[Moon-dæg] Gesturing towards Science Fiction

Context
The Train Ride to the Freeholds
Closing

{Another world, but similar trains. Image found on www.guardian.co.uk.}

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Context

This short story was written based on an exercise that asks you to write a scene between two people where all of the communication happens in body language.

The lack of dialogue really opens things up, while the fact that you need to describe the gestures that you want to use means that you really need to pay attention to your description. Everything has to work well together for such a piece to work, and after some minor edits, this piece is a decent example, I think.

It's definitely the start of something bigger, and possibly a story from the world that my five part fantasy epic is set in (though possibly further down the timeline).

Enjoy!

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The Train Ride to the Freeholds

There was a lot of nodding going on. Everyone in the box car seemed to be bobbing their heads, wagging their chins. But it was al silence. Like a tunnel the train had entered that would only be left at sunrise when the windows and the thin drapes could not hold any more light at bay.

It helped that everyone was asleep.

Except for Roscoe, whose eyees swept the train car's passengers over as the auto duster had swept the car clean while it was still in the station. Some people stirred, but only to shift their positions. It was a difficult maneuvre but one that Roscoe was impressed to see carried out so flawlessly. The new chips really had improved the brain's higher functioning in sleep. The boy's gaze stopped at one of the windows behind a line of heads, its drapes waved back and forth in time with dull metallic chug of the locomotive. The resulting shafts of moonlight slid between people's feet like a reluctant ping pong ball.

One of the feet kicked it away. Or seemed to. Roscoe looked up to see the rest of the foot's owner, beyond the leg. A young woman, maybe from the facility just before he was started, looked back. Her eyes struck him clearest of all the aspectsof her face, for they were as large as the moon most nights now, and the irises were such a pale blue that her eyes looked almost entirely white except for both of her ebony pupils. Roscoe thought back to the city's mascot, the eyes simple white circles with black dots. But the young woman's eyes were more life-like. More genuine. Especially when he noticed them looking at him.

The young woman shrugged and looked around. She put her hands on the seat beside her and pretended to dangle her legs in the space between seat and floor, although her feet had no difficulty reaching the cold steel bottom of the car. She lowered her face and then raised her eyes to Roscoe.
He could feel his cheeks redden and hoped that the car was too dark for the girl to see what he knew was an imminently rich color. He stared back at her and shrugged as well.

Then, without any thought, he crossed one leg over the other at the knee, set his elbow on top and leaned into his arm, resting his chin in his hand. At first, he returned his eyes to her feet, but then raised them to hers.

She pointed to her head and then shrugged as she leaned forward.

Roscoe immediately dropped his hand across his chest as if presenting something there and used the same hand to point at her. The moonlight helps, but even if she was wearing her id I couldn't read it from here. Not without those other upgrades.

The young woman mimicked his gesture and then sat still for a moment. She drummed her finger on her lower lip and seemed to be looking everywhere but directly in front of her. She straightened herself and then threw her hands into her lap. She curled them upwards and slowly raised them towards the ceiling, fingers first. Once her elbows touched she fanned out her fingers and swayed the figure made by her arms and hands almost imperceptibly.

Ah. She's definitely from the facility from before me. Animals come two after flowers, so she's two cycles older than me.

Roscoe put his hands over his eyes, separating his middle and ring finger so he could look through them. He could see her nod off-rhtyhm to the rest of the passengers though his hands. Her lips rose into a smile and he copied the motion as best he could, hoping that she noticed it rather than the color he felt filling his cheeks once more.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow and Thursday for Annotated Links #10 and #11, on Wednesday for an editorial on some of the newest news, and on Friday for part four of Nicolas Cage month - a look at the decent in 2012's Seeking Justice.

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[Moon-dæg] When the Guard is Down

{A figure, a silhouette, a being - but with what intent and purpose? Image from the Minecraft modding site mcmodding.com.}

Context
Still Not Saved
Closing

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Context

This piece of flash fiction (or scene from a longer work) came from a writing exercise, that, as far as I remember, just involved a phrase. The idea of the exercise is to take a phrase and then to write a piece that starts with that phrase.

So, once the phrase "She could hear them living all through the house" came up, I just took it and ran.

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Still not Saved

She could hear them living all through the house. She felt herself sink deeper into the bed, all of the muscles in her arms and legs loosening for the first time in weeks. Mathias' plan had worked. And he was right about them not wanting to get into this room.

A quick glance to the window still showed a pillar of smoke rising from somewhere below the lintel. And the sky remained filled with the kinds of clouds that brought drabness but no rain.

Yet she knew that they were all living beyond the door and down on the first floor. The still silence confirmed it. Silence enough to hear someone's walk. It's brisk, she mused. A word she hadn't been able to use to describe anything's walk for far too long.

She relished the sound of shoes squeaking on the floor. A stop! Low voices. Low voices that only survived as undulations of sound full of pitch and intonation - but measured and easy - after they crossing through walls and even floors.

But then, a scratching. A scritching against wood that forced Emma back into the fore of her mind. She closed her eyes and tried to melt into the mattress. The memory faded, but the sound did not. She put her feet on the floor, faced the closet and walked over to it.

Her hand reached for a knob of the folding door. Her hand's steadiness caused her no surprise - she knew the door led only to a closet. And nothing terrible had ever come from a closet. They had never seemed to get into them.

The scritching subsided and air rushing through the corner of a canine mouth could be heard.

How on earth did he wind up in there?

She turned the door knob. The hinge creaked and the colour of clothes formerly worn only by shadows rushed to get through the crack of light.

A low growl followed.

