Weekly Prompt Writing

It is my firm opinion that I didn’t deserve to be shunned by the rest of the group. I mean, how could I have known those berries were poisonous? They should be glad I ate them first. My stomach bubbled and I swallowed. The past twelve hours hadn’t been the most enjoyable.

Now I was walking at the back of the caravan, several paces behind Lam’s mule, grumbling to myself.

And, of course, Sal was in the lead, riding beside the Elder.

“Hey, Fletcher,” she called over her shoulder.

I didn’t respond.

“Come on, slowpoke. The Elder needs to talk to you.”

I could have sworn the trees trembled at the volume of her yelling. I heard the Elder mumble, “I could have done that.”

I quickened my pace until I stood next to the Elder and Sal. “Yes, sir?”

“Did you learn about navigation by the stars in your training?” he asked.

I nodded. “Sure did.”

Sal rolled her eyes behind the Elder’s back.

“Then tonight you must tell us which direction we have been heading. Rhynd lost his compass and I think we’ve been wandering off our course.”

“Certainly, sir,” I said.

“Certainly, sir,” Sal mimicked.

I would have smacked her or at least glared at her, but I felt another vomit coming on. I ran to the bushes off the trail. Darn those berries.

Lam handed me a handkerchief. “Sorry about your stomach, kid. It could happen to the best of us.”

I wiped my mouth. Maybe it could happen to the best of us, but it had happened to me. And my sister was never going to let me live it down.

As if she had known the berries were poisonous.

Weekly Prompt Writing

Salome and Zorah scuttled down the street, past dozens of shouting market vendors. They giggled at the antics of a child and a stray dog, but dared not look up or speak until they had passed out of the main road and away from the noise of the market.

“That was fun,” Zorah said, unwinding her headscarf. “But I’m not sure it was worth the work.”

“Please,” Salome said. “You like drama even more than I do. One day we should protest our non-admittance instead of sneaking in. But really, it’s so easy to do in a dark theatre.”

Zorah shrugged. “Easy for you, anyway.”

They walked on down the deserted alley, looking up at the vandalized buildings. At the end of the alley was a perpendicular street which bustled with the decaying energy of the nearby market.

“Hey, look.” Salome pointed toward an outside staircase, above which was a red box containing a single rose. It bore words which read, “in case of love at first sight break glass”.

She scoffed. “Cute idea, I guess, but whoever stocks this thing must spend a lot of money on roses. How often would someone use it?”

Zorah gripped her arm. “I don’t know, but we might need it right now.” She gestured ahead of them, where a dashingly handsome foreigner was helping an old woman across the street. “He’s so…”

“Zorah, you’re ridiculous,” Salome said, and dragged her friend around the corner.

Weekly Prompt Writing

I had just finished washing my face when I heard a gasp in the next room. There was a door adjoining the two rooms, so I put my ear to the keyhole and listened.

There were footsteps, like someone pacing. “Who are you?” my sister’s voice said.

“That is irrelevant,” said a man’s voice.

“Why are you in my room?”

There was a pause. “Are you Katrina Greene?”

“That is irrelevant,” she said, mimicking her adversary’s tone.

“I come to kill you.”

“Really?” Katrina asked, not missing a beat. “Then we have a problem.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t come to die.”

I heard something drop and wondered if she had thrown her knife. I told myself that I should’ve barged in to save her a while ago. But part of me recoiled.

So this was it. I really was a coward. Just like she always told me.

Just then I heard her scream. Without thinking, I rammed myself into the door and tumbled into her room. The stranger was holding her wrists, trying to wrench a dagger away from her hand. She was kicking him.

“Hey!” I said. “Don’t you touch my sister.”

It was then that I realized I didn’t have a weapon. The man changed paths and assailed me, and I curled up in self-defense, cursing my stupidity.

A blade appeared right under my nose. But before it could harm me, another blade sliced through the man’s arm and removed his hand. Blood spurted everywhere as the man screamed and tried to nurse his wound. Katrina jumped on him and pinned him down.

“You mess with one of us, you mess with both of us,” she said. “We’re twins. We come as a package.”

She lifted her head and yelled for Rhynd and Lam to come tie the man up.

