Language

Mora was pouring over her books when her little brother, James, came up behind her. She was focused on her studies, taking careful and detailed notes on what she was reading, and so she didn't notice him quietly approaching. He looked over her shoulder, but he couldn't make out any of the words that his sister was reading. They looked like scrambled letters that didn't have any meaning, and between the multiple books, there didn't even seem to be any consistencies between how the letters were arranged. But Mora was reading them carefully, and she seemed to be able to make sense of it all, which very much confused James.

"What are you reading?" he asked very abruptly. The sudden noise scared Mora, who nearly jumped out of her seat, marking an unsightly line across her paper. She looked back to see her brother, standing there as if nothing was wrong, completely oblivious to how he had just nearly made her soil her pants. She sighed and sat back into her seat, trying to level out her breath. James continued to stand there, looking inquisitively at her, waiting for an answer.

Mora rubbed her forehead, trying to get her thoughts straight. "I'm reading Latin," she explained. "And some Middle English. Two translations of the same story. I'm trying to see what is consistent and inconsistent between them, and see if I can tell if it has anything to do with the language, or if it was just choices made by the translator." James blinked a few times, trying to fully understand what his sister was telling him.

"What's Latin?" he asked. "And what's the difference between normal English and Middle English?"

"Well, James," Mora explained, "Latin and Middle English are both dead languages. Nobody speaks them anymore."

"If they're dead, does that mean they used to be alive? And if no one speaks them anymore, then why are you reading them? That seems silly."

Mora smiled. James' simple, naive questions always had a way of making her do that. "They did use to be alive," she said, "but not in the way that you and I are alive. For a language to be alive, it needs someone to speak it. It can only live through others."

"Can you speak them?"

"Sort of."

"Then that means they're not dead, right?"

Mora chuckled softly. "I may be able to speak them, but I don't use them as my form of communication. I wouldn't speak them to you. That's the difference. Do you understand?" James pondered on it for a moment, then nodded. "I'm reading them because I enjoy them. I want to understand them, because they are a part of history. They are some of the building blocks of our English."

"They don't look anything like our English," James replied. "I can't read them at all. They don't look like real words."

"They're very different from our English, yes," she continued, "but the parts that make up the words may be closer to our own English than you might think." She picked up her Latin book, and shoed him one of the words. "See this word? Regis? It means 'of the King.' Can you think of any words related to kings that look like regis?"

James squinted his eyes, looking at the word, trying to think. After a long moment, he smiled brightly. "Regal!" he exclaimed.

His sister smiled proudly. "That's right. You see? And there are lots of words like that, in both Latin and Middle English. That's why people still learn them. So that they can see where we have come from, and have a greater understanding of who we are and where we've come from."

James nodded, and looked down at the books. "Mora?" he asked. "Can you teach me to read those like you can?"

Mora chuckled and nodded. "Sure, James. I can do that."

The castle

Marcus sat on a rock ledge on the hill, looking out over the empty expanse of land before him. He sighed and scratched his bearded chin, trying to think about how he was going to go about building the castle that he had been commissioned for. He had been given more than enough funds to build the castle to the requested specifics, but the land...

Marcus fell backwards to lie down, staring up at the sky. He didn't know how he was going to manage in this land. Where there weren't hills, there was weak soil and rock that would easily shift and change with the weather. Rain would make it slick and hard to walk in. Heat would solidify it, making it impossible to farm. Winds would raise the dust and blow it wildly, preventing people's sights. It was a terrible place to live. There was clearly more than one reason that no one had settled down there.

But the king himself had insisted upon it. "We shall build a kingdom regardless of the doubts against us," he had proudly proclaimed, "and it shall be symbolized by our very castle itself." Nothing Marcus said could convince him otherwise. And oh... He had tried to convince him otherwise.

Even if he could succeed in building the castle, which was somewhat unlikely given he needed a solid and consistent base to build it upon, it was questionable if anyone could reasonably survive in these lands for an extended period of time. Traveling through the land, certainly, it could be crossed to more stable climates in a couple of days... But living there. That was another question entirely.

"Why the hell did I agree to this anyway?" Marcus muttered bitterly to himself. "I knew this land was going to be impossible to build on. I tried to tell the king that. But he wouldn't listen to me. I should've just refused him. Saved us both some time."

"You know perfectly well that to refuse the king would be treason, and as difficult as this may be, you'd much rather be alive than dead." Marcus looked up to see his apprentice, Olivia, approaching with the blueprinting supplies that he had sent her off to get.

"You should know better than to talk back to me, Olivia," Marcus replied, sitting up and turning to her as she dropped off the supplies in front of her.

"And you should know better than to complain about things that you can not change," she responded matter of factly. "You are the one who told me that it is best to take a job and run with it, damn the consequences, than to sit and moan about the difficulty of it."

Marcus only grunted in response. He was already at work drawing out plans for how he was going to build the castle. He didn't know if the plans would even work. He was sure that he would have to redraw them at least a dozen times before he even came close to having a workable solution. And even that would only be a beginning.

"That's more like the master I know," Olivia dotted happily. "Straight to work."

"Why don't you stop talking," Marcus replied absent mindedly, "and start testing these designs." He threw the first sheet of diagrams her direction and immediately set to work on the next sheet, anticipating the failure of the first. "We have work to do."

"Yes sir!"

Death

There are few moments in my life that I remember with clarity. And when I say this, I very much mean moments. I am not sure there is a single full day in my life that I can fully recall, and entire months are lost to me. Many of my memories are only vague recollections, which are often disputed by my friends and family who likely remember those events far better than I do. But, of the few moments I do remember, I remember them with an utmost clarity. I can close my eyes and see them in vivid detail in my mind's eye. Some are of real moments, and some are of dreams which I have had. But the one I wish to speak of now is the death of my grandfather.

There are many moments related to his death, and while many tales are told chronologically, I believe his is one best told as he would tell it: with no logical order. I remember waking up to the sound of knocks on my door. I opened my eyes very groggily. There wasn't much light - it was early in the morning. "Hey," I heard my father say. "Listen. Papa... Papa's dead."

I looked at him, only half awake. I nodded to him. "Okay," I said. He nodded back and closed the door as he left. It was still fairly dark. It was perhaps five in the morning - a pretty typical time for things with my grandfather to be occurring, his death being no exception. Later on, when others were waking up and seeing my text about his death, I would receive many words of encouragement and heartfelt messages.

For the time, I went back to sleep.

It had started several months beforehand. Papa had always been a little out of it, a little weak. He was supposed to walk with a cane, but he never did. I suppose he was too proud for it. If he even knew what pride was at the time. It was raining that night as we went to dinner, and unfortunately the parking lot in front of the restaurant was packed. We had to park a good distance away, up a hill and behind the building. For dad and I, it was no big deal. But Papa...

We didn't expect him to fall. We didn't expect him to slam his head into the soaked metal handrail, nor to smack a second time against the hard concrete step. We certainly didn't expect his spine to unfortunately smash into the sharp angle of the end of the step. But it all did. It happened in an instant - we didn't even see it. He was behind us at the time.

Stupid. He was an old man. Why did we leave him in the dust?

I remember standing in solemn silence as the people around me cried. I didn't know everyone who was there. To be honest, I don't think everyone who was there knew grandfather. The priest certainly didn't. I played guitar and sang Amazing Grace with my friend - we did a pretty good job. It pushed the tears out harder.

Papa had once scared the shit out of me months after he had returned from the hospital. I wasn't paying much attention to him at the time, because he had been sleeping in his chair in the living room. I didn't realize he had woken up until I heard his wheelchair rolling across the hallway floor. I figured he was going to his room, as he was prone to do. But then the front door opened.

I leapt off the couch in a panic to find this old, virtually paralyzed, insane old man trying to climb out of the house - quite literally - and barely hanging on to the door frame. I forced him back into his wheel chair and rolled him away from the door, closing it as soon as I could. I demanded to know what the hell he was thinking, and his response was confounding at the time, but became one of my favorite running gags.

"It's ok," he told me. "We can go home now."

Somehow he had decided we had four homes. Each in different places. Each looked exactly the same. If you changed anything in any of the houses, it changed in all of them. And we were in the wrong one.

After the funeral, people asked me why I didn't cry. In fact, none of us who had lived with Papa had cried. We simply weren't sad. People saw his death as us having lost him, and I can understand why they thought that. But they hadn't experienced his last days like we had. The truth was, we had been waiting for him to die. It was easier on everyone that way. Him included.

We had lost Papa the moment he had fallen. Everything leading up to his death was little more than a reminder that he was already gone.

Mark of power

Sarah woke up with a dull pain in her back, and a haze over her memory. Everything about the previous day seemed to be gone from her mind, and as much as she tried to grope for the memories to return, they simply were not there. She slowly sat up from the stiff board that had been her makeshift bed, only to realize how odd that was. She blinked the fuzz out of her vision and looked around to find that she was not at home, but rather in what appeared to be a mansion basement. She stood up, her body weak, and made her way to the door.

