Too Good to be True

"I don't believe you!" The admonishment slipped from my lips as I spun in his arms, the world moving past us, and I still couldn't manage to keep up.

And I didn't believe him. The blush that slipped across my cheeks, already warm from the cocktails I'd had, belied my feelings...how much did I pray that his words were true? How much did I wish to close the shrinking gap between us? How much trouble would my heart be in if I let myself fall into his expertly placed trap?

Life...little bits of moments strung together for us to collect and look back on. Was this one I would look on later and smile? Regret? Or worse...wonder? What ifs could be the stuff of nightmares. And were, for me. There were, after all, far too many chances I'd not taken. I lived on the side of caution.

Those what ifs haunted me like shadows, and now, the green eyes smiling down at me, sparking in the half-light around us, challenged them. He was threatening to take them down, make me forget, for just a little while. For me to pretend that cowardice did not plague my every relationship.

As if he had chased me through my torrent of thoughts, his fingers stopped my backward motion. I wanted to run, and he knew it. How could he know it?

"You should." Believe him? How could I? When I'd been trained into running from even the remotest threat to my heart?

"How?" I breathed, stilling beneath his beseeching gaze.

"Trust."

To trust...to fall? Could I?

Before I could set my mind whirring on that broad spectrum of questions and doubts, his breath mingled with mine for the briefest of moments until his lips descended onto mine, angling to catch my need, to withdraw my fears that had plagued me for far too long.

As my arms found their way about his shoulders, a single thought crossed my mind for an instant...

Sometimes to be lost is all one needs to be found.


Author's Note: Heyaz! I know, it's been too long, as per usual, but I must remind you that I said this would not be updated often! Well, moving on... I'm talking to someone I thought I'd never really talk to. It just seemed we never had anything in common. But talking to him now, it turns out we have a great deal in common and we're just kind of chatting it up. We happened to bring up the subject to risking hearts. As he is a writer as well, I just had the need to get this out. :) Enjoy, as always!

Session Two

A storm is coming. What sort of storm, I know exactly. The air is charged, and I can sense that power in it as I fill my young lungs, powerful as I scream just to scream, the sound ripping into the miles and miles of my playground.

The road is abandoned, threatening to be overgrown, and my feet can't keep up with my body or my heart as I leap across it, diving into the trees, hitting that barely discernible path and into the mysterious darkness of my forest.

Silence, one that could be suffocating if I let it, surrounds me, eating up any and every sound as greenery fills every direction. Norvs, that great kind of hulking beast, are a constant threat, but I drive on.

No rules, Sarah. Just go.

I can hear the faint trickling as my foot hits a piece of wood. A tiny foot bridge is in my path, a small stream of water flowing beside it, clear and peaceful.

I take finger fulls of mud and paint it onto my cheeks. This is war, I remind myself. Our war.

That flag is mine.

You could say that I take scouting very seriously.

I see the distinct pink through the trees and shrink to the ground. They have done well, I think, hiding it in a place accessible only by the very road I just crossed. 

So I double back, crouching, barely breathing for fear of being heard. 

The midday heat is beginning to eat at me, my sun-streaked curls are sticking to my forehead as I let branches pull at my clothes, my hair, my skin. 

Just as I'd hoped. I move slowly...and I can sense the eyes on me long before I see my teammate - already launching into a speech...distracting the guard long enough for me to reach over and snatch the bright bit of cloth away and run, not celebrating - not yet - for the fight is not done.

I run hard, my feet pounding against the well-worn, hard-packed path. I can hear the one I snatched it from crashing through the brush behind me, yelling out for others to stop me. 

Darting off onto a less popular path, I slow - knowing that, once more, stealth will be my ally.
I see her before she sees me, our leader - as I reach the edge of the treeline. In hushed gasps, I tell her of my success, offer the feeble scrap to her, grin my joy. 

And we move. Just once more capture...and we win. One by one, we go onto our bellies in the dried up creek bed...and engage.