“Thanks for your help,” she said to me. “Even if you are incredibly stupid.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Anytime. But I’ll leave the acts of bravery to you in the future.”

Weekly Prompt Writing

We came to a run-down tavern. “We’ll stop here for the night,” The Elder said.

I glanced at Katrina. “This doesn’t look like a suitable place for girls.”

Katrina rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t worry about me.” She tore Lam’s jacket from his hand and shrugged it on. She braided her hair and put on a pair of spectacles she had picked up from who knows where. “See?”

“Sorry to say, Miss Katrina,” Rhynd said, scratching his head, “but you still look definitely like a girl.”

She glanced down at herself. “You’re right. Lend me your trousers.”

“My what?”

“I noticed you had an extra pair. Give them to me.”

Instead of waiting for Rhynd to comply, she slipped the trousers from his bag and pulled them on over her dress. They were far too loose, which made them hide her skirt well. She tied a rope around her waist to make them stay up. She put up the hood of Lam’s jacket and paced. “How about now?” she asked in a deep voice.

The Elder shrugged. “Probably good enough. This early in the morning no one will notice much.”

Katrina smirked at me as we entered the tavern. “They should’ve recruited me for the quest instead of you.”

“What good fortune we just happened to find you in the catacombs after you'd been missing for two years, then,” I said through my teeth.

We arrived at the tavern and ordered three rooms: one for The Elder, one for Lam, Rhynd, and me, and one for Katrina.

“Nice being a girl sometimes,” she said when we received keys the tavern-keeper. “Have fun sharing a room, little brother.” She swept past me.

“We’re twins, you know,” I called after her. “That means we’re the same age.”

“Whatever.”

Weekly Prompt Writing

We paused on our way to refill our skins in a fresh stream off the road. Katrina leant over the water and dunked her head in, then squeezed out her sopping hair.

Lam was filling a skin next to her. “So, Katrina’s a nice name,” he said. “Do people call you Kat for short?”

She looked him dead in the eyes, water dripping from her hair back into the stream. “Not twice.”

Lam let out a nervous laugh.

The Elder approached me as I secured the last skin to our packs. “Your sister seems irritable.”

I shrugged. “That’s just the way she is. You know what they say, twins are polar opposites.” I brandished a winning smile.

He didn’t look convinced. I sent up a prayer to the Ancients to make The Elder let me stay on the quest. If they made me leave because of Katrina, I’d kill her. Sure, I hadn’t been as useful in the catacombs as they had hoped, but I was sure I could prove my worth now. And besides, if I hadn’t been with them, Katrina would probably have stabbed them all in the deep recesses of her cave, then rifled their belongings and left their bodies to rot.

Funny her middle name was Ruth.

“Fletcher, did you finish your portion of rice at lunch?” Rhynd asked.

I opened my mouth to reply, but Katrina intervened. “No, he didn’t. But you can’t have it, Mr. Rhynd. I already ate it.”

I shoved my hand into the pocket where I had carefully wrapped up my sticky rice for later. The handkerchief was gone, as was the food.

I glared at my sister, who flipped her wet hair so it sprayed in my face.

Weekly Prompt Writing

I wrote the next four installments at the same Skype meeting, and they all follow the same storyline.

From the top of the staircase, we hadn’t been able to see the bottom. We had been trudging downward for more than three hours now, and there was still no sign of the end. My mind was drifting as my body repeated the motions over and over…down a flight, pivot, down a flight, pivot. When I blinked, the darkness was scarred with zigzags.

I almost lost my footing when someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Do you need some water?” Lam asked.

I shook my head.

“Give him water,” The Elder said without looking back at us.

I took the skin from Lam and winced at the inevitable muttering. “Told you we shouldn’t have brought the kid. Can’t even handle this.”

“No one asked you, Rhynd,” The Elder said. “Fletcher will be a godsend to us later, when we reach the catacombs.”

I whispered a thanks to Lam and peered over the edge of the staircase, careful not to lose my balance. The darkness continued for a seemingly endless distance. When would it start getting difficult to breathe? I looked around at the huge cavern that contained only stairs, as far as I could tell. There was plenty of air to go around. But why would the Ancients have built such an extravagant entrance to their secret chambers?

