"If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemy float by."
--A Misinterpretation of Confucius?
And how does this patient and wise proverb have to do with finishing my WIP's?
Yes, my WIP's are not my enemy, although they may seem it some days. And most will say that nothing gets accomplished when you just sit around waiting for something to happen. Especially writing or business! AAAND by nature I usually take a more direct route with my enemy when so unlucky to come across one. So I guess its the patience part I'm taking away from this quote. Not the sitting-on-your-ass-waiting-for-your-enemy-to-either-hang-themselves-with-enough-rope-or-hope-that-another-enemy-kills-them-for-you part. That would be Karma.
I do love this quote and envy those who can relate to it. I envy patience, patience that is worth more than all the treasure in the world. Because with patience comes continuance and with continuance comes completion. And with completion something tangible has been accomplished in this world.
So I will be patient and sit at my computer typing till all the ideas flow and the pages fly by and into a book.
I was originally going to enter a new bit from my WIP Ghost Mountain, but found it well exceeding 1,ooo words. I wouldn't feel so bad boring all of you with something of this length on a WIP Wednesday, but I've learned to be a bit more length savy when entering a blogfest. It's just fair.
Anyhoo, I shall bore you with the WIP bit on Wednesday and shall give you this petite offering from my Jericho Fan Fiction "Chapters".
Jake, the MC, is about to dance with his long longed for love at a friends wedding and a storm is about to roll in. The chapter this bit comes from was titled 'Watershed'. It was fitting.
Jake turned back to his silent companion when the first few notes of Garth Brooks’ ‘When You Come Back to Me Again’, drifted out into the evening air and mixed with the rumbles of thunder in the nearing distance.
The wind had kicked up again, molding the fabric of Heather’s dress across her body, brushing her hair over her face in gentle wisps. All the while she stood completely still before him, waiting against the backdrop of the coming storm.
Till the day he died, Jake knew he would always remember just how beautiful, how vulnerable she had looked in that moment.
As stated in my About Me, I am a WIP who is juggling a few WIP's at present. My Jewelry Design Business, Salvaged Beauty, is definitely one of those.
I've never had a business of my own. It can be a lot of preparation and planning. It's a lot of multitask check off lists throughout a week. It can be frustrating and sometimes lonely even. But I like having something that is all mine. And I do like being my own boss. I mean--my boss may be a bit lazy sometimes, but she lets me drink as much coffee and eat as much chocolate as I like. AND she doesn't even blink when I show up in my comfy clothes for work or when I'm late finishing an assignment. Okay, she rocks!!!!!
Good things I have accomplished recently:
Applied to enter one of my area's largest craft shows. *Crossing fingers*
Collecting craft show set up equipment (displays, tables, a sign, etc...)
Created a business card...
(Just image on linen textured and colored paper with a decorative red inked stamp in the right corner.)
And I am working on a new jewelry project. Painted wood beads for Halloween. Eyes and planets so far. Maybe skulls later?
And today, the decider of this post, was a lovely message I received on Etsy, telling me I have once again been chosen and placed in another sellers Treasury. A Treasury is where members create curated lists of enjoyed or favored items and share them with the Etsy world. And it's another way to get free andvertising for your shop. So thank you Lizzie Caye of Lizzie Caye Uniquely Made Handbags!
The chosen piece is my Bollywood Disco Pendent Necklace. My mind had went strait to good old fun lively glittery Bollywood when I found this fun bit of salvage at the market.
Measures at at 31 inches, not including the 3 1/2 extension of chain and 1 inch ball pendent. Suspended on brass crossover chain and accented with two gold Czech beads and black glass beads, this is a easy wear necklace for summer, fall or winter.
"Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party." ~~~Jimmy Buffett
Life as a scavenger hunt keeps ya busy while you find needed or just plain fun things to use and share along the way. The hunt--journey helps you grow and lets you determine your life's direction when you come to the next new situation in your life. And when you come to that next event in your life, you may find that some of the things you've scavenged will help you get through.
Now, life as surprise party may be fun on occasion, BUT... its a bitch when the lights pop on and 'SURPRISE' is yelled out by all of your friends, family and your families priest when you're already half way out of your pants...
Mental picture? Yep. That's what living life as a surprise party feels like. If you spent your life drifting--unprepared, everything feels like a surprise your not ready for and it overwhelms.
Do not spend your days simply reacting to life. Live your life searching for a better you in it.
