowing it's far too early to hope for spring peepers, but it's enough tonight to hear the sound of the creek rushing through the valley below. To know that the ice can no longer contain the late winter song of open water.

All things that in my youth would have gone unnoticed, unheralded, and unappreciated.  But, now? Well, here I am, blabbing to you, hoping that you'll start to take stock, or even think of something you noticed recently that whispered in a shout, "Spring is coming! Have you noticed!"

                         Pink tops of maples where new growth has begun.

                                            Skunk cabbage emerging.

Weekend writing Warriors February 17, 2013

 Week 3 "Let the Swordplay Begin"

Welcome to another #8sunday post.  This week returning to my WIP, ATNS, and making the selection for today's 8 sentences using the random scrolling method, I've landed fairly early in the story.  Our heroine,  Rissa (in her dream world), has just learned that she must learn how to fight with a sword.  Cuylrh gathered the entire group, the existing Guard members, along with Jia and Rissa, and made the announcement that Rissa would have to first learn how to fight, and then qualify for admission into the Kings' Guard by besting an opponent. At the same time, Rissa's new found friend and ally, Jia, has been offered the same deal, to best an opponent within the Guard to qualify for admission. Jia has fought with swords all of her life, and this is her opportunity to show she's as good as any man-- by becoming a King's Guard in the patriarchal and often misogynistic Rialtan Empire. Dhurstan is Cuylrh's best friend, a he-whoring troublemaker, arrogant, and despises Rissa-- along with Cuylrh's obvious affection for her.


This snippet is in Rissa's POV.

"Senseless and dumb, she looked down at her feet, at her 

sturdy shoes from Earth, from home, from a place with rules where no one lived and died by the sword. She’d only forced  her hiker-clad feet to take two steps through dust and ashes, away from the fire when Jia shouted behind her.   

Rissa turned and stared, still numb from the shock of impending swordplay she now knew she must endure.  Jia’s voice sang with confidence, and commanded with authority when she pulled her sword from its sheath and let loose words into the frighteningly still air, “Dhurstan of Rialt, I challenge you.”

The fight was loud and violent, a prolonged audible assault that lasted until Jia, with a spinning move, flung his sword out of his hand. Her advance was a fluid motion, part ballerina, part warrior as she planted her foot into his stomach sending him sprawling on his back. It all came to a stop where Dhurstan lay disarmed, humiliation painted across his face, with Jia’s  foot pressed against his chest and her sword tip biting at the underside of his chin."

That's it.  What jumps out at you, good or bad. I'd love to hear it.  Thank you so much for visiting!

Visit the other "great eight" posters by clicking  HERE. 

Wordless Wednesday 2/13/13

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