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gabriel
Love and ferrets and pretending to be a writer.

2005-01-29 8:50 AM
writing exercise that went off the track

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The ferrets are: eating breakfast

Weather: cloudy

Reading: Tears of the Moon,Nora Roberts. Finished Pretty Maids in a Row, by Marilyn Campbell this morning, romantic suspense. I'd like the girls and Gregg to read it. It's a libray book, though, so I have to be cheap with it. Publisehd in 1994, so it's not real likely I'd find it cheap anywhere else. Not worth shelf space as I won't read it again since my memory is too good and I know who dunnit.

Knitting: Baby blankets

Writing exercise: Describe your character's bedroom

Wynora liked to sleep near her large stone hearth. She would take her pallet from where she kept it rolled up behind one of the knitting chairs - she had two of them, one for herself and one for a student. It was not a large house, for she had no husband, no children. She would take her pallet and roll it out before the chairs and sleep near the fire, watching the glow of the embers if she could not sleep due to the ache in her heart. Her home was pleasant, smelling of the fir trees that surrounded it, the salt of the sea wafting in at times, smoke of the fire, and wool - always the wool. It was here in her home that she did her spinning, back near the window that looked over the path that led to the other forest homes. She liked living in the forest. She had grown up in a house nearer the harbor, as her father was a fisher, and there she had known the nearness of the sea, its dear and fearful dominance; but the trees were more dear to her now, their lifting in the winds from the ocean, their constant movement, their strength. The harbor houses were too far from the trees, and there the ocean was the only power, whereas here it was a pleasant presence, always near, but not the ruler. Here the trees ruled.

In the years past she listened to the crackling of the fire when she added fresh wood, and did not wake when a piece of wood collapsed in upon itself as it burned. As she worked, spinning, or knitting, teaching or alone, she could listen to the birds, every kind of bird, ones that lived in the forest, and the ones from the sea as well as they swung in from it, their fun in the winds. She could hear the trees sighing in the wind, she could hear the loudest of the breakers in a time when a storm was near. But now she heard nothing but the loudest of sounds from outside herself, the voice of a neighbor or pupil, when they laid a hand on her should to gain her attention, and spoke face-to-face with her. Her mind supplied the memories of the sounds, while her ears supplied sounds of their own and her head the sound of her blood; a sound of trees and waves of her self. She would never again hear the whispers of a lover, the moan of pleasure, the laughter. She mourned the birds and the song of the crickets. The teaching she did was mostly a thing of hands and eyes, not a thing of words, so that was not taken from her by whatever cruelty had stolen her hearing. Her students now showed their appreciation for their knowledge with press of hands and smiles. They always had done so, but also with fumbling words. She did not miss the words so much.

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:: JOURNAL HOME :: SUBSCRIBE TO THIS JOURNAL :: Click on Kathy Gabriel and read my stories :: 2-in-1 Romance by me (but the back cover's misspelled!. grrrrr.) :: November is National Novel Writing Month! :: The Feel Good Manual - happiness can be learned :: Mugs with the wet ferret :: Fractured Frugal Frieds - the best frugality site around :: The ferrets, and other pics by a talented local (very local) photographer :: Kettins_Bob's journal :: Clarion SF & F writing workshop :: Genevieve's journal (Clarion classmate) :: Phil's website (Clarion classmate) :: Nnedi Okorafor's blog (Clarion classmate) :: Online magnetic poetry :: Dave's interactive html tutorial :: Make a snowflake here - WARNING: Addictive! ::