Well I didn’t make it to 50,000 words my the end of November, so I failed at #NaNoWriMo this year. However it’s not a complete loss. The reasons for my failure were:
1. I got distracted by life. Seriously, who decided national novel-writing month would be November? Though that’s just me making excuses. I realize that #NaNoWriMo is a world event and should not be hindered by American holidays. I can still bitch though.
2. This is the biggie. My novel actually concluded itself at around 40,000 words. The natural progression of the words I had written led to an early ending.
Now, this does not mean I will abandon the novel. I believe a lot that was written has potential and the story entertains me. So I will continue to work at it and I’m glad to say progress is being made; currently I’m working on the second draft using yWriter5. I hope to have a finished product by the end of January.
I plan to post a plot and cultural synopsis soon, but for now I will tell you that it’s a sci-fi coming of age story that borders on the slipstream genre with many fantasy elements throughout.
Cheers
-Hunter
December 2, 2010 | Categories: Creative Endeavors, fantacy, fiction, Prose, sci-fi, scifi, Slipstream, Stories | Leave A Comment »
Lotus and the Rose
Chapter 5, Purity and the Snake
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The day begins with internal silence. This morning I’m animated, feeling healthy. My mind is a jumble, and usually this is quite normal; this dawn is no different. The voice isn’t there, no whispers, no screams, only me and the happy silence ling in bed with my love. I hurt, but its that good pain.
Waking up ( . . . please no).
Eyes open, no longer in sleep. A spiders web directly above, no arachnid, no proprietor attached, clinging to no walls, a strand of silk floating in the still air a specter haunting or a ghostly snake slithering across the still air, stalking the innocent mouse; perhaps a trail of smoke from sacred frankincense. Yes, a snake; its tail lost somewhere in its sentience. Life seemed to eminate from the shifty creature as it levitates into a sly dance on the slight draft of my open door; teasing and intoxicating, lingering and laughing, seducing the space around my being and trying to weave its way into my thoughts (no). Again it tries, phasing in and out of my reality, folding the space it occupies. Continue: In my head and out again (no). Again it tries, hissing and screaming, pleading for this young mind to accept it in (no). “Please no,” then stop; silence, and a seeping pain in my being.
“No . . .” The voice returns like the silent sound of an echo escaped from the origin. Th echo falling back to the ether until silence was, once again.
A sad disappointment emanates as the snake levitates into the darkest corner of my room. It disappears into a shadowy corner (vortex). A light flashes. Confusion.
I get up.
Naked.
Her face and body buried in pillow and blanket; still asleep in deep dreams, bare back dry to the touch and smooth, it rises and lowers; her breath in harmony with her heart, her heart in sequence to the clock. The clock seas sin . . . no six in the morning, by mind seas high noon; my corps has had its time to be rested. The clock is correct.
Stepping outside I saw no sun. A thick fog sheets the streets. Awesome is the fresh, brisk air; the river scent still hangs.
The fog lingered and waited and watched.
Shivers shook my spine. The damp cold touched my skin. Dim light shone in a glow through the ground layer clouds. I stood still feeling the uncontrolled rattle of my body; stop, stretch; my back, shoulders, and a few joints popped to my pleasure.
Back inside. kind-of dark; no lights were on and the blinds are shut. Apples and oranges and bananas all rotted in a basket on the partition. The neighbor baby is crying, odd; they have no baby. Mrs. Black, nice old lady; she always makes lemon pie and usually shares. That’s where the sound was coming from. Probably just a grand child.
I need a shower.
A diamond back rattler shedding it’s skin, a mammal in spring loosing its winter coat, as I am naked, exposed; not for sex but to cleanse.
The knobs are cold; the sound of the artificial rain, water falling, skin preparing for the for the wonderful feeling of searing , stimulating pain.
Stepping into the stream of water, almost burns the skin; just the way I like it. Ten thousand beads lash my skin and flow down the invisible fissures of my back, wetting me. The liquid deluge pours over me, breaking off impurities, rinsing away the stench of last nights ecstasy. Steam blankets bathroom as the rolling fog outside, everything is blurred, my mind id a cloud [small stumbles and quick steps] . . . vertigo.
Awake.
Washing with soap. The bottle squeezed, ectoplasm essence lathers my body. Soft movements of slithering liquid, traveling droplets at war with the filth. I am becoming; clean. Sharp pain from the wounds. One weary traveler snakes his way down; a forest it finds, deep and thick; the traveler dispersed, never to be seen again.
Dried blood is being removed my wounds sterilized. The rushing water removes the soap. My hare is wet [hands run through then fall to the side, face looking down to the tiles]. Water, milky and pink, it coils, falling and dragged to the dark vortex.
Standing motionless, five minuets pass.
The heat is poison passing through the heart, weakening; the cold is an antibody that returns vitality.
Move [head lifts].
Water still pouring, then the temperature alters. I turn the shower off. Knobs hot. I feel faint.
“You still in there” She asks.
I remove my-self and dry. “Yea, be out in a sec”.
Towel wrapped around my waist, I open the door. “Love?” My hand on her hip, pulling her close for a kiss, “no hot water”.
“Thanks”, she replies. Sarcasm? “I like cold showers”, without deceit. A smile on her lips, her hand to my cheek, peck on the lips, removed then into the bathroom; door shuts behind along with her contact except for a touch of spirit left by her kiss and a shot of energy from her to me. I stand for a minuet with my back to the door, probably less.
I smile.
I move to the kitchen.
I cook breakfast.
