Saludos!

La Pollera Colora - Charlie Zaa

Greetings from Panama!  Yes, your reclusive writer is latina, and by the time she returns to the states, she shall be a sexy bronze!  ...Or not.  Ha, anyways, I was working on the chapter but it is still short of being finished.  Just to prove I'm not full of shit, I'm giving you folks a preview.  Till next time.

To call it pain would've been...incorrect. It transcended that base definition, that shallow understanding. It was intense, it was debilitating, yes. But pain? No. More like...

Euphoria.

Her veins were the guardian's veins; her thoughts, the guardian's thoughts.

The spiritual creature's flesh was not immediately invasive. They first canvased her skin. Then they pushed past the muscles--split them, pierced them--to get to the organs inside. Elmiryn felt the tendrils in her chest, knew they wrapped and mingled with her heart, her lungs, her stomach, her spine. She spasmed. Tried to scream and failed for the guardian had filled her there too, and squirmed in her throat.

Was this rape? Was this murder?

Elmiryn's sensations became unquantifiable. How best to describe the feeling of being killed and born at once? For with the euphoric domination of her body, came also the parting of her mind. Things that were not hers, bits and pieces, like the shining trinkets of Nyx's bag, came spilling in.

A new beginning. It was the parting of a land drowned by rain and hail. A place was carved in the Earth, and with it, a duty to sustain life. Her sisters, the clouds, said unto her, "You are the veins of this land," and she gushed.

[Flash.]

Fleeing through snow, breath a ghost, a dark form ahead of her as angry cries chased at her back. The one before her was not running from her, but with her.  

Barely old enough. None of it was fair. She knew it wasn't, knew it in her soul.  

So she ran.

They wouldn't take another brother away from her.

Subject to change, remember. Or subject to deletion, based on my editorial fancies. Heh, heh...

Um...tada?

So, I FINALLY updated the story, after much creative agony. I hemmed and hawed over whether I should update now or later--but I reasoned that the following days will be far too busy for me to edit. If I wanted the story edited, it had to get up to a certain point where I could call it passable. If it couldn't get to that point before I left on the 28th for my two week trip (remember I mentioned that in my last post?) then there was no point delaying. Especially not if, in the time before I leave, I could toy around with the possibility of one last update--however short it may be.

So Chapter 6.1 is up. In my vacation, I think I'll (finally) try and get around to editing my work. It could also be a good time to outline the next story arc...that is, if my relatives let me. If I ever manage to clean up Eikasia, know that 6.1 will be cleaned up and improved with it.

Till next time folks.

Sorry.

Wow, okay...so I figure I should do a post just to let folks know that this story is NOT dead.  I've been working on the next installment all this time (or not working...more like staring blithely at my screen, typing three words, then stopping.)  I know what I want to happen.  But the difficulty comes in writing it appropriately.

My preview from last week has been scrapped.  Or will probably be scrapped as this next angle I'm trying doesn't seem like it could include it.  I could probably tailor it to use it further down the line, but that scene was getting too weird and off track.

The real issue is that I'll be leaving for two weeks on the 28th, so all of this time gone has really flattened my morale so to speak.  I wanted to atleast have these updates up before I left.  Instead, I'm down two and looking at losing a third one.

I won't bother much with excuses.  At first turn they all seem so legitimate (or not, depending on your opinion) but as time goes and the same old things keep popping up, it starts to sound like crap, even to me.  Probably the big issue I have is with discipline--being able to MAKE myself write something, even if its crap, to be able to turn in on a given time.  I think that was part of my reason to start this web novel.  I wanted to learn to meet deadlines.  It was going smoothly until recently, when new joys (and by that token, new woes) entered my life, dividing my energies so much that I could barely make even weekly updates.

And to think, I considered doing three updates a week!!

I'm trying to take better care of myself, both physically and mentally.  I think a lack of short-term goals and set daily tasks (i.e. a fucking job) has made me into this stagnant loser who can't tell ass from elbow.

I'm going to keep trying to make the weekly updates, and I apologize to you all for taking so long.  Please keep checking back.  I promise things will get going soon!

Digging Up Turnips

Sxip Shirey's website, for curious birdies.  The above song can be downloaded for free there.

Hey there folks.  Just pipping in to let you know I'm still at it.  I'm hoping some of you have read my post on shapechanging which I posted only a few days ago.  I'm also here to bring you a chapter preview, as I doubt my ability to finish by tonight.  Today was a busy day for me--in a nice way mind you, but still busy.  I won't bother with much excuses for being unable to update early Friday.  My addiction to Team Fortress 2 seems to have come back full swing, and I still have yet to even touch some of the other new computer games I recently bought so...well, I'm just a geeky mess.  Ha, ha.

Anyhoo, here's your chapter preview.  If you're wondering about the above song's purpose, know that I've imagined the next installment's events, scene by scene, insync with that song.  ...I have an overactive imagination.

Elmiryn worked the Earth with blistered hands--like she was certain her ancestors did before they took to tools of a different kind. She knew the sun. She felt it like wings seared onto her back. Nevermind that she worked in the nude. The breeze felt nice on her flushed skin. A cool comfort in her tiring search...

...For turnips.

A curious impetus, but a dire one nevertheless. Dire why? Elmiryn couldn't remember. Maybe because they were the ones who first put the word 'impetus' into her brain. She had to ask them what it meant.

Her rake was fashioned from iron and oak wood. Splinters. Biting, aggravating. They bothered her. She paused her activitiy to try and fish one out from the fleshy bend of her left thumb. "Stings like a mother," she grumbled as she squinted at the tiny dark shaft she could see just beneath the layer of her skin. It scratched at her nerves. "Curs-ed lil' shit."

As usual, the above is subject to succumb to my editorial whims.  Till next time, folks.