Friday, June 29, 2012

The Creative Juice Flows Again!

Indeed it does. Finally. I was able to wrestle the introduction to my new novel, which I am calling Soulless until a better title occurs to me, onto a page. I was even able to do a bit of art, once my tablet was reinsalled. The stupid thing keeps uninstalling itself. And when I reinstall it, I have to redo my custom buttons etc. Does anyone else have this problem with the Wacom Intuous 4?
Anyways, back to writing. I was so proud of my wee, 800 word intro that I contacted all of my close friends and my mother, asking them if they wanted to read it. I crave instant satisfaction like that sometimes. I beleive that's what today's culture, and the internet has done to us. You post on Facebook and generally within a few minutes someone comments or likes it.
I'm debating whether or not to put up snippets of the story here. What I'm most worried about is people stealing my ideas or even just pretending that my work is theirs. Australian copyright law says that when someone has created something, it's automatically copyrighted to them, but I know that doesn't stop people. But meh, screw it. I like showing off my work. *cheeky grin*



soulless

A tree tickled the windowpane with needle-like fingers. The near-full moon slithered between heavy clouds over the dense blackness of the forest outside. The girl watched the silvery disk glide though the ocean of soft black. Occasionally the clouds would clear enough for her to see the moon’s sibling, a smaller smile of light hiding to the larger orb’s left. The tree scratched again on the glass. The girl’s mother pulled the curtains shut. The girl sighed and fiddled with the tatted cloth her mother had just tucked under her chin.
“Tell me the story about the waifs again, mummy,” she said.
“Oh my dear. Why would you want to hear such a horrible tale again? I made a mistake in telling you once. Don’t you remember the nightmares you had?” said the woman as she smoothed the meagre blanket again.
“They weren’t nightmares. Just dreams,” replied the girl. Her mother harrumphed. “Please mummy?” The woman caught her daughter’s eye. The spark of excitement in her young, bright eyes swayed her.
“Oh, all right,” she grumbled. She pulled the only other piece of furniture in the room, a small stool, closer to the bed. “And they call them wraiths, not waifs,” she said sternly to the girl.
“Wraiths,” the girl replied, struggling a little to get the word through the gap left by a missing tooth. The woman settled on the stool and became still, her gaze a little fixed as she remembered the words her mother and father had whispered to her in a situation not unlike this, years before.
“The world is a strange place Alice,” she began. “It is filled with all sorts of creatures. Some are peaceful and beautiful. But sometimes, even though you hope to the heavens you don’t, you will come across beings that are twisted and evil. Such creatures exist in the forests just beyond these.” Alice looked back towards the window where she could see a tiny sliver of the black trees, lit with tiny shadows of silver from the moons above. She shivered.
“In the darkest of these forests prowls the evilest of these beasts. They are known by many names. Wendigo, Skin-walkers, Face-stealers, Soul-eaters, but most people know them as Soul-wraiths. They can look like men but are horribly deformed. My great-grandfather told my father he saw one with yellow eyes once. The eyes of a forest cat, the nose of a wolf and fangs of a snake. These savage beasts prey on animals, lost travellers, and small children who stray too far from home. If they catch you, they will eat you. They can suck your life, your very soul from you by just touching your skin.” The candle sitting on the floor sputtered a little in a sudden cold draught from under the door. Shadows flickered on the ceiling.
“They live extremely long lives because of all of those they take. Great-grandpappy was very lucky to have escaped the one he saw. He was out hunting when he came across it feasting on a huge stag. He hid behind a pile of rocks until it had moved on. Very lucky he was. Soul-wraiths have ten times the power to smell and hear. If he hadn’t have taken a bath that morning, the wraith would have sniffed him out and devoured him then and there. And then none of us would be here today. Your great-grandmother would never have had grandpop, who in turn would never have met grandma and had Daddy. I would have gone on with my life not knowing that he was to be my husband and you were to be my beautiful daughter.”
Alice giggled. Her mother scowled at her.
“It’s not a laughing matter young missy.”
“’Tis too mummy. A bathtub saved my life,” said the girl, a dimple appearing in her cheek. Hattie shook her head. Her daughter had always been one to say odd things like that.
“Anyway,” she continued. “That is why you should never stray too far from the house. You never know what could be lurking in the dark forest.”
“Yes mummy.”
“Okay, there’s your story. Now, time for you to go to sleep.”
Alice grumbled but snuggled further under her blanket.
“Goodnight my dear,” said her mother as she bent over and kissed Alice’s forehead.
“’Night mummy,” Alice whispered. Hattie bent and picked up the candle from the floor and crossed to the door. It creaked softly shut behind her leaving Alice in darkness, bar the one shaft of faint silver that slipped through the chink in the curtains. She pondered as she probed the gap in her front teeth, what it would be like to have snake fangs. It would make it awfully uncomfortable to eat, she decided. She had always been an odd child like that.