This is one of my favorites. I wrote it based on - obviously - a game of Capture the Flag that I played while at summer camp. I could have gone so much further, but I felt the end was very fitting.

It has been a while! I'm working on the whole...making-time-for-writing thing. Slowly but surely, I'm getting back to it, but with Christmas...well, we shall see if the next post will, indeed, be in 2013.

I didn't like the exercise for Session Three, and I was running ahead of my posts here, so it made me irritable at the book.

Regardless...if I don't see you and we are still being awesome on December 22nd, don't forget that the Doctor saved us. ;)

-Sarah

Session One

Please note, this is very rough - as noted at the end, it is meant to be!!

I can feel my skin give under the rough bark as I climb, but I don't care - I can't care. Slinging a leg over the branch, I pull myself up. Only a few feet higher than the ground, and already, I can feel the wind tugging at the loose curls, the very tip of my very long braid. The street is nearby, but I allow the sound of the engine, the sound of tires on pavement, to turn into the sound of my ship, crashing and slamming into waves. 

My hands wrap around the trunk of the tree, letting gravity threaten to pull me into the long green waves of grass - of ocean - and away from the nameless ship. 

Higher, higher, I must always climb higher - even toward my greatest fear - what will become my greatest fear. But now - right now, there is no fear. Nothing can touch me. 

The sky opens up, that big bowl of cloudless blue. An exquisite painting that can never be redone. And I climb. Up up up until the tree begins to give way to the nature of itself. The branches grow thinner than my waist, then smaller than my legs, until I finally stop. 

I am in another world. A new world, unexplored.

Green surrounds me. The light that spills across my skin is new light, fresh and fractured. Beauty, unhinged. I breathe in the silence, until another wave comes. This one is somewhat more violent. My branch sails back and forth across my sky, threatening to drop me into that sea once more. 

"No!" I cry out, one toe finding a place to wedge in the rough bark. 

My skin on my palms burns, but I don't care. Bits of it - skin or bark - break off and roll between my fingers, palms sore and raw. 

But my chin raises higher. 

Yonder! - an enemy or ally? What can it be? It wends its way through obstacles unknown. 

But I am distracted. 

"Peter!" 

"You are in my territory, pirate!" 

"Is anyone you don't know a pirate?" I ask, even as I parry a strike. He is good, but my tree - my jolly roger - is my home base, and I am always one swing, spin, or step ahead of Peter Pan.   

He flies, trying to get me down, and it works. 

"Get down from there!" my mother cries. 

Ah! It was an ally after all, I think as I drop from the gangplank, rolling into that green grass sea, squealing at the tongue of my fuzzy white dog.

So, I picked up this little book called The Writer's Portable Therapist. It essentially guides you through the process of identifying why you can't seem to write, which, admittedly, has been a problem for me. It also comes with a bonus of what author Dr. Rachel Ballon calls a Creativity Chronicle. Essentially, you write in her Free Flow Method (straight up, no edit writing) for twenty minutes. The above is the result from my first session. That's right. I'm going to try for a session a day and get them posted as soon as I can. Hopefully, at the end of 25 fun-filled sessions...I will be linking you to my own book. ;)

Doing Something//Best Song

Welp, I've received my very first rejection letter. I checked my email this evening and found this:

Thank you so much for your interest in Paper Lantern Lit! We feel sure that your work has merit and potential, but unfortunately we don’t see a fit for any of our projects at this time.
All the best of luck with your writing future,
The Editorial Staff
Paper Lantern Lit

I'm not quite sure how to process this right now, I've kind of got this weird wiggly cold feeling in my stomach. I was expecting it, I think. I picked a different kind of writing that is not exactly common, especially nowadays with the obsession over Dystopian stories. So, well, as my friend said, it's a rite of passage. *sigh*

What I originally started this post for was to update you on what I'm doing for my writing (so as to distract me from no reply, haha). Right now, I'm editing an old NaNoWriMo story I call New Syra, and tomorrow, I'll be picking up where I left off to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo. :) This is where I'll be disappearing to for the next month or so.