"Good morning," came a voice from the other side of the room. She looked back to see a man in a fine suit seated in a chair, reading an ancient looking book encased in aged leather. "I hope you slept well," he continued. "The ritual that you went through fortunately went well, meaning that your body should have been receptive. I believe it's about time that we tested your abilities."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sarah demanded, her voice rough and weak, which didn't help to hide the panic she was beginning to feel. She didn't recognize the man at all, nor did she have any idea of what he was talking about, and unlike the stories that she had read in her youth, she had no dull feeling in her mind of familiarity. All that she knew was that she was not where she should have been, and she did not feel as she should.

The man closed his book with a dull thud, and rose out of his chair. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you might have lost some of your memories in the process," he explained casually, walking towards her and pulling a piece of chalk from his jacket pocket. "Regardless, I do not believe that we have time to go into the details. We need to be getting to work." He stopped a dozen feet away from Sarah, and began to draw what appeared to be an alchemical circle on the wall.

Sarah was too stunned by what was happening to turn the door handle in her hand. She was confused by what the man was saying, and the dull pain in her back had begun to flame up the moment that the man had begun drawing. "You must be crazy if you think that's going to do anything," she said bitterly. "It looks like you're attempting alchemy, which is the biggest crock of..."

She was cut off as he finished drawing, and the chalk began to glow. A demon ripped its way out of the wall from the center of the circle, its unearthly scream ringing through the air and invading Sarah's brain. She screamed out in pain, falling to the ground and clutching at her ears. The demon seemed to be stuck in the circle, however, and furiously clawed at the walls and reached out directly toward her. She couldn't take her eyes off of it.

The pain in her back burned hotter as she stared at it, raising to meet the pain of the demon's screams in her ears. She screamed in return, unable to withstand the pain any longer, and her back felt as though it had burst into flames. The demon's face twisted and convulsed as she screamed, and the circle began to change colors and almost be dragged off of the wall. Sarah collapsed to the ground, shrieking in agony, and suddenly she felt as though her back was being stabbed by a dozen tiny needles one after another.

Everything stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun. She didn't know how long it had transpired. Her breath was ragged and weak, but the pain in her back subsided, and other than her breathing, the room had fallen silent.

"Well," came the man's voice, as calm as though nothing had happened. "It looks as though you are a success."

Sarah tilted her head up slowly to look at him. Both the demon and the alchemical circle it had come from had vanished from the wall. "What the fuck did you do to me?" she asked quietly.

"I gave you the mark of power that you asked for," he responded. "You have gained the ability to absorb the magic of the underworld, and you use it for yourself. You are the only who could possibly have this power, too. You should feel privileged."

Emotions

Mayleen felt like she was ready to fall apart. The weight of all that had happened hung heavy on her heart, and the fact that she had silently bared it alone did not help. Frequently as of late, people had asked her what was wrong, if there was anything they could do to help, but they did not understand. They couldn't. So rather than helping, their questions had only served to make her more uncomfortable, more alone.

She sat on the bench after school, waiting for her bus to arrive. She had received word that her normal bus had broken down, and so there would be a delay of unknown length before a replacement would be able to arrive, and her parents were not able to pick her up as they were both at work. And so she sat, alone with her thoughts, as all of her fellow students had been able to arrange rides home.

She tried to stop herself from crying, to hold back her feelings at least until she could get home, and be away from the pressures of the world around her, but she was finding it difficult. She wiped angrily at her face as she felt the tears try to crawl their way out of her eyes. As she was rubbing her face, she heard the sound of a body sitting beside her. She felt a chill run through her spine. She didn't want to be seen like this.

As she slowly pulled her hands away from her face, her eyes darted to the side to see who was seated next to her. It was a boy she saw on occasion around school. He didn't talk much, and he didn't seem to have many friends. He was just... there. Mayleen realized that she didn't even know his name. She wasn't sure if that made his being there any better or worse.

They sat in silence for a long moment, Mayleen awkwardly shifting in her spot, unsure of what to do or what this boy wanted with her. Finally, she couldn't hold it in anymore. "What do you want from me?" she vehemently spit out. The boy blinked and turned his head to face her, a confused look on his face. "Don't give me that," she continued spitefully. "No one will leave me alone. Everyone looks at me and thinks they need to pity and help me. No one is even here now, and the bus isn't coming for god only knows how long, so there's no reason for you to be sitting here except for me! So what is it?"

The boy looked at Mayleen, as if he were deep in thought about what it was she was saying. His silence dragged on, frustrating her endlessly. She felt her face begin to boil with the frustration, which only served to make her eyes water more. She hated feeling this way, but she hated being seen in this state even more.

"If there is something you want to say," the boy said, suddenly brining Mayleen back to reality, "then say it." His voice was quiet and soft. "I will listen. But I think words are not what you are in need of at the moment."

"What is that even supposed to mean?" Mayleen spat back. But he didn't say anything after that. She turned away from him, still hot, confused on what he was saying. But perhaps he was right. Words were what people kept giving her that made her angrier.

Sitting there, however, with a strange boy beside her, no one around, and her thoughts pumping through her head, she was beginning to become unable to contain her emotions. She could feel herself curling up, trying to hold it in, as tears silently streamed down her cheeks.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her back. Her head whipped around to see that the boy had moved closer to her. "It's ok to cry," he said softly.

There was something about those words that hit her. Or perhaps the way he said them. But suddenly her body shook, wracked with sadness, and sobs escaped her lips. She cried hard and heavy, and the boy didn't move or say another word. He just stayed beside her, one hand resting on her back.

When she finally calmed down, she slumped against the bench. She felt very tired. But somehow, she also felt at least a little relieved to have let some of the pain out. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Anytime," the boy replied.

Making ideas work

There are some days that I actually do have a lot of ideas for what I want to write about running through my head, but when I sit down to write about them, it turns out to be a lot harder than I anticipated. This isn't going to stop me, of course, but it may make me put it off until I have more time, or I have a better understanding of how I want to go about it, or what have you. A lot of these ideas come from taking something that is something I come across on a daily basis, but that aren't necessarily easily put into words. Which, of course, is the problem.

One of these ideas that I had recently came from the fact that I have been studying Latin. In Latin, the rules of good language are very different from how they are in English, and I was toying with the idea of writing a piece with good Latin grammar, and seeing how it comes out in English. It's an interesting concept, and certainly an interesting challenge, and it would help me develop a better sense of good sentence structure. However, it lacks an important detail: what I would write about.

In theory you can just apply that idea to any story, but it works a lot better when the idea and the story that you apply it to can actually correlate. I considered using a rewrite to apply that, but I don't much like doing rewrites unless it's something that I'm heavily interested in and want to redo because I'm not happy with the original. Something like that isn't really a good place to be throwing in random ideas for challenging myself. So it kind of requires better planning.

There are lots of ways I can challenge myself in writing similar to this, but they still require having something to actually write about. I'd love to work on making these challenges happen, and it may be something that I want to try focusing on in coming pieces. But unfortunately I continue to have the problem of having an actual story.

This is a problem I have a lot, which I believe I have touched on in the past. I sometimes try to browse different places that provide writing prompts for such things, but I generally find them less than helpful. I very rarely actually use the writing prompts that I am given, though they occasionally do make me think of my own prompts that are completely unrelated. How exactly that works I can't explain, but it happens.

These are the unfortunate problems of writing something new every day. But, they are good problems to have, at least in my eyes. Having to continue to think of things to write about forces me to think creatively, which is not something that happens very frequently. It's difficult, to be sure, and I am less than thrilled with how I have handled that problem as I have been writing, but occasionally it works out. I am very fond of a few pieces I have written, even if they are only a small portion of all I have done, but that's more or less to be expected. It can be discouraging at times, but when I do make the ones I feel I can be proud of, it gives me a rush I don't get many other places.

So when I get ideas, I try to make them work. They don't always do, and more frequently don't, but I do it anyway. And sometimes, when I really like an idea, I come back to it later on down the road, and I try it again. And again. And again. Because I know that each time I do, it will get better, and eventually it will be good. Maybe even great. Although I try not to get too full of myself. Because every idea can be improved. You just have to work on it.

Visuals

It's incredibly difficult to convey visuals through text. I think anyone who has ever attempted to write can understand this, and anyone who has ever read a story has probably scratched their head at least once while trying to understand what it was the author was attempting to convey. We're highly visual creatures, and that can't be helped. But sometimes it simply isn't enough to say that a person was punched or kicked. We have to describe how, and where, and what effect it had, all of which would easily be able to be seen, by describing such through words is another matter entirely. Not to mention such details as what a person was wearing, where they were, and what they saw.

Sometimes we can get away without these details, and there's nothing wrong with that. I do it myself all the time. I'd like to think that a person would be able to decipher in their heads what things look like through context clues, rather than having to be told outright what it is that they're supposed to be visualizing. However, it can be vitally important to have such exact descriptors, such as in the case that they change dramatically and somewhat suddenly. Knowing precisely what is wrong with these changes and what they mean adds an amount of depth to the situation that can't be otherwise discerned.

In these cases, it may be tempting to simply put those details in moments before they are relevant, or in the very moment that they are. This ensures that the details are fresh in the reader's mind, so that they can quickly understand what is happening, without having to think back on something that may have left their minds long ago. And while that can be okay, you have to be careful. Waiting too long into the story to drop such details can create a division in the reader's mind. If a person's clothing is changed abruptly late into the story, and only in that moment is their normal attire explained, this can potentially be very different from what the reader had previously imagined their appearance to have been. This creates problems in their perception of the character, and potentially the rest of the world that you have tried to build.

