Snazzy Snippets

I saw this thingy and decided I wanted to do it, for two reasons: (1) it looks fun, and (2) this blog needs some new content at this point even if it is just a linkup. So. You people get to read my lovely first draft writing today.

Click on picture to go to linkup.

Your First 500 Words

This comes from Taken, since this is probably the piece of writing I've revised most in my short writing career and is probably a little bit better than other portions I could share.

“So who are we meeting again?”

Tyv’s eye twitched as he restrained what would have been the fifth eye-roll of the short conversation. The sun was hot and dry, and he was too deep into the cobbled network of streets to feel the sea breeze. The sun was setting, but it was still high enough to scorch Tyv’s eyes over the plastered buildings. He had to squint to see, and sweat was sticking to his skin under his threadbare shirt. He wanted to eat, and he needed a drink, but he’d get neither until he made it back to the abandoned inn. He wouldn’t be able to go there until he had gotten through the day’s work, which wouldn’t be over for another couple hours. All this meant he did not have patience to deal with Nitri.

Nitri didn’t notice and tossed his knife into the air, effortlessly catching it on its way down. He glanced at Tyv, waiting for an answer.

Tyv withheld a growl. “The two brothers you threatened a couple months ago.”

“Sh. I made a deal, Tyv.”

“There is a difference between those two words, you know.”

Nitri grinned, his impossibly white teeth providing stark contrast with his dark honey skin and curls of hair black as pitch. 

“Not where I’m concerned!”

Tyv couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes that time.

Nitri just grinned a little wider, satisfied that he’d provoked a reaction. Then he looked away and gave his knife another toss. 

“I think I remember them. Scrawny?”

“We’re all scrawny.”

“Speak for yourself, scarecrow,” Nitri said, using his free arm to flex his arm muscles under his black captain’s coat.

Tyv resolutely stared straight ahead and sped up the pace, feet brushing over the bumps of the cobblestones and hands hovering over the pair of knives he had sheathed at his own belt. His eyes darted around, watching for danger - they were in their home turf, after all. The twisting alleyways and dead-end streets coated in layers of dirt were littered with broken crates and barrels, piles of rotting cloth, splintered buckets, frayed scraps of rope - anything that was so broken that not even the homeless could find a way to use it. The lowering sun created dark shadows in the side streets, places for people to hide. Tyv’s skin crawled as he felt invisible eyes watching.

“Aw, come on Tyv!” Nitri said, slapping Tyv on the shoulder and making Tyv jump. “Lighten up. We’re collecting tribute!” He gave Tyv a moment to respond, which Tyv did not take advantage of. Nitri continued. “It might be some food! We’ll have a good meal tonight.”

Tyv had to admit that that would be nice, but he wasn’t optimistic.

“We don’t know what it is.”

Nitri sighed. “It had better be good. I don’t leave them alone for nothing.”

“This isn’t exactly leaving them alone.”

Nitri waved away the correction. “I’m not attacking them, am I? Taking everything they get by force? They should be happy to give me things.”

A Snippet You're Really Proud Of

This comes from later on in chapter 1 of Taken, and yes, I just love Tyv and Nitri banter. They're the best and that is why I love this scene.

“Come on,” Nitri said, putting his hands in his pockets and strolling down the alley. “Let’s head to the docks. After that we’ll be done for the day and we’ll head over to the market. Ambyr is down there, isn’t she? You can snatch her a knitting needle or something.”

Tyv jogged a few steps to catch up, then slowed to a walk next to his friend. “Ambyr wouldn’t have much use for just one knitting needle.” 

Nitri slung his arm over Tyv’s shoulders, and used the other arm to gesture as he spoke. “Whatever. Steal five if you need to. I’m sure that you’ll cheer up if she gives you one of her oh-so-pretty smiles.” Nitri grinned and leaned his head on Tyv’s shoulder, then looked up and Tyv and batted his eyelashes.

“That was a really bad imitation of her,” Tyv said, fighting a grin and shoving Nitri away instead.

“Oh yes? Well how about this then?” Nitri stopped walking and placed his left fist on his hip, then pointed at Tyv with his right hand. “Tyv!” Nitri’s voice was comically high-pitched. “Why do you insist on stealing? It’s wrong! Why have you let that dashing Nitri lead you astray?” 

Nitri struck a dancer-like pose, with the toes of his right foot pointed and barely touching the ground and his weight entirely on his other foot. He pressed the back of his right hand against his forehead while his other hand stayed on his hip, and he turned his head away from Tyv dramatically.

Tyv struggled not to smile, or worse, laugh. He wasn’t going to give Nitri the satisfaction. Instead, he leveled a glare at his friend. 

“That was even worse.”

Nitri’s pose dissolved and he pouted. “I thought it was pretty accurate.”

Tyv started walking again. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Ambyr call you dashing.”

It was Nitri's turn to jog in order to catch up.“Well she thinks it. Everyone does.”

Tyv snorted. “I certainly don’t. And I doubt that Ambyr would find any thief dashing, despite how supposedly handsome you are.”

Those two are my favorite duo ever.

I'm Sorry for Going M.I.A. / Holidays

I am such a terrible blogger.
I feel awful for abandoning this little corner of the internet for such a long time, and I apologize to all of you wonderful people who think this blog is good enough to follow. Unfortunately, there's this thing called college, and college isn't designed with bloggers (or writers of any kind, actually) in mind. Until further notice, posting is going to be sporadic. I just don't have the time (which is very sad, truly), especially if I actually want to get enough sleep to function during the day. I also feel bad because I still haven't done those interviews with Mara. I will try to get them done, I promise. I just have no clue when.