As an apology, I pulled up a very short snippet, something I wrote when I caught one of my favorite songs on the radio (it always seems to be better, even if you have the CD, to catch it on the radio, like fate is smiling).


Best Song

I turn the music up, my favorite song, and feel the bass pulse in my chest like a heartbeat, as if my heart as become too large for myself - as if I have so much more to live for than what I have here with me.

I press my back closer to the beat, trying to meld myself with it, become that intoxicating thrum - if I can join it, I can be so much more, something that stretches across time.

Notes

Well, everyone, life's a-changing. It's so interesting to look back and see just how much has changed in a year. After graduating from University last year, I have found that my writing has taken a hit - as in, no time to do so. I'm finally doing something about that! Money is becoming tight, and the last thing I want is to be forced into becoming a mindless drone who has lost all memory of what I actually want to do and become. So, I'm going over my stories and ideas, fleshing them out, and deciding where to put them, what to do with them. I'm actually sending in a story (a previous entry, "In Defense of Honor") as a sort of audition piece for a publishing company called Paper Lantern Lit. They have put out some amazing pieces of work, a scant few of which I've actually been able to read. Essentially, they give you an outline of a "spark," and you, if chosen, write it. The process is a bit more complicated than that, I'm sure, but this seems to be the gist. In this new time for me, I get to do some new things, for example, coming up with a writer's resume. There are loads of sources out there for freelance writers, however, very few for actual fiction writers. Editorials, I suppose, are more common...you'd think I would have learned this in one of the million and a half writing classes I took in college! Nope. I learned how to write an inquiry letter, a business resume, but not a writing resume. We shall see how this goes. I shall try to get a few new stories up soon, as opposed to the older stuff (sorry, it's just that I've got so much of it!). For now, though, young master Romeo is requiring my attention. Have a simply lovely day! -Sarah

On College Scandal

It was a bitterly cold winter day at the beginning of the semester, a fact that Madison hated admitting. She was very much made for warm weather – the beach, the sand, the shorts and flip-flops – they were all something she missed. Now that Christmas was over and the New Year had started, she was ready to bid good riddance to the snow.

Stepping into the old, over-heated building, Madison pulled her wool cap from her long, red-gold hair, shaking the cold wet flakes from her loosely curled locks. She was always amused that the buildings on her University’s campus were so ancient and regal looking from the outside, but inside, most of them were just a school, nothing more.

With a shiver, Madison made her way down the stairs into the basement of the building, double-checking her hand-written schedule before slipping quietly into a dark, empty classroom.

It being her first class of the day, she always had a tendency of getting to class ridiculously early. For the next half hour, as her fellow students trickled in, she sat back in her chair, reading an overly thick science fiction novel. Her eyes darted across the pages, and she brought her head up to briefly comment on something the others were saying. As she did so, she felt her skin prickle, and her eyes clapped onto the man that stepped into the room.

To say he was gorgeous would have been an understatement. He had dark hair that fell just so across his forehead, dark eyes, and a Mediterranean complexion. He looked around the room a moment, and the way his eyes flitted across made Madison sit up just a little, and she let her things drop to the ground that had been on the seat next to her. She felt childish in her movement, but she hoped he’d sit next to her. He looked like a Super Senior, and, at 24, Madison couldn’t deny that she was one as well.

He tossed her an easy smile before, much to her dismay, he made his way to the front of the classroom.

When she’d read N Strauss as the teacher, she’d picture an old round man, looking something like the Watson she’d pictured when reading Sherlock Holmes, or maybe even a young female grad student. But not this.

Already, Madison’s mind jumped to just how soon she’d end up having to drop the class. It jumped forward a month when he spoke.

“Hello, everyone. My name is Nicolas Strauss. But I’d much prefer you call me Nick.” And he moved on to break down the syllabus he turned to hand out. That was all it took.