So if you're going to attempt to include vivid descriptions of appearance, it's important to make sure you do so at an early enough point. You don't, however, want to cram it all too tightly together early on. This can make the descriptions drag on, boring the reader, and if such descriptions don't continue on for the rest of the piece, then there is a distinct shift in style from the opening to the main story.

And of course, on top of all of these things, if you're not any good at descriptive writing, then it's all for naught. Fortunately, that is probably the easiest thing to fix. Like all other writing, that comes down to a matter of practice. The more you write descriptively, the better you get at it. You have to think about it more in the beginning, but as you go on further and further, it becomes easier and easier to continue writing at high levels without having to think as much about it. That way you can save your brain muscles for deciding what goes where and why and how and what significance there is to every decision. Which is all a lot more subjective to each individual piece and therefore significantly more complicated.

Chess

Ryan sat down at the chess board, and could feel his heart racing. He had never been particularly good ay chess, and the pressure that was weighing down now on his shoulders only made him more sure that he would lose the game. He wasn't entirely sure how he had managed to get dragged into this mess, but now he was playing with major stakes on the line. The pieces weren't just pieces. They were people. And if he lost, not only would their lives be forfeit, but his as well.

His opponent across from him appeared to be unfazed by these conditions, however. Her eyes were flat, calculating, and Ryan had a feeling that she would not hesitate to sacrifice her pieces in order to win, even if it meant willfully killing them. She had been described to him as highly skillful as well. Taught how to play at a young age and quickly having become obsessed with the game, she was an incredibly dangerous opponent, and her losses were incredibly few and far between.

Ryan wasn't sure what to do. To win meant taking the lives of the people on the other team. To lose meant sacrificing his own. He was very much in a no-win scenario. Unfortunately, he had no choice. He had already signed the contract, because not doing so would have ensured his life forfeit right then and there. He was desperate to live, if even just a little bit longer, but this... This was not what he had been hoping for. As he stared at the board in front of him, he almost wished he had chosen death.

He was black, and so the girl sitting across from him moved first. A pawn two spaces forward. A fairly typical move. He followed suit. They navigated their pieces on and around the board, setting up both their defenses and offenses. Ryan was the first to lose a piece. As his pawn was struck down, he could swear that he felt the pain of death in his heart. He had caused this. He had been the one who put that piece in danger. He didn't know what to do anymore.

He sat in silent solitude, staring at the board, trying to think of what to do, but his mind was drawing a blank. It would not be long before he lost his king. Somewhere in his soul he knew that. He could not deny it. He could not even hope to prevent it from happening. There was nothing he could do. He was out classed and out maneuvered. He was doomed.

Without thinking, he moved his next piece. There was no point in trying anymore, as far as he could see. This chess board in front of him was a desolate wasteland of oncoming death, and he was the god throwing people forwards without purpose or chance of survival. He couldn't bare to think about what was happening.

But in doing so, he changed the expectations. His opponent knew how to plan ahead, to read her foe's moves and predict what was to come, but there were no predictions to be made. Not as long as Ryan was no longer thinking. She became confused by the erratic, seemingly random moves he was making. She tried to set up checks, to force the game back in her favor, but she was struggling to comprehend what was happening on the board in front of her.

Ryan didn't notice as she began to struggle. He was lost in the sea of despair he had set himself on. It was only when the bell rang and the call of checkmate was made that he came back to reality. He assumed it was his own king that was mated, but he was surprised to find that it was not. In her desperate attempt to force him into defeat, his opponent had managed to doom herself. He watched as she was dragged away.

He didn't know how to feel, as he blindly shook the hands of the men who had given him the contract. He was free, and he was alive, but in doing so he had killed another. It was bittersweet.

The sword

Koth sat in the corner, watching the smith forge his new sword from the materials he had gathered. The smith had given Koth specific directions on how and where to collect these materials, and it had taken well over a month for him to do so. But he hoped it would be worth it. This smith was known far and wide to be the best in the land, and hand gathering the supplies ensured that they were of the highest quality. It was said that the swords forged in this shop were unbreakable, and needed to be sharpened once a decade. Though Koth found such claims to be ridiculous and implausible, it was hard to deny that they spoke of high reliability. 

The fire burned with a savage wrath, and the sweat on his brow was soaking through Koth's clothes. There was no particular reason that he needed to be there, watching the master at work. But, having gathered the materials, he had sworn to see it all through to the end. He was in desperate need of a blade, and a good one at that, and he wasn't going to leave anything to chance along the way. 

The ringing pounds resonated through the air, loud, sharp, and rythmic. One beat a second, on the dot. You could practically tell the time by it, it was so accurate. Koth could feel the shockwave of each swing of the hammer coursing through his body, tearing through him as if he weren't even there. 

It was a number of hours into that, the third day, when the blacksmith called out as the hammer's blows died down. "Come," he called. "Hold your blade. Tell me if the weight is right so that I may begin preparations on the final form."

Koth approached quickly and took the outstretched blade by the handle. It was still hot, but not so much that it couldn't be held. He lifted, turned, and swung the rough beginnings of the sword, yet already it felt as if it were little more than a natural extension of his arm. "It feels..." he murmered, looking for the words, "perfect already."

"Yeah, yeah," the smith gruffly replied, taking the metal back. "That's what they say, but they hardly even know what they're holding." He examined the edges and length, making sure that all was as he desired it to be. "I suppose that means it's time to start sharpening."

Without letting Koth say another word, the smith took the forged blade to another part of his shop, and started to pump the grinding wheel so that it turned faster and faster, until it was a blur. He pushed the edge of the sword against it, and sparks flew through the air as a grating and high-putched noise ripped into Koth's ears.

Koth returned to his seat. Though his ears felt as though they were going to rupture at any moment, still, he would not leave.

Value

The princess took her seat at the table, the only woman amongst a throng of iron-clad, battle tested men. There was a thick tension in the air. It was the first time a woman had been permitted at their table, and though it was the princess, there was still a certain discomfort in the unfamiliarity of it all. She, however, seemed just as level headed as she always did. It was for this reason that she had been permitted to sit among them in the first place.

She, of course, was the first to break the tense silence. "Tell me, my knights," she spoke evenly, "what is it about me that puts you at such unease? Is it my breasts? For I am sure that there is not a one of you who is unfamiliar with such things, and I am also sure that you have each seen better and less covered ones than mine. I hardly think it would be my long and flowing hair, for there are some among you whose hair competes with my own. Perhaps it is my dress? It offers less protection than your stark and brilliant armor, to be sure, but I would bet the kingdom that I am more comfortable in my attire than you are in yours."

A knight sitting across from her spoke up. "It is unusual for a woman to be sitting among us," he explained, "this is true. And there is a certain discomfort I believe we all feel because of that." He raised a hand as she began to speak, quieting her. "I do not believe, however, that this is the main concern among any of us."

"What, pray tell, is then?" the princess requested, an eyebrow raised. Her interest was peaked by this statement. For a week, since it had been decided that she would be permitted a seat at their table as a guest, she had heard the whispers. A woman at their table? she would hear. She may be royalty, but why her? Would not her brother be more appropriate?

"Each of us seated at this table," came another voice, "has been tested in combat, and succeeded. But not you."

"If that is your concern, then I will gladly accept a challenge," the princess replied defiantly, though her voice did not lose its gentleness. The knights were taken aback by this. Not only would it be treason to challenge a member of the royal family, but to challenge the daughter of the King would surely incite sever punishments. If they won the challenge, they would be exiled. And if they lost, they would be humiliated. The princess could see these concerns on the faces before her. "Or is that inappropriate, seeing as I am a lady?"

A dozen voices rose, each attempting to murmur an explanation, but one knight sitting only a few seats to her left sat in silence. His eyes were closed, and his arms were crossed over his chest. "Sir Gallan, correct?" the princess inquired. The knight's eyes slowly opened, glancing at her. "Is there something you wish to say?"

The other voices quieted down as all attention was directed at Gallan. "If you wish to prove yourself in combat," he said, his voice low and rough, "it is not best you should do so against any of us. Rather, you must prevail on the battlefield, with your life on the line. For only at that time, having emerged victorious, the blood on your face proof of your triumph, would you have proven your worth to sit at this table."

Silence fell once more over the table. The implications of his statement were clear: to prove herself, she must disobey her father and enter the war. "Very well," the princess stated, calm as ever, as she stood from her seat. "And once I have done so, I shall return and sit once more among you. And you shall accept me?" In silent and solemn agreement, each knight nodded his head. "Then that is what I shall do."

And she turned her heel and walked away.

History

Before the dawning of the era of technology, long before history was written down, magic was the one truth which roamed the land. Wizards and witches were the kings and queens, and all the people of the land bowed before their power. They could call lightning from the clouds, water from the desert sands, and life from death. Their powers were limitless, and no one believed that they would ever die.

In this time, the creatures of land and sea were vastly different than they are today. Giant monsters with dozens of legs strolled calmly through the forests, towering above the trees, but delicate enough that they never once touched the plants. In the sea, one eyed fish swam along the ocean floor, devouring any living creature it came across, though if it were to ever fall asleep it would be devoured by a million tiny mouths. High in the sky, above the clouds, powerful wings spread from the bodies of legendary birds, and blocked out the suns rays, dictating the day and night.