For now I will leave you with something to think about when you work on your world building.
Around this time is when the Jewish people celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. I only know this because I happen to be studying Judaism and Israel this year in college, and my professor told my class about some Rosh Hashanah customs today. One thing he focused a lot on was the food of the holiday. Challah bread, a braided loaf with sesame seeds baked into the top of the crust, is a typical food, along with pomegranates, and apples dipped in honey. There are lots of sweet foods going around which is related to the idea of looking forward to a "sweet" year ahead. Rosh Hashanah is about getting clarity, making things clean and new so that the next year will be sweet. So between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (I hope I spelled that right), people go around fixing relationships, paying overdue debts, etc, in order to "clean up" and make things shiny and new and whole for starting the new year.
So here are a few questions to help you think about your world building some more:

1. What holidays (originally "holy days" - think about that) does your world's cultures celebrate? (e.g. Rosh Hashanah, "new year.")
2. Do the nations have any holidays in common, or is every one completely seperate? Why? (e.g. Rosh Hashanah is a specifically Jewish holiday, but I'm sure there were holidays similar to it around the same time of year in ancient Middle-Eatern cultures.)
3. Where does each holiday come from? (e.g. Rosh Hashanah is an agricultural new year since it is in the fall, when a new cycle of agriculture begins.)
4. What are the ideas behind it? (e.g. Rosh Hashanah is about making the coming year "sweet")
5. What customs are associated with it? (e.g. dipping apples in honey and eating sweet pastries.)

I'm not an expert on Jewish holidays so if I made mistakes in my info, I'm sorry. I did try to remember it all as well as possible. But seriously, consider what your created cultures celebrate! What matters to them? How would they celebrate that? Why? How? Brainstorm and tell me your ideas in the comments!

What Doesn't Help Writer's Block . . . Plus a Dash of Motivation

(Alright, this post started out as a "I'm stuck in a hole and can anyone relate" and somehow turned into the motivational speech of a drill sergeant - read on at your own risk).
I'll say it right out: if you're anything like me, you can not stop writing unless you admit that you will stay stopped for a very long time. 
Has anyone experienced this besides me? You're plowing along, writing happily, making lots of progress, and then suddenly something happens to break your flow. Motivation goes AWOL, you hit what seems like an unfixable plot hole, or life itself throws you a plot twist. Point it, you get stopped dead in the water.
And then you can't get the boat's engine to start again. Maybe you make a few valiant attempts to restart that writing streak you were on - a hundred words here, a thousand there. But no matter what you do you can't seem to get back into that flow. You're stranded, all forward momentum lost, and you want to just give up because hey, if you can't do it then that's that, right?

If you've ever been there, gosh, I feel you. Because confession time, right now that is where I am. With writing (yeah, two projects and I haven't touched either since Camp NaNoWriMo flopped) and with blogging. Truth is, my writing motivation went AWOL sometime in July and hasn't shown signs of returning and I've had no time at all to write blog posts lately because, haha guess what, I'm starting college on Friday, and that means shopping and packing and paperwork and banks and emails and phone calls and general stress.
A blog sort of begins to feel like a very tiny priority in the middle of all that.
*flops onto floor and cries*
"So what can be done about this situation?" I ask myself. Well, I could have forced myself not to stop writing despite all my craziness but that would have probably been bad for my mental health. Truth is, there are more important things than writing and blogging and we all need to make sure we have our priorities straight. Things like family, life responsibilities, friends in need, and keeping up a relationship with God are much more important than writing up two to three blog posts a week and over a thousand words of a novel a day. While it may be nice to fool around with some lighthearted writing in the midst of all that to give your poor overworked self a break, it isn't okay to put your writing schedule over things that are going to really impact your life significantly like education and your relationships (unless writing is actually your job . . . then it gets a little more importance).
Okay, that's pretty obvious, but what about actually getting out of a writing stall?
Well I only have one answer I can think of, honestly. And I'm sorry, it doesn't involve sitting around procrastinating while waiting for your away-without-leave motivation to come back, or for the inspiration to hit and get your going after that life plot twist. Because guess what? In all likelihood those things will not come back unless you make them come back. You have to take action if you want to get out of your writer's block. It's your writing and guess what, you're the one who has to make the move to get going again. Those attempts to get back into the writing groove? You can't stop no matter how pathetic they seem. Those times when you've got nothing else to do but decide to browse Pinterest instead of write, even though the idea of writing is niggling at the back of your brain? Guess what, Pinterest probably won't help either - but opening up that word document and forcing yourself to start typing something - anything - could.
It's great to tell yourself that maybe you'll see a pin that will add to your story and give you more ideas to work with. Sure, sometimes that happens, but what are the chances? More likely than getting hit with a brilliant bolt of wonderful writing-inducing inspiration you'll end up wasting two or three hours looking at jokes. You'll be no further along and you won't feel proud of yourself afterwards.
You can be proud if you do the hard thing and face that novel though. It doesn't matter if you only write a hundred words. Who cares if you're not doing as well as you once were. Point is that you are DOING it.
It will be painful. It will make you want to throw your laptop across the room in frustration because the words just won't come. It may even make you cry and want to quite writing completely but you cannot give up because giving up gets you nowhere and that novel, no matter how much work it needs, does not deserve to be abandoned. You owe it to yourself - for all the hard work you've already put in, and for the satisfaction you'll have when that thing is finally moving along again - to keep going.
So what are you doing here? What am I doing here! Let's WRITE!

Oh um, but if you could take a moment to pop over here and leave a few questions for Mara that would be much appreciated.