The monotony was beginning to wear on us. With a swift motion Rhynd ripped a button from his jacket and hurled it down into the abyss. We all froze to listen. Silence. We shifted our feet but dared not move from our places.

A full ten minutes elapsed, and we jumped at a distant plink. A wave of trembling went over us. The Elder gritted his teeth and lifted his torch again. We continued down into the ancient catacombs.

Weekly Prompt Writing

The prompt for this one was a song:



     Forty-four days. It had been forty-four days. Not even so much as a “hello”. She knew she deserved it.
     She sat at her piano and brushed her fingers against the cold keys, worn from years of use. Random snippets of songs transmitted from her brain into her hands, but she couldn’t make any coherent melody out of them. She searched for the perfect thing to play, but instead of finding it, her hands fell limp into her lap.
     A yellow light flashed in the corner of her eye. The piano needed water. For once, she ignored its gentle plea. She leaned her elbows on the keys, put her head down on her arms, and stared out the window.
     Words floated in and out of her mind. Patches of conversations they had had. The sounds of uncontrollable laughter, mindless humming, quiet sobs. The voices were soft and familiar. Even smells came back to her, the aromas of baking cookies and rainy asphalt and the dust that collected on the windowsills.
     Forty-four days since she had been home. It felt like years.

"Weekly" Prompt Writing

From tonight's Skype meeting:

     Splash, plop, giggle. Splash, plop, giggle. The boy would never tire of his game. He glanced up. “Mama, are you watching? Do you see the big splashes I’m making?”
     “I’m watching, dear,” Charlotte said, “but we need to go home.” She glanced at the bundle in her arms. “The baby is getting wet.”
     “Oh, alright.” He skipped to catch up to his mother and walked beside her, stomping in every puddle that crossed their path. He picked up a dripping leaf. “Mama, this looks like an L, for Lucy. See, Lucy, this is your leaf. Mama, how do you spell Lucy?”
     “L-U-C-Y. But do hurry up, Jamie.”
     “L-U-C-Y,” James chanted as he hunted in the muddy gravel for the rest of the letters that made up his little sister’s name.
     By the time they arrived at home, all his clothes were wet, and he had found only the L and the U. Charlotte made him keep the leaves outside, which he almost complained about, before he remembered that she had promised him a story after she put the baby down for a nap.
     On her way to the nursery, Charlotte paused by the portrait hanging in the hallway. The last she had heard from Blaise, he had been healthy—as healthy as could be expected—but hungry. How awful to know her husband was across the world going hungry, while she cared for the children and avoided talking about their father.
     One day the war would end and they would be a family again. But until then, there were many days of the same loneliness and fear.

NaNoWriMo 2016...done!

All finished with NaNoWriMo 2016! Final word count of 50,166, written in 28 days! 

I'm so glad I got my third book written...but man does it need editing! The agenda for next semester is revisions, revisions galore! 

It was so cool to participate again in a project that is so intimately related to a huge part of who I am. I think I will miss it next year, but in college maybe I'll be too busy to notice!

Weekly Prompt Writing

I actually went to the meeting last night, so I have a prompt this week!

source

I whistled as I strolled by the many shops of downtown. It was a glorious sunny day, despite the chill, and I was in a determinedly happy mood. My sister would be coming over tonight and I thought I'd order something special, something we'd both loved in our childhood.
I walked into the pizza place and waited in line to place my order. "One large Hawaiian pizza with extra pineapple and anchovies, please," I said.
The cashier paled a little—perhaps at my topping selection?—and told me to wait there. I did so, and in a couple of minutes she came back, looking even paler. Without a word she gestured me to follow her, glancing around with suspicion. I followed her to the back of the shop, then down a dank staircase and into a danker basement. Before I could ask what I was doing down here, a voice slithered toward my ear in the darkness.
"So. You've come at last."
I cleared my throat. "Look, if you don't like my pizza choices, I respect that, but it hardly necessitates kidnapping me—"
"Enough joking, Kramer. Did you bring the money?"
"I don't know who Kramer is," I told the darkness, "but yeah, I'm prepared to pay for my pizza." I realized that the cashier had disappeared back up the stairs.
"Please," said the voice, "cease the dramatics. It's a simple transaction. I provide the goods, you provide the collateral."
"Right. So where's the pizza?"
The voice let out a long-suffering sigh, then yelled at the top of its invisible lungs. Two feet scampered down the stairs.
"Yes, sir?"
"This man is buying a pizza, Jules. BUYING A PIZZA. You've just given away our front to a mere civilian. I'll not have this kind of behavior. You're fired. Now, for the sake of my business dealings, I'm afraid I'll have to hold both of you hostage until the real Kramer shows up."

