Writer's group is tonight. How quickly two weeks has gone by!
Tonight we were supposed to write a 3 to5 hundred word first person account from our main character's point of view of a childhood memory. Since I do not yet relate to my main character in my oh so often refered to "novel in progress", I chose another character to write about.
I am beginning to question the whole novel concept to tell you the truth. At least for me. I hate unfinished business and though my novel has a beginning, a middle, and an end, it still needs to be re-written and cleaned up. But for some reason I am so completely STUCK with it. It's like a badly fallen cake. Sometimes I think I should just feed it to the shredder and be done with it! Or perhaps it feels more like a REALLY messy closet in my house that only I know about, and at unfortunate moments comes to mind and taunts me. . ."Clean me UP you lazy slattern!"
Ptu ptu, on it!
So here for your amusement, or annoyance as the case may be, is my Writer's Group submission for the evening:
No title, a secondary fictional character from the grab bag of unfinished business...
I dared not speak of my desires. I was ever afraid, even at a tender age to share the depth of my yearnings. I sensed no one would understand. The burden of it made me restless, prone to wander in the night, and there were days I feared it would unmake me.
I felt it first in a dream. I had fallen asleep in the carriage, or so I thought. The sound of the horse's harness jingled and creaked in the frosty air. My parents rode immersed in their own cares, and I, I had a waking dream.
The stars shone brilliant. But unlike any stars I had seen thus far in my four years of life. They were burning in a rainbow of fiery hues. . . fuchsia, chartreuse, blood red, electric blue and purple, each of a differing size. Though it was hard to tell for sure with the silhouettes of the stark tree limbs moving by, obscuring my astonished view.
I peeked to see if my mother noticed that the night was in alt. . . that angels were stirring the sky with powers...But no, she sat in silence, no doubt pondering what to order cook to make for the coming day.
The knowledge that I could not speak of the glory just outside the window filled me with sadness, or at least as much sadness as a four year old heart could hold.
Ever since that night, I have made my way by starlight. Bearing questions I knew could only be answered by the high council of Ma'kom, and everyone knows they only convene once in a millennium,emerging from their obscure abodes, unknown to all but each other. Surely my lifespan would not encompass such a rare event.
But the questions remained like burning letters, branding me forever an outcast. They made me overly sensitive to the yearnings of the Earth. I heard the cries of the grasses, the mourning of the trees, the songs of the flowers, and most of all the dirges of the autumn leaves. There were seasons I thought my heart would break when they spoke of the days before the exile. They too knew about the stars, and when they wept, I wept with them, without a soul to share my pain.
The children my age somehow knew that the tiny tempests they lived through meant little to me. I felt their scorn. At once dismissive and jealous, they could turn on me in an instant. Their rejection was a pale imitation of the sadness I already carried with me.
Yet as I grew older, they began to come to me in secret. Seeking council on some personal matter, they thought I would have answers, and sometimes I did. Though I did not find one among them who ever spoke of rainbow stars or weeping scarlet leaves. But I never turned anyone away. The starlight would have disapproved.