Any comments, grammar checks or tips are most welcome. Oh and I think I'll be changing Alice's name. It doesn't really suit her charater just yet.


Eating: Nil. I must go hunting soon...

Wearing: Old school shorts and Dad's '84 Custom Van and Car Club shirt. It was unusually hot for a winter day today.

Listening to: Nothing at the moment, but I do have Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jephson stuck in my head.

Feeling: Pretty good actually. This horrible wog has cleared up. Now let's hope I don't catch the nasty thing my brother keeps distributing...

Monday, June 25, 2012

Shlump.

It's a fun word to say. Try it. Just once. Maybe twice. Shlump. Fun to say, but the meaning (even though I know it's not a real word) is less fun. It makes one think of a marked decrease in productivity and morale. And a sort of lazy, puddled sitting positing. Which is exactly how I feel right now. It's worse because this is my third or fourth post in which I have not been able to write due to such a shlump. Curse you motivation and your extended holiday! *Shakes fist at the sky*

In other news, I bruised a certain posterior area while out on a fishing trip last week. A lot of other areas were also very sore for a while. We got up nice an early anticipating a lovely calm day out on the reef, but it was terrible. The wind was gusting much above what they were predicting and as such, all of our energy was expended just holding onto the damned boat. We only managed to catch three just legal coral trout and an assortment of tiny trout and inedible reef fish. The one upside was the wildlife. There were three green sea turtles that swam lazily by, popping their heads occasianlly and I saw flying fish leap from the choppy water as we struggled home.
I actually managed to stay relatively dry, uninjured and non-insect bitten the whole trip - that was until we got back to land. The sandflies chewed me to death, I got hosed and I slipped while climbing down from the back of the boat once it was on the trailer. Overall, not the most successful or enjoyable fishing trip.
Anybody else have any fishing horror stories? Or maybe success stories?

Listening to: Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jephson. Yay! Popular generic pop!

Eating: Nothing... Though I wish I had a candy bar of some description.

Feeling: Much better than last post.

Wearing: Jeans, shirt, jumper and my Minecraft diamond necklace. Be jealous suckers!

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Rawr! Hiss... I'm a Dinosaur

Hello again everyone! Or, no-one... Whoever happens to read this anyways.
I have been continuing my ignoring-writing, movie/TV watching binge. It's quite terrible. Today I saw Prometheus in cinemas. I must say that I thouroughly enjoyed it, even though I have not seen any of the Alien movies (Shame on me, I know.) I also watched all of the first season of an anime called Okami-san and her Seven Companions, which wasn't all bad, and then spent the last three hours crying a full bucket of tears over Titanic. Terrible, yes. Enjoyable - also yes. I now have a question for you all. Whenever I finish a movie, I find myself acting like the main character, or feeling the themes long after it's finished. If the movie was of a success story, I will feel like I can do anything for hours afterwards. If the main character had a distingushable accent, I find myself thinking in their voice, and sometimes speaking with their inflections. The weirdest thing happens after I watch Jurassic Park - I stalk around, feeling like a raptor, hissing at people, my arms held in front of me like claws. At the moment, I can feel the rocking of a ship, and hear its occasional creaks. My question is; Does anybody else get affected like this by movies? Maybe by good books? Or am I just crazy?