The Queen's Thief

Recently I finished the Queen's Thief series by Megan Whelan Turner. I'd read them on the recommendation of one of my writing group members, and I'm very glad I did. The books were different than what I usually enjoy, but they were very well-written and the setting reminded me of one of my books, so it was interesting to see how the setting affected the story.

The books are in this order:
The Thief  (Newberry Honor) - it took me a while to get into the rhythm of this one, but it had an intriguing plot that made me pick up the second one when I finished it.
The Queen of Attolia - this was the book that really got me hooked on the series. It focused heavily on character development (I approve) and there was plot twist after plot twist...I couldn't put it down!
The King of Attolia - in choosing my favorite book of the series, I can't decide between this and the second book. Its heartbreaking plot, fabulous characters, and epic action sprinkled with humor dazzled me.
A Conspiracy of Kings - I have to say, this one disappointed me a bit after the third one. It's still really well-written and has lots of great elements, but the plot seemed relatively scattered, and I was left with a lot of questions after finishing it. That being said, it supposedly isn't the intended "last book" for the series, so there's still hope!
Overall, these books were very good. The plots were complex, fast-paced, and surprising, the characters were never static, the worldbuilding was excellent, and the writing was unique and beautiful.

Weekly(ish) Prompt Writing

Now that I'm finally back home, this series can start back up!

Here's from yesterday's Skype meeting.

Cold. I knew there was a reason I had stayed in the south all my life. I'd never been this cold. My lungs burned and I gasped for air, but instead of oxygen all I breathed in was more cold. I tried to keep my scarf over my nose and mouth, but it smelled of sweat and made breathing even harder. My teeth chattered, but if I clenched them my whole body shook instead. I wanted to scream from the pain of freezing.
My eyes, almost frozen shut from the snow on my eyelids and squinting against the wind, caught a glimpse of yellow. It was candlelight. It was dazzling against the gray of everything else in my line of vision. I didn't have to turn my horse toward the light; he approached it by instinct.
Soon a village appeared in relief, and at the end of the high street, what looked like a monastery. I headed for the most inviting entrance I could find. Dismounting was a stiff ordeal, and I was gratified to have the door open only seconds after my gloved fist pounded on it, shaking the snow off its wood. A monk in gray hooded habit smiled and gestured me inside.
The hall was awash with candlelight and warmth, and the smell of fire and cooking wafted from somewhere. I drank in the sensation of my bones thawing while one of the monks went out to stable my horse.
"Thank you," told the first monk.
He nodded. "Do you come from far?"
"I'm a southerner," I said, as much in apology as in explanation. He gave me a comprehending smile and led me to the kitchen.
"What brings you to our sleepy little town in the dead of winter?" he asked while I burnt my tongue on a cup of spiced cider. 
I glanced around out of habit. "I'm afraid I can't tell you," I said. Even in a monastery, a spy remains undercover. 
The monk raised his eyebrows but said nothing. 

Weekly Prompt Writing

From this week's meeting.

At first, darkness. I lost my bearings as I floated about in the abyss of blackness.
And then I was blinded by millions of lights lining the walls--white, blue, red, and green lights. They lit up in a wave and I saw that I was in a vast enclosed chamber. Surrounded on all sides by these tiny lights.
A control panel of sorts? But how had I gotten here?
I jumped when a heavy thud echoed overhead. They were coming. My breath fogged the inside of my helmet as I looked around in a wild search for an exit.
There it was, far, far below me. With no gravity, I'd have to climb down there. I grasped at the walls with my hands and feet and pulled myself with all my strength. The space suit added at least twenty more pounds to my normal weight, and it wasn't long before I broke a sweat.
But wait. I stopped. What if they expected me to go out that way?
I let go and began drifting up again. I climbed in the opposite direction until I was near the ceiling.
And then I heard another thud.

