This Week's Tidbits · 8 August 2007
It’s time for another post about tidbits.
First up, I’ve posted my review of Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell in the Reviews Section.
In the interest of full disclosure, I obtained my copy of Crystal Rain directly from the author, under the understanding that I would write a review of it.
Second, I've updated my About section and posted my general review guidelines in it, so if you're interested in reading about my journalistic integrity, check them out there ;).
Third, Dark Orpheus posted her Meez the day after I was talking about them with Jackson, and after seeing how cute hers was, I couldn’t resist making one myself. It’s a bit silly, but it was fun and it actually (sort of) looks like me and my alchemical experiments in the kitchen.
Finally, after being inspired to examine why I blog and recognizing that I’ve been slipping a bit on my creative writing, I did a brief writing exercise. It’s not a story, more of a scene, but it’s in keeping with the “write something everyday” philosophy.
Since it’s not intended for future publication, I thought I’d share it here.
Learned Reflexes.
There was a moment, gone almost quicker than realized, when she thought she might choke. And then, as if she were a fish taking to water, Stella’s reflexes had taken over. Her cerebellum floundered, subsumed by the lower, spinal, nature of the medulla oblongata. And so, instead of gasping for breath, she swallowed. Lemony water slithered down her throat, harmlessly past the passageway to her lungs, a disaster averted without conscious thought.
A three-year-old would have pressed onward, choking and sputtering for air. Stella, a veteran of previous attempts to breath in fishlike fashion, acted against what reason would tell us is instinct, and stopped breathing. And yet, there had been no conscious will guiding the contraction of her throat, the abrupt ceasing of her inhalation. Her mind had been on other things, the plans of the evening, the stack of bills looming in the hallway. Two steps forward, a sip, and then the feeling that not all had gone as planned.
A reaction set in motion too quick for thought or relief. Reflexes called upon from experience, stored unused yet not forgotten.
Truly, we are amazing creatures.
Crystal Rain,
Meez,
My Fiction,
Tobias Buckell
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Are We There Yet? · 2 July 2007
Those that were hoping (or fearing) that the review of Before & After may presage a dish involving exploding sheep will be disappointed (or relieved) that it isn’t so.
It’s only Monday, but I already need another weekend. I wish I could say something witty and exciting about why I’m so busy and tired. Sadly, the story is very mundane. I’m just plain tuckered out from running more than full throttle at work and school for too long without a break. I really am a happier fish when I’m busy, but the last few weeks I’ve been a bit too busy to maintain equilibrium.
I was so beat this afternoon that I wasn’t intending to post tonight (mostly because I didn’t have much to say) but after recognizing that I needed to recharge my mental state, I took the time for myself to indulge in some creative activity. The result was this poem, in which I tried to illustrate what being creative does for me. I had originally intended to title it “The Architecture of Loss” because I was pining for a lazy afternoon, but it turned into a more positive statement, and I realized that “The Architecture of Loss” has already been used as the title of both a play and a song.
I’d still like to write about the idea of not being able to lose things that you never appreciated you had, but that will have to wait for another night.
In the meantime, I leave you with the results of me re-centering myself and girding my loins for another long week (the poem) and a beautiful picture from maxinnaberlin.
Untitled
I yearn
For quiet moments
Where thoughts collide gently
Their pearlescent walls glimmering like a thousand fractured rainbows
Each beautiful and unique.
I embrace
Still moments
In which a single breath stretches across heartbeats.
At such times even the air is fertile.
I inhale
And exhale muse-graced spores
That fly on measured sighs
Each tiny particle a seed ripened in silence
Then strewn throughout the landscape of my imagination
Ready to germinate
In the next quiet moment
The next respite stolen from a busy day.
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English Vegetation Strikes Back Against Stereotypes · 28 May 2007
My next review for the Once Upon a Time Challenge will be, The Hawk’s Gray Feather by Patricia Kennealy. I wasn't initially planning to feature this book, but I changed my mind. After spending last week experimenting with English food and reading about the England of the Arthurian legends, I had a lot of ideas for the review that I felt were worth inclusion on the front page.
I also spent last week playing around with the Tiny Story genre in order to ready my final entry for Carl’s Tiny Story Challenge.
The parameters of the Tiny Story challenge were a test of my flexibility as a writer. The goal of the challenge is to write a Tiny Story, 100 words or less. This sounded relatively easy, until Carl threw in the challenging part. You can’t use the same word twice. Since I just completed my linguistics course, I started diagramming possible sentence structures in my head. It's not hard to avoid using the same noun or adjective, in fact, any writer has performed numerous exercises to remove the repetition of certain words from their writing and to make their descriptions more dynamic.
The tricky part of writing 100 words without repeating any is the elimination of common conjunctions and determiners (the, a, he, and, etc.). We have a small number of short words that provide useful grammatical functions. Despite trying to write prose, my first attempts at Tiny Stories resembled poetry, which is in part defined by it’s unusual grammatical structure. We’re used to seeing standard tags that identify sentences. If you take those tags away, everything seems more lyrical. Hopefully my entry is “prosaic” (sorry, couldn’t resist) enough for Carl.
Since it took me a few tries to get what I was aiming for, I decided to post this attempt, which isn't the one that I'll be submitting. The original concept for this story was a feature on native English food and was supposed to go along with the feature on To Say Nothing of the Dog and be an homage food that doesn't have to be bland, but the more I wrote, the more it ended up being a hybrid of my research into the foodstuffs of England and my reading of The Hawk's Gray Feather and a tribute to food that is in no way tame.
It seemed that Arthurian England was channeling itself into my subconscious and demanding a stage on which to be seen. After bowing to the Muse, The Hawk's Gray Feather will now have it's own section, with this Tiny Story as it's Prologue.
Green Man Reborn
Two mist-clad priests strolled through the garden, fruit cradled in each hand, vegetables twined round their heads. I paused, entranced. One sliced pears as offerings, rubbed sweet juices on my skin; baptized me. Strands of peas they strung like pearls encircling both arms. Roots speared each booted foot, vines grew fibrous sinew and melded chlorophyll to blood. Carnelian flowers sprouted, trumpeting perfume out parted lips. Small acorns shined through eyes that saw no more.
Transformed, forever fused with earth. I’d wished but a purloined cabbage.
Images include links to the Meri Mask and Earthsong websites which sell the pictures Green Man art.
English Ingredients,
English Food,
Green Man,
The Hawk's Gray Feather,
Tiny Story
Posted by fortrix
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