Welcome to my entry to DL's High Drama Blogfest and thank you DL for holding such a fest with so many possibilities. I urge all to stop by his cool blog Cruising Altitude and read all the other high drama entries!!!!!
I am still working through some plot issues in my own WIP, so I found this bit of fan fiction drama to fit. I wrote the original draft of this piece a couple years ago. It was for my ‘Chapters Series’, a Jericho Fan Fiction. My first multi-chapter anything. The below scene was originally 3,000 words, so it took a bit of editing to get it down around 1,000. That sort of heavy editing of story material was a learning experience all on it’s own, let me tell you. And DL, I am so glad you raised the number to around a 1,ooo. I like to build drama and that takes a few more words.
Now, when I wrote this bit, the show was still on its way to being canceled outside its first season. I made Jake become Sheriff, I had him talking with his dead granddad and father for closure purposes, I paired him with Heather and not Emily (do not get me started), and I made it a point to allow Jake and Heathers characters to grow. (REMINDER: Disclaimer, the show and characters are not mine...)
Months later, the show got another chance but was canceled in its second season (due to bad writing). They did make Jake the Sheriff and had him talk to his dead granddad, but they paired him with Emily and still had him acting like a half cocked gun.
Can ya tell it bothered me?
SO, my entry...
The MC of this story and this scene is Jake Green. He was once a rebel without a cause, but after the apocalypse, he becomes his town’s hero. He had a lot of baggage and in this scene he finally comes to a point where he wants to tell someone. That someone is Heather Lisinski , the town good girl and his love interest.He is telling the story from a hospital bed after once again saving the day through his own sacrifices.
~ENTRY~ENTRY ~ENTRY~ENTRY ~ENTRY~ENTRY ~ENTRY~
“Going overseas—it was like nothing I had ever known. If the situation had been better, it would have been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Everything seemed so different. The places I went, the cultures I was submerged in...”
Jake leaned into his hospital bed, leveling his eyes on the emerging moon. It was getting more difficult to look at Heather. He wondered if she would have the same problem with him after his story was told.
“I’d made alot of local contacts in Baghdad. A man named Ahmad was one of our most trusted information peddlers. He was Sunni Tajik, wanted change, wanted peace, or whatever was passing for it. He believed the US could help…”
Jakes eyes narrowed at the moon outside his window.
“I liked him.” Jake finally spoke. “Ahmad had this twinkle in his eyes, like he knew something the rest of us didn’t. Something that made everything else bearable. I think that thing had been his family…” Jake trailed back into silence, thinking of the old widower and his six children; five sons and a girl…
In Jake's silences, Heather watched him. Her lover may as well have been on the moon the way he stared at it now. She felt him distancing himself and all she could do was listen and watch him go.
“We were waiting for our transport back to the airstrip with a group of US officials. Our transport was late—had to change route when fighting intensified on the southern end of the city…”
Thing about waiting, it left time open for situations to go wrong.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Fuck!” Jake irritably spat, taking one last drag off his cigarette, snuffing it out in the sand.
Rapid gunfire echoed out over the eastern corner of the city, making the newbie beside him jump. Jake shook his head while eyeing the surrounding buildings with the barrel scope on his riffle; only getting a view of vacant eyed windows and an unsettled feeling that they were not alone.
He’d told Ahmad about the buildings having eyes earlier in the week, when the elder man had invited him to his home. They’d just finished lunch with Ahmad’s extended family before sitting to watchthe younger children play ball in the back courtyard.
‘Shadows have eyes here, Jake Green.’ He’d said. ‘Make sure you do not blink.’
“You’ll get use to the sound.” Jake told the newbie without looking away from the buildings on the other side of the square.
“Get use to it!” Freddie raised a questioning brow to his unaffected superior. “When’s that happening?”
Jake smirked while he continued his watch, the sound of gunfire could be heard peppering the air several blocks from their position.
Jake was use to the gunfire. It was as common place to him as birdsong back home. But the sound of explosions still made him hold his gun tighter, his head dip down lower and his feet move.
“Green. Ready to roll. Transport in five.” Jake nodded to his communications officer then shouldered his weapon.
“We’re getting out of Dodge, Freddie.” Jake smirked. “Not a moment too soon.”
Jakes eyes drifted back across the street while he stepped towards the square. Something in the shadows caught his eye once more. It was small and moving quickly.