Weekly Prompt Writing

Yep, it's back! At least for the time being. From tonight's meeting.

Whitney sidled a little closer. "You know, I feel like we're really connected."
"Do you?" James barely glanced up from his pizza.
"Yeah. It's like we're the same person in different bodies...if that makes sense. It's like we are finishing each other's--"
"Government conspiracy theories. I totally get you, Whitney." He put down his pizza to give her his full attention. "Like, that time when I mentioned Area 51, you were the first person to catch on. Do you watch the X-Files, too?"
Whitney looked down at her hands. "That's not exactly what I meant."
"It wasn't?" James relaunched into his pizza.
"No, I meant we finish each other's..." She paused dramatically.
"Uh, homework? Because I haven't finished that essay for you yet."
"No, idiot, not homework." She took a deep breath. "We...finish...each...other's...?"
He gave her a blank look. 
"SENTENCES! We finish each other's sentences." She leaned against the back of her chair in defeat. 
James licked the pizza sauce off his fingers. "You know, the situation didn't illustrate your statement very well."
They were silent for a while.
Then Whitney started. "You haven't finished the essay yet? That's due today!"

Weekly Prompt Writing

From tonight's meeting:

In the distance I heard a clock chime yet again. Going on fourteen hours. Fourteen hours of darkness. Fourteen hours of sitting, listening, waiting. What was I waiting for?

Don't say it, I told myself.

Too late.

I was waiting for someone to rescue me.

Silly me, that only happened in fairy tales. Who could possibly know where I was? And besides, it had been fourteen hours. If anyone was going to rescue me, they would've done it by now.

I tried for the thousandth time to stretch my back out of its crooked position, but the effort only made my muscles tighter. My hands clenched into fists as I fought to keep the first tears from escaping my eyes.

And then something brushed against my fist. I jumped. Still complete silence. 

A hand closed over mine and I would have screamed, had I not been gagged. It turned out more as a choking, wheezing noise.

"Shut up!" whispered a voice so close to my ear it tickled. I could feel someone's hot breath on the side of my head. But it was still pitch-dark. 

And then I was blinded. I cowered from the light, but it moved so it was shining at my bound feet. 

"Sorry, my bad," said the voice. A pair of hands began untying my bonds, but I still could not see the face behind the light. 

I closed my eyes and felt the hands loosen my bonds, working their way up until the pressure released from my jaw and I no longer tasted dusty cloth in my mouth. I was about to stand up and bolt, but the hand took mine again and the light disclosed a face.

The face of my brother.

"Shall we go home?" he asked.

I nodded and followed him out of the darkness. 

Weekly Prompt Writing

From tonight's meeting.

Sebastian walked into the den to see the TV screen displaying a shot of...wait, what?

"Uh, Tony, what is that?"

Antonio looked up from the couch, on which he was lounging, the TV remote in one hand and a bowl of chips in the other. "Oh, just my project for literature. Nathan and I are making a retelling of Hamlet with Legos."

"And which scene is this?" Sebastian asked, eyeing the paused shot of a Lego robot holding a teddy-bear and staring into the water at a reflection of a human.

"It's the 'to be or not to be' monologue, obviously," Antonio said, tossing a chip in the direction Sebastian's face. "He's looking into the water, contemplating drowning himself. He sees his reflection as the man he hopes to be...or maybe the ghost of his father."

Sebastian dropped into the couch beside his cousin. "Wow, that's strangely profound." In his head he added, why the teddy bear?

This time Antonio handed him a chip. "Thanks. I thought up the frames and Nathan put together the stop-motion." He clicked play on the remote and they watched the Lego mime a stirring speech. "We'll have to talk over it," Antonio explained. "We don't have the equipment to add voice-overs."

The reel ended. Sebastian grabbed a handful of chips from the bowl and trotted upstairs to escape his cousin's geeky weirdness.

