On A Jetplane

Ever feel like things were spinning out of control

This is… was going to be my ROW80 goal post.  Thing is…  I don’t really have any goals in mind special for Round 4.  There are, of course, the usual suspects: finish the Swan Song series, maintain the Row80 blog (though not for a few weeks…  Denise Young has kindly offered to help there while I’m in Europe with my son), and prepare to move to New Jersey.

All those are over-arching goals though…  grand plans as it were and not very definable.  The multitude of steps each requires can be daunting… has been daunting in some cases.  If nothing else, this trip overseas has allowed me to step back and NOT feel obliged to do things, which has oddly made me more productive than I’ve been in a while.

Departure

I even indulged my photography passion some.  The stairs image I snapped as we used the Tube at Earl’s Court station.  I took some window pics of our departure (Newark Airport) and landing (Reykjavik).  Since my seat was just over the wing and I had to hold the camera sideways, I’m really happy with the way these pictures came out.

Arrival

I did some editing.

I actually posted to Facebook (a lot…  especially for me).  In fact, during the wait at the airports, I probably spent more time on Facebook than I had all year before this.  It would have been nice if I’d been able to edit or write, but the brain just would not accept being made to focus.  I even tried starting this post then…  It didn’t work.

But all of this leave me still wondering what my goals are for Round 4.  I’d say just getting through it without tearing my hair out would be a good start for me, but that’s really just a cop-out.  I need to think more about the steps involved in achieving those grand goals.

Maybe that should be my goal for this Round of Words… As well as maintaining thw ROW80 blog and writing new words.  Even throwaway words encourage new ideas…  Yeah.  Those are my goals.

 

A New Thing: #SoCS (Stream of Consciousness Saturday)

Today I’m trying something new because two of my favorite writing people (Shan and Fallon) have participated in this bloghop for a while and caught my curiosity with their creative posts.  So…  here I go, trying something new.

Following the rules (found here), this piece is raw.  Not even WIPpet raw, where I’m usually posting a piece that I’ve sketched out and done some minor edits on.  Typos will be fixed, but that’s pretty much it.

The prompt for today is “contrast“.  Either I must use the word or the post itself must involve contrasts in some way.

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Vartanian walked toward the ruin, the dark stone round and worn in the twilight shadows.  Behind him, he heard the rest of the men murmuring softly to their mounts, settling their packs, the relaxed bustle of a hundred other evenings.  A camp like any others, three walls and a ceiling tumbled to the sky…

But it wasn’t like the others, not really.  Vartanian supposed he should have expected it.  After all, he’d heard the rumors too.  But after all these years seeing the lad grow up, knowing how gentle he was—he’d sworn his life to the service of this young man, so sure he had been of Alanii Vestimiir’s noble heart!—, now Vartanian held his wounded arm tight against his side, staunching the bleeding, knowing as second in command he had to take charge of the men and hold them back.  Knowing, and dreading, that he had to protect Alanii now, despite the creature that had filled the man only moments ago.

Creatures that he’d helped hunt down only ten years ago.

Just ahead of him, he heard a snap, then saw a small flame build and take, chasing away the oncoming night.  Light against dark, hope against despair…  life against death.  He knew where his loyalties lay.

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Hope you enjoyed this piece.  The characters are from the world of my Swan Song Series books (this scene came to me because I was editing photos from our England trip this past Spring).

Oops…

I missed my Wednesday post. Head was… not in this sphere I guess. (I actually wrote most of it as a draft, but then messed up the publish).

There’ll be a WIPpet for next Wednesday, and… if I think I can pull it off, I’m going to try a new thing called a Stream of Consciousness Saturday tomorrow. We’ll see.  Consistency is a process too. Thank you all for bearing with me while I develop more.