I’ve been trying to keep on top of writing recently, and while I’ve been fairly bad about actually writing anything fictional (at least on purpose), I’ve been doing some musing about why a lot of the stories that I’m coming up with the seeds for turn out to be non-starters.
Continue reading “Trying to Write a Character with Meaning”Category: Creative Writing
Enjoying Writing
Yesterday I talked a little about writing as a Stoic, which is all about self-discipline and making choices because they’re what you should do to become your ideal writer.
Today I’m going to talk about how to kick back as a writer and really enjoy it (or at least the things that help me destress, relax, and create a “contented plan” for the future when I am writing).
Gods of Babylon
They worship gods of Babylon, noble in vain self-conception.
Creating edifices of self-destruction, they cast their bones into the sky, sacrificing the stars for mastery of the world.
Profane flame burns in their chests, and nothing supports their feet.
Under a sunless sky they will meet eternity, weeping at their loss, purging their minds and bodies of what they knew in their first breath.
They worship, and come away unfulfilled.
Their temples are hollow, their eyes soulless, their hopes dashed on the rocks and shattered into the splinters of a thousand wasted words.
And still they worship gods of Babylon.
Salvation
She wanted to save him.
Sand passing through her fingers.
She could see him fall away. Distant and yet towering, former glory passing below the horizon.
The world was drowned in sorrow.
How could there be anything else?
She held him close to her heart as the decline began.
Even though she knew he could not hear.
She held him in her arms, his frail frame barely coherent. And she could hear the raspy jagged breaths. She closed her eyes,
letting hot burning swell inside the lids.
The sun had gone down and it would not raise again.
No salvation.
Listening
He could hear the music of creation around him as he listened. The somber strains compelled him to keep walking slowly forward, the air still around him. He was reminded of the grave as he tumbled forward, his foot missing a step. So he fell onto the gray pavement, his wrist cracking insensate.
The noise picked up all around him again as the music disappeared. Each moment was nothing more than a flash of time, the world going around him ignorant of his place in it.
He opened his mouth in a terrible and great scream.
But nobody was listening.
The Flames (Part 1)
Herrek hadn’t gotten the chance to see Lethe before it burned. Born on the frontiers of the empire, he had always had his eyes turned home.
But the empire was too large, Lethe’s influence too wide-spanning, for just anyone to return home. Travel was expensive, and not without risks—how little they had known—so he had been stuck on a frontier world mired in dust, mud, and rebels.
The Hammer had been his chance to return to the land of his forefathers, to go back to Lethe.
He arrived to ashes, the burnt shell of a once-proud civilization.
Topple the Giant, Part I
He felt the cold breeze settle into his bones as he stared out at the neon lights of the city. His ears tuned out the noise, listening for the music that underpinned the bustle and life.
Soon, he thought, they would have their chance.
He returned to the apartment, and his lover. She was caught in repose, sleep having taken her hours earlier, head on the armrest of the sofa that he’d purchased when he moved into the apartment.
allegoria
the old man looked at his son, the walls of his bed-chamber closing in around him at his final moments. it was not fear that consumed him, but hope, even though his breaths drew shorter and further apart. his son’s words echoed in his ears as he began to see his greatest journey repeat in his mind.
“Do you remember why we are here?”