However, with the aid of the magicians, the people had nothing to fear. They knew they would be safe, for these magical beings had signed blood contracts to protect the towns from the mighty beings of the natural world. They could redirect them, entering their minds and altering their thoughts to drive them away, or they could call upon pillars of fire to eradicate them entirely from existence.

But soon the people become lonely, for they were confined to their towns by the blood contracts, and could only observe the other creatures of the world from a distance, regardless of how friendly or dangerous they may be. The people became weary of seeing the same faces day after day, and they craved variety. When they spoke to the mages about these things, however, they were told that they were selfish creatures. They had been required by the contract not to step foot off of their protected grounds, for if they did they would surely disrupt the ebb and flow of the world.

The people did not believe this, however. Soon, they began to break their contracts, and to explore the world which they had long been denied. When the wizards saw that the contract had been broken, they promptly vanished from town life, leaving the towns exposed. It was not long before the townsfolk became aware that they were now truly alone. And so they began to spread out. In doing so, they altered the lay of the land, so that it might be more natural for themselves to occupy. The creatures began to change shape as their homes were altered, and in this time, the world changed.

This, however, is not a story of that time.

Comfort

When I was a child, I would often find myself scared and alone. This was not because I had somehow gotten lost, or because I had been left behind. It was simply because I found that, while I was out and about doing the things that other people did, I felt as though I didn't belong. There was something inside of me that said, "What if this is wrong? What if this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing?" The people around me did not seem to hesitate in what they were doing, but somehow I just didn't feel right. I could never explain it.

These thoughts filled me more often than I care to admit, and the few times I tried to talk to anyone about it they just brushed me off, telling me I was too young to be worrying about such things. I don't remember how the thought came about, but I began talking to my future self about it. I would close my eyes, take a deep breath, and send a message to the future. I would ask myself if we would make it through, if things were going to be alright, if these were the kinds of things that I should be worrying about.

In retrospect, it sounds really silly. It sounds very much like something a lunatic would do, or perhaps someone with a mental problem of some sort, though what in particular I couldn't say. But it helped. Not just because of the action itself, but because I would get answers. After a while, sometimes a few minutes, and sometimes a few hours, I would get this distinct feeling of a message having been received. It was like a carrier pigeon flew directly into my brain to deliver its parcel. And so, again, I would close my eyes, take a deep breath, and unravel it.

These messages would tell me that things would be ok. That I - or as I phrased it, we - would make it through in the end. That we'd hit some hard spots, that we'd sink down pretty low, but that we'd be ok. We'd find our path. We'd make due with what was handed to us. And sooner or later - and usually sooner - we'd figure it out.

These were comforting thoughts. They helped me get through the day. They helped me get through the year. These messages helped me to push forward, to do what I needed to do, to become who I am now. And eventually, I didn't need to ask for help anymore. I had internalized the message, made it a part of who I was, and I became comfortable with who I was.

But that wasn't the end of it.

In recent years, as I have settled down and become satisfied with life, that feeling has returned. The feeling of a letter gently landing in my skull. But now those letters ask for help. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognize them, because they're the very messages I used to send. And so once more, I close my eyes, I take a deep breath, and I send the messages that helped me get through.

It may sound crazy, but I know it's true, and I know it's real. Somehow, I have been able to communicate with myself through time, and I have given myself strength. And so I gladly complete the cycle. I don't question it, because I know without this, I may have never reached where I am.

Call me crazy if you want. But I'm a lot happier being crazy than you are being normal.

The end

Much like finding the right point to end a character's abilities and hobbies, finding the right point to end a story is immensely difficult, especially when you are enjoying the story being told. Think of every time you have finished a book and said to yourself, "Man, I wish there was more of this to read." Chances are, the author thought the same thing themselves. Many, many times throughout the novel.

I'm the kind of person that doesn't plan a whole lot in their story. Chances are, when I start out, I have an idea of where I'm starting from, and where the end goal is. But I have no idea how to get from the beginning to the end. For me, that's where the fun is. I know what's going to happen in the end, but it's huge journey to get to that ending, and I have no idea what kinds of things are going to happen in the interim. However, this also becomes its own problem. Even though I know what that ending is, I don't know when it is. It's hard for me to look at my writing and say, "This is enough. This is where the conclusion is reached."

You don't want to drag out your story. You don't want people to get bored part way through, waiting for the events to be satisfied. You never, under any circumstances, want your reader to think, "When is something going to happen?" You can make them want to know when a specific event is going to happen, to yearn to keep going to see what they're waiting for. But you don't want them to be waiting for anything to happen.

It's hard to get that feeling when you're writing, though. Because the process is far more drawn out. Five minutes of reading can easily translate into a solid day of writing. So for the author, there is a complete disconnect between how long you have to wait for something to happen, and how long your reader has to wait for something to happen.

Months upon months of writing can go into something that is read in a matter of days. And by the time you're done writing, you know absolutely everything there is to know about that story. (Well, in theory, but that's another story.) Even when you go back to read it through again, everything is compressed in your mind because you already know what is coming. It can be hard to see what is boring when you know how much effort you have put in to writing it.

So it can be incredibly hard to throw down those two little words. "The end." Ending your story means saying that it is complete. That you can no longer keep it going. That that world is full and complete. And that can be a hard thing to face. I know that I have wanted to just keep adding to a world I have created. I wanted to make it as full and vibrant as possible. But eventually it becomes too full, and too over saturated. All of the color becomes dull because there's just too much.

But just like with a character that you want to make interesting, that can be painfully difficult to see on your own.

Character balance

I think one of the hardest things in writing, and especially in fantasy writing, is balancing your characters. Obviously you want your main character to be interesting, so you give them an assortment of abilities and hobbies that are relevant and applicable to their story. But it's pretty easy to lose track. New things come up in the story, and you want your character to be able to cope with it, so maybe something in their past gives them that ability, or maybe they are able to quickly learn it so that they can move forward.

But eventually a person has to reach their limit, and they simply can't do any more. Or, at least, that's how they would be in the real world. But in a story, they're not held back by the same limitations we are. They can go far and above. Why would someone who can cast magic be incapable of... anything?

And that's how we end up making Mary and Gary Sue characters. Characters that are just so perfect that they simply aren't enjoyable to read. We see them in stories all the time, and we dislike them, and we actively move against them. But when we are writing our own stories, it becomes difficult to see that we're just going too far. I know that I am far more than guilty of writing over powered characters. I do it consistently.

But I can't help it. I don't want my characters too lose their fights, so I give them the strength they need to win. I want my character to get the girl, so I give him a background that might help them do that. And I want them to be appealing to the audience, so I give them a number of hobbies and interests that fleshes them out more. But by the time you've pushed all of that together, the character is more than any person could possibly be.

It's really hard to stop while you're ahead. Even when you give them weaknesses and drawbacks, those are easily exploited by the author to become strengths in times of trouble. Or they are something that can be overcome, rather than worked around. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when that weakness is there to balance out your character, it really shouldn't be something that can be overcome, because then you end up with a character that's even more unbalanced than they were to begin with.

I suppose that's one of the things editors are for. To look at your work and say "This is unnecessary and just pushes the character over the top. Take it out." Even after you're finished writing, you're so attached to the work because it's your own that it's almost impossible to see the flaws with it. You can later, of course, though that later is hard to define. Could be a matter of days. Could be a matter of years. Could be anywhere in between. You just won't know until it happens, and unfortunately, it varies with every single piece that you write. And you have to do it a dozen times before it even gets close to being publishable.

And there's no guidelines you can really follow for it, either. It's very much a feel kind of thing. And that feel is something you have to develop over years upon years of practice, and it's not even something that is consistent from person to person. So you just gotta keep working at it until you figure out what works.

I guess that applies to a lot of things.

Interactions

Erasmus' head was pounding. He could feel that he needed to get somewhere, though he wasn't sure what that somewhere was, but he knew he wasn't there. He felt that he needed to stop. To sit down, perhaps, and let his mind cool down. Without paying much attention, he moved towards the closest building he could find in the town, and he pushed the doors open and stepped inside. Though he was undeterred, inside the heat was swelling, and a metallic pounding rung out from somewhere further in. A soft jingling sounded out as he entered.

A short moment later the pounding stopped, and there was the sound of doors opening and closing, something being shoveled and air being pumped. Erasmus had no idea what any of it meant, but he stumbled around the room until he found a bench. He couldn't focus well enough to take in his surroundings. But the sounds were dying out, and his head was cooling off, despite the heat.

"Excuse me?" came a voice from the back. "Can I help you?" Erasmus looked up to see a young man, dressed in simple clothes and covered in sweat. His muscles were well toned, though not particularly large, but he seemed fairly confident in what it was he did. His voice was rough and dry, as though it had been burned out. Erasmus eyes focused on him, the first thing he had been able to focus on since the pounding had begun.

"I, uh..." Erasmus voice was weaker than he had expected, which caught him off guard. "I'm not sure. My head, it just hurts..."

The man approached him from behind a counter Erasmus had not previously noticed. "I would think a blacksmith's shop would not be the best place for you to go if you wish to get aid for a hurting head," he explained, his tone gentle despite the roughness of his voice. "What happened?"

"I don't remember. I don't remember anything before the pounding."