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Arting Around

So instead of any sort of witing today, I slept. A lot. And drew a picture. A bad picture. I really need something that gets me back into the groove of writing, whether it's on Sparks or this new novel I've been cooking up. I did read a few good blog posts last night, full of tips on writing and attitude that made me giggle muchly, but it didn't quite get me there. It seems that when I have nothing to do, I procrastinate on writing with internet-ing. And when I do have stuff to do, that is procrastinated upon with my writing. Curse you brain and your confuzzling habits. Does anybody else have this kind of problem?

Wearing: Super-warm, fluffy coat, uggs and high school senior tee. Wishing I had shin warmers.

Listening to: Not much. There are some cars driving past outside.

Eating: Just had pasta. It was a bit rich.

Feeling: Good, although I'll need another panadol soon.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Throwing Popcorn

The car swerved violently and smashed into the truck. The screeching of metal was drowned by the explosion as flames burst violently from both vehicles. I rolled my eyes.
It seems as though as I have gotten older and (slightly) wiser, I have begun to notice how fake movie scenes can be. The scene above for instance, is now one of my pet peeves. It seems that in every movie cars that crash magically blow up on impact. That, or they're coincidentally carrying a massive amount of high explosives. I find myself snorting derisively at other physics defying, or extremely coincidental scenes too. Like the one in the latest Pirates of the Carribean movie. Ingenious Captain Jack had just shimmied up the palm tree he had been tied to and then used the rope to lassoo the top of another palm tree. He pulls it back further and futher then finally release it, sending him flying as if it were a sling shot. While watching it, my brain, rather than enjoying another of Jack Sparrow's brilliant and hilarious escapes, was telling me that this was a pile of dung. The tree he had lassooed was the same height of the tree upon which he was standing, so, was probably the same bendiness. As he pulled the lassooed tree back, did the first tree bend in the same manner? Of course not. That would mean physics was working. 
It makes me wonder whether this is what it means to grow up. You start seeing more logic than magic. It worries me... I'd hate to lose the magic movies have always held for me.

It's not all bad news though. I watched a movie I've wanted to see for a while. Water Horse was a surprisingly good family film. The CGI was quite magnificent and the little digital creature was meshed rather beautifully into the real world. I didn't quite like the main character's mother though. She seemed very vague, and rather slutty actually. She had a dithering smile and was always checking out one officer or another.

It seems that Dale and I are off to see Dark Shadows tomorrow. Er, today actually. I don't really consider it the morrow unless the sun has risen. Anyway. He'd seen the trailers for both of the new Snow White films, Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror and wanted to see them. I tried to remember if they were in the cinemas at the moment or not. Turns out the latter has already been and the former isn't due out till the end of the month lol. Didn't matter though, as soon as I'd mentioned Johnny Depp, Dale was all on board for Dark Shadows.
I must say that I really like Johnny Depp's acting style. He does quirky and eccentric oh so well. I can't get over that hat in the new Alice in Wonderland. He and Tim Burton were really just made for one other.

Here I go again, sounding very pompous. I notice it sometimes, when I'm writing emails, or writing anything really. It might be something to do with the lateness, or the stiffness of this being the first thing I've written in the day, but I find that I tend to sound pomous or overly formal. My writing just lacks the personality I want it to have. This is something I should probably work on. But not now. I'm feeling to lazy to go back and edit this post.

I should probably go to bed now. Before it starts speaking to me from within sleep-loss induced hallucinations.

Wearing: Uggs and warm stuff again. My father's '84 Custom Van and Car Club shirt.

Eating: Et some beef noodles. Tongue tastes like fake, salty flavouring.

Listening to: The mild drizzle.

Feeling: Better than last post. But my shoulders feel broken from the coughing and sneezing.

Word of the Day: I'm sure I had one... I know that yesterday's was teenybopper.