Weekly Prompt Writing

From tonight's Skype meeting.

I was counting the number of seconds that went by before someone noticed me. I was blissfully at 438 when Asher turned to me. 
"You're up next, Sebastian."
I shuffled my feet. "I was planning on just observing..."
"Oh no you don't," he said, inching me toward the open door. "You may not like the idea of skydiving, but it's my birthday, so you have to do it."
"Don't you think the danger level is a little--"
"It's perfectly safe!" he yelled, and then pushed me out of the plane.
After the initial panic and regret that I hadn't written my will before leaving the house this morning, I began to notice my surroundings.
Or rather, my lack thereof. The air was paper-thin, and clouds hovered in whisps here and there. I looked down and saw the other skydivers hundreds of feet below me. Antonio was cheering, arms flung out, like he was having the time of his life.
It was a pretty cool experience, I had to admit to myself. But not one I would have done for anyone except my best friend. 
Nearing the ground, the panic set in again. What if my parachute malfunctioned? I'd be mauled on a bystanding rock and they'd have to collect my remains for a proper burial. Or what if I broke my neck? My dad didn't have the funds for those kind of hospital bills.
I tried to remember what the instructor had told us, but my mind was blurring with adrenaline.
And then I landed. I was in pain, but unharmed. And in a surprisingly light mood. 
"Wasn't that awesome?" Antonio asked, coming up to help me out of the parachute.
"No," I said, "but it was interesting. Really gives you a hands-on experience of physics."
Antonio rolled his eyes and trudged up to the waiting instructors.

Weekly Prompt Writing

From today's Skype meeting.

It was that gardener boy again. He dawdled around the kitchen, watching me scrub the pots. At last I couldn't bear it. "Don't you have something to be doing?" I said, wiping my hands on my apron. It was rather a process getting used to doing house work.

For a moment he just looked at me. Then he said, in a quiet voice, "Why are they all afraid of you?"

I was at a loss. "Who's afraid of me?"

He spread out his hands. "All of them. All the other girls. They all think you're...strange."

I couldn't exactly tell him that this was the least surprising thing anyone could ever say to me. Instead I handed him a wet pot and a clean rag. "Dry." He acquiesced, and I went back to scrubbing the breath out of my lungs. Would the doctor consider this strenuous work?

But he didn't appear to be finished talking. "I don't think you're strange. I think you're sad."

Dash it, was it that obvious?

"Are you afraid of me?" I asked, attempting to joke, but sounding more like a frightened five-year-old.

He shook his curly black head. "Not a bit. You're lonely. Loneliness is nothing to be afraid of."

I could tell he hadn't experienced loneliness the way I had. I couldn't think of anything more frightening.

Weekly Prompt Writing

They pried the door open and stepped into a huge abandoned hall. Grimy light filtered through the tattered rose window at the far end, and weeds wound around the sacred statues like vines around a pole. The floorboards were rotted in places and missing in others. The only sound apart from their work boots was the beating wings of birds who nested in the chandeliers far overhead. As they traversed the building, dust and animal droppings assaulted their nostrils and made them sneeze.
"Team, you know what we're here for. Let's search."
One of them cried out as a stair gave way under his weight. They helped him up in silence and wove around the loose and rotted boards as they climbed to the remains of the balcony.
From there, they could see it. At last they had found it. Here was the final piece to the puzzle. Now they could decipher the message.

Weekly Prompt Writing

Something a little out of the ordinary here, from our meeting tonight.

And the rain glowed. That was the weirdest thing she'd seen yet. Why did it glow? Was it radioactive or something? Would she burst into flames if it touched her skin? She stared out the window of the hovercraft and tried to imagine living here for a year. This hadn't been quite what she had in mind when she had suggested a foreign exchange program to her parents, but they had gotten so caught up in the new trend of planet hopping that she had found herself here in less than two weeks. It was bad enough not speaking the language, but things were going to be harder than she thought if she'd have to watch out for glowing rain and other foreign dangers. What if she did burst into flames and never went back home? Not that home was so fabulous. But at least at home she knew the rain wouldn't kill her.