"Do you remember your name?"

"...Erasmus."

The man smiled. "You remember something. I'm Leo. It's nice to meet you."

Erasmus couldn't but smile in return. "It's nice to meet you as well, Leo."

Leo's eyes shifted then, to something that was behind Erasmus. Erasmus looked over his shoulder to see what the blacksmith was looking at, and was surprised to see a long pole with an axe attached to it strapped to his back. "That's quite a piece of work you have there," Leo noted. His eyes were running it over, like a father looking over a long lost son. "May I have a look at it?"

Erasmus nodded, reaching back to loose the weapon, swinging it around as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Leo took it gently, examining the metal working of the axe at the end. "This is a marvelous creation," he commented. "The sharpness is outstanding, in the form is better than anything I have seen in a long time. I suppose you don't know where you got it?"

Erasmus shook his head. The pounding was finally beginning to fade. "Don't even know what it's called," he replied.

Leo chuckled. "It's a polearm." He gently handed it back. "You're an interesting man, Erasmus. The wing being the least of it."

Erasmus blinked, confused. "Wing?"

"It looks like we both have a lot of questions."

Luck

They were a small collection, the four of them, who had been able to find each other. The first three had known each other for quite some time. They had discovered their powers at around the same time, and had helped each other learn to develop and control them. Josh, able to control time in his local area, so as to appear to move at incredible speeds. Miranda, with the ability to manipulate her own body weight to the point that she could simply float up into the air and be carried by the winds. And Roman, who could solidify his own blood into whichever shape he wished, but with the structural integrity of titanium.

But recently, they had come across this new one, Lloyd. They can tell that he had powers. It was something about the air around him, something they could feel in each other now that they had become accustomed to it, but they couldn't tell what his power was. Either he did not use it often enough for it to be felt, or he did not even know he had it. But when they had approached him, he did not seem surprised. It was as if he had expected them.

"So, you know about your powers, then?" Josh asked. They were sitting at a table in the deep of the night, so as not to be overheard. They did not want to be discovered for what they were, to be used and abused for what they could do by other people who might be able to hold something over their heads. Or worse...

"Of course I do," Lloyd responded calmly. "After having them for so long, it would be somewhat difficult not to question the strange powers I have. Would you not agree with that?"

"Yes, I suppose you're right," Roman replied. "Though we all had each other to help us out. It seems that you were not quite so lucky."

Lloyd chuckled to himself at that. The group looked at each other as if to confirm they were all thinking the same thing, then looked back at Lloyd, confused. "What's so funny?" Miranda asked.

Lloyd shook his head. "It's just that you would think me not lucky," he explained. That did not help the group before him. "Lucky is precisely what I am, you see."

Miranda tilted her head, even more confused now than she was before. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Luck is my power," he said. "It's something that simply will not change. Your powers are all controllable. You dictate when and how they activate. But for me, it is simply a constant. Luck is forever on my side, far beyond the point of any normal person."

Roman rolled his eyes. "I find that unlikely," he said. "I mean, luck isn't a power. It's not even a thing that truly exists, it's just an idea..."

"Really, Roman?" Josh asked. "Look at who we are. Look at what we can do. I think it's a little blind of you to say something like that."

"Yes, but... Our powers are very distinct things. They're not so..." He clamored for the words.

"Passive?" Lloyd asked. Roman looked at him for a moment before he nodded in agreement. "I can't say that I disagree with you," Lloyd continued. "But regardless, it's simply how things are. You can go ahead and test me if you like, but it won't do you much good, I assure you. It's simply how things are with me."

The three looked at each other, silently trying to decide what to do. After a few moments, they nodded, having come to a decision, and Josh seemed to disappear as he slowed down time around him.

When he reappeared, he had moved to strike at Lloyd, not to hurt him, but just to see what he could do. He had used his speed just to move behind him, so that he couldn't be seen, and swung his fist at a normal human's speed at the side of Lloyd's head. Lloyd, however, had already begun moving to block him, and grabbed Josh's fist just before he made contact.

The whole thing had occurred over little more than a couple of seconds. The other two had known what to watch, and were surprised to see Lloyd so easily block the unseen blow. "How did you know...?" they both asked as one.

Lloyd smiled as Josh pulled away and moved back in front of him. "Lucky guess."

The box

The box was his safety place. When he was inside of it, the things on the outside couldn't get to him. It was quiet inside his box. There weren't people in there to talk to him and try and tell him what to do. His box was dark. Without the light of the world shining down on him, he could see the things that he wanted to see, that he pictured in his mind, as real in front of him as anything else. And though his box was small, it didn't need to be large. It only needed to be big enough for him to fit inside and be able to breath, and to think.

He had found the box in his garage a few years ago, while he had been rummaging around with no particular purpose. It was a wooden crate with an unsealed lid, and inside had been stored a few old books and pictures and the like, which he had been able to transfer elsewhere. Ever since then he had kept it in a corner, behind several other boxes so that it could not easily be seen, but with a path so that he could get in and out of it when he needed to.

He found that he often wished to escape from his world, to breath in air that didn't feel as if it was ripe with bitterness and hatred, and that was when he would crawl into his box and pull the lid into place above his head. The way the box was built allowed for little wiggle room, and he had developed a system over a number of months from him to fit comfortably inside. He had to crawl into the box head first, and slowly roll and slink his way into the box. He was sure that if anyone saw him doing it they would think him insane, but the purpose was to be away from people, so he hardly found the chance of such a discovery taking place likely.

He spent most of his time in the box during the night, so as to avoid being found by his parents. After dinner they let him be free to do as he will, and as long as he was in bed before curfew, they didn't much care what that amounted to. That was the perfect time to be in his box. After a long day, he could relax, unwind, and be alone with himself.

In the dark confines of his box, he would summon images of a far off land that he could travel to. Sometimes that land was deeply green, filled with trees and other plants of all natures, where he would discover wonders unbeknownst to the rest of human civilization. Sometimes that land was on a far off planet, with colors that the average person couldn't even imagine, twisted into impossible shapes that were all too real before his eyes. Sometimes he would peruse the course of history itself, meet the figures that would define its past and future, talk with them, and ask them if they had their own box.

But when he returned to the real world, he spoke not a word about it. He knew that people would not understand him and his box. It was something that simply wasn't done, as he had been told on numerous occasions. But if he had to be different and strange in order to be comfortable, then that was what he was going to do. That was the way in which he became able to control his thoughts, to be able to function as the rest expected him to. They didn't need to know how he managed it. They just needed to know that he did.

And so he had his box. And all was good.

Nothing to say

Like many nights, I find myself with little to say. I don't particularly have any topics about writing I want to address, nor do I have any stories in my head that are begging to be written down. I've been staring at this page for quite a while now, trying to think of what to write about or what to say, and I'm not really coming up with a whole lot, to be perfectly frank. And while I was thinking about that, I was thinking back to one of the few stories I have finished, and I asked myself what I did while writing that when I didn't have anything to write.

Oh yeah. I wrote very bizarre dream sequences for no apparent reason that were only incredibly loosely connected to the story.

Looking back, these are unquestionably the first scenes to be removed. They come from nowhere, they have virtually no impact on the story, and everything that they might have to say can be said better somewhere else. They are undeniably the weakest part of the story, and terrible pieces of story telling. One might even say that they were worthless to have written down.

But they weren't. As terrible as they may be, they served a purpose - they kept me writing until I could get back on track with the real story. Even if they were destined not to be kept, they helped me think about the things that might have been on my character's mind, what they thought about what was happening and who was around them. It helped me explore their fears and concerns, and their hopes for the future. They did so terribly, granted. But they helped prepare me for things that were to come. And even if that doesn't make it into the end product, that is vitally important.

It's a hard distinction to make. To write, and write poorly, or not to write, and wait for something better to come along. It's difficult to say which is the better option. The most common thing anyone will tell you is that you need to keep writing, that you can polish a diamond out of a turd later on down the road, and while that's true, it's not particularly encouraging. You pump out turds day after day, and they never seem to get any better, but you keep writing because you know that's what you're "supposed" to do.

But you always feel like the diamond in your head is just around the corner, and you're not giving it enough time to come to you. And the more you write, the more you push it back, because you need to go through the motions. But at the same time, the more you wait for the best thing to come, the more you question whether there isn't something better to come.

It all amounts to a whole lot of nothing. Nothing ever seems to get better. Nothing ever seems to go the way you want it to. And you start to run out of things to say, so you start saying the same things over and over again.

But maybe that's what needs to happen. Because once you start repeating yourself, those repetitions slowly start to become more coherent. They start to become the diamonds that have so long evaded you because, recognize it or not, you've started polishing the turds. By repeating yourself, you're really refining what it is you want to say. And maybe that's the key.

Or maybe I'm just spouting a lot of nonsense to try and justify my actions. Who knows. Won't stop me either way. Can't stop, won't stop, as they say.

Who even says that? I'm losing it...

Helping the beggar

John didn't know what it was that made him do it. Whether the weather, or the smile on the man's face, or just having woken up on the right side of the bed that morning, John was in a good and charitable mood. So when he saw this homeless man sitting on the corner, hat on the ground, wishing him a good day as he passed, he felt compelled to stop. Reaching into his pocket, he removed his wallet, and dropped a twenty into the beggars hat.