Her arm continued to push the door outwards. But before the panel door snapped into place a weight latched onto her neck and she fell backwards.

"No..." she managed, as low as the voices that had now resumed below and around her. But teeth and flesh would not part. "No...bad. Bad...Dog-uugh!"

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On Wednesday, come looking for an editorial on some of the newest news, and on tomorrow and Thursday be sure to watch for annotated links #8 and #9. Plus, don't miss part three of Nicolas Cage month on Friday, featuring his 2011 thriller Trespass.

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[Moon-dæg] A Childhood Horror

Context
Vous Allez Dormir (You'll Be Sleeping)
Closing

{A child's tombstone in Boldre Church, Hampshire, England. Image from geograph.}

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Context

This is another thing that's come out of the local writing group. If you've got one in your town, then I heartily recommend attending it. Writing groups are a great way to boost your productivity and to find inspiration through challenges and through sharing perspectives.

Anyway, the exercise that resulted in this piece of writing comes from Pat Schneider's Writing Alone and With Others, a guide to getting into the writing habit and to starting a writing group.

What the specific exercise that lead to tonight's piece involves is simple: take a song or prayer or poem that you know by heart, and use its lines as a refrain for whatever it is you write.

My own result is a short horror story, but the same song in another's hands might have lead to something a little more innocent and pitched to the audience of the song that I used. Also, Wikipedia was used as a reference for the full song.

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Vous Allez Dormir (You'll Be Sleeping)

Frère Jacques...

The sound spewed out from the top of the door jamb, an empty space of just a few centimeters – but enough for the sound wiggle through and into the room. Clarence held his fingers in his ears and hoped that it would mute the sound enough to let him think. To come up with a way out.

Frère Jacques...

It didn't seem to be working. The melody pinned all of his muscles to the spot and made his arms feel as heavy as the furniture he had pushed up against the door. At the time he hadn't considered the use of the towel that Joyce had offered, screaming as the song ate at her from the inside out, turning her every movement into a concentrated step and swing in time with the schoolroom chant.

Dormez vous?...

Clarence wondered how much more pressure his inner ear could take before it burst. He cursed himself for refusing the ear plugs, though by the state of the house, it seemed like no one here had taken them either. And why would they?

Dormez vous?...

Who would have believed the news reports and status updates and tweets? That there was a song in the air and it was out for human blood?

Clarence was beginning to feel woozy, and he staggered backwards, his elbow striking a lamp, the thing bursting on the floor.

Sonnez les matines...

It was getting clearer now, trying to pour its whole essence through the crack at the closed and [fortified] door's top. Clarence imagined that he could see the vibrations as each recognizable word lilted through the air, tugging at his own childhood memories of its recital like French Canadian nuns pulling at taffy.

Deafness was better than this.

Death was better than this.

Sonnez les matines...

Clarence forced his fingers harder against his ears, until he could feel both digits compressing the ears' inner chambers. It felt like two walls were being pressed down into the same room – he wondered which would top which.

Din, dan, don...

He wondered and pressed.

He pressed and wondered.

Din, dan, d-

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Closing

Check back here on Wednesday for an editorial on some of the newest news, and on Friday for a hunt for the good in the 1993 Nicolas Cage film noir, DeadFall. Also, be sure to come by the blog tomorrow and Thursday for more Annotated Links.

And, if you'd like to leave me some feedback on today's story (positive or negative, but only constructive, please), feel free to add a comment below.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] Email and Introspection

So, today is Wōdnes-daeg and once again I am going to take what I have been learning and writing about it here. This week, something as introspective as last week, and so, alas, I have no facts to speak of. This entry is going to be about how my email might just be what's been keeping me in my...rut? old habits? poor mindset? It's hard to really explain.

Here's the background for this discovery.

For the first week of the new year I was with old friends from high school and with my fiancee. Needless to say this meant that my regular schedule was interrupted. My daily writing flagged, I didn't create any new articles, and I let my inbox fill up for the most part. When I got back home I felt refreshed and invigorated, and it seemed that all of the energy of adding one to the number that the West chooses to represent the current year was still with me. I still felt as fresh and ready for whatever I had to do as I did a week earlier.

With this feeling pushing me forward I actually had a few relatively productive days. I felt good about what I was doing, and wasn't really stressing out about my pace or how slowly my organizing was going in relation to what I was organizing for (a new job hunt, getting myself into a steadier freelance writing habit, and general things that carried over from 2011).

Tonight, however, I finally decided to get to my email after taking a few days away from it. This hiatus was mostly due to my new found ability to actually say to myself "no, I can just do that tomorrow, it's late, and I should get to bed instead," and actually follow through.

After checking my email, though I felt like my old mindset had returned. That I was just awash in information and paralyzed by there being too much to process. As someone who has been published in print and only on the web via DMS, getting into writing freelance content or SEO specialized stuff is like learning to write in a different language. DMS articles are in a dialect of that language, but the learning curve seems much more merciful. And the possible starting points are far fewer.

Anyway, realizing this about my email consumption makes me think that I should do a few things.

First, seriously consider just short story writing and articles that I know I can write well and forget about branching out into new forms and topics and letting all of the other possibilities lie dormant for now.

Second, re-organize how I go through my email, or sit down and actually look at the myriad of newsletters that I am signed up for to assess whether I should keep them or cut them loose.

Because I am no email addict I think that the second might be more likely. But the first is also appealing.

So, it's really grainy and rather a thin connection, but from all of this I have learned that I am not one who can process a ton of information from multiple channels at once, and that what they say about writing is true - at least as far as my confidence goes. You've got to write what you know.

It's a good thing that I know myself, or this blog would have fewer entries, that's for sure. :/