September 27, 2009 | Categories: Creative Endeavors, magical realism, Prose, Serials, Slipstream, Stories | Tags: fiction, literature, Prose, Slipstream, Story | Leave A Comment »
Chapter #3
Damned by Divine Wisdom
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
I am a seeker on walkabout, on a journey through vast lands of beautiful groves, hidden cities, and burning furnaces, whose keepers feed the vortex fires.
I stand at the edge of a valley blanketed with high thick grass and yellow patches of mustard; everything moist with mornings dew. Scattered oak trees twisted and sublime spot the nest. At the center stands the largest and oldest of the ancient oaks; tall and grand. In its shade shimmers a still pond of pure water, fresh as if it just fell from the heavens, tall reeds at an edge.
On a bank, still but not stagnant, a log lays, half submerged in purity, twisted, sublime and wise. That twisted old log by the pure pond, resting in the shade of the king of trees sits an old woman drinking from the pool with cupped hands.
I now stand in the center of the valley, a distance of hours to walk, in a blink. A single bird sings his song, insects buzz in the distance; me and the old woman an audience. She splashes cool water on her face and with a look in my eyes and a sweet smile on her lips, a flute is raised by her liver spotted hands then she adds to natures melody. Chirp sings the bird and the insects chime in time, out of the void the womans flute begins and brings the harmony of natures voice. The old woman, in gypsy like rags, sits cross-legged on the twisted log, her eyes closed, her instrument begins an ancient tune.
“I want to see,” I say, “I want to listen to the harmony that can be between humanity and nature”. I feel the need to learn the way that may be, but is not. I want to learn from the old woman, hair of long silver strands, sitting cross-legged on the twisted log, in the shade of the king oak, by the pond of the pure water, ancient, sublime.
She smiles with glee, not loosing step with the song.
As the melody transpires, as the woman puts her breath into the song, I sit listening to the play between the musicians, the harmony of humanity and nature, nature and humanity, beast and beast, life to life and back again; to add more wonder to this magnificent setting the stage changes. The valley grows dark; filled and shaded by redwood trees growing high above low-lying ferns. Darkness consumes but not the darkness of night but a cool shade in a thick forest. The ground grassless with mulch, mud and mushrooms.
The melody never stopped but is in harmony with the metamorphosis of the habitat. The bird still sings, the bugs still buzz, the lady still plays by the pond under the old oak.
I look to the canopy, fog swims through the branches above, but no motion is felt. The leaves move, but without a breeze. They move with intention. Butterflies; ten thousand. They hold in clusters to the branches and groups; individuals flutter from bunch to bunch; ten thousand butter flies to a cluster with ten thousand clusters; truthfully uncountable.
Continuing metamorphosis: a sharp scent invades, the air dries, mud and mulch turn to dry hard dirt. Redwoods no longer; eucalyptus.
The monarch butterflies, flutter high and flutter by; a dance in the air to melody performed by flute and chirp, chirp and buzz then stop.
Silence.
A single sound interrupts, like solid wood against hollow. Another strike, then another. Three strikes and a stomp. Across the pond the woman stood still in gypsy like rags but no longer old, beautiful and lithe, mischievous appearance, mischievous smile, in a sultry stance and a naked leg stretched from beneath the colored rags, flute to her full lips.
Strike; Strike; Strike; with each strike she stepped, steppes, stepping and to the end of her stomps the strikes begin again, each faster than the last, and each step of hers becoming a hard dance on the dirt floor. Each beat faster in the rhythm of passions spirit and in step with the percussions heart. No longer the harmony of nature but passions of the wild and she plays her flute in step with her wild dace to the beat of the invisible percussionist.
The pond was still and clean; air filled with the dry stinging scent of eucalyptus; the king oak proud, watching. The beat continued, the song quickened, and she danced and shipped and the air was saturated with butterflies fluttering by and dancing in tune with the music. The woman skipped, her bare feet kicking up the dry earth into clouds that caught the rays of the hot sun as the monarchs fluttered through.
I am surrounded by fire.
All became silent.
Then a kind womans voice said, “when you awake, run to the western mountains, though the mountains wont hide you . . . Seek the cave that’s shelters the adversary”.
Butterflies flutter by and around and around and around as the voice fades into memory; bright orange and black merge into streaking flames. Hot is the dust and wind in my lungs and it consumes my being. Floating in the vortex of flame searing flesh and burning hair. For only a moment within a moment, found in the flying flames, like the burning bush, floats a face. Its eyes hot with passion and malice and pleasure for my agony. It smiles with ash and smoke and embers of the deconstructed.
Some nights I sit alone thinking of existence and experiencing loneliness as only pond lilies and the sages do. Other nights I go out, socialize and play with great excitement and joy, injecting myself in to the hole of the moment. Now I am an infant ant the point of birth.
Floating.
I see the chaos, the chaos takes me.
I am naked.
Bright flames, an iridescent shell. I am the fetus within; hunched over, exposed and protected. All dark and comforting, but a light is calling me.
I am born.
I am awake; naked, wet, bald and exposed. Under a glaring sun, on hot asphalt.
A frightened voice to my right, curses and the sound of feet running away.
In the sky, high above, orange and black butterflies rise.
Coyote corpses littered the ground around my nakedness. Sirens sounded in the distance. Sitting up a ghastly sight welcomed me. Crucified on the cliff-side was D. His insides piles the ground below his limp legs; vivisected.
Many running feet heading this way.
September 8, 2009 | Categories: Creative Endeavors, fiction, Prose, Serials, Slipstream, Writing | Tags: fiction, Prose, Serials, Slipstream, Story | 1 Comment »
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