It was only words he spoke, simple words – words she herself had spoken, mostly to her mother when she called to see how classes were going. But the way he used those words, the way they slipped off his tongue to spill into the classroom – well, if satin had a sound, Madison was sure it would sound like his voice.

Nick continued to discuss how the grading would work, and Madison couldn’t seem to take anything in. She privately hoped her body had adapted to the osmosis form of learning, because she could not seem to pull herself out of her idiotic stupor.

Class broke off that morning about half an hour early with a simple writing assignment (it was advanced composition, after all), and Madison was sure that whatever she was feeling was nothing more than a high school-type crush. Easily overcome, trivial in meaning.

But her feelings did not wane in the slightest over the next month. In fact, she was ashamed to realize that her poker face was not quite as convincing as she’d once believed.

Then, she also realized that the feelings were not one-sided. He’d hand out papers, and his fingers would linger just a moment longer than they really needed to – or was it her imagination? She couldn’t be sure. But who was she going to ask for advice? Who was she going to tell? It wasn’t something that Madison could tell just any girlfriend – this was a professor. Not even a graduate student as she’d once believed, and hoped.

Once, they were doing an in-class writing exercise, and when Madison had looked up to gather her thoughts, he’d been staring at her. When he realized it, he coughed, and went back to shuffling papers around on his desk.


Conferences. Madison had managed to avoid such a meeting all month long, but she knew that her issues were far from over when she received an email to meet him. But it wasn’t in his office like she expected – he’d asked her to meet him in a café.

As she waited, her nerves grew. This was odd – conferences were normal, but in a café? It felt off. Something wasn’t quite right.

But when Nick stepped through the door, a smile lit her features and she let her worries slip away into the recesses of her mind.

Nick walked with ease, a casual gait that emanated a confidence that many would envy, or so Madison imagined. He waved to her casually before ordering his coffee, and, as she waited, Madison played with her own coffee cup, wiping away the red tinted lip gloss that had been left behind on the white plastic. Her mind was screaming something at her, maybe even many somethings, but none she could decipher properly.

Her nothing musings were interrupted as the chair across from her scraped against the rough-hewn tile.

“Hello, Madi,” Nick said, his voice thick and wonderful.

“Heya, Teach,” she replied, her voice sounding false in her ears.

He shifted, forcing her hazel eyes up to watch him. He looked nervous, she thought, watching as a hand moved up to brush his hair away, only to have it fall right back where it was. She briefly wondered what it would be like to brush her own fingers through his hair, but toyed with her own to get rid of the thought.

“Is something wrong with my writing?” She blurted the question more than asked it. She needed to have something cohesive to talk about, hold onto.

“Hm?” He looked up, his dark eyes pools that spoke in volumes. He was nervous, she could see that. “Oh, no, no. I asked you here because, well, there’s a few…issues I’d like to take care of.”

“You’re kicking me out of the class.”

“What?” He chuckled. “No, why on earth would I?”

Madison could only breathe for a moment. “Uhmmm...I don’t…know.” God, she felt like an idiot.

“I need to put this out there, because I fear that the other students will pick up on it, or I may favor you, or…I’m babbling.”

“No, I like your babbling.” Madison’s eyes widened a moment and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk around you.” She stood up. “I need to go.”

Nick stood, placing a hand on her shoulder as he moved to her side effortlessly. “No, you don’t. I’ve put this off for too long and we need to resolve it now.”

“There’s a we in this?” Madison asked, cocking her brows.

“Yes. And there needs to not be.”

Somehow, Madison found her chair again, nodding. “I’m bidding school policy wouldn’t be too hot on this subject, huh?”

Nick seemed perplexed a moment before joining her at the table once more. “I…didn’t think you’d understand.”

Leaning forward on her elbows, Madison looked him in the eyes. “I’m guessing a café is not your normal conferencing area.”

“No.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t want to be alone with me.”