"Why," said the homeless man, "that is mighty kind of you." His voice was gentle, though John was surprised to feel a kind of strength behind his words. "But it's much more than a fella like me could ask for for free, brother. Tell me. What can I do for ya in return?"

John was taken aback by the man's words. He had felt compelled on the spot to freely give to this man. He had not expected to receive anything in return, and he did not know what he could possibly ask such a man. It was clear from his appearance of tattered clothes, slightly dulled eyes, messy hair and loose skin that he had little to offer in return. "I do not need anything in return from you, my friend," he explained. "I wished only to give what I could to aid you."

The man smiled and stood up, his body taller and straighter than John had expected. "And there is nothin' ya wish to ask of me, brother?" he asked once more.

John looked up at this homeless man in confusion. This was not the exchange he had expected. "There is nothing," he confirmed.

The strange man smiled wider at that, and reached into his jacket, from which he pulled a single, golden halo. As he revealed it, John could swear the man sprouted large, beautiful white wings. "Permit me to grant you this, my brother," the man said, holding out the halo. Hesitantly, John reached out and took it from him. It was more solid than it appeared, and it held a warmth within it that was otherworldly. As he held it, he felt a pull on his back, and looked over his shoulder to see tattered, broken wings there.

The man raised a finger to his lips, urging John to be quiet. "For your generosity, I bestow upon thee mine halo, so that ye might witness the glory of heaven," he whispered. The weakness that had previously been present in his voice was gone, replaced fully with the warmth that had been hidden beneath. "But return to me in an hour, brother, else ye lose your ticket that will permit you entry in your time."

John looked into the stranger's eyes, and could see the sincerity in them. Silently he nodded, and moved the halo to be above his head. Suddenly the world before him was darkness, and the sound vanished. It lasted for only a moment, before he found himself standing before a golden gate. He peaked inside to see high rising buildings built with the finest materials by masterful hands. Precious metals ran like water, and he could see animals drinking from them, refreshed by them regardless of their appearance, as if by magic.

"I don't think I've seen you here before," came a deep voice from behind him. John turned quickly to come face to face with a towering form clad in pitch black armor, a large two handed sword sheathed on his hip. John froze, unsure of what to do. He was filled suddenly with fright, overpowering fear that pushed through him like a bullet.

Slowly the man removed his helmet. Beneath it was a pale face, average at best, far from handsome and yet somehow undeniably beautiful. He held the helmet beneath his arm so that he might remove his gauntlet, revealing a soft and gentle hand, which he extended out. John took it delicately to shake, but this man's delicate appearing hand clamped down on his own like a lion's jaw.

"My name is Gabriel," the man said, a smile on his face. "What is yours?"

John was stunned in silence. The archangel Gabriel was standing before him. "But..." he breathed. "You... An angel..."

Gabriel chuckled as he released his hand. "We must always be ready to fight in the darkness to save our children, even when they don't know they are in danger," he explained. "Can't well do that if we are bright and shining, standing out and scaring any who see us, can we?"

Character death

As an author, at times it is very easy to predict the goings on of stories. I see things coming from a mile away that many other people are completely blindsided by. I don't say this as some kind of brag. I'm not trying to show off how intelligent I am, or how oblivious other people are. I'm just saying that this is the world I have placed myself in. Thinking about what comes next is what I do for a living, and so when I watch movies or tv shows, or when I'm reading a book, I can't help but think a couple steps ahead. So one of the things I catch myself saying most often is: "It's the main character - they won't die."

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Death is a terrifying topic. We don't want to subject ourselves to it, and so we don't subject our subjects to it either. And when we do, especially in fantasy or science fiction, we find some way around it, saying "but don't worry, they're not really dead." This is so common place that most people accept it as undeniable fact. The main character of a story is not going to die. They can't. That would defeat the purpose of everything they have gone through. But sometimes I don't like that this is so easily predictable, especially in said fantasy and science fiction stories, where so often the threat of death looms around every corner, and that's the whole point.

It's a bit hypocritical of me to say all of this, of course, given how much I hate Game of Thrones and the fact that everyone in that story is susceptible to death, no matter who they are. I don't want to see the main character die. What is sacred in our world if the main character of a story can't even see their story out to the end?

So I'm ok with the character making it out in the end. But their still has to be some threat. Some fear that, even if they are going to make it out, they're not going to make it out ok. The threat of a story has to be real, or else there's no climax, nothing to build toward.

Sometimes this is hard to handle as a writer. It is of course entirely personal preference where the line lies, but there is a line between going too far and not going far enough. Again, in Game of Thrones, one of the things that pissed me off more than anything else was when a character lived, but had everything they ever loved stripped away from them. Living out their life in constant agony and sadness - it would almost be better to just let them die, so as not to cloud the story with a shroud of darkness that can't be solved.

I don't really have an answer for this one. A lot of the things I write about like this, I have a personal idea about how to fix the problem. But not this one. I'm still tip toeing around it, trying to find the line and how to stand on it. Lost limbs, close calls, fake deaths... I just don't know. But it's something I intend to keep pushing at. To try and figure out how to put the right levels of tension in my stories to make it pull at the reader's heart strings, make them fear at what is coming, let them feel the consequences of a character's choice, but also give them relief that those choices didn't also lack meaning. I expect it will be a line I will continue to search for my entire life. But hopefully with practice I will draw closer to it.

Re: Wings

The princess leaned against the railing of her balcony, overlooking the east side of the city. As she observed the slowly dying lights as the people went to bed, she absent-mindedly fingered the simple necklace she wore around her neck, adorned with a single word: "Arianna." A gentle breeze was blowing, the lip of her nightdress delicately flicking around her ankles, the toes of her bare feet pushing her up just a little bit higher to try and see just a little bit further into the distant horizon.

She had not had a great deal of freedom as of late. It was understandable, of course. She had no disillusions about what it meant to be a princess - she was to do as she was told, be where she was meant to be, and speak politely only when spoken to. But as the tournament was being held, she had even less freedom than usual. Foreign knights would love nothing more than to take her away as a prize - or so she was told - and so she must restrict her movements so as to minimize potential interactions with them.

But staying in her room all the time was so boring. She let a sigh escape her lips as she slumped over the railing. Below, in the little light that remained, she could see a few children rushing home before it was too dark for them to see the path in front of them. She had often been told how fortunate she was not to be a trouble causer like those rascals, but she could not help but look upon them with envy. To be able to move about as they pleased, to do the wrong things and face the consequences for them, and be able to learn without being told to. That was a life she could only dream of. She could not spread her wings and learn to fly as they did. Her wings had been clipped so that she might not act out of turn.

Her attention was torn away from the city as she heard the pounding of feet racing towards her door. She turned around to see one of the servants pushing her door open in a blind panic, then quickly turn and slam the door shut, locking it before pushing a chair in front of it to lodge it in place.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

The servant leaped in fear, turning to see the voice that had called out to him. "Princess Arianna!" he exclaimed, then quickly covered his mouth. His eyes were filled with an agonizing terror the likes of which Arianna had never witnessed. He rushed to her, pushing her out on to the balcony and closing the twin glass doors behind them.

"Princess Arianna," he whispered, "there's no time. Something has gone terribly wrong. Your father has instructed me to make sure that, by whatever means necessary, you are not taken."

The statement filled Arianna's mind with a dizzying confusion. She had so many questions. What had happened? Why was father so insistent on her protection? Taken by who? Her mouth, however, would not move. Her body had betrayed her as she was overcome with a freezing panic. Whatever had gone wrong was very, very wrong. More so than anything she had ever experienced before. That much was clear.

"Please, your highness," the servant continued, "you must get out of here. You have to escape, before it is too late. The fate of the kingdom itself may depend on it."

"B-but..." the words were barely able to escape her mouth. "But father forbid..."

"All previous orders are hereby rescinded," the servant insisted. "Please, you must-"

He was cut off by a thunderous pounding that came from Arianna's door. No human being could have hit the door that hard. One pound, two, three... The door exploded inward, wooden shards flying about the room as the two of them watched from the outside. The shards shredded curtains and blankets, stabbed into anything soft, and knocked over various pieces of furniture and personal belongings. Arianna's mind went numb as she watched it happen, all centering on the hulking mass that had broken the door down.

A single man walked into the room. His eyes were cold, glaring directly at Arianna through the glass, his face flat and emotionless. He was massive, easily a head taller than her father, his shoulders almost too broad to fit through the doorway. Slowly he raised his arm, pointing a single finger in her direction. She could feel the blood leaving her face.

She tried to back away from him as he approached the glass doors, but was stopped by the railing she had been looking out over only moments before. She had nowhere to go. As the mysterious man reached the door, he placed his hand on the glass, and with a single push, it shattered. A scream ripped from Arianna's voice as she stepped backwards, railing be damned, and the force of the man's push on the glass shook her soul. But it shook the railing as well. As she stepped, the railing gave way, and together they fell to the moat, hundreds of feet below.

The man was too slow to catch her as she fell. He picked up the servant instead, lifting him by the collar, and stared into his eyes. They stood in silence for a moment, until the sound of the splash reached their ears.

"That better not have been the princess," the man's rough voice whispered, threat clear in his inflection.

"It was," the servant responded, accepting his fate. "And you'll never have her now."