“Shoma?” Jake yelled in broken Farsi at the approaching form.
“Amal!” He heard Ahmad yell at the small figure and Jake realized it was the old mans daughter. “Amal stop!”
The roar of truck engines could now heard coming through the neighborhood.The girl continued her walk out to meet them in the square.
Amal had not come to see her father, but the men he was helping. Her oldest brother believed this action took honor away from their family. She was told, by doing this—she would be saving her family and her beloved father from great ruin. She was a good, obedient girl.
Jake yelled the girls name, now recognizing her, as the first truck cleared the street corner into the square. She had turned to her father and then to Jake; he would remember those frightened brown eyes for the rest of his days.
Jake followed her wide eyed gaze to the center of her small body and felt his insides burst with a numbing cold when he traced the outline of a bombers belt just under the young girl’s robes.
Jake watched her hand trail down to her side and he felt his gun rise as if in slow motion. Without hesitation, Jake made a choice…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Everyone hit the deck.” Jake’s voice was weak, a lifeless whisper. Heather kept her stunned silence. “None of it—what I had done, hit me till Ahmad ran into the square…”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“She would not have done it!” Ahmad’s voice rose in anguish as he cradled his daughter’s lifeless body in his arms. “I could have talked to her—my Amal!”
The old man’s words trailed out into a howl of misery as he tore the belt off his daughters limp form and threw it into the gutter, not caring if it exploded on impact.
Jake stepped closer, but stopped when he could see the girl’s lifeless face when her father layed her small body down to the bloody sand.
“You killed my girl!” The old man yelled.
“I had no choice…!” Jake screamed his only defense, dropping his weapon onto the street.
In that moment the old man charged down upon Jake, brandishing a dagger, consumed in a fathers rage.
“Nooooo!” Jake screamed as another gun shot rang out through the square.
Ahmad stopped within a few feet of Jake, his eyes wide with surprise. His knife fell from his hand. Before he could take another step, he fell dead in the street.
“He was gonna kill ya, Jake!”
“No choice…” Jake fell to his knees in the sand.
Time would pass after that day and he’d wish that Freddie had been a worse shot....
(End of entry but not of story. BTW, Heather didn't turn away after the story.)
FIND:I was catching up on my blog reading (still am) and found a FREE On Line Conference mentioned on the lovely Lydia Kang's Blog, The World is My Oyster.The WriteOnConis an online writer's conference for kidlit writers, but all are welcome, since many of the programs will deal with writing in general. For more details you can check out this page. It's being held next week.
Now you lovely folks now need to pay forward this pretty bit of blog bling to 5 other lucky bloggers you know and love. AND everyone else, stop by and check out these fairly new bloggers to the blogisphere.
As for Sharde, she is presently trying out a bit of a “social experiment” she is calling, I Write to You From…A very cool letter writing campaign this coming week. Check her out!!!!
And some reminders (who are friends)...
DL at Cruising Altitude has a prize filled High Drama Blogfest August 7th! So come one, come all!!!
And Roland at Writing In The Crosshairs continues hisstory, Ghost of a Chance. A wonderful tale about a writer and his amazing adventures through fictional worlds of his own making, while accompanied by the ghostly embodiments of his many writerly muses. At present, he is being accused of killing ghosts and on the run!!!
In my defense, I was inspired by the new Stephen King inspired show on SyFy, Haven. I love Mr. Kings works, I love small towns, and I love Sci Fi, sooooo.......
Yep, making excuses. *hangs head in shame*
I guess I'm just a sucker for stories in the beginning stages, when there are so many roads for characters and plots to take. Haven is only a few episodes in, but I've already imagined some possibilities for the story and a few of it's characters.
My writerly indiscretion is a short shipper (relationship) one-shot. The last FF, I am promising my WIP. I did it because I could not say no to the scene in my head. I did not turn it away, because it came easy to me, unlike my present WIP. I wasted a few hours time messing around with a badly edited bit of fluff that gets a 'disclaimer' stamped on the top because the characters are not my own and I can not forward my own writing aspirations with its creation.
Maybe I can count it as practice???
So I am guilty of stalling and procrastinating my own work--sabotaging my time and my WIP once again with a detour into the FF world. THIS is my biggest writing sin (aside from my grammar), Fan Fiction.
Gotta go. A writer from the 'Buffy' fandom is eyeing me up and I only have a few smokes to barter for my safety. I'll type at ya later after I make bail...
