It seems surprisingly easy to bang out a 1000 words at a sitting. And it also seems suprisingly difficult to bang out say, 2000 at a sitting. I guess because 1.5 to 2 hours is kind of the limit of my creative spark. It's like I have some pretty definite plot leanings when I sit down. I know where I want to go over the short haul, and I know what route to take. And so, I just sit and type almost non-stop for the whole hour and a half or so.
Then I run dry. I go away, and something must be clicking away in the back of my mind because when I sit down again, away I go. This is really fascinating.
Today's excerpt:
Chapter 2
Bruta, Ciega, Sordomuda
“Start a fire.” It was soft and reassuring, and it was a command. Sylk’s hands went through the motions of feeling for the tools of fire making in his kit. He located it, despite the dark and assembled from memory. A flat hard slightly hollowed length of wood was placed between his feet where he sat. A round and pointed stick was set to one side. Another length of stick, a bow really, with a loose lanyard, and a small hand sized piece of the same hard wood completed the kit. He unwound the lanyard from the stick, bent the stick and slid the free knotted end into a notch in the end. Digging around in his pack, he found some a skin with dry, crumbly wood, and set some of it in the flattened trough at his feet. He wound the lanyard around the pointed stick, and holding the bow in his right hand, inserted the pointed end into a rounded indentation at one end of the trough. He supported the blunt end of the stick with the smaller hardwood, and began to draw the bow back and forth.
He had learned long ago to just keep doing this regardless of how long it took. So, he kept no track of time, just fell into the rhythm of the movement, and shortly the heat ignited the small bits of crumbly wood. Moa’qi stood ready with some parched yerba and carefully place the slender grasses onto the trough. When they caught, the fire was carefully slid off the wooden trough onto the hard rock. Twigs and sticks were added until a merry little fire was burning. Again, Moa’qi added some sage and a pleasant aroma hung about them.
Sylk packed away his fire kit, relaxed onto his back and let out a long slow breath as he stared into the impenetrable black above him. He could hear his Master preparing the meal, and knew he should help him. But he just lay there another few moments. ‘What was that giant red thing? What was that green flash that dominated everything, then was gone so fast it was like it had never been?’ His mind whirling with questions and wild suppositions, he finally sat up, apologized for his laziness, and set in to assisting with the meal. Moa’qi was silent as he expertly cooked, prepared and served simple, nourishing fare. Sylk mostly kept the fire going, and tried to be handy while staying out of the way.
On the flat surface they were sitting on, with no visible horizon, and not trees or shrubbery, nothing in fact, to break the flat expanse, their little campfire lit a circle roughly three men in diameter. The effect was so weird. Sylk could see Moa’qi, the fire, their hiking kits, and some flat rock. Then, there was nothing. Anything could be out there, he realized, and he shuddered.
“So.” Moa’qi’s voice seemed extremely loud, and Sylk recoiled. Moa’qi laughed. It was such a reassuring laugh, and infectious. Sylk found himself joining in. The emotional toll of the surreal events of the climb, and the almost physical shock of the visions of red and green, ebbed away like a dream that you can’t quite remember. Sylk laughed until he stopped. Holding his sides, residual giggles would erupt now and then, followed by longer and longer silence. Finally, he straightened up and became alert. He sensed his enigmatic master was going to talk to him now, and he knew he must listen carefully.
Maybe, just maybe, I'll write some more later today! fb
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