His eyes searched for someplace else to look, but flicked right back to meet her gaze. “No.”

Madison nodded. “I thought so.” She sat back casually, but somehow felt as if her heart might break. “There’s nothing we can do other than go on. Ignore it and go on.”

The sound of the steamer screamed in the café, groups chattered over the sound about nothing in particular, and the blender buzzed noisily over that. But between the student and teacher – nothing.


Author's Note:
I wrote this little ditty while I was going through yet another writing class in college. I had a crush on a Teacher's Assistant, and, me being the curious little deviant that I am, I decided to write it out, transferring it into the English department I'm more familiar with. Damn Madi, here, decided to go and be all responsible on me, though, and end it. Nic was sensible, too, so I went with my characters. There is an alternate version which is a lot more flushed out and a great deal more irresponsible/happy ending-ish. Let me know if you want to see it, too. I just love the ending on this one! :D

Fractured Grace

Blue ice stretched to the horizon, fading into the blinding rays of another waning winter sun. She shivered violently as the shifting mass groaned under her feet. She instinctively glanced down, looking for cracks under the transparent sheen. Suddenly, she tensed and dropped to her knees. Desperately clawing at the ice, she screamed...

The ice was unyielding as her cries ripped into the smothering silence. A fire burned beneath the fractured glass, and even as she scraped at it with her raw, numb fingertips, it dimmed into a glowing ember, a vague semblance of warmth, hope – and all too quickly, it died out, leaving no trace that it had ever existed, and she found herself beating her fists at the ice, her already meager strength dwindling.

Sitting back on her heels, she made herself calm her erratic breathing, until something else battled its way through her overwrought mind. Crying. Touching her cheeks, half expecting to find frozen water, there was none. This was not her cry, but the cry of her son. Her son? Pounding her fist against the ice once more, desperate to drive the madness of isolation away, she dove for her child, scooping him against her breast once more from the ice where she, blinded by her sudden hysteria, had nearly abandoned him.

His nose was like ice against her collar bone as she tucked him inside her coat. Standing, her feet barely finding purchase, she struggled along her way...whatever way it was.

Having long ago lost any semblance of time, she wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been when she realized there was no faint puff of warm breath on her skin.

Hugging her son tightly against her, willing his little heart to keep going, she sent him silent promises that they would get home. They felt empty, those promises, as paralyzed as her hands and feet. As if understanding her comatose thoughts, her feet folded beneath her, and she dropped against the frozen sea, anchored by her heightened hopelessness.

Curling her body around her child, pressing them both against the endless frost, she could somehow feel it growing beyond numbness. It bit at her, this strange new feeling, before becoming something akin to warmth, and she swooned as she allowed it to wash through her.

Even her desperation was beginning to disappear as the sun gave way to the clarity of the stars.


Author's Note:
I wrote this one for a recent writing competition (the prompt was the first paragraph, hence being italicized). I lost. LoL, it has numerous drafts, the above being my favorite - you, as a reader, don't really know what happens in the end, leaving that open to interpretation. But, I had some gripes who wanted more. The following picks up just before the final line and simply gives a bit more. Thought I'd give you both. This is the end of the full version I entered. :) Enjoy.


It was ending, then, she realized, as she inspected her unfeeling fingertips, backlit by something brighter than the sun. It seemed to be unconscionable, this thing she knew as death, this light at the end of the tunnel. If she could have gone toward it, she would have. That suddenly seemed rather unnecessary, however, as it seemed to be coming to meet her. It was violent, she thought as it flipped her over, ripping her clothes and beating at her chest. She hadn’t expected it to be so violent.

“He’s fine…he’s alive.”

The silence had long ago flooded her ears with its constant inanity, so it was difficult to fight her way to sense and realize that there was something she must do, something she must listen to.

“Grace!” yelled a voice, familiar through the delirium. “Stay awake, just keep breathing.”

But even her desperation was beginning to disappear as the sun gave way to the clarity of the stars.