Below, the railing sunk to the bottom of the moat, pushing the princess' dress down with it. Above, a bluejay flapped its wings frantically, flying away from the castle as fast as possible, desiring to be anywhere. Anywhere but there.

Authors

I was watching a movie today about an author, and I noticed quite abruptly how alone he was. He made a point of being alone, too, was the thing. Very gruff with people, didn't say much, that kind of thing.

And as I was watching the movie, it occurred to me how often authors are portrayed that way, both in movies and in their own books. And I wondered why that was. I grant that writing is not exactly an exciting past time, it's not really something that you can share with people, but I don't see how that makes a writer lonely. Yet it's such a common occurrence that it seems to simply be accepted as truth.

I guess I shouldn't be one to talk. I've never been incredibly outgoing, and I probably never will be. But I don't see that as being because I'm a writer, nor do I see myself as being a writer because of that. I don't see why there has to be any connection, and yet one has been so clearly drawn.

And the thing that really bugs me about it is that that's a bad thing. I don't see why being alone is so consistently portrayed as being alone. I'm not one to think that you constantly need to be around other people to be happy, but I'm also not one to think that everyone has the same needs. People are happy in different ways. Some people do need other people with them to be happy. But some people don't. Some people can be perfectly happy to never see another person again for the rest of their lives.

The same applies to authors, as it does to all people. There are some authors who are alone, and they shouldn't be, and that makes the afraid, and bitter, and angry. But why is it that that's who we think of when we think of authors? Even I'm guilty of thinking that way, because that's how they are so often portrayed. So why don't we ever hear of any other authors?

It's because it's not an interesting story, of course. I know that. And I can complain all I want about how there could and should be other kinds of stories, but the only person who can make that kind of change is me. And frankly, I don't know that that would even be a story that I would want to write. Because frankly, having an author as your main character is kind of limiting. Other than writing, there isn't a whole lot that I character like that can really do. It can be challenging to balance out a character with the kinds of things that they can do.

But it still just doesn't seem right that authors would be portrayed as sad and lonely creatures that hide themselves in their worlds because they can't handle what the real world has to offer them. That would be like saying that painters are reclusive drug addicts that don't fully understand what they're creating, or that all business men are incredibly shallow, selfish people who care about nothing but money and their personal wellbeing.

Not that anyone would ever think that just because they saw it on tv.

Right?

Rainclouds

Michael's feet stepped out onto the rain cloud, the wind in front of him carving out a plateau on the top of it for him to walk on. The dark grey billows had no right to support his weight, but the thick sheets of water contained within were easily manipulatable. He could hear the bottom layers falling to the ground far below, sudden and powerful bolts of lightning occasionally leaping from ground to cloud. He was so close that there was no hesitation between lightning and the deafening clap of thunder.

The skyline in front of him was a vivid red, up on the top of the clouds. It was a stark contrast between that and the grey that made his horizon. He enjoyed seeing those kinds of differences. It was why he would go places like this. Up, away from civilization, he could see things in a different light. He could see the world in black and white, as they said. He didn't have to meddle in the dull grays of reality in these places.

He approached the edge of the clouds and looked down over the side, bending down to get a better look. Below he could see the bright lights of the city burning through the falling water. Even from up here he could swear that he could hear the sounds of honking horns, people fighting, and other such discomforts of the average human life.

"How boring," Michael murmured to himself. "I truly do not understand how those people can be satisfied with such... abrasiveness." He shook his head and stood up straight, backing away from the edge. He looked forward towards the opposite end of the cloud he had boarded. The path had almost fully been flattened for him by the wind. "Nature is such a wonderful beast. It is a shame that so few can be out to enjoy it like I can."

"Yes, I suppose it is," came another voice from behind. Michael looked back, surprised, to see a woman approaching him on the cloud. She seemed undeterred by where it was they were traveling. He wasn't sure how she had arrived there, but it was apparent that she had similar powers to his own.

"I was unaware that there was more than one of us," he called out to her. "Who are you? And how did you find me?"

The woman smiled and came up beside him. "My name is Miranda," she explained. "And it's pretty hard not to notice the terraforming of a cloud."

"Not really accurate to call it terraforming when there's no earth to form, is it?"

Miranda waved her hand in dismissal. "You get the point," she said. "So tell me. What is it exactly that you control?"

Michael blinked, confused once more. "What I control?" he asked. "What do you mean?"

Miranda sighed and shook her head. "You have to be kidding me. You use these powers without even understanding them? The element. What element do you control? I'm assuming it must either be water or air, given that you're standing on a cloud at the moment."

Michael shook his head in return. "There is no single element," he explained. "Water, wind, earth, fire... I can move them as I need to."

Miranda was taken aback. "I hardly believe that."

Michael looked down at his hand, thinking. "Don't believe it all you want, but it's true. No wonder I hardly ever see any others. I don't stick to one place for long. Not when there's so much to see."

A breeze of wind passed by, catching Michael's attention. He looked up, seeing the paths of the wind, calling him away. "It looks like my time here is up," he informed Miranda. She didn't say anything in return, head tilted to the side, not understanding. "I guess you're not one of the wind, then," he said. "It's telling me to move on. Rainclouds are cool and all, but they only last you so long. Water's gonna be too thin to support your weight, soon. I suggest you get moving."

Just as a thunderbolt crashed below, Michael leaped off the side, disappearing below the folds of the cloud. Miranda rushed to the side to watch him fall, but he was already gone, caught by a gust of wind and carried away.

Aftermath

I woke up to the small and familiar sounds of running computers. My eyes opened slowly to see the bright white, sterilized walls that I had long since called home. I didn't remember how I had gotten back here from that hell hole I had thought I would die in, but it was oddly comforting.

I tried to sit up, but pain seared through my sides as I did so. I reached down to touch them, and found long cuts running up them, clearly having been from the surgery I must have gone through while I was unconscious. That was when the bell overhead went off, and summoned one of my guardians to my bed.

"Welcome back," Carlos said as he walked up. I looked up at him, and realized that my eyes hadn't fully adjusted yet. His form was a blurry haze, and it took most of what little energy I had to pull him into focus. "You've been under for about a week now. You're lucky that we put that tracking device in you. You surely would have died had we not been able to recover you."

As he spoke, the final moments before I passed out came back to me. Things quickly made sense. I had nearly destroyed myself trying to fight that darkness. I nodded to him to show my understanding, unsure of whether or not I could manage speech.

"Healing you was not easy, though," Carlos continued. "Your internal structure was in pieces. We may need to find a way to reinforce it for the future. But for now we could reconstruct it. Lots of screaming throughout the process, so you're gonna need to be drinking plenty of liquids now that you're awake. No banshees, though, luckily. Then we'd all be dead."

He passed me a cup filled with a blue liquid that I couldn't identify, which I downed in an instant. It wasn't the first glass like that, and it wouldn't be the last. But I knew that whatever it did to me I'd make it through. It ran its course through me, leaving a freezing cold sensation that made my hairs stand on end, but the soreness in my throat quickly faded.

"Can you speak now?" Carlos asked me.

"Yeah," I responded, weaker than I wished. "Mostly."

"So you defeated the Shade, correct?"

"I don't think so," I explained. "I repelled it, and I'm pretty sure I harmed it. I could see it tearing. But I think it's still out there."

Carlos frowned but nodded, making a note on his clipboard which he always held on to. "Back to the drawing board then, eh, Sarah?"

I shook my head again. "That was the first time I tried to use anything you've given me to its full extent. The tests were not enough. We don't have the capability to withstand what I've become. I need more fieldwork."

"You know we can't do that. It's too dangerous. The Shades could..."

"The Shades are what I'm here for," I retorted, cutting him off. "And can we talk about that for a second? Could we have chosen a more cliche name to give them? Shades? Really?"

Carlos looked down at me with the most bitter look of contempt I had seen yet. "Can you think of something more fitting?" he asked.

I couldn't. I already knew that. So I said nothing.

"You're not fighting the Shades again until we know you're capable of winning and surviving. It's taken too long to build you. We can't go through this process again with a new one."

Before I could respond there was a loud pounding that rang through the walls. A light flickered, and a new coldness shot through me - the ice cold gaze of despair. "They're here," I whispered.

"They must have followed your scent after your encounter," Carlos said, panicking for the first time since I had met him. "We have to get you out of here before..."

He turned back to find me already forcing myself off of the bed. My legs were shaking and I could barely stand up straight, but I was up.

"No, Sarah."

"Time to get back to work."

A scream in the darkness

I slammed into the wall as I turned the corner hard to dive into the alleyway, but my legs continued to carry me forward. I could feel my head pounding, my heart raced with fear, and the only thought I could make clear was "I must keep moving." I couldn't stop. I knew this so thoroughly, beyond any doubt, that I didn't even have to think about it. Adrenaline coursed through me, quite possibly the only thing that continued to carry me as I could feel that shadow behind me follow unerringly.

I tried to knock trash cans and stacked boxes over as I passed them, hoping beyond hope that it might slow down the force that was behind me, knowing deep inside that it wouldn't. If anything, it probably just needlessly ate away at what little energy I was running on, but I did it anyway, in the small chance that it might help.

My entire body was exhausted. My arms swung heavily at my sides, my ribs seared in pain from the couple of broken bones, and my legs felt like they were on fire. I had been running for what felt like an hour already, though it was probably closer to only twenty minutes. But when you are constantly running at full tilt, twenty minutes is a very long time.

I felt my toe catch onto the rise of broken concrete a split second before I fell. In that moment, I knew that I could not save myself, and I knew that I had lost. Time slowed as I fell. I saw my life flash before me.

It was not a pretty sight.

Torturous experiments. Searing pain as my DNA was rewritten. Rigorous testing to see the results. An entire childhood was erased from my memory, replaced by fear and agony. My entire life had been thrown off kilter in order to lead to this very moment.

I hit the ground hard. I tried to catch my fall, and in the attempt I felt the bone in my arm snap. I would have screamed, but only a moment later the air rushed from my lungs as my chest hit the ground, and two more ribs shattered. Even my face made contact, and blood splattered onto the pavement from my nose.

It took only a second to regain myself and turn over to see blackness surge over me. In it, there was silence. I could feel it trying to drain the pain away. To give me peace in my final moments.

And that was when I finally screamed.

The air rippled in front of me. I could see the shadows physically tear apart and fall back away from me. But as I screamed, my own body began to shake, the vibrations pulling at my muscles and attempting to tear them apart as well. I barely had any air in my lungs, and all of it was being pushed out in this last ditch effort.

The shadows finally fell away just as I ran out of air. I lay on the floor, barely able to breath, and completely unable to move. I shook with the aftershocks of my efforts, not to mention the immense pain. I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to stand up again. But I had stopped the darkness. The experiments had worked.

"I can't believe I volunteered for this," I muttered quietly, before I lost consciousness.

Real talk?

To tell you the truth, I was originally going to write tonight a fiction piece about hunting dragons. It wouldn't have been the first time I've written something like that, and I certainly know how to write such a battle. But as I sat at my computer and stared at the screen, it slowly became apparent that it simply wasn't going to happen today.

I haven't been in a place mentally lately to write. I don't know why. If I did I'd probably do something to fix it. But it's become harder everyday for me to think of things to write, and that's just something I have to do deal with. Many people would probably consider this a time in which they should take a break, but not me. I know what will happen if I take a break, and I've talked about why that simply isn't an option.

And so I choose to write about anything, regardless of what it is. And thus this is happening. In a way, I can't really justify writing a lot of these real talk pieces. The only explanation I have is that I want to keep writing. I want to stay in the habit, and if I have to ramble meaningless dribble, than so be it. I wish I could write more sensible things, things that had more content and meaning to them, but I find it better to write nothing than not to write anything.

I can only imagine how annoying it must be to see these posts as a reader. How easy it is to see that want I am writing amounts to nothing, and to simply move on without finishing. I can't say that I would blame anyone for doing that. But then again, that's why things like this don't end up in the final product of a book.

Posts like these are probably more akin to what an actual blogger would write, I imagine. I don't necessarily think of myself as a blogger. Significantly too much fiction for that. But there are days I feel like one, and I don't know how I feel about that. Perhaps that is why I can have trouble sitting down and doing this at times.

But in some ways, I feel like these real talks are important. Perhaps not to a reader, but to me. It's not often I try and put my feelings about writing into actual words, which may seem a bit off all things given, and doing these makes me think about why I write and how I write and why I write the way I write. I hope that doing this will help me to understand myself as a writer. Then I can really start growing.

Perhaps I'm not giving myself enough credit. I have written a lot. I have written more consistently than I ever have in my life. I've even thought about writing more than I used to. I can only hope that translates into my writing itself.

Titles

If you haven't noticed, I'm not particularly good at titling things. Some people might try to defend their single word titles as being artsy in some way, but not me. I am just straight up lazy. I also don't have a lot to work with in these titles, given the stories are so short.

I have made some good titles. One I used recently was Towards Adventure. That was a sequel to a story I started writing a long time ago by the same title, and in the original it was a much more appropriate title, though for effectively the same reason. The story was in the format of a journal written by a man going on an adventure with no real goal. Because I was going for a word count, I decided to end every journal entry with the phrase "Towards adventure I set myself." It fit and it was some easy words. And after a while, trying to think of a title, it finally occurred to me how appropriate of a title that was.

I think that's probably part of the reason my titles on here are pretty poor. I don't really give myself time to think about what all there is to a piece. So I just pick a word or two that apply and throw them up there, saying it's good enough.

A lot of the time for me the title comes last. It doesn't feel right to throw up a title until I know what it's accompanying. But there are times, like tonight for instance, where the title comes first. Because in those rare instances, the title really tells me what I'm going to be writing about. Those kinds of days are generally the ones where I don't know what I'm going to be writing about. Where I'm just struggling to come up with anything, so I pick a word and just roll with it.

I don't know if there's anyway you can look at my writing and tell which way it was that it happened. Maybe it's the speed in which the title becomes apparent to what I've written, though in the aforementioned Towards Adventure, that title came first. Of course, that was also directly taken from another piece I had written, so that much is probably to be expected.

But there are also times that I've rewritten scenes that I have previously written, or I have made sequels to them, and I did not know what the title would be until I was nearly done writing, or well after I had finished. In those instances, the purpose of the new story was so vastly different from what it originally was that the old title simply wouldn't suffice. Or in some instances, the original never had a title to begin with because, of course, I was never able to come up with one that applied to it. These are just issues that I have.

Fortunately when I write a full story, I will have significantly more time to come up with a title. And hopefully, in those instances, I will be able to come up with a fitting title. Because, as someone who judges a book by its cover, I certainly wouldn't read something titled "Titles."

Characters

I've mentioned briefly before, but I'm not the kind of person to put a hundred characters in a story. I can barely juggle five. The reason for this is a combination of a lot of things, but suffice to say I'm simply not smart enough to keep track of them all. I have a horrible memory for names, and yes, that does include the ones that I make up. Imagine the difficulty that comes with trying to write a multitude of characters that you not only can't remember the names of, but that you have to have an intimate understanding of their backgrounds and motivations and personalities. It quickly becomes very hard to balance.

This is a problem not only with my writing, but with my reading, so when I read books with lots of characters, I tend to lose track of them all within as little as a few pages. Even watching tv shows I get names constantly confused, so having visuals doesn't entirely help me.

Because of this, I tend to write stories with a fairly small cast. One or two main characters is what I feel most comfortable with, with a villain or two, and a handful of side characters to push things along. Doing this allows me to focus. It allows me to understand who my characters are, to think more precisely about how they would react to different things. Character development is my favorite thing to see in a story, so that's what I try to write.

But there are certainly advantages to having more characters, the least of which being that you have more possibilities with what to do with the story. The more characters there are, the more development can happen, and the more those characters can interact with each other to make a more complete world.

But I also find that once I decide to add more characters, I don't stop. And that's another part of the problem. I start loading up on characters, throwing another one or two in every time something happens, and never giving myself time to develop them fully. And every time I devote space to introducing someone, I take that space away from developing those I already have. But I want to, so I stretch the story out further to try and give myself more space for development. But having more events happen means introducing new characters. You can probably see the problem by now.

This is obviously not a problem all people have. But it is very much a problem I have. But in ways, it is also a problem that I'm ok with. I don't mind reading a story with minimal characters in exchange for more development and interaction of those characters, so why should I mind writing them? Having fewer characters allows me to do the things that I want to do. And that's ok.

Length of writing

There is a significant amount of difference between how one would write a a short story and a novel. Not only in how the story itself is written, how you detail and pace your scenes, but how you as a writer do the writing. You have to know far more about what you are writing, the world that you are experiencing, what people are doing and how they affect one another. Things become a lot bigger, which makes sense, but you don't fully understand it until you go and do it.

Novels are what I want to write. I've written for a long time, and until now, I have always tried to write long pieces like that. I have not been overly successful, though I have had one or two finished rough drafts. Looking back on them, as proud as I am of the fact that I actually finished, I know that they are far from ready to be published. They're not that long as far as novels go, and they don't sufficiently build a world or their characters the way I want them to. Those are things that can be fixed in editing, but I feel like I can't do justice to the story in those ways without more experience.

Which is why I'm doing this blog. But like I said, there are a lot of differences between how you write short stories and long stories. So why would I intentionally choose to write pieces daily that are miles shorter than the things that I want to write on the whole?

The answer is because they force me to think. They force me to understand what I'm writing without having the space to explore it. This is something I've never done to myself before. When you start out writing long pieces, you steal from yourself a need of understanding. Or at least I did. When you spend a full book writing, thinking what the world around you is without having to sit down and take a second to lay the whole thing out in front of you, you just never get around to it. The world makes sense to me, because I have the luxury of spending days, months, even years exploring it. But when you read that story, you don't have that much time. You don't get an intimate understanding of it like I do when I'm reading it.

But in a short story, I barely have any more time than you do. Especially the way I write, just going full out, never stopping to plan. I start writing as soon as I get an idea, and I don't stop until that idea is realized.

But in a novel, I don't have that much time. Doing that would be a number of days, possibly even weeks straight of absolutely nothing but writing. So I spend time not writing thinking about writing. And that's why I have that understanding of a world that never makes it into the book.

But I need that to make it into the book. And so I spend time not thinking. Just writing. And so I am trying to fit a world into a more condensed space. So that hopefully I will learn to take that world and expand it into something giant and beautiful.

Eventually.